You get a call from a customer saying that his Windows 7 lap

You get a call from a customer saying that his Windows 7 laptop continues to remain warm long after he’s powered the computer down. He’s concerned that there is an electrical problem with his computer that is causing it to continually overheat. You visit his home and ask him to power up and then shut down his computer. What do you discover?

A. He’s leaving his computer plugged into the surge protector all the time, which causes the laptop to heat, even when shut off.

B. He’s not plugging his laptop into a power strip or surge protector, but directly into the wall socket, which is causing the laptop to heat.

C. He’s not shutting down his laptop completely, but putting it in Sleep mode, which stores his data in RAM and causes some power to continue to be generated, resulting in additional heating.

D. He’s not shutting down his laptop completely, but putting it in Hibernate mode, which stores his data on the hard drive and causes power to continue to be generated, resulting in additional heating.

Solution

A, B, and D. It’s possible that the LCD display itself has failed, but you should investigate other options first. If the power settings have shut down the LCD display, try moving the mouse to bring the screen back up. Also, if the customer has been working at his desk, the laptop may be set for external display only, which would result in the laptop only displaying a screen image on an external monitor but not on the LCD screen.