Using info from posts here and from my...ahem...user's guide, I removed
the battery for a while (overnight) then plugged in on AC power without
the battery. To my surprise the little red AC light came on, which it
most definitely did not do before. I gently wiggled and twisted the plug
at the computer to see i there might be loose connections inside, no
change. I unplugged the AC, put the battery in, re-attached AC and let
the battery charge while running errands. It has been working fine ever
since.

I thank all respondents who assisted, but now I am totally confused as
to what the problem was.

--

I'm glad my Mom named me Aaron,
That's what everybody calls me.

In news:8PBxl.1547$6%.39@nwrddc01.gnilink.net,
Aaron typed onn Mon, 23 Mar 2009 01:43:32 GMT:
> Using info from posts here and from my...ahem...user's guide, I
> removed the battery for a while (overnight) then plugged in on AC
> power without the battery. To my surprise the little red AC light
> came on, which it most definitely did not do before. I gently wiggled
> and twisted the plug at the computer to see i there might be loose
> connections inside, no change. I unplugged the AC, put the battery
> in, re-attached AC and let the battery charge while running errands.
> It has been working fine ever since.
>
> I thank all respondents who assisted, but now I am totally confused as
> to what the problem was.

Greetings Aaron! That is completely understandable! As you are dealing
with digital electronics. And in the simplest terms, digital electronics
is nothing more than just a series of zillions of electronical switches.
And pretty amazingly, they all work all according to plan 99.999% of the
time. Although once in a blue moon, a stray electron, a gamma ray, a
ghost, a fubar, or something else unexplainable causes the near
impossible to happen. One darn switch gets toggled to the wrong
position.

When this happens, one just needs to just reboot and the problem
disappears. Although there are two kinds of reboots. One is a warm
reboot which most people know about. And the other is a cold reboot (the
master of all reboots). Which requires all traveling electrons to stop
moving about and all circuits to be neutralized so that all of the
electronic switches can be reset. By removing all power (including the
main battery) performs this cold reboot. And you fixed it by performing
a cold reboot. Congratulations! ;-)

--
Bill
Asus EEE PC 701G4 ~ 2GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC
Windows XP SP2