So I updated my Reader when the new firmware came out, of course, and recently I noticed something odd. My battery meter was down to one-half, so I plugged it in and let it charge more than 24 hours. When I went to use it, however, the battery meter was *still* at one-half. I thought I must have not plugged it in fully, or something, but having just done the same thing again, the problem still persists.

However, I can't tell if it's actually the battery life that's been affected... the meter hasn't gone down, either. Plugging the reader in causes the meter to go to full, the "lightning" icon to appear, and the charging LED to illuminate.

Has anyone else seen something like this?

Edit: Hmm, after plugging it in with the screen *on*, the battery seems to be stable at full, again... Perhaps.

Perhaps the firmware had just lost its "reference point" for the meter? Happens occasionally. Might be an idea to let it run pretty "flat" and then charge again.

So I updated my Reader when the new firmware came out, of course, and recently I noticed something odd. My battery meter was down to one-half, so I plugged it in and let it charge more than 24 hours. When I went to use it, however, the battery meter was *still* at one-half. I thought I must have not plugged it in fully, or something, but having just done the same thing again, the problem still persists.

However, I can't tell if it's actually the battery life that's been affected... the meter hasn't gone down, either. Plugging the reader in causes the meter to go to full, the "lightning" icon to appear, and the charging LED to illuminate.

Has anyone else seen something like this?

Edit: Hmm, after plugging it in with the screen *on*, the battery seems to be stable at full, again... Perhaps.

I've had the exact problem ater the update.and was concerned that it was mechanical!!! I watched it when I plug it in to recharge...the red light goes on and then turns off in about 5 minutes. Now we know the source was the update and can look for a solution.
Mitcll

So I updated my Reader when the new firmware came out, of course, and recently I noticed something odd. My battery meter was down to one-half, so I plugged it in and let it charge more than 24 hours. When I went to use it, however, the battery meter was *still* at one-half. I thought I must have not plugged it in fully, or something, but having just done the same thing again, the problem still persists.

However, I can't tell if it's actually the battery life that's been affected... the meter hasn't gone down, either. Plugging the reader in causes the meter to go to full, the "lightning" icon to appear, and the charging LED to illuminate.

Has anyone else seen something like this?

Edit: Hmm, after plugging it in with the screen *on*, the battery seems to be stable at full, again... Perhaps.

Mine did the same thing, had one bar left of power.... charged it up, red light went out, removed it from the charger....... it was still reading low....... plugged it back in, light went out pretty quickly and then the meter was reading correctly.....

now it seems fine.......I am still full metered since the update..... of course I haven't looked at it yet this morning, LOL

I had the same problem, with the meter stuck on one segment(the lowest one). I charged over-night last night and still had only one segment. I did a reset and the problem was fixed. Now I have to work up enough courage to snap the cover back on.

Steady, Norm, steady. You can do it. We're all pulling for you! Now, just take a deep breath, and apply precisely 5.4387lbs of pressure in an exactly vertical direction. :laugh4:

Don't forget the proper technique Norm... place the Sony Reader face down on a safe flat surface, and then press the cover onto the back of the Reader. It puts a lot less strain on the screen that way.

I called Sony support and they were befuddled. Then I consulted the only people who seem to know anything about this....the folks at this forum. I hit reset and WHAM BAM it is HEALED.

THANKS TO ALL FOR THIS AND ALL YOUR HELP ON EVERYTHING

Mitch

Identical issue here - battery gauge stuck on three bars, even though the "charging" light was out. Soft reset has fixed it.

I thought my battery was lasting an unusual amount of time on 3 bars.

I'll have to try a reset.

I have a tool that looks like a mini Allen wrench (hex wrench) except smooth on the outside. It came with an old TDK CD-R drive years ago to open the tray without electrical power. It allowed me to perform a reset without removing the case!

Mine was stuck at 3/4; but, now all is well. Thanks.

To add weight to this complaint, I'll chime in with the same problem. Reset fixed it. Thanks, guys.

See that, Sony?!

Yep, my battery indicator is confused as well. Even though I performed a reset, it's still stuck at 1 bar after several hours of charging via USB. (Which used to work fine.) Now trying to charge it directly.

Nope, after charging it directly for hours it's still stuck at 1 bar. Charge light is off. I'm going to drain it fully with an MP3 on repeat and will try again in the morning.

Mine just stayed at 2 bars after a couple of hours' charging, a soft reset seems to have fixed it right up, though. You did do the reset after the charge, right, Laurens? Just checking. :nice:

Did a reset and now it gives me 4 bars again... Strange, though. 'Cause earlier I charged it fully through USB (as indicated by the charging light turning off), then performed a soft reset and it was still stuck at 1 bar. Let's see how it goes now.

Glad it seems to be behaving itself now. Hope it keeps it up. :nice:

I think we can reasonably form the conclusion that this is a generic problem with the upgrade. I suspect that what may be happening is that, following the upgrade, the battery meter is regarding its charge state at that time as being "fully charged" and refusing to go any higher. Certainly seems that a soft reset is required to sort it out.

ditto. I did a full recharge/reset right before the update, now the bar remains where it is. soft reset seemed to have fixed the battery meter here too. how many of you charge with the usb cable and how many of you charge with the ac adaptor?

Let's have a poll on it, shall we? :grin: I'll put one in the main conference.

Same problem here on both my Readers. How very odd. Charged them both over night - both still had 2 bars in the morning. Weiiiird.

Have you done a soft reset, WilliamG? That should fix the problem.

I was curious, I was back down to 2 bars...... so I plugged in for charging, light went out..... was still down to 2 bars............. uggggggggg, anyway, did a soft reset for mine as well and now it's reading full.
Sure takes a long time for the thing to boot up, I was starting to think it was frozen there for a second!!!

Sure takes a long time for the thing to boot up....Aren't you glad you don't have to do that boot up thing every time you want to read? :grin:

YES! :D

Have you done a soft reset, WilliamG? That should fix the problem.

Not yet. No doubt it will fix the problem. Was just adding that I experienced the problem, too. Yay Sony! :P

Aren't you glad you don't have to do that boot up thing every time you want to read? :grin:

That's why I'd never buy something like a Tablet PC for reading - imagine having to go through the lengthy Windows boot cycle every time you wanted to read something :grin:. I know there's a "suspend" feature but I've never really trusted that - when I use it with my laptop it always seems to break things.

I wonder if we have to do a soft reset with each update they give us? Actually that might be something we have to do once an update is received. What do you guys think?

Probably just as well to do one just to be on the safe side. Only takes a minute to do.

well that boot yesterday sure felt like a loooooooong time....

What is a difference between hard reset and soft reset on the reader?

A hard reset completely erases on-board (non-OS) memory, and a soft reset doesn't.

Other than that, the hard reset is harder to do (requires a Vulcan nerve pinch), and takes a fair bit longer to run.

If, on the other hand, you're asking how to do the two types of reset, the answers you want are in the Wiki (http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Sony_Portable_Reader#Reset_Instructions). :nice:

Thanks a lot.
That's what I wanted to know. I didn't know that hard reset even exists.

