The computer I'm using now at G25 is working. It didn't use to. Or at least it didn't work for weeks and perhaps even months.

It's weird because every computer in the room worked, except this one. It won't power up when you press the ON button. As usual, I've tried to see what could be done but I came away with the diagnosis that the power switch was spoilt. It's a reasonable analysis, except that it was wrong. That was quite a while ago. A few days ago, I decided to try again because it's just so incongruent to have a non-working computer.

I remembered the old urban legend that quite a large percentage of tech support calls could be solved over the phone, with a simple instruction to 'please check the cables to see if any are loose, especially the power cable'. Could it be that simple? Apparently, that's what exactly happening. Although the cord was plugged in correctly, the switch wasn't switched on. Problem solved, but no one noticed it. I expected myself to catch this the first time, I didn't see it either.

If the problem seems a little too difficult to solve, the answer is sometimes right under your nose...