Loose screw causing CLOD?

[Scott's Lists]

Bought a Click of Death 2400 the other day on a lark, taking a gamble that
Sydney Ho's treatise would hold true.

Initial symptom: an odd sounding double click. The first click the usual
tick of the power reset button, followed by an very short, quiet almost
"screech" sort of thing.

After a reset per Sydney, I got intermittant boots of various durations,
from a few seconds to a full boot, even had it on for half an hour once, but
then it would abruptly shut down.

After the half hour success, was back to the double click that did not
respond to any reset variations.

I set it aside. Came back to it this evening. Tried multiple reset
variations again. Still just clicking. Never at any point was there activity
from The Green Light.

So, I opened her up, intent on pulling the PRAM battery cable for a thorough
power manager reset.

I found a screw wedged between the bottom of the keyboard and the
motherboard. It was one of those very short silver jobbies, like those
holding the keybard at the top. I removed it, of course.

Plugged it in, and voila, she runs like a top through multiple restarts.

Now, the only other thing that happened is that on that first successful
powerup with the cover off, the time was reset to 1904. So, a bad pram
battery may be involved (I never pulled the cable, but I did have the
battery out and the AC unplugged for 10 minutes while I opened it up), but
would that cause the abrupt shutdowns I experienced earlier? Seems more
consistant with a short caused by wayward chunk of metal.

The 2400 has had a drive and memory upgrade and a cardbus enablement in its
past, so someone was mucking around in there at some point, but I don't know
how recently.

I could not see any empty screw holes at the top of the keyboard or the
motherboard assembly, though, so I don't know where it came from, yet....

I did check tightness on all the screws I could see before a closed her up.
Nothing loose found.

Does the screw hypothesis make sense electronically? Anybody else seen such
a thing?

Anyone care to lay odds on the likelyhood that she'll still start tomorrow?
:)

Scott