I was unable to turn on my laptop for about 2 hours. Any ideas?
What happened when you tried? Anything at all? Is it plugged in? Is there a battery in it?
Did you try blowing in its ear?
Did it “magically” start working again after sitting for 2 hours? If so, the most likely explanation is that it overheated.
Blowing in its “ear” might have actually helped. Getting the fan repaired might be better, though.
Make and model please. I once had this trouble with a laptop and it was a flaky power switch. There was a second power switch that was activated by sticking a probe into a hole in the side of the body.
Dell G5 5500.
Most articles online blame overheating. Supposedly it happens randomly. It just seems weird to me that I hadn’t been using the laptop at all for several hours.
Nothing at all. It was plugged in. I even let it fully charge. The diagnostic says the battery is dieing, but I wouldn’t think that would affect it if it was plugged in.
It does matter. Your battery may have been unable to power up the machine. Was it plugged in and charging before the 2 hour pause? It could be your battery. It could be overheating. It could be one of many possible flaky connections in your machine or the charger.
I’ve had the power supply temporarily stop outputting on a couple laptops now. It might be something thermal or a dirty power detection isolation feature or something but it starts to work again after a few hours. It’s definitely the power supply, I’ve checked it with a multimeter.
Is your battery removable? Did you try taking out the battery and then seeing if you can turn it on with AC power only?
No. Which is annoying because If it ever dies I’ll have to pay someone to replace it.
Moderator Note
Please wait until after the question has been factually addressed before making comments like this in FQ.
It can, at least on some laptop models. I had a friend give me a “dead” laptop. I happened to have the same model laptop (it was a work laptop that they let us keep when they bought us new ones) and swapping out the battery allowed the laptop to run, even though the replacement battery was pretty close to death itself.
It sounds like now would be a really good time to get yourself an external drive and back up all of your important stuff.
If it happens again, try holding down the power button for 30 seconds.
I know it’s hard to come up with anything better, but I love the name of this thread 
I asked the computer a question but all it would answer was “42”.