Still having problems with the battery indicator. After the reset, it nicely indicated four bars. Great, I thought, but no, it dropped to three bars after I turned it back on a day later, without any actual use. Then, after charging, it dropped to two bars!

Any way to downgrade the firmware? I never had any problems with the stock firmware, but ever since "upgrading" to the latest version, the battery indicator is completely out of whack. Now it says the battery is completely depleted, even though I haven't used the Reader at all since (supposedly) charging it fully last week.

This makes me worry. I had battery problems before the update. The battery lasted like ~500 pages or so. Now, after the update I can almost see the battery meter going down.

The problem is that I don't know if I should replace the battery or not ( if I can even find it).

Laurens, did you try to do a hard reset?

We can't all be tearing open our readers to put in a new battery.

I noticed as well, mine still goes down, sure not getting the amount of pages as sony states. That is BS IMO and if anyone gets that many page turns I sure would love ot hear about it.

Could you see a reader recall here???????????

I don't know how many pages I get on a battery charge, but it's certainly SEVERAL thousand, even if not the 7,500 that Sony claim. Since I last charged my Reader I've read the whole of a 2,100 page book, and I'm 500 pages into a 2nd book, and my Reader is still showing 3 bars on the battery meter.

Their claim is presumably under some sort of "ideal" test conditions, just like the "miles per gallon" claim for a car is made under the optimal conditions of driving around and around a race track at a constant speed, and bears little relationship to the way that you drive a car in the "real world".

I'm more than happy with the battery life of my Reader.

Not sure if it's a hardware issue. My troubles started after changing the firmware. The original firmware went to three bars only once. Haven't tried a hard reset yet, though I've soft-resetted it every time after charging and it showed four bars.

I have the same problem with the battery level indicator after my firmware update. It will not show a increase of power level after chargeing unless I do a reset. I discussed this with a Sony rep on their talk site and his conclusion was "It may be a bad battery and you will have to send it in". As long as it works I don't want to send it off and find out I have to pay to get it back.

________
Norm

Then Sony put out a lot of readers with a bad battery!

2nd time full charge after the firmware upgrade. takes reset to get to full 4 bars from1 again,

I noticed as well, mine still goes down, sure not getting the amount of pages as sony states. That is BS IMO and if anyone gets that many page turns I sure would love ot hear about it.

Had my Reader little more than 3 months. From beginning only got about 2-3000 page turns, and quit keeping track.

After upgrade and reset, kept track again and this time got about 3500 page turns. Not bad, but far cry from 7500.

My Rocket eBook with backlight goes longer between charges. Ah, well...

I just had the same problem with reader. I hadn't charged it since I updated about a week after the new firmware came out. My battery ran down and I got the low battery warning so I popped it onto the USB cable overnight and in the morning I still had the liow battery warning. I popped out my memory card and tried again. Same deal. Remembering that sometimes the system can get too low to charge off USB I busted out the AC adapter and again let it charge overnight, this time with the memory card out of it. And guess what!?! I still had the low battery warning. So being the industrious fellow I am (humble too ;) ), I came on here and checked the forums. Finding a link to the reset instructions on the wiki I gave the soft reset a whirl. Surprise! It worked. After a wait that seemed like forever as it powered back on, my battery was back again at 4 bars and everything worked fine. Just another long wait while it indexed my memory card after popping it back in and everything was good to go.

So far it seems like the battery may be lasting longer since the reset. I've not actually measured but when it "died" on me I had about 300 pages left in the book I was reading and I'm about 250 into the next and the bar hasn't moved. Before the reset I seem to recall the battery emptying faster, again no actual measurments but I noticed the battery being about a bar lower after reading a 500-600 page book.

I definately agree that the 7500 page turns is under optimal conditions, 7500+ page book, start reading on a full battery that was charged after loading page 1, never turning the reader off or bookmarking a page, etc.

Also something that occurred to me while thinking about my battery issue, are they ($ony) calling a page turn one change in the screen or do they include the black flash that the reader does before showing the next page? If they're just counting page turns by saying to themselves (fake numbers here folks, I don't know the real ones off the top of my head) the battery has 7.5 watts and it takes 1 milliwatt to change the screen once, so therefore we (by we I mean $ony marketing) can say it's good for (7.5 watts/1 milliwatt= 7500) 7500 page turns, then in actual usage it'd be more like 3750 if the black flash is is a screen change too. Less if you count all the bookmarks, menu reads, power on/off switching, etc. that is done during normal usage of the reader.

Based on the effort it took to get to the halfway point a few weeks back it would seem that I am getting about 7,000 page turns per charge. Since the Reader uses almost no power between turns my reading speed is not a factor in the battery life. :)

All books are in the main memory with no SD card loaded and all books are in either the Sony CONNECT store BBeB format or LRS format. No MP3 music or pictures are loaded on the Reader.

It seems that there are major differances in page turns between Readers -- more than we would expecct given normal manufacturing varriances.

I find the only way to get immediate "bar" gratification from a charge is to turn the Reader ON, then plug the charger into it.

The display is not erased while charging, so it might leavemore of a ghost later.

Interestingly, the displayed image seems to lose contrast over time when it is left displayed like this.

I haven't upgraded my Reader, but I also experience fluctuations in the battery bar meter. Some times the battery seems to deplate faster than other times. I have no idea what is causing this behavior.

There definitely seems to be ongoing "battery meter wierdness" following the upgrade. Yesterday, my Reader was down to 2 bars on the meter, so I left it plugged into my PC all day until the "charge" light went out. When I disconnected the USB cable, the meter showed 3 bars. I did a soft reset and it went back to 4 bars.

Hope they fix this in the next update - it's a bit of a nuisance having to do a reset after each charge.

I attempted a chat with Sony Support this morning, but they told me there's no chat support for the Reader and gave me a phone number to call instead. So, I called to inquire whether Sony officially knew that there was a post-update problem with the charge meter not registering 100% without being reset. He said they had received a few complaints about it, but said that it would help the issue if there was a larger volume of calls complaining about it. So, for what it's worth, the phone number is 1-866-962-7669. They'll ask your name, phone number and serial number of the Reader. Reading between the lines, it sounded like the greater the number of calls, the faster a corrective update would occur.

Jim

Yesterday was the first time I have had an issue with the battery indicator showing incorrectly. I let it charge the day before and after checking it after the light went out it still showed 1 bar. I thought maybe that it didn't charge so I plugged it back in overnight and when I turned it on yesterday, still the 1 bar was showing. I tried turning it off and then back on with the same result.

I have read a little about the soft reset, but before I came here to see exactly what was required to reset it and what issues may arrise, I decided to turn the reader on, plug the charger in and as soon as I did that, the battery indicator reset back to showing a full charge. No soft reset was required.

There definitely seems to be ongoing "battery meter wierdness" following the upgrade. Yesterday, my Reader was down to 2 bars on the meter, so I left it plugged into my PC all day until the "charge" light went out. When I disconnected the USB cable, the meter showed 3 bars. I did a soft reset and it went back to 4 bars.

