Pandora does not start, even from mains....

[TomVS]

My pandora wont start anymore...


I thought I had a flat battery so I connected the power cord. Nothing happened, only the backlight from the display seemed to switch on.


I removed the mains, and removed the battery


Reassembled. Tried to power on, nothing happened, no lights switch on


I tried a volt meter on the power supply --- 5 Volts so seems ok


Tried to remove battery and boot only from power supply, nothing


Tried a sony psp power supply nothing...


Any suggestions,It seems my pandora died !

 

[TrashyMG]

My pandora wont start anymore...


I thought I had a flat battery so I connected the power cord. Nothing happened, only the backlight from the display seemed to switch on.


I removed the mains, and removed the battery


Reassembled. Tried to power on, nothing happened, no lights switch on


I tried a volt meter on the power supply --- 5 Volts so seems ok


Tried to remove battery and boot only from power supply, nothing


Tried a sony psp power supply nothing...


Any suggestions,It seems my pandora died !

Booting straight from the mains without the battery doesn't seem to work with every Pandora from what I've heard around the forums. Your issue could be an issue with connectivity of the battery. Some people tried using pieces of paper and pad the area above the battery were it's contacting the pad, thus adding a bit more pressure to were the battery contacts the terminals.

 

[TomVS]

I applied some more pressure to the battery to ensure contacts...


It could be that my battery ran flat.


If the pandora is not capable to boot from power cord... Will my battery be able to charge... I believed to charge that the pandora needs to be powered on ?


This is all very confusing

 

[MarioPandio]

Try leaving it connected to the mains with the battery in for quite a long time. if your battery did truly run flat, you wont see any activity or lights for awhile, then you should get a flickering weak red light on the right until about 10% is reached, then a full red light again.

 

[TomVS]

Allright less panicing now...


Will try to keep it on mains... Hope that my battery is properly seated... Will report later...

 

[Nintendo]

Be careful for the battery might expand a little if left on mains/charge for awhile, ok.

 

[EvilDragon]

It's true, not all Pandoras do work without a battery.


And if the battery is flat, it can take up to 30 - 45 minutes connected to mains before it boots up again. No big deal.


You could also measure + and - on the battery with a multimeter and check how much juice is left there.


If it's 0,0V then it has shut itself off (it does that to prevent a deep discharge).


Even it that's the case, recharging should work.

 

[TomVS]

I left the pandora connected for recharging during the night...


Result : no activity


The only change is now that when I remove the battery and put it back in, a red light on the right comes on for about 3 seconds and the screen backlight switches on for a few seconds... Then nothing....


Measuring the Battery... It produces only 2.7 Volts...


Is it possible to power the pandora using USB ?

 

[Nintendo]

It should be, because Pandora is able to be charged via USB.

 

[EvilDragon]

2.7V is too low, it won't boot.


Might be you have a broken battery - or a broken AC Adaptor.

 

[mal_CanDo]

> And if the battery is flat, it can take up to 30 - 45 minutes connected to mains before it boots up again. No big deal.


I had that last night - playing the excellent Cave Story, ignored the warnings about the Pandora about to power out and kept playing, and then the Pandora shut down completely. When I plugged it in, nothing happened at all ( no light, nada ). Was a wee bit worried, thought it had bricked! Was hoping to continue playing with it plugged in.


This morning when I woke up, it was sitting at 100% battery - all good


If no-one has played CaveStory / NxEngine yet, I would highly recommend it ( put your cpu speed to 800 ).


http://repo.openpandora.org/?page=detail&app=nxengine

 

[TomVS]

Have been trying various things today ---- the summary :


I left my pandora all night plugged in , hoping it would be revived in the morning - no effect


Measured the voltage of my power adapter - About 5 Volts so should be ok.


Tried my old Sony PSP charger for a few hours - no effect


Tried to remove the battery to measure it - About 2.7 Volts - Too low - Sometimes there is no power at all : 0 Volts coming from the battery : This is strange...


If the pandora needs to be powered on to charge... How would it be possible to charge a completely empty battery that has been removed ? ? ?


