I was visiting my older brother and i wanted to use his computer,

a Dell Inspiron 24, or something liek that. It's an All-in-one.

I had a dickens of a time finding the on/off switch, which doesnt'
protrude at all so one has to keep pressing everywhere until he finds
something that moves.

Then the only thing that happened is that one of those fancy pictures
that MS provides, with islands and trees, but not a real place iiuc,
appeared and stayed for 10 seconds, and then the screen went blank
again.

How can that be?

I thought, let's check out the BIOS but how will I know if the wireless
kb is letting my press the right F-key. So I went to my suitcase and
got my own wired keyboard and mouse. "Have keyboard, Will Travel. Wire Paladin. San Francisco."

And by golly it started right up.

Turns out the switches on the wireless keyboard and mouse were both off.
When I turned them on and unplugged my kb and mouse, the pc worked fine.
So why didn't the PC turn on and complain there was no kb or mouse? I
know mine has done that some time in the last 10 years.

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