Hope they fix this in the next update - it's a bit of a nuisance having to do a reset after each charge.
Since the soft.update I find almost the same thing.

I've waited a bit, before I jumped in the thread because I found it childish to constantly count power bars; just like driving and keeping one's eyes on the gas gauge.

But in this case I admit there is a little something unusual. In my reader's case, when I put it to charge (usb) there is no change in the power display. Like you Harry, I left the reader plugged in for a whole day and there was no change of display at all. I had to resort to a soft restart to get 'full power' displayed.
If it were up to me I'd get rid of the display altogether and wait for the failsafe to tell me about charging. That could be an option! :wink:

:shrug: I prefer having the meter ... it let's me decide when to recharge so that I can do it when I don't plan to read in the first place, rather than having to charge whenever the battery runs out, probably at a a time when I want to read (otherwise, why would I have my Reader turned on? ;)).

:shrug: I prefer having the meter ... it let's me decide when to recharge so that I can do it when I don't plan to read in the first place, rather than having to charge whenever the battery runs out, probably at a a time when I want to read (otherwise, why would I have my Reader turned on? ;)).

I have to agree with NatCH on this one Mr. Terrible :p (grinning).... although you are right we are probably wasting a lot of time watching the darn meter, if one was going on a trip and it just died, you are screwed. I would like to know at least if the battery is getting at a low point as well so I could have that puppy charged up and ready to go. I also see charging this thing that it takes about an hour for each bar..... four hours total...... or so my experience.

let me get this clear, so if i plug in the ac adaptor to charge while the reader is on, then the battery weirdness gets cured?

I have to agree with NatCH on this one Mr. Terrible :p (grinning).... although you are right we are probably wasting a lot of time watching the darn meter, if one was going on a trip and it just died, you are screwed. I would like to know at least if the battery is getting at a low point as well so I could have that puppy charged up and ready to go. I also see charging this thing that it takes about an hour for each bar..... four hours total...... or so my experience.
How about if the meter was in the menus instead of constantly in our face' we'd still be able to use it easily.
That thing caused enough paranoia to justify this thread. It's like your first baby, every giggle, google and butt whistle gives you worries! :happy2:

Ha ha, what first new baby......... never had any of those headaches <G>

You did!... your PRS!

HUH? what is PRS? guess I just went brain dead. English please <G>

Sorry! PRS 500...aka the Sony reader.

let me get this clear, so if i plug in the ac adaptor to charge while the reader is on, then the battery weirdness gets cured?Some folks have seen that happen -- we're not entirely sure what the issue is, so it's hard to be sure what will fix it. :shrug:

let me get this clear, so if i plug in the ac adaptor to charge while the reader is on, then the battery weirdness gets cured?

It worked for me the one time I noticed the problem.

I figure it's got nothing to do with the meter itself, there are 2 likely issues.

First, unless the reader is turned on when you charge it, the processor is asleep and does'nt realize it's being charged. Therefore it doesn't update its charge estimate. I don't know if the circuitry in the Reader can wake up the CPU when you plug in the charger.

Second (more speculatively), USB charging may not work if the hub or PC doesn't acknowledge the Reader as a valid device. USB ports have their power turned off under many circumstances. If the Reader only charges with the Connect software running, then this is due to the lack of an installed USB driver. I've never tested USB charging myself.

the charger.

Second (more speculatively), USB charging may not work if the hub or PC doesn't acknowledge the Reader as a valid device. USB ports have their power turned off under many circumstances. If the Reader only charges with the Connect software running, then this is due to the lack of an installed USB driver. I've never tested USB charging myself.

But the point is that you can see that the device is charging via USB because:

1. The Reader screen changes to show the "USB Connected" display.

2. The charge light, immediately above the power switch, illuminates.

The issue is not that the battery isn't charging - it certainly is. It's simply that the meter isn't correctly displaying the charge. You can tell that the battery is charging because, for one thing, you can actually carry on reading, and for another doing a soft reset puts the meter back to 4 bars, where it should be.

The issue is not that the battery isn't charging - it certainly is. It's simply that the meter isn't correctly displaying the charge. You can tell that the battery is charging because, for one thing, you can actually carry on reading, and for another doing a soft reset puts the meter back to 4 bars, where it should be.

Exactly. Just turned on my Reader after having fully charged it several days ago (and not having used it since) and it indicated three bars. A few page turns later there are just two bars. Soft reset: zero bars!

I really wish there was a way to revert to the stock firmware. Never had these problems before.

Ditto too!

It's definitely software display controls.

The problem is not that bad, just annoying because it's in the face. I have an iPod shuffle that has no display. It's just a matter of checking manually, I wouldn't mind doing the same thing with the reader. The reader is so power friendly that if you read normally you can go through at least 5 books before recharging. Keep track of that and you don't need the *%$&@&% power indicator.

Just reporting that The Snassek Solution for the display problem worked for me, too. An easy fix. Thanks.

Exactly. Just turned on my Reader after having fully charged it several days ago (and not having used it since) and it indicated three bars. A few page turns later there are just two bars. Soft reset: zero bars!

I really wish there was a way to revert to the stock firmware. Never had these problems before.


But what happends when the meter goes to zero bars? Does the reader warn you that the battery is low? In other words; is the reader's warn and auto shut-off system reacting to the meter or to the REAL charge? It really sucks if the sytem says your battery is low if in reality it's only 50% down.

But what happends when the meter goes to zero bars? Does the reader warn you that the battery is low? In other words; is the reader's warn and auto shut-off system reacting to the meter or to the REAL charge? It really sucks if the sytem says your battery is low if in reality it's only 50% down.

With zero bars you get the "low battery" warning and can't use the reader at all. You have to charge it first, then soft-reset it. Only charging it won't do. (Nor will only soft-resetting without charging.) It's aggravating as hell!

Strange thing is that I had this behaviour already before the update and thought my battery was faulty. Now I don't know if I should replace the battery or keep this one and see if a future upgrade will solve it. :(

When my battery went low, I got a message and the reader actually shut itself off I do believe........ You knew at that time you HAD to charge it no if's and's and butts.

let me get this clear, so if i plug in the ac adaptor to charge while the reader is on, then the battery weirdness gets cured?

This fixed it, but only temporarily, for me. Now it's back to being strange. I had the interesting experience of getting a "Low Battery" warning every time I turned on my reader for a couple days - but it never ran out of juice.

I think it's a lasting bug with the firmware update, and I hope we'll see a fix come down soon. Luckily it's only a display problem, and not an actual loss of battery life.

With zero bars you get the "low battery" warning and can't use the reader at all. You have to charge it first, then soft-reset it. Only charging it won't do. (Nor will only soft-resetting without charging.) It's aggravating as hell!

Actually, you can get rid of the "Low Battery" warning screen by pressing in on the control stick. The screen goes away and you can read as normal until you turn it off (or, presumably, until it runs out of battery... But I've never had that happen).

