Many thanks for this helpful page. My symptoms: batteries appeared to run flat very quickly, causing the camera to shut down after taking only one or two pictures (batteries appeared to be fully charged still, but replacing allowed a few more pictures to be taken until the same thing happened), with this situation steadily worsening until eventually I could only view the slide show; any attempt at turning on to take a picture resulted in the camera shutting down instantly. Turns out that the problem was indeed caused by dirty contacts, as detailed under 'Power' above. I read through the excellent instructions on how to take the camera apart, but found that I could clean the contacts without disassembly by using a cotton bud and contact cleaner. I would recommend this quicker and easier method of getting at the contacts in the first instance.