So voltage does not change when leaving the Pandora connected to Main power for several hours !


When reinserting the battery when connected to main power, the red light on the right works for about 3 seconds, backlight jumps on but after 3 seconds : completely dead pandora


Tried switching on holding start


Tried putting in battery holding start while connected to main power...


Tried putting in battery holding R + Start etc etc -- No effect


Tried swithing on with bootable SD - no effect


So it seems my unit has died ??????? Anyone knows the procedure for repairs ? I purchased from Craig....

 

[MarioPandio]

Have been trying various things today ---- the summary :


I left my pandora all night plugged in , hoping it would be revived in the morning - no effect


Measured the voltage of my power adapter - About 5 Volts so should be ok.


Tried my old Sony PSP charger for a few hours - no effect


Tried to remove the battery to measure it - About 2.7 Volts - Too low - Sometimes there is no power at all : 0 Volts coming from the battery : This is strange...


If the pandora needs to be powered on to charge... How would it be possible to charge a completely empty battery that has been removed ? ? ?


So voltage does not change when leaving the Pandora connected to Main power for several hours !


When reinserting the battery when connected to main power, the red light on the right works for about 3 seconds, backlight jumps on but after 3 seconds : completely dead pandora


Tried switching on holding start


Tried putting in battery holding start while connected to main power...


Tried putting in battery holding R + Start etc etc -- No effect


Tried swithing on with bootable SD - no effect


So it seems my unit has died ??????? Anyone knows the procedure for repairs ? I purchased from Craig....

Sounds like the battery was pretty screwed already as ED already said but the part you did in bold there, will have killed the battery for pretty much definite.

 

[darfgarf]

Sounds like the battery was pretty screwed already as ED already said but the part you did in bold there, will have killed the battery for pretty much definite.

or at least given it one hell of a kicking, sure the manual mentions not to do anything to the battery while plugged in, tut tut

 

[TomVS]

Sounds like the battery was pretty screwed already as ED already said but the part you did in bold there, will have killed the battery for pretty much definite.

or at least given it one hell of a kicking, sure the manual mentions not to do anything to the battery while plugged in, tut tut

I know only tried it as a last attempt... Inserting the battery now without connection to the wall does axactly the same thing....


I guess I will have to send my unit in for repairs...

 

[MarioPandio]

I wasn't having a go anyway TomVS, you had exhausted all possibles and were troubleshooting and that's the drastic last attempt I guess.


Luckily ED had already noted your battery is probably knackered, if not the AC adapter and you'd already tried working alternatives for that, so the battery must have been shot somehow already.


RMA or getting a new battery looks to be the way forward sadly.


You earlier asked "If the pandora needs to be powered on to charge... How would it be possible to charge a completely empty battery that has been removed ? ? ? "


The only known answer here, is to use an energizer XP4000 battery pack http://www.carphonew...IZER-XP4000-BLA that ships with an adapter that will charge any lithium battery, externally from whatever device it belongs to. In addition you get the USB based battery pack into the package that will act as an additional battery store for the Pandora on long trips away from AC etc.


You have to check where your buying it from includes the external battery charging adapter though, as I dont think that link mentions it. Its confirmed to work by a forum user here.





edit : for highlighting and illiterate attempts at correcting grammar

 

[darfgarf]

while it's off it will trickle charge the battery, so it's actually just a matter of time before there's enough to turn on and then up the charging current. that said, a completely discharged li-po is almost useless, and rather hard to get back to a useful state, sure it'll hold a charge still, but nowhere enar as good as it should be able to

 

[TomVS]

Thank you for all the advice... I contacted openpandorasales to ask what to do...


Sweet Irony :::::> I had my pandora for TWO MONTHS now.


I hope another two will solve the problem

 

[EvilDragon]

My guess is that's the battery.


You should get and try a new battery before shipping back the unit.

 

[TomVS]

My guess is that's the battery.


You should get and try a new battery before shipping back the unit.

I visited the website of your shop gp2xshop.de. It seems that the pandora batteries are out of stock. Do you have any idea when they will be available again ?