The other day my laptop stopped working.

Without advance notification. While I was in the middle of a client’s huge Website redesign project.

Nooooooooooooooooo, I thought. Not now.

I’d been working on it all morning, before putting it into Hibernation mode over the lunch hour. When I returned, it refused start back up.

Oh, I could hear its fan whoosh for a second. Then promptly go quiet.

I unplugged everything and re-plugged. I waited.

Nothing.

In frustration, I called the Geek Squad at Best Buy, hoping some techy person could help. The tech had me turn on this, unplug that, remove the battery. He had me describe in detail the sounds my machine was making. In the end, he said he couldn’t do any more and recommended I haul it back to the store and let them run a full diagnostics to see what the problem was.

Hmmm. I just didn’t want to do that. I’m up to my ears in work right now, and the store is a good hour’s drive away. That means a minimum of two hours drive time, plus who-knows-how-long waiting time.

Fortunately, my machine is still in warranty, so I called toll-free to the company that made it.

After explaining the problem again and detailing the steps I’d already performed for the Geek Squad, this representative asked me which lights were lit. To which I responded, ‘None of them. I’ve unplugged everything in preparation for taking it back to the store.’

He had me plug it back in and Voila! It worked!

Now before you think I’m another computer illiterate, I have to remind you I’ve been running my own Web Design company for eleven years now. I’ve lost count of how many computers — PCs and laptops — I’ve owned, how many lines of computer code I’ve written or corrected, how many computer issues I’ve helped others with.

And while none of us ever knows all there is to know about anything, I rather assumed I knew something about computers.

But I was wrong.

Turns out, leaving a fully charged laptop plugged in and charging makes the battery OVER-charge. It gets hot and bothered, so to speak, and just shuts down.

No bells. No whistles. No red flag. No popup warning.

Nothing. It never started smoking, never felt hot.

Why hadn’t I heard that before? I’m pretty sure it wasn’t in the manual that came with my laptop.

Oh, who am I kidding? Maybe it was. I certainly don’t read those things!

So there you have it. Learn from my mistake.

If you usually work on your laptop while it’s plugged in, at least unplug it at night to give the battery a chance to drain (or whatever it is batteries do at night!)

Did you already know this? (And if so, why didn’t you tell me?!?)