computers are weird sometimes

A few weeks back I thought my laptop had died because it wouldn't turn on, but shut down again after I pressed the On-button. And then after a while for no reason I could discern after several tries, when I was ready to bring it in for service, it worked again after all.

I think I now know what happened, because just now I accidentally selected "suspend" rather than "shut down" from the log off menu, and unlike the automatic suspend that happens after a certain time to save power, and out which I can rouse my laptop like it is supposed to (by pressing the then blinking on button for slightly longer), it wouldn't come out this suspend. And when I turned it off completely and then on, it went into the same half-inert state, where you can't turn it on anymore, but it just makes some noise, blinks a little, and then powers off again. However knowing that it was a suspend gone horribly wrong, after turning it off via the on-button, I disconnected it from the power completely and took out the battery too for good measure (though I didn't do that last time) on the theory that being completely without power ought to stop any "suspending", and then put the battery back in, and afterwards it turned on normally.

So I assume that last time when I thought I had shut it off I also accidentally landed on the "suspend" which is apparently buggy in some way. (I have to look into whether I can customize that stupid option out of the menu to avoid clicking it accidentally.) It's reassuring that knowing this, it seems much less likely that some hardware part is going in a glitchy way, and that maybe I don't have to be so anxious about the laptop after all.

I still have been much better about backing up since then, and keep doing that.