eli5 Why does waiting fix electronics?

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Kind of vauge question, but when facing certain hardware issues (where turning it on/off does not work) you may find that when you return to the device, albeit it however long, the problem seems to have disappeared.

Why is this?

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2 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Anything involving a small computer has a bit of memory inside.

Sometimes the problems the device has are because the memory has weird, unexpected values due to glitches. Since the glitches are unexpected, the device can’t “fix” it because its programming doesn’t have code to handle that. Or if it can “fix” it, there might be a bit of the program that runs periodically to “reset” the memory to decent values but that part doesn’t run while you’re using the device. Sometimes this is because the “fix it” part of the program slows the device down a lot, so it’s programmed to run if you haven’t been using the device for a while.

So if you wait a while, the “fix it” part of the program might have time to run. It’ll see the weird memory and reset it to something that’s not weird.

Or even if there’s not a “fix it” part of the program, maybe something the device does every now and then changes the memory. If you get lucky, it’ll change the “weird” memory back to “sane” memory and the device will start working.

Think about it like a machine with some gears that are slightly out of alignment but can get jostled back into place. Sometimes the machine’s just not working. Then, when you’re not looking, something shakes it a little and the gears move a bit and it’s fine again. It’s the same kind of principle.

Anonymous 0 Comments

It’s often heat. Things expand when hot, different materials expand different amounts, and sometimes a crack forms after many cycles and something which works when cold stops working when two parts lose contact from expansion. The device stops working, and needs to cool down.

Cooling can also become worse from dust and dried-out thermally conductive compounds, meaning a device which worked fine now simply gets too hot, or either malfunctions or shuts down in order to protect itself.

I have a TV which does the former (I got it for free to see if I could fix it, but I have no tools or experience with BGA chips) and a projector which does the latter (until I open it and vacuum out the dust again).