Sometimes as library employees we are forced to put on a techie hats because to the customers we seem to know everything about anything. Often we have to troubleshoot our own equipment as well when a customer is standing right by your side, panicking because their very important letter/resume/bank statement/myspace update was in progress when such and such happened.
Let’s pause and pat ourselves on the back for a job well down, because I know most of you are awesome in this type of situation. :-)
Now, that being said, I came across an interesting situation a couple weeks ago. We all know the monitors for the public computers are sometimes possessed by the library ghost. ;-) Usually the cords come undone and all you need to do is plug in the monitor. Or sometimes they simply die and need to be replaced.
The fiendish monitor in question was getting plenty of power (the monitor light was green), but the screen was black. The monitor connector cable was in place in the monitor and PC tower. What could be the trouble? On a hunch, I clicked on the monitor’s “Menu” button. It is the second to last button from the end, or three buttons away from the power button. When you press the button, the menu screen should pop up. I used the plus (+) and minus (-) buttons to scroll to “factory reset.” I then hit the menu button again and the monitor reset. And the screen came alive again!
This seemed to work for me this time, which doesn’t mean it can work for every problem. But if you’re in a similar situation you know to try this.
Please feel free to share similar situations in the comment of this post or with other coworkers. Every little bit of shared information helps.