Actually, you can get rid of the "Low Battery" warning screen by pressing in on the control stick. The screen goes away and you can read as normal until you turn it off (or, presumably, until it runs out of battery... But I've never had that happen).

Thanks for the tip! Will try that next time.

I like many have this battery 'not charging' issue since upgrading the firmware

I read earlier and it worked for me just plug the mains charger in WHILE the reader is on, the battery indicator went to showing a full charge instantly, saved me have to do a soft reset

Untill they sort this bug out .......

OKay here is the scoop with mine and after reading some of these posts yesterday. I was getting close to finishing a book and my 2 bar had gone to three bar the day before, then yesterday when I turned it on I got the exclamation about the battery, clicked on the joystick and that went away and continued to read to finish the book..... so next, I get on here, delete the book, update my books READ file I also copy onto this thing to keep track, and then added a book and then put it on the wall charger..... so it charges up.... I turn it on after the red light was off...... battery reads dead........ okay well what I did was with it on, I plugged the charger right back in it and it immediatly changed those bars to full power....... so there was no soft reset involved...... so next time I charge it up I think I will just turn it on (after charging) with the charger on it and see if that will just fix it since I had to pretty much do that anyways. And yes I had the firmware update......

I had the exact same problem! I drained the battery quickly by playing an MP3 (it auto-repeats!) and then I recharged: problem solved.

Grim.

I like many have this battery 'not charging' issue since upgrading the firmware

I read earlier and it worked for me just plug the mains charger in WHILE the reader is on, the battery indicator went to showing a full charge instantly, saved me have to do a soft reset

Untill they sort this bug out .......

I was sceptical about this, but I've just tried it, and it works! My battery meter was stuck at three bar after a night's charging, but with the Reader switched on I unplugged and reconnected the wall charger and instantly the meter went up to max.

I think I'll stick with the wall charger until they fix this firmware bug, hopefully in the next update. At least this is a lot easier than having to do a soft reset!

I was sceptical about this, but I've just tried it, and it works! My battery meter was stuck at three bar after a night's charging, but with the Reader switched on I unplugged and reconnected the wall charger and instantly the meter went up to max.

I think I'll stick with the wall charger until they fix this firmware bug, hopefully in the next update. At least this is a lot easier than having to do a soft reset!


Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the battery meter always shows four bars when charging? I never seen it different even if the battery is drained it still shows four bars when connecting the charger.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the battery meter always shows four bars when charging? I never seen it different even if the battery is drained it still shows four bars when connecting the charger.

No, that's not the way mine behaves. Mine shows the current charge level, with a "lightning bolt" symbol alongside it to indicate that it's charging.

I have always had mine turned "OFF" when charging via the wall, so now I am curious to see what happens if I try it while on and what shows up on the screen... half to remember this and see what I see if anything. Lighning bolt? :huh2: hmmmmmm

Lighning bolt? :huh2: hmmmmmm

Yes - immediately to the right of the battery meter. You can use the Reader as normal when it's charging from the wall charger.

Thanks Harry, I got curious so although I didn't need a charge just turned it on and put in the plug. There is that puppy right there LOL...... Learned something new <G>

A solar panel like the ones on calculators would have been nice. Remove the MP3 player that is only 10% of the use of the PRS and solar could work with it. Since you need light to use eink, it makes sense...

No, that's not the way mine behaves. Mine shows the current charge level, with a "lightning bolt" symbol alongside it to indicate that it's charging.

Hmm...I must be mistaking then. I will check it next time. What will be soon since my battery is empty in no time. :sad2:

Gah I'm having problems with my two Readers too, now. I charged it fully on Wednesday, and haven't used it. I pick it up today (Saturday), and it's down to two bars. Never had this problem prior to the firmware update. Grr! :( Resetting it the first time seemed to fix it, but I'll be blowed if I'm going to have to keep resetting it EVERY time I charge the thing.

Bah.

Gah I'm having problems with my two Readers too, now. I charged it fully on Wednesday, and haven't used it. I pick it up today (Saturday), and it's down to two bars. Never had this problem prior to the firmware update. Grr! :( Resetting it the first time seemed to fix it, but I'll be blowed if I'm going to have to keep resetting it EVERY time I charge the thing.

Bah.

As some of us have verified, just plug in the charger when you have the reader on and it will reset the battery indicator. No need to do a soft reset.

Thanks for that info. I'll try that. Sounds like a pretty crappy bug.

To clarify, what you have to do to reset the battery meter is switch the Reader on, then with it switched on, plug the switched-on charger into the Reader. It's the act of plugging in the charger while the Reader is switched on that seems to correctly reset the meter. ie do your normal charge with the Reader switched off, then pull the charger plug out of the Reader, turn the Reader on, and plug the charger back in for a few seconds.

As some of us have verified, just plug in the charger when you have the reader on and it will reset the battery indicator. No need to do a soft reset.

Yep, this has been working for me as well.

Me too, nearly as I can tell. :nice:

on 4 for a long time then straight away dropped to 1 and a minute later said low battery.

Yep, worked for me too: the other night the battery went funny again and I did the plug-in-reader-to-wallcharger-while on-trick and it worked a treat!

Wow, this is interesting.

I usually charge my reader with the cradle, which has the plug-in-charger to power it. The white light in the cradle goes out when it is "full". Sure enough, it usually shows 4 bars. It usually only does a couple hundred pages before it goes to 3/4. Today I've had it plugged directly into the plug-in-charger for over 2 hours, and it still shows the lightning bolt. I have to reach over and change pages every so often to keep the display on. Does the lightning bolt go out when it is really full??

Wow, this is interesting.

I usually charge my reader with the cradle, which has the plug-in-charger to power it. The white light in the cradle goes out when it is "full". Sure enough, it usually shows 4 bars. It usually only does a couple hundred pages before it goes to 3/4.

I charged mine last week and I noticed that today it went 3/4's..... that equalled about 510 page turns........

No, the lightning bolt does not go out when it is fully charged, just the little red light does. For the record, two Readers in my house here, pre-update charged normally, post-update both have this problem with the meter not updating.

I charged mine last week and I noticed that today it went 3/4's..... that equalled about 510 page turns........
While I read your comment it occurred to me that having bad eyesight makes me waste more power than a young'n. That's eink discriminating against us!!!:laugh4:

Well, yesterday the battery was completely drained, even though I supposedly charged it fully last week and hadn't used the Reader since. (It wouldn't even turn on.) So I charged it again and now the battery stays at four bars, even after several hours of reading. Seems I had to suffer some pain in order to find "healing". *knock wood*

I know I'm not getting several thousand page turns off a charge. The first thing I did, out of the box, was first upgrade Connect and second upgrade the Reader. So I don't have a baseline for comparison. Best guess I'm getting about 2,000 turns off a charge. (Maybe 2,500 including every time I go upmenu, select different menu options, etc... I'm assuming every time the display changes is considered a 'page turn' for battery life purposes.)

That would be correct, since the reader's battery can't really know if it's actually turning a page in a book file or displaying a different menu.

