Yawn2K? Bug mostly a no-show as world returns to work January 3, 2000 Web posted at: 12:30 p.m. EST (1730 GMT) (CNN) -- The first major business day of 2000 opened with few signs of Y2K computer glitches. Those returning to work Monday found energy supplies and corporate computer systems operating smoothly. The U.S. banking system was "running smoothly," reported the U.S. Federal Reserve. Bruce McConnell, director of the International Y2K Cooperation Center, said that nothing serious was reported anywhere and "the risk is very low at this point." Not that the Y2K glitch was nowhere to be seen. Problems hit government computers in Hong Kong and mainland China, Hong Kong breathalyzers, courthouse computers in Italy and scattered ATM machines. But there were no reports of calamitous failures some feared, leaving both Y2K doomsayers and journalists hunting for words. Despite some predictions, it was far easier to find problems because of the intense scrutiny placed on every electronic device throughout the weekend. However, many officials, including John Koskinen, chairman of the President's Council on Year 2000 Conversion, warn that some serious problems may still crop up in coming weeks or months. The Y2K bug infested a computer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Y-12 nuclear weapons plant in Tennessee, but it did not affect operations or workers and was fixed three hours later. China had several problems, all minor. Branches of the state-run People's Bank of China in northwestern Qinghai province also encountered breakdowns in their internal and inter-bank e-mail systems, China Daily said, quoting Chen Jing, director-general of the PBOC's technology department. Digital meters on taxis stopped functioning in many Chinese cities at midnight, forcing cabbies to haggle over fares with New Year's revelers. China's State Meteorological Bureau reported problems in its computerized monitoring system. SMA officials replaced the faulty system with manual techniques, the daily reported. Some ATMs in the southern city of Guangzhou failed to dispense cash and some bank computers were dating documents with the year 1900, the state-run newspaper Beijing Youth Daily reported. A few ATMs also failed at 7-Eleven convenience stores in Norway, as did an X-ray machine in a Norwegian hospital. About 100,000 Swedes were unable to access their bank accounts over the Internet because they were using outdated browsers. The older version of Netscape's digital certificates, used for security, was set to expire on December 31. Microsoft's free Hotmail Web-based e-mail service had a display problem in which e-mail sent during or before October 1999 could show up dated with the year 2099. Microsoft is still working on the issue, but it hasn't stopped users from accessing their accounts. In Tokyo, about a dozen small brokerages reported Y2K-related glitches in a record-keeping system. They were quickly fixed. The heat went out in apartments for about 900 families in Pyongchon, South Korea, also attributed to Y2K. Also in Japan, three nuclear power plants had Y2K problems. The potentially most serious problem involved a plant run by the Tokyo Electric Power Co. The system that shows the position of the control rods in the reactor core failed, leaving operators unable to gauge the rods' positions using the system. Technicians fixed the glitch without incident. Japan's Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications reported four minor problems, and all were fixed quickly. Y2K computer glitches added a century to some Italian jail sentences and knocked 100 years off others on Monday, forcing court officials to close administrative offices while the problems were solved. Officials in a court in the southern city of Naples found that prisoners looking forward to release next Monday had, according to their computer records, been detained 100 years too long and should have been released on January 10, 1900. The first baby born in Denmark in 2000 was initially registered by a hospital computer as 100 years old at birth, a tabloid newspaper reported. The Y2K bug may have hit police breath testing equipment in Hong Kong, but the glitch didn't save any drunk drivers from prosecution on New Year's Eve. A problem with breathalyzers surfaced on January 1 and "quite likely" was Y2K-related, a government spokesman said. The glitch affected birth dates, which had to be entered manually. In the Philippines, despite a prediction from an 80-year-old cult leader that Y2K would bring the end of the world in "an all-consuming rain of fire," the only problem reported there so far concerned some fax machines flashing the wrong date. What were minor inconveniences for some people turned into a personal tragedy for novelist Gu Qingsheng, who lost his accumulated work when his computer, set ahead 10 days as a routine precaution against a virus, entered 2000 prematurely and crashed, destroying all his files. Gu had just sent his publisher a novel entitled "2038" that included numerous stories about the "millennium bug," the Beijing Morning Post and other newspapers reported. There were no Y2K problems at Ohno-ya, a shop specializing in traditional handmade stationery located across from the national Kabuki theater in downtown Tokyo. Shopkeeper Hiromitsu Yoshino's bookkeeping method is 100 percent Y2K-compliant. "I use an abacus," he said.