Trying not to panic.....yet. My 620LX will not start

Was using my 620LX as per normal this afternoon and internet explorer stalled while I was using it. It does that sometimes, so I did a soft reset.

When the machine rebooted it failed to get past the "Hewlett Packard" introduction screen and just stuck there. I didn't think much of it at that stage, probably just a wierd reset. I just soft reset again and......nothing. Black screen. Soft reset again....nothing...an again and again.

Bleh.

So now I am currently trying a hard reset. Right now I have all the batteries out. The charger still lights up the main coloured button, green while I have the main battery out and orange if it is in, indicating that it still charges.

Going to leave it batteryless for a while. I am feeling like an anxious parent in the hospital waiting room right now.....

Edited by Britty 2006-03-24 3:03 AM

Someone just posted earlier today with a similar issue. It might be that you don't have enough free RAM, and doing a hard reset _should_ fix it, if that's the case. It was also noted that you can try taking out the batteries, press the soft reset button a few times, then putting the batteries back in, and _should_ have the same effect as leaving the batteries out for a very long time.

Well I have attempted to hard reset a few times now. The HPC will not come to life. The screen just stays a lifeless black

Other than just the charge light coming on, nothing else happens.

I fear the worst has come.

Maybe not. Check the voltage out of the adapter. Try a different fully charged battery if you have one. (I guess you tried that though)

leave the batteries out for 1 full day..

or

try to run it off AC without batteries

no other idea right now

edit: i just thought of checking my 620LX... because of this thread.. and it wouldn't start either! put it on AC, no reaction at pressing the power button several times... then i removed backup battery cover (not the battery itself) and pressed reset. this was enough to bring it back to life! it didn't even hard reset (even though battery was low)

try this... reset while charging & AC

I am trying all these suggestions for now, starting at leaving the whole unit without batteries for a full day. Will give me time to borrow a multimeter and check the charger/battery and will work down the list.

So far I feel disheartened, but it's not over until it's over........

Thank you all for your suggestions so far.

Britty,

When the device initially stalled in PIE, was it connected to AC, in the cradle or stand alone off of battery?

Additionally how were you connecting to the Internet, LAN, IR etc?

Have a look at your Backup battery cell also. Check to ensure that there is no sign of unwelcomed corrosion or leakage from it (unlikely). Clean the terminals on the backup cell and main battery compartment.

When you next come to attempting to restore it.
Take the device and put the backup cell in (a new one if you have it)
Leave it for 60 seconds then connect the main battery and / or AC.

In my personal experience, I have seen devices before which would not power up if you slam in the backup and AC battery. As strange as it sounds they have just remained lifeless. I stress again before someone attempts to argue with me - this is in my personal experience over the last 6 years.

do these circumstances matter? why? just curious...

Well I welcome your input. If you think it's relevant, here are some more details.

1. At the time of failure I was connected with AC, but the battery pack was also in the unit (just adding this for clarity)

2. Internet connection was via Ethernet/LAN. My card is a Xircom Credit Card Ethernet CE3B-100BTX if that has any significance.

3. The backup battery is clean as are the terminals. I replaced the backup battery about 4 weeks past. In relative terms, it is still quite new. The main battery terminals are also quite clean and free of corrosion.

4. I'll be trying your battery sequence after a restless nights sleep. Should be more than enough time to guarantee a hard reset, I would think

Edited by Britty 2006-03-24 8:51 AM

Let us know how it goes, especially the adapter voltage.

I've also had the weird "die without reason" that was cured by the proper sequence of battery replacement and hard reset switch. Now I don't even blink when it happens.

Yes of course it matters. Computers don't just stall, refuse to reboot and then refuse to start because they feel like it. Both the LAN and the AC provide a path to earth out of and into the device.

The fact that the battery was in should render an AC line surge moot, so that's good news. If you put it to your nose, is there any hint of a scorched smell?
Additionally the next time you power it up, should it rfail to repond, turn it on as bast you think it is, and put it right up to your ear. You should be able to hear the CPU chattering.

Today I went into diagnostic mode.

1. Firstly I borrowed a multimeter and checked the battery and the AC adaptor output voltage. The battery pack measured around 6.9 volts and the AC adaptor measures around 12.6 volts with no load. This dropped to around 11.9 volts when I loaded it with around 800mA external load, since I wasn't able to actually use the 620LX in it's current state as a reasonable load. The battery voltage isn't unexpected, it's not fully charged anymore. The AC adaptor output is what I would consider within reasonable operating conditons. The backup battery measures 2.9v just standalone. This is about right too. I didn't buy it very long ago.

2. This morning, after about 13 hours of total powerdown of the 620, I put the backup battery back into its compartment. Left it there for about 90 seconds, then plugged in the main battery pack. Then plugged in the AC adaptor. Tried to power on and.....nothing. Still lifeless Tried pressing the soft reset button a number of times, but it still didn't come out of its coma.

3. I unplugged everything again and sniffed around the unit, trying to sense if there is any char smell. This in itself must have been funny if anyone would have been watching. How often to you go sniffing into every orifice of your handheld? I didn't smell anything I would consider out of the ordinary.

4. I plugged everything in again, same order as above. Put the unit up against my ear and powered on. I didn't hear anything like a chattering. It was quite silent.

5. At this stage I figured I had nothing left to lose, unplugged the whole lot, got hold of an appropriate torx head screwdriver and removed the bottom cover and had a look inside. Without a schematic diagram I was guessing at best. But it was easy enough to spot the processor, some of the RAM memory devices, the ROMS. The rest is mainly housekeeping logic chips etc. While everything was open, I applied power and carefully, using my meter I just checked that 5v was reaching the main devices. And it seems to be. The processor was gradually getting warm, like it was running but without further diagnostic tools like a CRO or similar I can't tell if there is clock signal or whatever else or if it is in some broken mode.

6. The units battery charging circuit seems to operate normally. I expect this is seperate circuitry to the main functions of the 620, so I shouldn't get my hopes up that this actually means anything.

I don't know where else I can go from here.

It sounds like you are pretty affay with circuitry if you know how to use an oscilliscope. With my devices you can always tell if there is life becuase of the RFI leakage you get, causing the CPU/circuitry to titter to something of a pulse.

I'm sure that you've done this already, but have to attempted to reseat the RAM/ROM chip?

i'm not sure it is that simple

the jornada i bought recently dead (to revive another jornada with it) died because of such a surge, and the battery was in though fully charged.

the phenom ultra has a totally dead battery, 0V, and if that has anything to do with the death of the phenom - battery certainly didn't protect the unit

but i don't know how the 620lx works





strange, as you had the battery AND AC when it died... 6.9V is an almost fully discharged battery, barely capable of supplying enough power to turn on the device - then less than 1 min of usage and you get 6V and then it won't supply power to the hpc at all.

but as i said i don't know much.. certainly not enough!

It depends on the circuitry map of the device, if the path of least resistance was through into the battery and not through into the charge circut (which we're being told is working) then the bettery will have absorbed it - exactly what a UPS does.

If one other hand the battery was the cause of the spike/surge e.g. shock discharge, then yes it's blatantly not going to render it of any use.