Powerbook g4 latch button stuck/jammed??

[moooosedude]

Well as the title says, my latch button on my 12" powerbook g4 1.33 is stuck in, and i have no idea how to get this thing fixed. It all started with a trip to the apple store to get my optical drive replaced because it was "eating" DVDs. When they sent it back to me, the report said they had replaced the bottom case, and within a week the button would get stuck in a crooked position so that the latch does not catch. I couldnt afford to give it to apple for another week because spring break was now over, so i just dealt with it until yesterday when i hauled it back to the apple store.

The genius there was like "ha! thats strange" and filled out the paperwork, and then can't get it to show up as a free fix because they won't replace lowercases without it being user repair. The head genius then came over, i explained my problem, and he said there was nothing he could do to help me, and then they walked over to the next customer.

So if anyone has any ideas how to like oil up the button, or get it to re-align, then that would be greatly appreciated. Also, do you think that calling applecare would have a better chance at getting this thing fixed? Thanks for the advice!

~moooosedude

 

[b-gee]

Check your battery bay

Before you open your powerbook shell, remove your battery and check the latch from there - the latch is mostly visible from within the battery bay. When my latch got stuck, I found another post mentioning this, and when I removed my battery, I found a tiny screw stuck to one of the latch's magnets - at first it looked like part of the latch! The screw must have come from within the bay - there were a couple of screws missing! (I noticed that most of those tiny screws were loose.)