Hard resets are sometimes required when laptops are frozen / unresponsive or failing to boot. To hard reset the laptop hold down the power button the device for 15-20 seconds. You should see all lights go off and all sounds coming from the laptop stop. Once this has happened press the power button to turn the laptop back on.
If the computer is frozen and you are worried about losing progress on open documents / files please contact IT to see if we can recover your work. Otherwise if you have nothing open that is unsaved we can proceed with the hard reset.
A laptop failing to boot can be characterised as the laptop power light being on and the backlit keyboard being on but the screen is black and unresponsive. Just pressing the power button will do nothing so a hard reset is required.