I got my PRS-505 shortly after they began to ship.. and about six months ago, I packed and moved, and after a conversation I had last night, decided to take it out of the drawer I've had it in for those six months, and start to use it again.

However, I've run into an issue. It was dead, obviously, so I put it on my PSP charger overnight. This morning when I went to turn it on, there was a thin black line on the right side of the screen, and what looks like a light grey rectangle covering the left third of the screen.

Is the screen dead? I've turned it on, I think, because the orange light turns on and the screen flickers or somesuch, but several seconds after sliding the switch, that orange indicator begins to blink and eventually goes dark again.

I honestly don't know what's going on. Any help? I'd hate to have to pay for repairs on this thing.. so expensive. Might as well get a new one for Christmas, though I'd rather keep this one.

I'd plug it in your usb port on the pc to make sure the internal memory works, and to see if the 'red' light appears,an indicator of an empty battery.
Make it charge via usb,and test the charger on the PSP.

I'd also try to press the reset button on the back (this can be done without fear of loss of books or data),and move and hold the power switch for a couple of seconds.This should make the reader reset.
If nothing happens on the screen move and hold the power switch for a second time.

hope that'd do the trick!

The internal memory works fine, I can access every file stored on the reader right now. The red light appears, then turns off.. so I try to turn the reader on again, and the line that appears on the right hand side gets darker and at one point faded away completely.

I never see the USB Charging indicator at all, either, and I know the PSP charger works fine - after all, it charges my PSP.

I've also done several soft resets, and that's typically when I get the most "results".

So.. yeah.

If you can see the files, that means the Reader boots properly. So if you don't see anything on the screen, probably it is broken (or some connection to it).

+1,
the screen should show you a USB sign, telling you it's connected to the pc before you can access the internal memory!
If a reset in the back, and holding the powerknob does not do anything, then I agree that it could be a screen issue. Perhaps a broken screen?

Has anyone found a solution to the problem described above?

It has happened to me also - screen is grey on one half and light on the other but can see nothing. When i do a soft reset and switch on, the orange light stays solid for a minute and then flickers for a few seconds before dissappearing.

Also when i connect it to the computer i can view all files. the red light also comes on for a period but then goes off but i still cannot view anything on the screen once i remove the USB cable and switch on.

I bought this as a Christmas present for my fiancee from waterstones and so is about 5 months old. Any help would be appreciated as it is cracking me up.

Problems like that have been reported several times on several different threads. The most common belief is that it is either a broken glass substrate (need new screen) from dropping it or otherwise playing rough.

The second is believed to be an issue with the batery and the charging systems inside. This was what I had happen to my 505. If the batery gets depleted to the point where it is deader-than-dead, you have to use the PSP/Wall charger to put the juice back into it. Sometimes this results in the gray lines of death.

My solution was to call Sony support and hope it is under the MFR warranty still. If you bought it within the past year, Sony may be able to help you out. Make sure you get a hold of the Laredo Texas Customer Service branch for final service. They handled my warranty claim without a hitch. It cost me roughly $31USD for overnight shipping to Tx and back to Fl.

If this is the problem, make sure you tell them it is from the battery issue I explained above.

Hopefully they will be able to help you out. If you want, I can try to track down the name of the CSR I spoke to in tech support.

Thanks for the reply.

The battery had been drained to nothing and then left for a few weeks so it was completely flat.

I have only been using the USB to charge it so my first port of call is going to be getting a wall charger and see if I can resurrect it.

I will let you know if this makes any difference.

I think I'm having the same problems as described above: it won't switch on, I get the orangle light blinking, and if I plug it in to my PC the red light comes on as if it's charging, but then goes blank again after a few minutes. I can see the internal storage, but the screen is blank. I've tried a soft reset, and sliding the power switch, and it doesn't help.

I don't have a wall charger, nor do I have one for a PSP. I do have one for my HTC TyTN II, not sure if I can use that one?

Last time I used it it was working fine, and I haven't touched it since then (i.e. I haven't dropped it or anything). It's only 2 months old :( I can probably return it and get my money back, but I most likely won't be able to get a replacement (due to the way I imported it; I'm not in the US), which would be very disappointing.

Get youself a PSP charger, they cost almost nothing online.

You can even look at your local version of craigslist for a used charger.

I got my new unit for €6 plus shipping....

You can recover from flat battery with only USB but it can take several hours just to get the red light. PSP charger is much faster and more convenient.

I plugged in the PSP adaptor AND the USB adaptor.
Reason being, that when plugging in only one of the two, you still can't boot that reader immediately.
I think if the battery is deader than dead, the reader notices the powerplug being inserted, and wants to boot the screen into the "battery charging" view.

If it seems like your battery does not seem to charge, and the screen won't go on, I'd advise you to plug in the two plugs at the same time.
This should give the reader enough juice to boot the device, AND charging the battery at the same time.

I suspect when charging via USB or AC, the reader is literally using almost all that juice to boot; while the battery also needs almost everything to charge, and this gives the error that recharging won't work.
So get a PSP adaptor, and plug the reader in a USB port and the AC at the same time.
Worked for me.

