Is your computer having a problem? Your smart TV may be to blame

It turns out that your TV can ruin your computer — at least if you're using a Hisense TV and Windows.

Kevin Snow, video game story designer, They wrote on Cohost that they were having a problem with their computer. The Display Settings menu does not open. The Task Manager started to comment. Then the things necessary to make the computer work started failing. Spelunking in hidden comments on the Microsoft forums revealed the problem: Snow TV.

Essentially, the TV was generating Universal Plug and Play IDs, and over several years convinced Snow's computer that No final The number of devices on their network. Snow's smart TV, Hisense 50Q8G, inadvertently created a denial of service attack on their computer.

Snow fixed the problem with their computer by deleting the keys the TV had created for it five minutes. Then they restarted the computer. “Everything went well again,” Snow wrote. “I laughed so hard I cried. I felt like I had solved a murder.”

Look, I'm so glad Snow fixed the problem – that sounds annoying – but I don't know why the problem existed in the first place. I emailed HiSense to request comment, but the company did not respond. (I've also reached out to Snow.) I assume the problem is simply due to bad code, but I don't know for sure.

What I do know is that this is not a problem that dumb TVs have ever had. Full disclosure: I strongly support Stupid House. My thermostat shouldn't be connected to the internet, and neither should my refrigerator. If a company goes bankrupt, I don't have to worry about whether my coffee machine software will suddenly crash or whether the lights will turn on. The only things using my Wi-Fi would have to be my phone and my computer. Everything else should stay offline, where it belongs.

I realize that most other people don't feel this way – my coworkers, readers of this site, and basically every electronics company. So take this as a note: If you're having a problem with your computer and you have a smart home device connected, your troubleshooting process should include that device as well.