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Top-level
 @SwiftOnSecurity There's this story about a Thinkpad support hotline procedure that's introduced as "You might think I'm crazy, but please bear with me" and then proceeds to instruct to first remove battery and power source and then to press the "on" button repeatedly, long and short presses. Apparently it's the fast way to make sure that the Embedded Controller really *really* runs out of power and goes into reset, fixing a surprising number of sporadic issues. 24 comments
@henryk @SwiftOnSecurity Oh I used to do that in tech support, not sure where I got it from!  @henryk @SwiftOnSecurity confirm. This was the only way to properly reset a a thinkpad. Nowadays you just use the paper clip, so boring.  @henryk @SwiftOnSecurity no way. Guess what I just posted: https://chaos.social/@RichiH/111558355612651229  Yeah, I've done that lot with thinkpads in the past -- also a lot of misbehaving dells And it's regarded as best practice when you're opening one up to do any sort of work at all @henryk @SwiftOnSecurity Can second this. I fixed more than one laptop (back when batteries were removable) by just holding the power button in for a full minute.  @kvuzet @henryk @SwiftOnSecurity > users would do everything they possibly could to not turn off a device LOLWUT. Why? When I was on desktop support my biggest problem was people unplugging everything and not plugging them back in again. I used to ask them to "check that all the cables were properly seated" to get them to actually go back behind the desk and plug everything back in without embarrassing them. @resuna @henryk @SwiftOnSecurity I dunno, maybe its just game consoles, but our users always refused to turn off their damn Xbox. @resuna @kvuzet @henryk @SwiftOnSecurity When I trained/managed tech phone support I drilled it into people that 5 times out of 10, when the customer was saying “yeah I'm behind this massive, dusty entertainment console doing the stuff you're asking" they were really sitting on their couch making "jack-off" motions. I just had to do something similar on my HP Elitebook to get it to charge the battery via USBC again. the people who write power micro controller code are the most crazy but worried people... I remember having to instruct 1000's of users to - take the battery out of their device - then hold the the power button down. Then press the power button down and release once more. then place the battery in while holding the POWER button to get the device to reset and go into low level software boot - to then upgrade the power micro ... what chaos.. @henryk @SwiftOnSecurity wait I used to use that when I did tech support in college. That's not that weird sounding, is it?? @henryk @SwiftOnSecurity a few years back at work we had some pcs where sometimes the ethernet wouldn't work and had to do the same thing. @henryk @SwiftOnSecurity I had to do this about every month or so for my HP Probook. It's a lot easier with those easily removable batteries! @henryk @SwiftOnSecurity that's actually my "mystery" fix for weird problems sometimes. Making sure all the caps are purged and such, "fully resetting" all electrical components.  @henryk Yes. We did this back in the 90s too. F’n capacitors and hidden power caches in a system. @henryk @SwiftOnSecurity When I did consumer electronics tech support, pulling the battery and mashing buttons for 30+ seconds was a common way of fixing wonky universal remotes. Gotta get past the capacitor that stores the setup code across battery changes. |
Gregory's Server
@henryk @SwiftOnSecurity Can confirm. They didn’t say the line, but they had me do exactly this.
On my old x200s, I had to remove the regular, and CMOS battery every now and then, press the power button for about 10 seconds, and then reassemble for the device to boot.