Won't Power Up After SZ 1.61 Update


dejunai

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Jun 6, 2009
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Well I am a little upset... LOL

I tried to update to 1.61 today...

My Pandora was working fine, no troubles ( other than pisspoor wi-fi ).

So I decided to upgrade the OS over-air.

Battery at 92%....

I disabled power-saving on the wi-fi, as usual.

Ran the utility, and it started, ran slowly, but ran...

Eventually it was complaining about a corrupt package.

I close the Terminal, restarted the utility.

It finished without error.

I ran it again, to be safe/sure.

Rebooted.

Well reboot didn't go well.

It stopped at the bootloader, explained it couldn't boot and offered to boot from stored kernel.

So as I expected there were problems, 

No Big Deal, I have an SD card with the 1.61 fullflash.

So into slot 1 goes the fullflash SD card...

System menu offers 'power off' but I am plugged into the wall, so I know it will reboot.

Select 'power off' hold Right Shoulder button,

Whal'la bootloader offers to boot from SD Slot 1, and I select it.

And it goes thru the motions, completes successfully with 'press any key to power off'...

Again plugged in so it should reboot.

Press the 'any' key and it powers off.

...

......

And stays off...

I used the switch to turn in on, but nothing... didn't work.

Pulled the plug, reinserted it, nothing...

Pulled the plug, used the switch nothing.

Pulled the battery, reinserted it, used the switch, nothing.

Pulled the battery, plugged in, nothing.

Tried the switch, plugged in, no battery... nothing...

Really upset, any advice?

-DEJ
 
Two possibilities: boot loader somehow got corrupted when you last flashed off SD Slot 1, or something physically has gone wrong. I can't think of any way either of these two things could possibly have happened.

In the first case with the corrupted boot loader, a very special SD card can be made that will restore it. I've never done it, I'm not even sure where the instructions would be, but as I understand it it's significantly more complex than just copying files like before. Hopefully someone else knows what's needed, I've only ever heard ED talk about it in the context of the very first install they go through before shipping.

I really really hope it's as simple as that, just get this special SD card and reflash the boot loader. Extreme hardware problems are hard to diagnose, you may need to send it in for repair :(
 
There is absolutely no visible power to the unit, no LED, no backlight to the LCD... I dont think it is even able to get to a bootloader. 

Thanks for the advice tho...

-DEJ 
 
Strange, I think nobody reported unbootable system after reflash yet. What firmware did you have before the update? What kind of pandora?

Try disconnecting everything and removing the battery for 10 minutes or so to fully reset the power chip. Then put the battery back in, if it's still dead, plug in a charger and leave for 20 minutes or so, maybe it managed to drain the battery somehow and battery meter was wrong (charging fully discharged battery happens without any signs of life, it's called precharge).
 
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I dont think it is even able to get to a bootloader
Yes, that is what I said, if it isn't just a power issue like Notaz suggests then the bootloader is corrupt and you need to create a special SD card which bypasses the bootloader and reflashes it. ED has mentioned having to do this as part of the initial build, and I remember a couple times as a repair.
 
I had a unbootable Pandora Rebirth Edition gived for repair with similiar Error.


First the Pandora bootet ever and even shutdown worked not for Staying off.


The golden Pandora rebootet every Time i shutdown new again and dont stayed off.


After a a Week or two,the Pandora was then completly Death.


No Life Sign,Akkucell Changing from another Pandora did not work...


...long loading on power Supply did not work...


...completly Death.


Gived it on the Gamescom first for repair and now Case Changing into Aluminium too.


Maybe it was a similiar Error.
 
What firmware did you have before the update? What kind of pandora?
The firmware was SZ 1.55, it is a Classic Pandora.

Try disconnecting everything and removing the battery for 10 minutes or so to fully reset the power chip. Then put the battery back in, if it's still dead, plug in a charger and leave for 20 minutes or so, maybe it managed to drain the battery somehow and battery meter was wrong (charging fully discharged battery happens without any signs of life, it's called precharge).
Will Do.
 
Try disconnecting everything and removing the battery for 10 minutes or so to fully reset the power chip. Then put the battery back in, if it's still dead, plug in a charger and leave for 20 minutes or so, maybe it managed to drain the battery somehow and battery meter was wrong (charging fully discharged battery happens without any signs of life, it's called precharge).
Will Do.
OK, it fired up... it is working, just calibrated... I left the battery out for 2 hours, and put it back in, nothing... I left the battery out for 5 hours, WHEW, it booted, THANK YOU NOTAZ!!!!!
 
Well. still having issues.... It heated up rapidly while configuring it. So I powered it down.

Pulled the battery, let it cool down, battery was warm, but unit was warmer.

After it cooled down, I tried it plugged, no battery, nothing again.... EXCEPT...

The far LEFT LED on the LEFT side lit up. Unit wont power up.