I had the firmware update as well as the latest Connect software already loaded on my computer, so it updated the Reader's firmware as soon as I connected it to the computer and ran Connect, so I don't have any baseline for comparison either.

But on the other hand, my Reader hasn't shown any battery-indicator weirdness either. :-)

Quite possibly it's the update process itself (i.e. the change from the old to the new firmware) that may be the cause of the problems. Anyway, still no problems after two days of use, so it looks like everything is back to normal for me.

Unfortunately the battery problems resurfaced after a few days of non-use. Bring on the bug fix already!

Yeah, I'm beginning to wonder if the battery indicator will ever change now. After I upgraded firmware I charged the unit until the light went out (overnight). The next morning the battery was still half way up/down. I've read 7 books (Simon Green's Nightside, and the first Tanya Huff/Victory Nelson) and the battery indicator hasn't budged.

I'm about to leave on a week vacation and am charging it up before I go. Here is hoping all goes well.

After fully charging for a whole night by using the 'reader on' trick, I did an approximate page count. When the triangle showed up the reader had turned around 3,400 pages. It is an approximate figure because with some pages I needed to backtrack so as to properly comprehend what I was reading. Anyway it is a far cry from the advertised 7,500.

Something particular also showed up. After 10 hours on, the reader's background became much darker a shade of gray than usual, thereby reducing contrast much further. Has anybody noticed?

Yeah, I'm beginning to wonder if the battery indicator will ever change now. After I upgraded firmware I charged the unit until the light went out (overnight). The next morning the battery was still half way up/down. I've read 7 books (Simon Green's Nightside, and the first Tanya Huff/Victory Nelson) and the battery indicator hasn't budged.


Once you've finished charging your Reader in the normal way, as you have done, all you have to do is this:

1. Plug the wall charger into the mains power socket but DON'T plug it into the Reader.

2. Switch the Reader on.

3. Plug the charger into the Reader for a couple of seconds.

Your battery meter will immediately jump to "4 bars" and all will be well.

Even charging it via the wall, you have to remove the plug and then plug it in again to set that meter. I don't think this problem will ever be corrected either. IMO

Even charging it via the wall, you have to remove the plug and then plug it in again to set that meter. I don't think this problem will ever be corrected either. IMO

That's a very pessimistic view - they broke it in the last upgrade, so I don't see why they can't fix it again in the next :grin:.

Yes it will be corrected!

The reader'll have a colo(u)r successor with HTML support...I hope!!!

Even charging it via the wall, you have to remove the plug and then plug it in again to set that meter.
Curious, but this matches my experience. I had not charged up my reader before a long flight to Hawaii, but I took the charger. After reading for hours, I had been at 2 bars for about 250 pages. I charged it overnight, and the red LED went out. It went back into it's case until the flight back. Imagine my surprise when I turned it on and only had 2 bars. I read 620 pages on the return flight, and still two bars. Today I get back the the forum, and try this trick. Plug in charger for a second, and it recalculates the battery, and shows 3 bars. This is about what I'd expect after 600 pages.

This battery bug is really annoying, actually. I never know what charge my Reader is at. It's *gasp* putting me off reading. :(

It seems to go down okay for me, it just doesn't want to go back up. But the 'plug it in while it's turned on' solution seems to work just fine. In fact, the last couple of times I've charged it, I've just left it turned on and charged it. :shrug:

Since you charge it while left on I am curious, does the reader *remain on* for the few hours that it is charging or does it turn itself off? I usually have the reader off when I charge, then turn on, pull the plug, plug it back in to get the bars to read correctly

The rascal stays on. In fact, it stays on after it's fully charged -- I usually (if that word applies to something I only do every once every two or three weeks) drop it on the cradle as I'm dozing off, and it's fully charged and still on in the morning. I'm not sure, but I don't think it'll turn itself off if it's connected to power.

This battery bug is really annoying, actually. I never know what charge my Reader is at. It's *gasp* putting me off reading. :(

Same here. I find myself constantly checking the battery to see if it drops a bar (or two), which distracts from reading.

The rascal stays on. In fact, it stays on after it's fully charged -- I usually (if that word applies to something I only do every once every two or three weeks) drop it on the cradle as I'm dozing off, and it's fully charged and still on in the morning. I'm not sure, but I don't think it'll turn itself off if it's connected to power.

Okay, well next time I charge I will do it with the reader on and see if the reader remains on. I am fully charged now so it will be a little while until I do this again.

When I carge from the wall outlet the Reader stays in the same state it was when I started (on->on, off->off.) The only sign that it is charging is the red light on the side. When I charge (or load books) via the USB connection it always turns on and stays on after I unplug it from the USB.

Though I was going nuts...

Have the same upgrad/bad battry indicator. Before the upgrade the guage did correctly.

After the upgrade it like I leave it on. Been busy so its been sitting for long periords. It drops about a bar a week or so under no use. Though it was the SD card eating power but keep it out unless reading from it. And stll does this.

Tonight was going to read a bit and notest it went from three to two then one just flipping a few pages.

A soft reset seem to kick it back up. But

Trying the charge while on trick...

If this does not fix it will contact Sony. Have the extra coverage on it.

ADDED:

Hum.... Wonder if in the updates there a bit of bad code that is drawing more power when on or off? Because why alter a section thats works? Yes I have written software for sale. And you do your best NOT to break things...

I think they were trying to get at that bar flutter we were having, you know where it drops a bar and then it pops back after you leave it off for a while? Personally, I found that a good deal less bothersome. :shrug:

I think they were trying to get at that bar flutter we were having, you know where it drops a bar and then it pops back after you leave it off for a while? Personally, I found that a good deal less bothersome. :shrug:


Could be.

Most bat indicators that report on these type of battries are more of a educated guess.

There isn't a way to roll back to original firmware? This sucks hard. Sony, please get a clue :wink:

-d

Well left it for a week without use..

gauge went down about 1/4 in one week with out turning it on for the week. Turned it on flip about 4 pages in the menu and bing.

Going to go a bit more without it and see where it goes for the next week.

Honestly can't believe there's no update for this bug. :(

Starting to think the bug is some task when its in sleep mode eating power when it should be off.

Oh this battery thing is starting to drive me crazy........... on one book I have gone down from full charge to 1 bar left......... (this book is taking me longer by the way) so last night I plugged the thing in with it on and immediatly the bars read up to three....... I left it charge until around 2 am in the morning when I thought I would hate for some kind of burn in with text on the screen (if that could happen) so I came back here and turned it off. Checked it this morning, still 3 bars..... plugged the plug back in and jumped to four bars....... I agree they need to fix whatever the heck it is that is ailing these batteries........ I mean was a really getting on the low side or is that a bunch of bunk, cause an immediate plug in to charger ran it right back up three bars............ argggggggggggggg

Good news is I am a cockatiel birdy grandma, LOL.......... have one little one in the cage, parents taking good care of he/she.... more ??? I am not sure........ ha!