Would a PSP car charger work? I'm having trouble trying to find a reasonably priced PSP charger in SA.

Also, is this something that's likely to re-occur every time the battery runs down? Do I need to charge the reader every week or so to keep this from happening?

I borrowed a PSP charger yesterday and left it on charge overnight. However the same thing happened where the red light only appearded for half an hour or so and went out and the reader still would not switch on.

I am trying the USB and PSP charger at the moment.

Other than that I have found my receipt and am getting ready to send it off to SONY as it is only 5 months old.

UPDATE: PSP Charger and USB together could still not get the reader working again. Doesn't seem to be a problem with the charging. Can not think of anything else to do. Will just have to get in contact with Sony (or Waterstones- were i bought it 5 months ago).

When you plug in both, press the reset button, and then poweron?

If you do that, make sure you have no SD card in the reader.
Sometimes an SD card can host a broken bootloader, or perhaps non compatible,or too many books, which will make your reader freeze.

A last thing to do, is to free up at least 5; or preferrably 10 MB from the internal flash.
Connect the reader to your laptop and do that first.
Sometimes the reader can't boot due to insufficient free disk space.

As far as a carcharger, yes.it's the same as the PSP AC adaptor. Same voltage, and more than enough Amps; so it should work.

I finally managed to borrow a PSP charger, and the same thing's happening - plug it in, the red light comes on, and then goes off after a few minutes.

So now I'm wondering - is the battery not charging at all? Or is the battery fully charged, and the screen is actually faulty? (There's 80Mb free, so I don't think that could be an issue; and I don't have any SD card in).

Is there any way to check the battery via software? Neither the Sony software or Calibre seems to give you any information about the reader itself.

I'm just trying to figure it out if I have to send it away for repair, or not - I'm going on an overseas trip in 3 weeks, and it'll take 6 weeks to repair :(

Edit: thinking about it, it can't be the screen. Because then when I switch it on, the screen might be blank but the little light would be on. At the moment, that's off. So it must be battery related, somehow.

My reader has sat idle for a couple months and I'm now having these problems.

At first, it would try to boot after charging via USB, but it still had no battery life and would shutdown halfway through the first screen transition.

Now it's just locked up cold. Reset and power buttons do nothing.

I get a red-light, but no connectivity when it is plugged in via USB. I'm wondering if my battery is even capable of holding a charge anymore.

I'm not sure whether I should try the PSP charger+USB suggestion (I'd hate to buy a charger just to kickstart this sucker) -- or just go ahead and look for a replacement battery.

I just don't know what to do. I've tried every variation of reset button and power button, but it is frozen with the red light when plugged in.


Edit: I managed to unfreeze it. I unplugged the USB to take away what tiny bit of power it had. I then popped out both SD and MS fake cards, thinking their mere insertion may have been causing a power drain by making the device poll them. I was then able to boot to the USB connected screen. Now lets see if it now has the brainpower to trickle charge via USB.

That seems to have done the trick.

It definitely takes a lot of finessing to get this thing to work on a truly dead battery. I can see a lot of people who aren't gadget freaks just giving up on it.

That seems to have done the trick.

It definitely takes a lot of finessing to get this thing to work on a truly dead battery. I can see a lot of people who aren't gadget freaks just giving up on it.

Did the red light stay on consistently while charging? Mine goes off after a few minutes on charge, so I'm wondering if your solution might work for me.

Did the red light stay on consistently while charging? Mine goes off after a few minutes on charge, so I'm wondering if your solution might work for me.

Yes, if the light's not on, it's not charging.

You say you've got a PSP charger but is it one with the round connector (which is what you need) or a USB-one, in which case it won't work (USB connector needs a real computer on the other end of it.)

Yes, if the light's not on, it's not charging.

You say you've got a PSP charger but is it one with the round connector (which is what you need) or a USB-one, in which case it won't work (USB connector needs a real computer on the other end of it.)

Yes, it was the round connector, I made sure of that :)

Unfortunately the red light still came on for a few minutes, and then went off again. Which made me wonder if it's fully charged, but with a frozen screen... but then when I switch it on the light should come on, and instead it just flashes orange a bit and then the light goes off again.

I've a soft reset (many, many times) and can't do a hard reset since I can't see anything on the screen.

the pin button on the back performs a hard reset.

the pin button on the back performs a hard reset.

It's more than that, I believe - See here (http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Sony_Portable_Reader#Reset_Instructions) on the wiki

Anyone ever have a solution to this one? I'm having the same problem under the same circumstances.

Ok, here's my problem and it is foolish but does ANYONE do repairs on these things like pdasmart.com does for pda's and phones and psp's?? I need to get a repair on a prs-505 that my wife accidentally dropped in the washing machine with a load of clothes? We pulled it out before the cycle really got going but it was flooded. I stuck it in rice right away and waited a few days before I tried to charge or turn it on. Now, it takes charge and battery says it's onj but I can't get a reboot so that we can read the screen or reset the system. I've done both a hard and soft reset with no luck. Just horizontal stripes in the screen that I can't clear. Can anyone help me repair this thing? It's a bit expensive to just write off if there's another option. Warranty doesn't cover this and we didn't get the SquareTrade warranty in time.