Green Light of Death

Well, it finally happened.

I turned on my D70 on Christmas Day and it was unresponsive, with the green memory card access LED blinking steadily. My camera had succumbed to the dreaded Blinking Green Light Of Death (BGLOD).

Nikon D70 and D2H BGLOD

This, of course, is a giant pain in the ass. This is a documented issue with the early production runs of the D70. Nikon issued a service advisory to fix or replace any affected cameras. So, I sent my camera in to Nikon per the advisory. Nikon fixed the issue free of charge (except for the cost of shipping my camera to their repair facility in Melville, NY) and shipped my camera back to me.

B2
Service Repair Rank B2
Write Up
Repair SC 201759
RPL METERING FPC
ADJ AUTO FOCUS OPERATION
CLEAN CCD
GENERAL CHECK AND CLEAN
25212 SERIAL NO xxxxxxx
D70 DIGITAL SLR CAMERA SET

Repair Charges 0.00
Complimentary 0.00
Shipping and Handling 0.00
Total Amount 0.00

In addition to repairing the flaw in the circuit board (which causes the BGLOD), they adjusted the autofocus and cleaned the CCD and the exterior of the camera.

Cool.

I'd rather not have had my camera die on Christmas morning, but I'm happy it was fixed (for free) and sent back so quickly. Total turn-around from the day I shipped it to Nikon was about 8 days.