Hi!

I read several posts on digicam repair.. and I havent seen one in
which someone said with confidence that he/she was able to repair
them.. so I guess its time for a new digicam

Here's one. I have an older Sony DSC-P20 camera that started popping up an
error code on every startup. It would beep, flash the error code and shut
down every time. Sometimes it would power up OK, but it was touchy...touch
it and watch it blow up, throw the error and shut down again. It got to the
point where I had to use the timer to take pictures--just pressing the
shutter button would set it off. I did notice that the "InfoLithium" logo
that's displayed when using an InfoLithium battery would vanish if the
camera was going to throw the error, and this should have clued me in.

I put up with this for a long time before finally breaking out the
screwdrivers. This camera isn't very high resolution by today's standards,
but it does take excellent VGA-resolution pictures...which is what I want to
do with it above all else.

When I got it apart, the camera worked perfectly. I couldn't faze it by
tapping, shaking or touching anything. Put it back together and it was right
back up to its old tricks. I finally did get it, though. When I took it
apart a second time, it decided to keep malfunctioning. Only this time, it
put up a message telling me something along the lines of "for Sony battery
only". It turns out that the battery door had become just ever so slightly
splayed out at one hinge. This made whatever set of contacts Sony uses to
detect InfoLithium packs fail to make good contact.

I glued a very tiny shim to the back of the battery instead of trying to fix
the hinge on the battery door. I also cleaned the battery contacts a little,
although they did not look too dirty. While I had heard that some Sony
digital cameras had problems with dirty contacts, this one wasn't mentioned
in anything I read. Ever since I added the little bit of material to the
back of the battery, the camera has been absolutely reliable.

There you go. Now you have heard of a successful repair. By the way, I did
search against the fault code that my camera was returning. Every answer I
found suggested the memory stick was failing, but that's clearly not
correct. I'm still using the same Memory Stick.

I actually asked because I thought maybe digicams have specialized
built.. maybe.. they have some secret mechanism that if an ordinary
radio technician opens it he will destroy the circuitry in some sort..

It wouldn't be unheard of. I've not heard of it in cameras, but some TV sets
are said to have so-called "trap" switches that you can get into trouble
with.

but I guess Im thinking too deep

I would look for obvious but hidden stuff. You could have pulled a ribbon
cable loose or disconnected a ground that the camera requires to operate
properly. Has it got a reset button? If so, did you press and hold it for a
while? I think there is a possibility you might still fix it or at least get
it turning on again.

William