This is a tip that everyone should know before calling your system support or taking your computer to a repair shop.
When your computer is acting up, try this first.
In a desktop computer if something is not working the way it should (software or hardware), firstshutdown the computer, wait a few minutes and turn it back on. If that did not fixed the problem, shutdown your computer once again but this time unplug all the cables from the computer tower, wait a few minutes and reconnect only the necessary cables, like power cord, monitor, mouse and keyboard. Turn the computer back on and If is working how it suppose to, Great! Start reconnecting one by one the other computer peripherals (Printer, Speakers, External Hard Drive; etc.) and you are done.
Now this is very important, when you are reconnecting your peripherals, check your computer and make sure that is responding well for each device that you are reconnecting, if the computer starts acting up again, it could be because the peripheral has a problem.
The same steps mentioned above can be apply to a laptop, but when this one is shutdown; unplug the power cable first, then any other cables and connected devices, as well as the laptop battery should be removed last (refer your laptop manual if you don’t know how to remove the battery or look for the model number of your laptop and do a search online for the manual)
Just imaging that your computer was acting up and you decide to take the computer to the repair shop right away and… What do you do first?: -Unplug all the cables and devices, then you take it to the repair shop. Now you may have to wait over 1 hour for them to tell you that the computer is fine, that they could not find anything wrong with it; not to mentioned if you also have to pay some money for the check up without noticing YOU fixed the computer when you shut it down and unplugged the cables and devices!
Conclusion
Doing this first could save you headaches, money and time! Something that you thought it was complicated could be as simple as turning off the power. Of course… This does not solve all the problems but it is a good place to start!
Mauro Huculak is a Windows How-To Expert who started Pureinfotech in 2010 as an independent online publication. He has also been a Windows Central contributor for nearly a decade. Mauro has over 14 years of experience writing comprehensive guides and creating professional videos about Windows and software, including Android and Linux. Before becoming a technology writer, he was an IT administrator for seven years. In total, Mauro has over 20 years of combined experience in technology. Throughout his career, he achieved different professional certifications from Microsoft (MSCA), Cisco (CCNP), VMware (VCP), and CompTIA (A+ and Network+), and he has been recognized as a Microsoft MVP for many years. You can follow him on X (Twitter), YouTube, LinkedIn and About.me. Email him at [email protected].