yeah, giving a misbehaving computer a good kick has fixed it on many 
occasions for me as well. One BA213 i have has something loose in a power
supply, i think... a good solid kick, the kind that would do a mere peecee
in, and it works just fine... 

and then theres the whole history of having to smack Quantum hard disks
to get them to start spinning.. *grin*
(or RD53s where the head arm would stick to the shock absorbing pad as the
rubber in the pad got old and gooey, that eventually required opening the
HDA and putting something not sticky over the pad though)

isildur

On Fri, 31 Jan 2003 Robertdkeys@aol.com wrote:

> It might be folklore, but back when I ran S-100 bus crates in the lab,
> it was regular practice to unseat/reseat boards periodically to keep
> things working.  I have done that on other machines, too.  I only have
> dropped a machine a time or two, as a last resort  (peecee crates).
> Sometimes the jar worked...... sometimes it didn't...... (:+}}.....
> 
> I had a good friend that had a big Navy radio transmitter that did
> some periodic shennanigans.... he kept a big rubber mallet aside
> the critter, and if it acted up,   WHAP!  upside its head, and that
> would jar a sticky relay into action.  I have often wondered if that
> would work on computers.... (They did sell a big foam baseball
> bat, called a Byte Bat, for whapping computers upside the head.
> Haven't seen those since the early 80's, tho.....).
> 
> Tales to tell.....
> 
> Bob
>