Congratulations on your new addition, Karen! :nice:

I don't think you need to worry about burn in, I don't think that the particles can develop an affinity for a particular point in space. :shrug:

OKay, well I know when I leave the reader on you can always see hints of the text when I change the page so when I thought I had it on a page for hours and hours on end I might have a problem.

Little bird is doing well, it will be for my birdsitter when it grows up now..... lets say it was a baby on request thing, LOL, I usually toss the eggs but she finally wanted one so I let them be.....

here is a pic of the little fella <G>
http://members.aol.com/aprilbeginnings/baby1a.jpg

Honestly can't believe there's no update for this bug. :(

Neither can I. Every time I recharge the battery I have to reset the reader. That has to be fixed pronto. :(

OKay, well I know when I leave the reader on you can always see hints of the text when I change the page so when I thought I had it on a page for hours and hours on end I might have a problem.

Little bird is doing well, it will be for my birdsitter when it grows up now..... lets say it was a baby on request thing, LOL, I usually toss the eggs but she finally wanted one so I let them be.....

here is a pic of the little fella <G>
http://members.aol.com/aprilbeginnings/baby1a.jpgOh, my, I'd forgotten how ugly new hatchlings can be -- in a cute sort of way, of course. :grin: It's probably more that they suffer by comparison to the adults, which are always so pretty. :shrug:

I know what you mean about the ghosting being more pronounced when the Reader's on the same page for a while, but it goes away after a page turn or two, so I don't really see any reason to worry about it. :shrug: (I sure seem to be getting a lot of shrugging in today ....)

I am not shrugging you. Must be on some other threads..... I haven't been around too much lately..... And yes, the are ugly yet cute, only a face a mother could love, LOL.....But they grow pretty fast, soon it will be a pretty bird.

Okay I won't worry at all about burn in....still this battery thing needs to be addressed by Sony....although I am sure a minor bug, it's a pain in the $$$ bug.........

Neither can I. Every time I recharge the battery I have to reset the reader. That has to be fixed pronto. :(

You really don't have to reset it. Just momentarily plug in the wall charger with the Reader switched on, after you've finished charging, and the battery meter will immediately just to 4 bars.

I am not shrugging you. Must be on some other threads..... I haven't been around too much lately..... :smack: That should have read: "I seem to be getting in a lot of shrugging today." I meant that I was doing a lot more shrugging even than I usually do. :grin:

And I agree the battery meter needs to be fixed. It doesn't seem to bother me as much as others, but it needs to be fixed, regardless. :yes:

Saw your ---> :smack: And thought, *wow I could have had a v-8* LOL.......first thing that crossed my brain.......... and for some reason I am very tired, I go to read and I keep nodding off, dropping the reader on the carpet....I really think I need a nap and that is something I just don't usually do.............

You really don't have to reset it. Just momentarily plug in the wall charger with the Reader switched on, after you've finished charging, and the battery meter will immediately just to 4 bars.

Or, as I do (think it was April who suggested it) when charging is done, turn it on, unplug from the Reader, plug it back in, and viola, 4 bars.

I'd quit keeping track, but last charge I kept track of page turns (and did not count bookmarks, going to the menus, etc), and got 3020 page turns. Not too bad, I guess. The battery meter went down bar by bar as would be expected. Shortly after it got to one bar, I recharged.

So, for some goofy reason, my battery and the meter seem to be working OK. Obviously this not the same for everybody.

I just spoke to Sony support using the number provided earlier in this thread. I've only had my reader for a couple weeks but I noticed this issue the first time I charged it after the firmware update.

The support technician I spoke to did find some reference to the issue and said that it was currently being "researched" so hopefully there is some kind of fix on the way. The interesting thing was that she had a "workaround" which was to do a hard reset of the reader.

The problem hasn't reached the level where I'm ready to reload everything on my device but I'm wondering if a hard reset truly fixes the problem or does the same thing as the soft reset.

Russ

hmmmmm, well I am not anxious to try the hard reset, besides, it looked complicated.... I rather deal with the stupid thing that doesn't work right.

hmmmmm, well I am not anxious to try the hard reset, besides, it looked complicated.... I rather deal with the stupid thing that doesn't work right.

I'm with you, especially if a fix which won't require the hard reset is on the way.

I am hoping that maybe there's someone out there more frustrated than us. :) It would be interesting to find out if it actually does anything other than reseting the meter from the most recent charge.

Russ

I don't look at the bar anymore. When the reader asks, I charge. If I need it on a trek I charge. It's no more complicated than fueling a car.

I have an Apple usb charger, has anyone tried this yet?

I don't look at the bar anymore. When the reader asks, I charge. If I need it on a trek I charge. It's no more complicated than fueling a car.

I have an Apple usb charger, has anyone tried this yet?


I tried it and it doesn't work. :(

From what I gather, you cannot read while it's connected to the USB port anyway. So that's not a good idea. But what I was thinking was since it supposedly can chrge from USB, getting a USB tip for the cell phone charger and using that int he car when needed. Would that be a good idea you think?

You know I was just thinking....... a hard reset puts the reader back to the way we bought it correct? which in turn would undue the fix Sony sent us....and I think the battery problem still existed even before the update? So how could this be fixed or am I full of hot air? LOL

I don't think that the hard reset puts the Reader back to the way it was bought. It resets all user-altered things to their original status, using the system software which is currently burned into the flash bios. The update would have overwritten data in the flash bios, which would not be reset in such an instance.

At least that's the case with my Palm units -- whenever I've done system updates, they have held even through hard resets, while all other things which I have changed have returned to the original state. The same with my computer motherboards -- once the system bios flash has been changed it stays changed. Same with my digital cameras and my mp3 player as well.

OK! Had three notches on the charge bar so I decided to try the Apple USB charger.
Left it on for two hours and took it off. ARGH! It got down to one notch. Did a soft reset, ditto. Put the Sony charger to it while the reader was on and pulled it right back out... back to three notches.
Conclusion Same as diabloNL. No effect
Advice keep to Sony charger.

I got my Reader yesterday and installed the connect software, authorized my reader and was asked if I wanted to upgrade the firmware - after reading this thread I said no.

So far so good.

Am I missing anything vital by not upgrading my firmware? Was there any benefits to the upgrade?

USB chargers don't work with the Reader - you'll find that the charge light doesn't come on. Even charging on a PC's USB port won't work unless the "Connect" software is installed on that PC!

Gravitas - the problem you'll have is that you'll be asked if you want to upgrade every time you connect the Reader to your PC. May as well just do it and get it over with. The battery thing is completely irrelevent, IMHO. All you have to do is, after you've charged the Reader (which is a "once ever few weeks" thing), just momentarily plug in the mains charger with the Reader turned on. The battery meter will immediately reset itself to where it should be, and you're done.

Actually I just charged mine the other day with it on and the batter never went above three bars charged. I had to unplug, turn it off and found it still read three bars, the trick is having to once again plug the charge in and that is what resets it....... or is it at least with mine......... crazy crazy.

the trick is having to once again plug the charge in and that is what resets it.......

Yes, that's exactly what I said :grin:. You have to plug in the mains charger cable a SECOND time WITH THE READER TURNED ON. It's that second connection - after you've done a charge until the light's gone out - which resets the battery meter.