Unplugged it, put in cool battery... Far LEFT LED on LEFT side will come on. Wont power up.

Gonna leave battery out over night.

And if I get it to boot tomorrow, will SD FULLFLASH again.

....Grrrr....
 
That may actually be a legitimate hardware issue.. but I guess we'll see what comes out of you full night reboot.
 
No dice...


Battery was out overnight.


Plugged in, no battery... Far Left Led on LEFT side illuminates brightly for a half second, then dims to half bright, no response from power button.


Not plugged in, insert battery, on insertion... Far Left Led on LEFT side illuminates brightly for a half second, then dims to half bright, no response from power button.


What is my recourse? It is a classic...


I am quite dependent on my Pandora.


Er, was...
 
Maybe a stupid question, but does your Pandora "rattle" if you move it around?

If something gets hot, there might be some short circuit, that could be caused by some loose metalparts in it.
 
no, no rattle... it was performing perfectly prior to the SZ 1.61 update... Not blaming the update per'se, I have used it nearly everyday for the last 2 or 3 years, (how long has it been, LOL)... There is no visible physical damage to the unit, no rattle, no odor of crispy ions. The wi-fi has always been piss poor. I used to have an 'N' dangle for it, tho it was lost at somepoint, so I rarely used or even enabled the onboard wi-fi. As I said in the first post, tho... I did try an over the air update, turned the wi-fi on, disabled powersaving. At somepoint it started complaining about a corrupt package. I had to close the terminal window. ReRan the updater, the second time it completed without error. I ran it a third time. It zoomed by and said all was fine. On reboot, the system could NOT boot to the kernel offering the default kernel, and the pre-book menu, I normally see when holding RIGHT SHOULDER at boot. There were no SD cards in the slots, so I chose 'power off'.


I put the FULLFLASH of SZ in Slot 1... Rebooted with RIGHT SHOULDER held. And proceeded to boot from SD Slot 1. The FULLFLASH ran,and ended with the success message. I pressed the ANY key, and been having issues ever since.


Any chance the first 'over air' update (that failed) could have caused the problem. Specifically a fixxxxable problem. Seems unlikely since I did manage to boot it and configured it after the battery was out for an extended period. Tho once configured (initial setup)... I began my personal configurations, etc. And that is when I noticed it was heating up. I powered down, pulled the battery. I noticed the battery was only warm, but the unit itself was hot. I assumed that during the initial setup I should NOT have chosen 800Mhz as MAX for the Classic. Tho, after initial boot I had set it to 600MHz, simplly because I was configuring it and didn't need any overclock.


Anywayz,once the unit cooled, I left the battery out and used the wall charger. This is when the LED issue began, as described below and in an earlier post. I left it unplugged, and battery out overnight. But to no avail. The unit is clearly getting power, as per the lit LED... but it will not boot, nor perform as expected.


So to recap, any attempt to power the unit... Plug only, Battery only, and Plug with Battery... Results in the far Left LED on the Left bank of LEDs will glow brightly for a moment and then dim to half bright. There is no response of any kind from the power button. No difference, if slot 1 is filled or not, screen is open or not, volume is up or down. Slot 2 has been empty thru out this endeavor.
 
Perhaps it's the battery itself. Have you tried powering it without the battery? All of my Pandori can run without the battery although I've heard some can't. Just a Warning don't put the battery back in while it's running on the charger that can damage the Pandora.

I doubt even a bad install of the firmware would cause any issues that you are describing, If the unit is heating excessively it sounds like a hardware issue..
 
Have you tried powering it without the battery?
Yes, I have repeatedly tried it without the battery, connected by charger directly to the wall... I have tried multiple different chargers, including official Sony PSP chargers.

Does the battery look like it's expanded in any areas?
The battery is fine, appears perfect... I replaced the battery a couple years ago... After mistakenly charging it over night for a 7 day trip, and OOPS not taking it with me, and thus charging it for 7 days... The battery expanded and cracked the cover latches. The replacement battery came with a new cover, and I have not made the same mistake again.

I will likely start a new topic as the SUBJECT of the original post is misleading to my current circumstances.

I currently get visible power to the unit, the FAR LEFT LED of the LEFT LED BANK will turn on when the battery is inserted, or the charger is inserted (no battery). The LED will flash bright for a split second, then dim to half-bright.

There is no response from the power switch the unit will not boot.

Any Advice how to proceed would be appreciated.
 
I have not made the same mistake again.
Since then a lot of improvements to the system has been made: instead of trickle charging to maintain 100% it lets the battery relax between charges, letting it discharge down to 95% before charging back up. Much better for the battery, I don't think there's been a report of inflated battery since that fix went in.
edit: oh yeah, as for advice, I think the only thing you can do now is send it to ED. That sounds like a major hardware fault somewhere.

The far left LED is the SD1 notification LED. Try taking the SD cards out and booting up again maybe? I can't think of anything else.
 
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