I spent days trying to figure out why my laptop wasn’t working. I was so embarrassed when I discovered a button I didn’t even know existed
A woman struggled to connect her laptop to the internet for four days, only for a repair shop to point out that the ‘Wi-Fi button was disabled’.
Sally Newall-Sanderson, from Warrington, Cheshire, was stunned when she opened her laptop last week and couldn’t connect to her Wi-Fi.
The 44-year-old tried resetting the device, removing and adding programs, and had called her broadband company, but panicked when nothing worked.
As a director of a recruitment company, the self-styled digital dinosaur relies on her laptop for her work and has even almost spent money on a new laptop, which could have cost her £600.
Desperate, she marched into a repair shop with the device and told them how “stressed” she was with it – only to feel “ridiculous” when they called her five minutes later to inform her of her blunder.
Sally Newall-Sanderson, from Warrington, Cheshire, struggled to connect her laptop to the internet for four days before a repair shop pointed out that the ‘wifi button was disabled’
The mother of three, who claims she had no idea the ‘buttons even existed’, believes her five-year-old daughter may have pressed the button, or she may have done it herself without realizing it.
Posting online, Sally asked others: ‘I’m not the only person who didn’t know about this, am I?’ and was glad to have her laptop back, hoping to encourage others to ‘don’t panic’ and check their devices first.
Sally said: ‘I didn’t know these buttons were ever on the side of laptops. It worked fine and then suddenly it didn’t. A message came up saying I couldn’t get WiFi.
‘I panicked because I’m not very good with computers, I’m not tech savvy at all. I thought, ”This isn’t great”.
‘For three or four days I called the broadband company to see if there was anything wrong with my broadband. How embarrassing.
‘It was about day four and I thought, “Okay, I’ve got to book it somewhere.”
“When I got there I was like, ‘Okay, this needs to be solved, I’m very stressed, I’ve been trying to figure it out for four days.’ I was downloading stuff and doing this and that.
‘As soon as I dropped it off and left there, they called me and had to explain that it was just the WiFi button on the side.
Sally could barely work for four days before she realized the cause of her problems was the little switch on the side. She claims she would have been stuck for weeks if she hadn’t had it repaired
Many were also shocked by her discovery, with some saying they had never heard of the Wi-Fi button either
“They called me about five minutes after they delivered it and said, ‘You won’t believe what it was.’ I thought, “You’re kidding me.”
Sally could barely work for four days before she realized the cause of her problems was the little switch on the side. She claims she would have been stuck for weeks if she hadn’t had it repaired.
Now she’s warning others not to panic, consult the manual and check for hidden buttons before taking anything in for service.
Sally said, “I just pulled my hair out. I thought, ‘Oh god, it’s a big deal.’ I really need it for work, so I was so close to purchasing a new laptop. It would have cost me about €600.
‘All my laptops I’ve had, I’ve never noticed that. I felt ridiculous. I caught it, or maybe my little girl caught it messing around.
She admitted that her son, 15, has called her “so embarrassing.”
“But even they wouldn’t have known,” she said. ‘We could all have sat here for weeks trying to solve the problem.
The mother of three, who claims she had no idea the “buttons even existed,” speculates that she or her five-year-old daughter may have unknowingly pressed the button.
Now she’s warning others not to panic, consult the manual and check for hidden buttons before taking anything in for service
Desperate, she marched the device to a repair shop and told them how “stressed” she was with it
The bizarre feature is found on Dell Latitude laptops and is used when people want to turn off their Wi-Fi during a flight
‘My advice to others would be: don’t panic. Always check the manual. I mean, I don’t keep the manual, but if you can, check this out. And look around your laptop for any buttons.’
The bizarre feature is found on Dell Latitude laptops and is used when people want to turn off their Wi-Fi during a flight.
Luckily, the repair shop didn’t charge her for the time and Sally posted about the ’embarrassing’ ordeal online.
She said, ‘You know what I’ve never been? Tech-f*ggin-savvy! Who knew some laptops had a Wi-Fi switch on the side? Not bloody me! This little button I circled almost killed me!
‘It took me four days of scratching my head and looking very surprised, lots of swearing, not to mention the endless hours I spent resetting everything, deleting and adding programs* until I admitted defeat and booked it into a shop to have it repaired. You can imagine my face when they called me two minutes after delivery to say it was fixed.
‘Please put me out of my misery and tell me! Did you know this switch? I’m not the only one who didn’t know about this, am I?’
Many were also shocked by her discovery, with some saying they had never heard of the Wi-Fi button either.
One person wrote: ‘I guess I didn’t know that either!! You’re not alone, love.” Another said: ‘Lord. I thought it was an on/off switch.”
While someone else wrote: ‘HAHA OMG funny! I didn’t know some laptops had that switch, I’m lucky, my laptop doesn’t have it.’ A fourth said: ‘What an absurd feature.’