When faced with the cost of a new PC (really, the Mac Mini for $700 plus insurance) I did one more run through of J’s PC. It really felt like the problem centered on the on/off switch, but with this Acer Aspire layout, it was nearly impossible to check it out, or completely eliminate anything else as the problem.
I’m glad I gave it one more try. It was indeed the damn button. The on/off button is a flat triangle about an inch large that is on one corner of the top of the case. There is very little resistance when you press this “area” which is really what it is, since it’s not really a button. I imagined something beneath the surface made contact with a certain amount of pressure, but even looking at it from the inside gave me no real indication of what was contacting what to turn the machine on. I made a wild guess, put on a dab of hot melt at a point where a bit of a lip held in the chip, and voila!
But this kind of thing annoys me. It is just another example of the poorly design and engineering that goes into something these days. The whole case is a farce. Even the side panels which can be tricky until you learn the proper way to hold them while sliding them in place are ridiculously aggravating on this machine.
Oh yeah, I’m happy that all it cost was a week of my time and a dab of hot melt glue, but I was already getting excited at the thought of a new Mac Mini.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology