Tip of the day: Get to know your power button

Tips, Windows 1 Minute

It used to be so simple: A power button was an on/off switch, period. But on modern personal computers, things are more complicated.

Most PCs built in the 21st Century use a combination of motherboards and power switches designed to cooperate with the operating system. Typically, pressing the power button puts the PC into one of several standby modes (or wakes it up from this “sleep” state). If Windows is running, pressing the power button might activate the Windows Shut Down function.

What happens if your computer is misbehaving and you want to shut off the power and restart? This one stumps many people, who press the power button repeatedly and conclude that it’s broken when it doesn’t seem to work. The secret? Press the power button and hold it down for three to five seconds. This shortcut overrides the normal action of the power button and turns the power off. (If this doesn’t work, you may have a loose wire in the connection from the power switch to the motherboard and power supply.)

In tomorrow’s tip, I’ll explain how to configure the operation of the power button (and a few other, related settings) in Windows.

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Published by Ed Bott

Tech journalist. Author of 25+ books. ZDNET Contributing Editor since 2006. Contact info: https://edbott.com/contact-me/

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One thought on “Tip of the day: Get to know your power button”

  1. Could someone help me with my problem. My pc will not shutdown through windows nor the powerbutton. In windows of freezes on the “windows is shutting down” screen. And when the powerbutton is pressed of held it puts it into hibernation. I have checked all of the BIOS, CMOS, and Windows xp settings, and I still have the issue. I have also checked the wire on the motherboard along with clearing CMOS.

    Thanks
    Andrew Peterson

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