What Do I Do?

[Bitri at aol.com]

Some many months ago my beloved 2400c/180/80/1.3 died on me. It just wouldn't power on, not with the appropriate button, nor with the reset button. I rushed it down to TechServe (in NYC) and they told me they couldn't diagnose the problem except by replacing each part one by one, and they didn't have any parts anyway. They suggested I send it in to Apple for refurbishing. I called Apple, and they said they don't work on the 2400 anymore. So ... I looked at it, again and again, and then decided to try what often works when anything goes awry ... kick the damned thing! Well, in this case kicking wasn't the right thing to do, so I slapped my powerbook smartly on its bottom .... and lo and behold .... it started, using the reset button. Once on, it stayed on, and it worked as perfectly as always. When I shut it down, it again did not want to startup. Sometimes the slap worked and sometimes it didn't. It worked enough for me to get all my data on zip disks, which is a good thing! But not having my trusty 2400 is not a good thing. At one point I figured out that if a slap would fix it, then there must be something loose inside ... so I opened it up. I didn't go too deep inside. I just wanted to find something obviously unhinged, or maybe burned out. I found nothing obviously wrong. I did find a loose small screw (perhaps left by the person who replaced the trackpad many years ago), but it was of no consequence. I finally had to put my 2400 aside and buy a new G4 iMac. My powerbook sat for a few months in the closet, and then I just had to try it again. It is not easy to give up on these wonderful machines! Before the 2400 I had a Duo230, and it stills works like a dream (I gave it to a friend in Poland, who uses it every day.)I plugged it in, and lo and behold it seems to have developed the GLOD disease. In my case the green light stays lit only in one position of the reset button. In other words, press reset one and it's off, press it again and it's on. Also pressing the reset button produces a faint click at every other press. I don't know if these symptoms mean anything at all. I tried Sydney's power reset methods, and nothing good happened. Slapping has stopped working as well. It is just dead. Does anyone have any ideas about what might be wrong, and what I might do about it? I would open it up myself if I thought there was something I could accomplish. I would take it or send it to someone to fix if it didn't cost me an arm and a leg. Or perhaps this powerbook is ready to be parted out? Everything about it was in perfect shape, and I've got a zip drive, external floppy, Global Village modem, and external CD drive as well.Ideas??

Steve
New York City