Yep, that is what you said and what I said, LMAO

ducking.

Been a major pain to NOT use the reader for two week. But think I have a confirmed on some speculation.

Two weeks ago recharged and reset as per listed by other posters. Also remove the SD card so its just itself. Nothing else draining.

After the first week. Turned on and fliped about 4 pages. Power droped one bar.
After the 2nd week. Turned on and fliped about 5 pages. Power droped another bar.

Either:

A) Battery is bad.
b) Update software is eating power that it did not do before.

Am leaning on the 2nd one. Before it ran over a month with use. After software barely can keep a charge.

Have not tried the reset the battery bar. Thinking on it.

Regarding this bizarre charging issue.

What happens if you were to buy a sony reader today, does it have the latest firmware on, meaning it has the funny battery meter issues, or does it have the old firmware on it that had no such problem. OR does it have a secret new firmmare that is not available for download yet.

I wish sony would get a new firmware out that fixes this.

Good Question......

Been a major pain to NOT use the reader for two week. But think I have a confirmed on some speculation.

Two weeks ago recharged and reset as per listed by other posters. Also remove the SD card so its just itself. Nothing else draining.

After the first week. Turned on and fliped about 4 pages. Power droped one bar.
After the 2nd week. Turned on and fliped about 5 pages. Power droped another bar.

Either:

A) Battery is bad.
b) Update software is eating power that it did not do before.

Am leaning on the 2nd one. Before it ran over a month with use. After software barely can keep a charge.

Have not tried the reset the battery bar. Thinking on it.

Hang on a minute. By your own figures, you could go a month without having to recharge. That hardly counts are "barely can keep a charge", does it?

If you've not reset your battery meter, eg by plugging in the wall charger briefly, as described here, how can you trust what the meter is showing you?

Hang on a minute. By your own figures, you could go a month without having to recharge. That hardly counts are "barely can keep a charge", does it?

If you've not reset your battery meter, eg by plugging in the wall charger briefly, as described here, how can you trust what the meter is showing you?

Nightwing means that after the update the Reader can't hold its charge. ;)


To be honest, my reader has shown this behavior already before the update. I thought I had a bad battery but now everyone has the same strange problems. :p

But Nightwing has said that, after the update, he's lost about 2 bars of power in two weeks - ie a recharge would be required after about a month. I am happy to accept that perhaps the update has increased the "switched off" power consumption somewhat, but to me, having to recharge once a month hardly counts as the Reader being "barely able to hold a charge". Obviously different people have different standards for judging these things :grin:.

But Nightwing has said that, after the update, he's lost about 2 bars of power in two weeks - ie a recharge would be required after about a month. I am happy to accept that perhaps the update has increased the "switched off" power consumption somewhat, but to me, having to recharge once a month hardly counts as the Reader being "barely able to hold a charge". Obviously different people have different standards for judging these things :grin:.


He lost two bars with only flipping nine pages in two weeks. So something is sucking the energy from the battery. :laugh4:

But is the battery really low or is the bar reader perhaps faulty and just doesn't know what the hell it's doing?

He lost two bars with only flipping nine pages in two weeks. So something is sucking the energy from the battery. :laugh4:

Of course it is - the operating system. Turning the Reader "off" doesn't actually turn it off; it just blanks the screen and disables most of the buttons. The operating system is still running, doing things like updating the clock, waiting to see if you've pressed the power button, and so on. It's like putting a notebook computer into "Standby" mode. It still needs battery power, although a lot less than when it's turned on.

I might as well add some strangeness to this thread. After the update, the first two times I charged, had to go through the plug in, charge, turn on, unplug, replug, and then the bar worked OK.

Last night it was down to one bar, so plugged it in overnight. This morning, turned it on, and it had all four bars. Unplugged and it still had them.

What did I do to fix it???? :D

Huh. I dunno, but if you figure it out, please let the rest of us know!

Of course it is - the operating system. Turning the Reader "off" doesn't actually turn it off; it just blanks the screen and disables most of the buttons. The operating system is still running, doing things like updating the clock, waiting to see if you've pressed the power button, and so on. It's like putting a notebook computer into "Standby" mode. It still needs battery power, although a lot less than when it's turned on.

I know that Harry. ;) But still....let's calculate something:

Battery: 1150mAh /2 (2 bars down)= 575mAh. If the Reader last 7500 pages or let's be on the save side. We make it 3750. So 3750/2= 1875 pages for 2 bars.

575/1875=0.31mA per page. He flipped in two weeks 9 pages=9*0.31mA=2.79mA. 575-2.79mA=572.21mA. Let's be really save and take 50mAh off just for 2 times startup etc.That will give you 522.21mA left.

Are you still with me? :rolleyes5

So 2 weeks is 336 hours. 336/522.21= 0.64mA per hour. According to the data sheets the CPU uses 35uA in standby. So 0.64mA is 18 times more then what it should be. I smell a firmware upgrade. :gossip:

But seriously, I'm still planning to measure the standby current and the rest of the conditions like on, flip page, SD card etc. :wink:

That's an impressive analysis, DiabloNL.

I think you and HarryT are both right, actually, because you seem to be explaining different points. You, that the "resting" battery drain is rather high, and he that a month between charges is ample.

For myself, I'd agree with both of you. http://www.multiverse.org/fora/images/smilies/extras/libra.gif

From my perspective, the length of time it does last tends to cancel out the self-draining aspect, but that's just me. :shrug:

I was not trying to be right, just informative. ;) I don't read a lot so that may explain why my battery goes down so "fast". If you guys can reach +2000 pages or even more on one charge and I can only reach +600 then maybe it's due to the fact I take maybe a month to read those 600 pages (or more) :embarasse

So for me the self draining aspect is rather important. ;)

So I really need to measure the standby current. I found some shrink tube so I can cut the ground wire of the battery and fix it after I measured it. I think I will do it tomorrow because I'm really getting anxious to know. :scholar:

So I really need to measure the standby current. I found some shrink tube so I can cut the ground wire of the battery and fix it after I measured it.

Not sure what your parts situation is over there, but the connector looks pretty similar to that used on li-poly batteries in PDA's, MP3 players, etc. If you can get a dead gizmo you could scavenge the connector.

Then you could unplug the battery, plug in your connector and plug the wires from that into the connector on the battery (wiring your meter in one side).

....or you could just cut it :)

Not sure what your parts situation is over there, but the connector looks pretty similar to that used on li-poly batteries in PDA's, MP3 players, etc. If you can get a dead gizmo you could scavenge the connector.

Then you could unplug the battery, plug in your connector and plug the wires from that into the connector on the battery (wiring your meter in one side).

