Never a dull moment. (story time)

thecomputerguy

thecomputerguy

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Legacy residential client in her 70's contacts me last week because she decided to wait until December 29th to attempt to renew some real estate thing that HAD to be done before January 1. This is the type of client I'm not really willing to go out of my way for and I was headed out of town, so I told her she's SOL and she'll need to wait until sometime the week of January 2nd. She's old and I've known her for 20 years so I try to help her.

I get back and somehow get through the 40 emails in my Inbox so I give her a call. She says that whenever she is trying to work on the computer (that she's had for 5 years) the screen intermittently goes blank. It's an HP AIO and I'm thinking ...

- Screen dying (cable)
- Computer losing power
- Some dumb software issue

I login to her system and ask her to reproduce the issue. She get on and of course, "OH MY GOD WHT DID YOU DI IT"S NOT HAPPEN NOW!". I explain that I didn't do anything but login. I disconnect and not 3 minutes later she calls back and explains that it happened again. So I log back in and ask her to reproduce it. She's working in her Gmail and all the sudden I get disconnected. I log back in and it's at the lock screen. I think, "ok weird". We repeat this a few times and I explain that none of this makes sense to me and I'll need to come pick it up. I explain that I'll be picking up the system and the mouse and keyboard.

I head over to her house and sit down and start clicking around before I unplug it and I am not able to reproduce the issue in the 5 minutes I am onsite. "OH MY GOD WHT DID YOU DI IT"S NOT HAPPEN NOW!". I explain that I did nothing again. I ask her, "When you leave the computer, then you come back, is it ever at THIS SCREEN?" (the lock screen). She says no.

So it has to be her.

I start looking around thinking how she could possibly be screwing this up. I look down and I see this keyboard: HP 970 Wireless Keyboard

Take a guess.

1704301328453.png
1704301363390.png
1704301375330.png
 
I'm still not getting it. Unless that "lock" key is not the NumLock for the NumPad. If it isn't, then is the thing that looks like the calculator the NumLock?

This is one weird keyboard.
 
britechguy said:
I'm still not getting it. Unless that "lock" key is not the NumLock for the NumPad. If it isn't, then is the thing that looks like the calculator the NumLock?

This is one weird keyboard.
Click to expand...

When you lock a 5 year piece of junk computer it takes a few seconds. In that time, the computer screen goes black. Then eventually makes it to the lock screen.

The button is on the same side the mouse is. She's fat fingering it.
 
thecomputerguy said:
She's fat fingering it.
Click to expand...

That much I understand. I still don't quite understand how, but I don't care enough to pursue it further.

This is a case where if the keyboard is triggering the issue through repeated fat-fingering that's unlikely to cease, a change of keyboard might be a very good idea indeed.

I work with a lot of seniors, and "feature matching" between them and hardware that can at least minimize the mistakes they can make with ease is always a good idea.
 
The layout of the keyboard is strange but I am guessing that the lock button is a hotkey that locks the PC it is also up on a line of keys that are functions so it would not be surprising for that to be a hotkey for Lock PC. I assume OP has tested the system and the key to confirm that the key does what we are assuming at this point given the story posted.
 
Blues said:
The layout of the keyboard is strange but I am guessing that the lock button is a hotkey that locks the PC it is also up on a line of keys that are functions so it would not be surprising for that to be a hotkey for Lock PC. I assume OP has tested the system and the key to confirm that the key does what we are assuming at this point given the story posted.
Click to expand...

Yeah I pressed it several times in front of her and she was like ... YEAH! THATS IT ITS DOING THAT!

LOL
 
phaZed said:
Wait until they add a stupid Copilot key right next to the arrow keys.
Click to expand...
This...I'm not looking forward to. It's going to be the Windows 8 Charms bar fiasco all over again except this time dialed up to 11. All so Microsoft can show ads in their stupid AI assistant. They know that if they don't try to shove this down people's throats (like Edge and a Microsoft Account) no one is going to use it.
 
GTP said:
Yeah we know exactly what they're doing... and this as well
Click to expand...
Yup. I've never even used Copilot and I haven't read much on it either and I already knew that they were infesting the thing with ads. ALL Microsoft cares about nowadays is selling you subscriptions and shoving their garbage "apps" and ads down your throat. They no longer care about making decent software. That died with Windows 8.
 
I haven't used Copilot extensively, but I have been using it somewhat, and I have yet to have an ad show up, but the questions I've asked of it are not of the ilk that would lend themselves to having any ads included. Most of the folks I know who've been using it for technical questions have not reported seeing ads frequently, if at all.

Those who believe that they're going to be able to avoid Copilot are kidding themselves. AI, and Copilot is Microsoft's spin, is taking the computing world by storm. It's becoming bigger, faster, than the worldwide web did upon its introduction. If anything were ever inescapable, it's this.

@Sky-Knight is correct that the only way you're going to avoid Copilot is to leave Windows behind entirely, and I have zero doubt that MacOS and many Linux distros are going to have its analog very soon, if not already. This is an area of competition that the players who want to stay relevant simply cannot ignore. Android and iOS will also eventually have a Copilot analog, too. All of them will be able to be interacted with natural language to make queries, too.
 
I COME HERE HUMBLY WITH AN INCORRECT DIAGNOSIS TO ASSIST OTHER TECHNICIANS IN THE FUTURE.

She was not fat fingering the sleep button. The issue returned after I left.

I picked the system up and brought it to my office for further testing. The issue did not reoccur in Safe Mode. Turns out it was in the Power Options. The power profile was set to "HP Recommended". I switched it over to High Performance and the issue went away. I took a gander and the HP Recommended power settings briefly and didn't really see anything that would cause the computer to lock on it's own so my guess it that there is some sort of communication issue between the HP Recommended settings and whatever BS HP Loads in the system to communicate with those.

I was able to replicate the issue by turning on the HP Recommended settings, rebooting the computer and the issue came back. Back to High Performance and the issue went away.

Deleted the HP Recommended Profile.
 
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