Thanks Kiddojack. I forgot about that reset. I did it and I'll post again after some time to make sure it was successful.
I was kind of dumb and didn't get applecare, which I regret now. I called Apple today just to report the issue, with a secret hope that this was a known issue and they are about to have some sort of recall, but the technician had to blow me off. Has anyone else called Apple about this issue?
There is another thread (
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=6534679#6534679) about this and one of the responders did a complete erase and re-install of Leopard but to no avail. I was about to do the same.
Message was edited by: tricitytrackstar