ACPI for Acer Aspire [SOLVED] - and RHCT

As a follow up to the last post - and with many thanks to PC World tech. support staff :)

This happens occasionally: the fix recommended at the barbeque was to remove power cable and battery for a period of time and try again. It transpires that you need to remove the battery and power cable AND also press the on/off button for 30-60 seconds which resets the laptop motherboard ACPI status. Who'd have known ? :)

Also, I'm now a Red Hat Certified Technician - if anybody should ever need one of those in a hurry. My day job is keen on Red Hat and the firm paid for the course. My thanks go also to them for their patience with me over some years - and to the Red Hat instructor who knows me fairly well. I had to promise not to mention Debian for the week so as not to disconcert the other students :)