Pandora won't boot (no charging light)


mcobit

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You can charge your pandora over usb even, if it will shut down directly after boot:


You should plug in the miniusb and wait till it starts up. When the screen is showing the flashing mouse, put it into lowpowermode immediately and let it charge.
 

WizardStan

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23% and inside the OS, it's looking good :)


Happy again :)
I would hold on the happiness just a little. Charging via USB means you've at least got something to fall back on, but the mains charger should really work. Hopefully, now that the battery has been charged some, the regular charger will be able to take over.
 

tankgirl

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weird, when I plug in the original charger, it does absolutely nothing (no red light).


When I plug in the psp charger, the light flashes on for about 1 second before turning off again.


Mini-usb charger works..


Do I have to reflash the Pandora? Or is there a hardware problem?
 

NoeleyC

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I don't imagine reflashing would make much difference really, it's circuitry built into the Pandora itself that controls the charging, at least you've gotten the wee beast charging now and into the OS. With the battery charged, you'll be able to do a bit more experimentation on what's going on with the main power point though! Worst case scenario at present, you buy a mains USB plug, I use one of them and a PSP data and transfer cable, and that seems to work fine for me at least!
 

tsh

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Sounds to me like there might be a problem with the charging circuit, possibly related to your original charger expiring.


There was at one point a problem (now fixed) where if the charger wasn't detected, the OS would shut down the system if it booted up with less than 1% (or 5%, can't remember) charge - and I found that prevented USB charge from empty - so there are maybe a few oddities lurking, but it really sounds like your problem is hardware to me.
 

mcobit

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Sounds to me like there might be a problem with the charging circuit, possibly related to your original charger expiring.


There was at one point a problem (now fixed) where if the charger wasn't detected, the OS would shut down the system if it booted up with less than 1% (or 5%, can't remember) charge - and I found that prevented USB charge from empty - so there are maybe a few oddities lurking, but it really sounds like your problem is hardware to me.

See here: how to solve that...
 

tsh

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See here: how to solve that...
I remember now - I was going to fix it, but ended up not being able to trace through the power management code (which is I think a bit of a hack anyway)


I'll wiki the workaround.
 
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Tam Toucan

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Sorry to grave dig this thread, but thought I might be useful to have the info in one place. My charger has never worked (not sure if it is the charger or the Pandora). Anyway my battery went down to zero (I was in hospital) and now I can't charge from USB. No light, nothing. Leaving plugged in makes no difference.


Luckily I have two batteries, so I can still used my Pandora, but it does seem that you can't charge from USB unless there is power in the battery.
 

WizardStan

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If the battery completely flatlines, which is likely to happen if it sits at 0 for a few days, then it needs to do a kind of "pre-charge" before it starts in order to bring the battery up to a safe level. This has reportedly taken 30 to 60 minutes from AC during which time there's no LED or anything to indicate it is charging. I don't know if it can do this precharge off of USB, but if it can it will certainly take longer. If it can't, you may have to find an AC charger that works, or lend your battery to someone else with a Pandora and a working AC, just to get it past the flatline threshold.
 

Tam Toucan

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That's interesting. I tried 8 hours on USB, however I've noticed that Windows/my computer seems to sometimes stop charging for some reason i.e. I leave it charging overnight with Windows in sleep mode, but in the moring the light has gone off. So it's possible it didn't get 8hours of charge.


I'll leave it overnight at work connected to my linux box and see if that makes a difference.


Thanks.
 
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S

StreaK

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Oh, seems my pandora stopped booting after discharging the battery [now its flat], I tried connect to AC but no luck. Still no signal. AC adaprer works because i checked it with my PSP. Who should i kill, to revert my pandora to working condition?


I think ED/Craig should think about external adapter to charge battery separetely [not in pandora], because these things are happenning too often :/
 
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WizardStan

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I tried connect to AC but no luck. Still no signal.
How long did you wait after plugging it in? As mentioned, it can take a while for the battery to "pre-charge" if it has gone completely flat. Usually about 30 minutes, but give it a couple hours just to be sure.
 

WizardStan

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It could be that yours is one of the unlucky few that can't play straight off of AC. It's the only thing I can hope for. If the battery doesn't start charging after an hour or two of being plugged in, then it looks like you do have a problem and need a replacement. Sorry.
 
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StreaK

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Something moves in right direction, finally "green light of salvation" lights on my pandora. BTW. This is freakin strange phenomena, i have a pandora which cant start from AC without battery? How this is possible?
 
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