Fred
I don't have an Oly C700 but its predecessor, the C2100UZ, was blighted with
power supply problems - often referred to as "Sudden Death Syndrome" in the
newsgroups because of the symptom that one day, for no apparent reason,
you'd go to turn it on and it wouldn't.
My C2100 died in this way earlier this year. I sent it of to Olympus UK and
they fixed it - not particularly quickly. It took them about a month plus
and the cost, from memory, was around 130 UK Pounds.
I have heard say that the fix is to replace the power supply with a more
modern board which does not have the original design fault. However, if
more recent cameras like the C700 are experiencing the same problem it does
introduce doubts.
Another rumour I heard was that the problem might be triggered by allowing
rechargables to run too low in the camera. The following "science bit" is
quoting, probably inaccurately, from memory. I have no real knowledge of
the physics involved so if anyone wants to correct me, fine, but please
don't shoot me down in flames. I'm just trying to be helpful. I heard that
when the battery runs low, the voltage(?) can increase in an effort to
maintain the power output and this additional voltage can fry the power
supply. So the suggestion is always replace rechargables before they are
completely dead.
Having said that, I don't follow this advice and invariably wait until the
camera says "no juice" before swapping batteries. On the other hand I have
suffered one dead power supply so draw your own conclusions.
My recommendation is return the camera to your local Olympus repair centre
and, if you have the discipline, make a note to change batteries more
frequently in future.
Regards
Keith
