OT: laptop repair

I hear is an occasional "clunk" which I presume is the hard drive resetting 
itself. Power light but no BIOS (I don't think the LCD's backlight has been 
turned on either), no beeps, just that "clunk" sound.
    On the underside of this machine is a small paperclip-sized hole. When my 
system gets into this mode, I carefully insert a straightened paperclip (a 
non-conductive item would be a better choice here) through the hole and 
gently push some sort of button inside. If power is on, it then goes off. But 
regardless, when I then press the power on button, the system goes back to 
normal operation. (I always carry a paperclip in my Palm Pilot case for both 
the notebook and Palm Pilot.)
    If your system has a reset switch such as this, you might give this 
technique a try.
    (My notebook accidentally drank a glass of water once. After a subsequent 
disassembly, alcohol bath, and a good "dry" in the Arizona sun, it started to 
return to rationality by complaining about [and allowing me to reset] the 
CMOS settings. A year later, the occasional underside-poke is the only 
remaining artifact from the unintentional bath. [I also took the occasion to 
"wash-out" the Microsoft operating system and put a "clean" version of Linux 
in its place.])

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