New Pandora won't turn on any more

[ajbrehm]

I received my Pandora yesterday, put in the battery, connected it to the mains and played with it. Everything was (mostly) working fine. The lights to the left and right of below the screen were green/red/orange (in that order, I believe) and the battery charge according to the battery applet went from 58% to 67% in a few hours.


I then left the Pandora alone, lid closed and running, and came back to it about 20 hours later (after night and work day). I found it rather warm and off.


I tried to turn it back on but nothing happened. I searched the Web and found forum entries that suggested that the power switch has to be moved right and held for a second and similar instructions. I tried them all. Result is nothing.


I then connected the Pandora to a USB port of my Mac Pro via a USB-A-to-USB-Mini-B cable which also didn't make it possible to switch it on. It's now lying there connected with the USB cable.


What's going on? Is my Pandora broken? Did I break it?

 

[craigix]

Have you check to make sure the battery isn't loose?

 

[ajbrehm]

Have you check to make sure the battery isn't loose?

I did remove it and put it back twice.


Although I'm not sure how it could have come loose. The Pandora was just sitting there on the desk for the day.


In fact, you can see it here:


http://desertpenguin.org/blog/openpandora.html

 

[slaeshjag]

Remove the battery and power, wait 10 minutes, put the battery back in and plug in power. It should boot up as soon as you but the battery in, if it isn't discharged. If it still doesn't turn on, let it sit with the charger plugged in for 10 or 20 minutes. If it still doesn't start, try playing with the powerswitch, hold the pandora button down while flicking it if that doesn't help. If still nothing happens, then I don't know.


You could try to start it without battery, but it'll crash/reset as soon as uboot loads the kernel as of SuperZaxxon beta 5.

 

[ajbrehm]

Remove the battery and power, wait 10 minutes, put the battery back in and plug in power. It should boot up as soon as you but the battery in, if it isn't discharged. If it still doesn't turn on, let it sit with the charger plugged in for 10 or 20 minutes. If it still doesn't start, try playing with the powerswitch, hold the pandora button down while flicking it if that doesn't help. If still nothing happens, then I don't know.


You could try to start it without battery, but it'll crash/reset as soon as uboot loads the kernel as of SuperZaxxon beta 5.

With the battery removed and connected to the mains it won't turn on but the right light is blinking first red and now green.

Now with battery inside and connected to the mains, the right light is green but the Pandora still won't start. The light is new for the day.

 

[craigix]

Might be worth making a bootable SD card and seeing if the boot menu will appear.

 

[skeezix]

If you turn on while holding right trigger, the boot menu will come up regardless of SD; the SD being bootable just provides an extra option.


jeff

 

[EvilDragon]

That's certainly not normal... it might be you went into suspend and while doing that, the battery went flat.


Here's a quick infos about the LEDs:


Left side (from left to right):


SD1, SD2, Wifi, BT


Right side (from left to right):


First two LEDs are not used


Charge / Low Power (red LED)


Power (green)


When the Pandora is on, the Power LED is on.


When the Pandora is in low-power or suspend mode, the power LED is dim.


While the Pandora is charging, the red LED is on (without blinking or anything)


When the battery is below 10%, the red LED is blinking.


Now you know what the different LEDs mean and should be able to tell whether it is off, on or whatever.


There's one issue with the suspend-mode:


The unit can't shut down when the battery is near empty.


So it will run until the battery shuts itself off because the voltage is too low.


After that, the Pandora needs to be connected to the charger for about 10 minutes until it shows any sign of life at all.


So leave it connected to the power adaptor for a while and see if it will charge.

 

[ajbrehm]

If you turn on while holding right trigger, the boot menu will come up regardless of SD; the SD being bootable just provides an extra option.


jeff

Tried it. Nothing.

 

[ajbrehm]

That's certainly not normal... it might be you went into suspend and while doing that, the battery went flat.


Here's a quick infos about the LEDs:


Left side (from left to right):


SD1, SD2, Wifi, BT


Right side (from left to right):


First two LEDs are not used


Charge / Low Power (red LED)


Power (green)


When the Pandora is on, the Power LED is on.


When the Pandora is in low-power or suspend mode, the power LED is dim.


While the Pandora is charging, the red LED is on (without blinking or anything)


When the battery is below 10%, the red LED is blinking.


