It was a slow afternoon at the helpdesk when a ticket popped up that immediately caught my attention. The user’s description was unlike anything I’d seen before: “My computer is haunted. It’s glowing on its own and making weird noises.” Now, I’ve encountered some weird stuff in IT support, but a glowing, haunted PC? That was definitely new territory.
When I called the user to get more details, she sounded genuinely spooked. “Whenever I’m not in the room, it starts to glow with this eerie blue light. And sometimes I hear buzzing sounds, like whispers or faint music,” she explained. I asked if she had recently installed any new software or opened any strange files, but she insisted she hadn’t. I figured a quick remote session would either debunk the ghost story or uncover some sort of malware.
As soon as I took control, I noticed the screen was pulsing with an unusually bright blue glow. It almost looked like a sci-fi movie prop. I asked her to describe the “buzzing,” and she said it sounded like some kind of low hum, almost mechanical. I dove into the system logs and startup programs but found no suspicious processes. The computer was clean — but still glowing.
Then I noticed the clock in the corner of the screen was blinking erratically, and the screen saver was a continuously shifting blue image, something she hadn’t activated. Next, I asked her to describe the physical setup. That’s when she said she had a new USB lamp plugged into the back of the PC for extra desk lighting. I asked her to unplug it.
She did. The eerie glow vanished immediately, and the “buzzing” stopped. It was just the lamp, powered through the USB port, broadcasting a weird blue light and making a faint buzzing noise that she mistook for ghostly whispers. The haunted computer mystery? Solved.
The user laughed nervously and promised not to blame spirits next time something odd happened. I ended the call, thinking I should recommend she leave the ghost hunting to the professionals — or at least buy a lamp with a less spooky color. Another day, another strange ticket in the books.