Flaky powerbook

[nick weldin]

I've just been trying to sort a some friends powerbook. They 
mentioned in passing that they didn't really use it as it kept 
turining itself off (in the middle of doing stuff) as well as 
crashing alot.

Its a 15inch dvi with superdrive

I managed to get it to boot up a couple of times (in 9.2) then into 10.
Booted diskwarrior disk, it reported problem with the disc wrapper 
and fixed it - half way through the rest of its work froze, restarted 
and tried again, froze again. Managed to get it to restart from disk, 
but question mark folder for a sec or two, so ran System Profiler to 
see what showed up - first screen showed something along the lines of 
-  startup disc identifed but not able to say which ATA buss it is 
on, and machine crashed.

Put in the hardware test CD and it bugged out - came up with open 
firmware dialogue box, but couldn't type anything in.

Now the computer comes on, no chime and no screen light but the fan starts.
Have tried the pmu reset , but no joy. Hardware test CD is still in 
the drive and won't come out!

Any advice or is it time to take it to an Apple store.

Cheers

Nick W