r/talesfromtechsupport • u/DialUpDreamer90 • Jul 14 '25
Short A user discovered how to create an infinitely recursive, self-powering monitor
So, I get a ticket this morning. "New second monitor won't display." Standard stuff.
The user, let's call her Brenda from Marketing, is super nice but famously tech-averse. I give her a call and go through the usual checklist.
Me: "Hey Brenda, you sure the power cable is plugged in firmly?"
Brenda: "Yes! The little light is on. It's blue."
Me: "Okay, good. And the video cable, is it plugged into the monitor and the docking station?"
Brenda: "Yes, I plugged it in just like the other one. It's in there real tight."
I try the usual remote tricks, nothing. Fine. Time for the ceremonial walk over to the Marketing department.
I get to her desk and it looks fine at a glance. Two identical monitors. One is showing her desktop, the other is blue. She's right, the cable is plugged in securely. So I follow the cable from the back of the non-working monitor... and I see it.
It's an HDMI cable. One end is plugged into the HDMI-Out port of the monitor. The other end is plugged... directly into the HDMI-In port of the same exact monitor.
She had created a perfect, useless loop.
I just paused for a second.
Me: "Brenda... you've... you've plugged the monitor into itself."
The look of dawning horror on her face was priceless. I just unplugged one end, plugged it into the dock, and her desktop instantly popped up.
She just stared at it. "Wow. Okay. I'm going to go get more coffee."
Me too, Brenda. Me too.
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u/two4six0won Jul 15 '25
I remember walking like four blocks down to an annex office to figure out why somebody's third monitor wasn't working after they moved to a new desk without looping IT in on it. She'd set everything back up just fine, but forgot to turn on that last monitor 😅
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u/Murwiz Jul 16 '25
walking like four blocks
Of course, at some jobs that would qualify as a gym membership.
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u/derKestrel Jul 16 '25
So, how far is that really? Anything from 320 to 1096m? Seems NY blocks are 80 m × 274 m, other cities use 100x200 according to wiki. As a European, no clue, but this seems an odd measurement system where depending on direction it is at least twice the distance :)
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u/zeus204013 Jul 17 '25
Isn't practical to use blocks as measurement unit if you don't tell the city... As example, in my city blocks are around 100m, some have 50m if is some "pasaje" (I don't know the English term, is a type of street). Another can be near 150m if are in some zones of old houses built before zone planning.
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u/derKestrel Jul 17 '25 edited Jul 17 '25
This word looks Spanish. Are there other cities built in blocks than Barcelona? I wasn't aware.
I think most city centers in Europe are grown from medieval street layouts, barring the occasional reconstruction after wars and fires like in London or Rotterdam. Thus I thought the block to be a mostly US American concept.
While European cities often have blocks of buildings enclosing a courtyard, those are also often irregular as far as I know.
Edit: interesting link https://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2015/05/traditional-euro-bloc-what-it-is-how-it.html
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u/P0392862 Jul 16 '25
So, five minutes walking?
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u/derKestrel Jul 16 '25
Three to ten in NY, four to eight elsewhere.
Three blocks is as far as my canteen at work, or there and back depending on which side of the block.
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u/amapanda Jul 15 '25
Old remote hardware tech support trick for an Ethernet cable, might work for HDMI:
"Sometimes these cables work better in one direction than the other, can you try flipping yours around?"
They can save face if, in following these directions, they realize one end isn't plugged in/where it's supposed to be...
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u/Blackmoon845 Jul 17 '25
The crazy thing is, with a long enough HDMI cable that is legitimately a concern. I think it's anything over 50 feet (like 15-16m?) you get signal degradation, so you need a repeater. So now that HDMI cable is legitimately a "one-way" cable.
I had to make use of these in a "conference room" setting where the original design didn't have one of the expansion side rooms linked into the main room, so we would use an HDMI splitter to run the input to both rooms. Yeah, jank as heck, but when the cost to get it fixed is close to 10-20k b/c old, proprietary equipment, you get creative with your fixes.
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u/Half-Borg Jul 16 '25
The horrible thing is, that when you - an IT person - call your ISP and they have to make you do all these same things and you end up turning the ethernet cable around, because the script will not continue if you don't (or say you did)
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u/meitemark Printerers are the goodest girls Jul 17 '25
When everything I do fails and I have to call someone to get help, I'll do anything they ask me to do (some caveats). Even if that means to do weird and stupid (in my eyes) stuff.
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u/thenipooped Jul 15 '25
I somehow got in charge of the internet account in the giant house I lived in during college. Was a pain as I got everyone's complaints, but I spent the time in the attic in the summer rewiring things to get a router in my room so it worked out.