Now you know what the different LEDs mean and should be able to tell whether it is off, on or whatever.


There's one issue with the suspend-mode:


The unit can't shut down when the battery is near empty.


So it will run until the battery shuts itself off because the voltage is too low.


After that, the Pandora needs to be connected to the charger for about 10 minutes until it shows any sign of life at all.


So leave it connected to the power adaptor for a while and see if it will charge.

Currently the right-most LED is green. I understand that is the power LED, i.e. the Pandora is on.


But nothing is happening. It doesn't boot and doesn't make a sound.


I'll leave it connected to the charger for a while.


However, it was connected to the charger the entire day which is why it was so warm.

 

[TrashyMG]

When it first powers on do you see the left green lights (SD card access) blinking for a period of time? This may indicate it's booting up fine, just the screen is dark.. it could be the brightness control for the backlight. so give this a try, give it a few minutes to boot up try using the brightness control. Fn+I to turn up the brightness of the backlight..

 

[ajbrehm]

When it first powers on do you see the left green lights (SD card access) blinking for a period of time? This may indicate it's booting up fine, just the screen is dark.. it could be the brightness control for the backlight. so give this a try, give it a few minutes to boot up try using the brightness control. Fn+I to turn up the brightness of the backlight..

No. The green light is always on, whenever the battery is in the device. There is no blinking.


I think it overheated and broke.

 

[Phelsumania]

Nasty sorry to hear about this its a crying shame I hope you resolve it soon. I have no input on this matter just a word of warning the Pandora's battery does not cope well with over charging or being completely discharged. To get the most out of you battery once your current issues have been resolved try to refrain from charging the battery above 90% full and allowing it to discharge below 20% this will maximize the life line of your battery and unit. I can't remember the ins and out off the top of my head but the battery might fail to charge properly if you allow it to continually discharge completely, and overcharging can destroy the battery, I read something on the boards about cases of over charging and discharging the battery.

 

[sverm]

It could have saved a screen brightness of zero before draining the battery? Try Fn-I (the letter i)


hmm on second thought, you'd get some form of boot screen if that was the case.

 

[huniper]

Can you make a video of what happens to the device when you remove and insert the battery?

If you turn on while holding right trigger, the boot menu will come up regardless of SD; the SD being bootable just provides an extra option.


jeff

Tried it. Nothing.

Could you try this step, but instead, place the battery in while holding the right trigger? Make sure you continue to hold the trigger for 10-15 seconds after you insert the battery.

 

[peacelovefleshbones]

Have you check to make sure the battery isn't loose?

I did remove it and put it back twice.


Although I'm not sure how it could have come loose. The Pandora was just sitting there on the desk for the day.


In fact, you can see it here:


http://desertpenguin...penpandora.html

Unrelated:


http://desertpenguin.org/wisdom.html


"I think the kid who plays video games all day is just wasting his lives.


-- Moshe Wilkinson"


I see what you did there.

 

[ajbrehm]

Can you make a video of what happens to the device when you remove and insert the battery?


Could you try this step, but instead, place the battery in while holding the right trigger? Make sure you continue to hold the trigger for 10-15 seconds after you insert the battery.

It's too dark to make the video now.


But I tried this and the green power LED came on as soon as the battery connected but nothing else happened, even when pressing the right trigger while proceeding.

Unrelated:


http://desertpenguin.org/wisdom.html


"I think the kid who plays video games all day is just wasting his lives.


-- Moshe Wilkinson"


I see what you did there.

Well, I play too many video games myself.


Why do you think Android support on the Pandora would be a bad idea?

 

[sverm]

If you see the SD access lights flicker a little bit shortly after power up, it could just be dead video. But this is starting to look like an RMA to me.

 

[ajbrehm]

I don't think so. The first I noticed when I found it thus broken was that I couldn't connect to it via WiFi any more.

 

[ajbrehm]

This has sort of ended. I was asked by the Administrator for my name in a PM two weeks ago and haven't heard anything since then. I sent two PMs asking about what to do next and got no answers.


So now I don't know if and when a new Pandora will be sent to me and where I should send the one I have. I don't even know if any sort of procedure is going on to deal with this matter.


I was very enthusiastic when I ordered the Pandora and remained enthusiastic when it wouldn't turn on any more. But my enthusiasm is waning lately.