Laptop Boot-Up for Dummies

Laptop computer

If google's so-called Panda update (we know, we know -- it wasn't named for the bamboo-eating mammal, "Panda" is a google employee's surname) hadn't washed away the dross from some of the worst content farms, today's internet would be awash in crap content (not that it isn't, what with endless Kardashian bullshit and countless YouTube cat videos. Say, have you seen the one of the Antisocial Network's office cat? she's so cute! As it is, there's still plenty of the rubbish left to go around for an unwary searcher who wanders into the wrong website. Take, for instance, the poor sap who happens to run across the eHow post by Dianne Christensen-Hermance (sometimes known as Dianne Christensen-Herman) while desperately seeking help because, he or she complains, "My Laptop Computer Won't Boot Up"¹ at ItStillWorks.com. 

Given her "solution," as far as Dianne knows there's only one thing that could have gone wrong: the battery's dead. Christensen-Hermance's set of instructions (written, we think, in about 2010; meaning that eHow.com has let this bull go unchallenged for six years [shame on them!]) essentially boils down to one step:

"Plug the laptop to the electrical outlet and check to see if the battery needs recharging..."

Yes, folks: as far as she's concerned, a dead battery is the sole reason a laptop might fail to boot up. To fix it, all you have to do (according to this idiot) is 

"Flip the computer over and use a Phillips screwdriver to loosen the screw securing the cover that houses the battery to replace it. Slide out the old battery and push a new one into its place." Word, Dianne! That ought to take care of everything (as long as your battery compartment opens with a Phillips screwdriver; none of ours does). But wait: that still leaves us with a minor problem, to wit: what if the battery doesn't need to be charged, or replacing the battery (with what? a stack of triple-As? she never says...) doesn't work? Well, Dianne's answer to that question is remarkably simple[-minded]: "Feel the bottom of the laptop with your fingers to check if it feels hot. If so, it might have overheated and turned off... Buy a pad that can be placed underneath the computer to cool it down."

Nope: no troubleshooting: Christensen-Hermance never asks, "Blue screen of death? beeps? noises? error messages?" or any of the other problems. She doesn't suggest starting in safe mode... heck, the lamebrain doesn't even ask what operating system the laptop is running! You might have a virus, a fried hard drive, a dead screen, all manner of problems; some of which can be repaired by a user and some of which can't – but it's darned unlikely that a dead battery is the cause. Besides that, even the dumbest of dumbasses can tell whether the battery is dead without needing Dianne's instructions!

We're beginning to see a pattern here: this woman doesn't know jack about diagnosing or fixing a laptop that won't boot up – yet eHow paid her good money to eventually be named the Antisocial Network's Dumbass of the Day. With garbage like this at the content farms, it's no wonder Google found it necessary to roll out their Panda update!

¹ The original has been deleted by Leaf Group, but can still be accessed using the Wayback machine at archive.org. Its URL was   ehow.com/how_6781544_laptop-computer-won_t-boot-up.html

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