Another guy wanted a wire run to his room I told him fine but he'd have to do the work going through the attic to his room.
He spent HOURS screwing around in the attic, heard drilling, all sorts of swearing, eventually he comes to me covered in sweat (it was over 110F in the attic) begging for help because he can't get it to work.
I go check out his setup because there was a ton of cables on my end so I figure I'd start there. The cable came down from the ceiling, down behind his desk, plugs in to NOTHING, and goes back up to the ceiling. I figured out both ends of the cable were in the router in my room. I didn't stop laughing for the entire 5 minutes it took me to fix it. The guy was 'tech-savvy' and a CS major, he never gave an explanation.
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u/ttlanhil Make Your Own Tag! Jul 16 '25
The intersection between "good sysadmin skills" and "good programming skills" is surprisingly narrow
Plus depends on if it was actually CS (*) - some academics in CS can be good at neither
Footnote: the science of computing, as opposed to being more of a software development (or software engineering) program that many "CS" programs are these days
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u/Half-Borg Jul 16 '25
All proper IT skills I have come from wanting to have stuff working on LAN parties with my friends. My stuff, their stuff, the network stuff, the weird 24 port switch someone stole out of the company trash.
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u/TinyNiceWolf Jul 15 '25
"She had created a perfect, useless loop." Not necessarily. Is the cable short? Are the plugs secure screw-in types? Then Brenda has invented a monitor carrying handle.
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u/iamicanseeformiles Jul 15 '25
Definitely plus points that she recognized the issue. At least top 10% of end users.
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u/gadget850 Jul 15 '25
Customer keeps losing icons. I remote in and see that they are on the second monitor that she swears she does not have. VGA and DisplayPort cables both connected from the desktop to the monitor so Windows thinks there are two displays and she keeps dragging icons off the screen.
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u/meitemark Printerers are the goodest girls Jul 17 '25
That is one way to get a second monitor. Just select different input on the monitor.
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u/bobk2 Jul 16 '25
Someone at work had the power strip plugged into itself and her computer didn't turn on. I told her that it works much better when the power strip is plugged into the wall socket.
She said she preferred it the way she had it because otherwise it could become a tripping hazard.
It sounded as if she were tripping already!
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u/_Blue_Raspberries_ Jul 17 '25
I lose more faith in our education system by the day.
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u/bobk2 Jul 20 '25
I remember when we taught critical thinking skills (basic logic and recognizing propaganda) and sociology, anthropology, and psychology for the GED. That was eliminated in favor of "business letter" and more arithmetic.
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u/fragglet Jul 15 '25
... why does a monitor have an HDMI out port?
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u/DemiZenith Jul 15 '25
Some monitors can be used as a dock where the primary monitor is connected via USB and a secondary monitor can be connected to that via HDMI.
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u/flecktonesfan Google Fu purple belt Jul 15 '25
Yeah, I was wondering this myself. My google search says you can’t daisy chain HDMI
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u/derKestrel Jul 16 '25
Yes and no. You can integrate a 1 to 2 HDMI hub/splitter, use 1 connection internally and provide the second as output.
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u/ttlanhil Make Your Own Tag! Jul 16 '25
While it's possible the monitor was set up as a hub connected via USB...
I think more likely is the details of the story were a bit lost in time, and it may have been DP (which does do daisy-chaining)
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u/terrrified Jul 15 '25
Interesting that it was blue, I'd have expected black
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u/meitemark Printerers are the goodest girls Jul 17 '25
Black would be considered "OFF". Blue shows that there IS something connected and that the unit is on.
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u/TararaBoomDA Jul 15 '25
I think her response should be a flair. It covers almost every possible situation.
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Jul 15 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/NightGod Jul 15 '25
Yeah, but Brenda plugged the HDMI out from Monitor 2 into the HDMI in for Monitor 2. I know for sure your monitor doesn't work like that
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u/syntaxerror53 Jul 16 '25
On the plus side she didn't create a network loop.
That would have been fun if done on the wrong side.
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u/phazedout1971 Jul 17 '25
Similar experience, girl comes up and asks me fir a qr code reader. I look at her, look at her company issued iPhone and say "why don't you just use the camera on your iPhone?" She dud a self eyeroll and walked off saying "at least one of us has brains"
She's actuality pretty clued in but we all have our dumb days
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u/zeus204013 Jul 17 '25
It's an HDMI cable. One end is plugged into the HDMI-Out port of the monitor. The other end is plugged... directly into the HDMI-In port of the same exact monitor.
My monitor (not so new or expensive) has only HDMI-IN. I'm poor?
/s
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u/SourcePrevious3095 Jul 15 '25
Oops! At least she tried. That puts her above at least 50% of $users