The other night while I set my Pismo down on my desk, the screen went dark and it appeared to have shut down. The restart key was unresponsive. I noticed it seemed hot (I had been using it on my bed) and so lifted the keyboard to check things out, and caught a strong whiff of burning electrical components. Quickly I removed the battery to shut everything down for real in case I was frying my processor.
Well, after giving it time to cool, I was able to reboot, and am typing on the machine now - it wasn't the processor. But since the incident, I've had a completely dead trackpad (the USB mouse still works) and inserting the removable optical drive causes an instant freeze. Trying to boot with the optical drive installed goes through the usual gray-screen Apple-logo circular swirly sequence, but finally freezes, presumably at the point of system startup where removable drive bay hardware is detected.
The smell had seemed to be originating from the general area under the left-hand command key, where the trackpad connector plugs into the motherboard. I thought it might have something to do with that connection, but the DVD problems make me wonder if something happened to the motherboard.
Does anyone have any experience or insights into something like this?
Thanks,
Greg
-- It might be worth mentioning that about a week ago I had a loose-connection problem in that lower-mobo region: when I poked the mobo between the modem and the trackpad connection ever so gently with a wooden dowel, i got a frozen striped display. i dis/reassembled, however, and the problem went away - I just figured the daughtercard wasn't seated properly in its mobo slot and my poking the mobo tended to dislodge it, especially with the leverage i was getting at that low point on the motherboard.
Any suggestions are welcome... I miss my trackpad! (And I wanna rent Punch-Drunk Love!)
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