....or you could just cut it :)

Good tip! I will have a look at work today if I can find something lying around in one of the machines I reapair. :p

Well, I finished measuring and here are the numbers from the Dutch jury:


Standby ("off"): 1.65mA
Standby ("off") with SD card: 1.85mA
Standby ("off") without SD card, with any button pressed except "Power": 1.8mA
Boot-up: ~240mA (very fluctuating)
On in idle mode: 2mA
On in idle mode with SD card: 2.10mA
Page Flip without SD Card: ~240mA (very fluctuating)



Conclusion: The difference between standby ("off") and "on" in idle is really small. The battery usage in standby ("off") is way too high and there is either something wrong with my Reader or with Sony's firmware/hardware.

I hope you guys find this info useful because my Reader's battery wires are now hanging together with tape, shrink tube and solder. ;)

Very interesting. Using 10% charge remaining as "low", that would give us about three weeks of "off" time. This tracking with anyone's experience?

I'm particularly interested in the SD/power-off figure. The card needs no power to maintain it's memory, so power should be shut off to it when the reader is off, which means there should not be a difference between the power off consumption with or without a card.

This might be a brand-specific card issue, since I've read that some don't respond to the "power off" command - so the Reader may be trying to power down the card but it isn't complying. Natch, could you try ten or twelve different brands? And memory sticks ? :)

Seriously, the only thing I could think to add to your measurements would be a "power off after one hour", just in case it's got a lower power mode it might drop into after some period of time. Probably unlikely, though.


It would have been nice to leave it on the shelf for a few months and not have the battery drop, but I guess that wasn't a design priority. For example, if they elected to keep time with the main microcontroller rather than a dedicated clock chip, that could keep hardware costs down, but raise standby power. (Just an example, I don't know if this is the case for this design.)

Depending on the issue it may very well be fixable via firmware, if Sony is convinced it's a problem, which they may not be.

Thanks for the info - definitely going in my "stuff" folder!

Natch, could you try ten or twelve different brands? And memory sticks ? :)Sure, except that I've only got 2 brands (SanDisk and ATP), I'm not real inclined to go out and buy 8 or 10 more, and DiabloNL's test equipment is a bit inconveniently located for me. :grin2: (yes I know you were joking http://www.mobileread.com/forums/images/smiliesadd1/wink.gif).

... if they elected to keep time with the main microcontroller rather than a dedicated clock chip, that could keep hardware costs down, but raise standby power.I'm pretty sure that is exactly what they elected to do, and I can only guess that it was for precisely that reason.

Depending on the issue it may very well be fixable via firmware, if Sony is convinced it's a problem, which they may not be.I'm unhappily suspicious that they, indeed, do not consider it a problem. I can see what's probably their point, namely that a month of battery power is pretty durned good under pretty much any circumstances. On the other hand, it rather pains me to know that the capacity might be 3 or 4 months if it had been approached a bit differently. :sad:

If you guys can reach +2000 pages or even more on one charge and I can only reach +600 then maybe it's due to the fact I take maybe a month to read those 600 pages (or more) :embarasse
:scholar:

diabloNL, please take a look at my first thread:
http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10155
Basically I had the same problem (usually I don't read fast) but it seems the 1 month limit is common to all PRS-500.
If this is not a physial battery limitation but firmware/software issue ('running OS' while being switched off, whatever it means exactly) then I wish Sony will do something about that. I would be more than happy to see still 4 bars after one month (with little reading) even with the increased time required to switch on ('booting OS'). Probably the best option would be to have a choice: 'hard switch off' (maximum energy save, longer start up) and 'normal switch off'. Unfortunately first Sony firmware update was far from perfect so I'm afraid they won't solve the battery problem anytime soon.

You give me an interesting thought, MikeS. I wonder if a Reader were charged fully, and then had its reset button clicked, and were then left for a month, what the battery would do.... http://www.sims99.com/forum/images/smilies/y_thinking.gif

Well, I finished measuring and here are the numbers from the Dutch jury:

Conclusion: The difference between standby ("off") and "on" in idle is really small. The battery usage in standby ("off") is way too high and there is either something wrong with my Reader or with Sony's firmware/hardware.



Thanks, Diablo - that confirms exactly what I suspected, which is that the operating system runs pretty much the same way whether the Reader is on or off - turning it off does little more than blank the screen and disable a few buttons. ie, the CPU does not go into low power "standby" mode.

"nil point" would you say, for Sony? :grin:

Thanks, Diablo - that confirms exactly what I suspected, which is that the operating system runs pretty much the same way whether the Reader is on or off - turning it off does little more than blank the screen and disable a few buttons. ie, the CPU does not go into low power "standby" mode.

"nil point" would you say, for Sony? :grin:

I measured the current in standby mode after ~5 minutes it was "off". I don't know if there is a chance the Reader would go into a "low power mode" after some more time. I don't think so because the Reader is starting up just as fast after 1 minute of being "off" as it would after a week. So there is not a "hibernation" mode or anything. But I can't confirm this 100%.

Also if I calculate and look at my usage of the Reader then all makes sense to me know. I don't read a lot and since the Reader will loose it's charge in about 1 month it's not so strange I thought I had a bad battery.

So anyone wants to put their Reader down for a month and confirm? Volunteers? Helloooo.... :laugh4:

diabloNL, please take a look at my first thread:
http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10155
Basically I had the same problem (usually I don't read fast) but it seems the 1 month limit is common to all PRS-500.
If this is not a physial battery limitation but firmware/software issue ('running OS' while being switched off, whatever it means exactly) then I wish Sony will do something about that. I would be more than happy to see still 4 bars after one month (with little reading) even with the increased time required to switch on ('booting OS'). Probably the best option would be to have a choice: 'hard switch off' (maximum energy save, longer start up) and 'normal switch off'. Unfortunately first Sony firmware update was far from perfect so I'm afraid they won't solve the battery problem anytime soon.

That would be nice if you could choose, but I'm not sure if they are able to do it through the software.


You give me an interesting thought, MikeS. I wonder if a Reader were charged fully, and then had its reset button clicked, and were then left for a month, what the battery would do....

That wouldn't work because after the reset the Reader reboots and all is back to normal. Holding the Reset button down would probably work. Toothpick anyone? :p

You give me an interesting thought, MikeS. I wonder if a Reader were charged fully, and then had its reset button clicked, and were then left for a month, what the battery would do.... That wouldn't work because after the reset the Reader reboots and all is back to normal. Holding the Reset button down would probably work. Toothpick anyone? :pI think (I'm not saying I know, 'cause I don't -- I want to be clear on that) that the Reader doesn't boot after a reset until you exercise the power button.

I do know that on a reset, the screen keeps whatever is on it until you exercise the power slide. And I think that when you exercise the power button after a reset, it does the same little routine regardless of how much time has elapsed since the reset was clicked. http://www.dbstalk.com/images/smiles2/kopfkratz.gif Perhaps one of y'all who already routinely leave their Readers undisturbed for several days as part of their typical usage, might try reseting it (instead of just turning it off) when you know one of those lax periods is coming up. That might give us an idea. :shrug:

I know I'm certainly not going to volunteer to leave my Reader alone for a month -- I get the DTs after a few hours! :dizzy:

I'm glad that it looks like your battery might be okay after all, DiabloNL, I can certainly see where it gave you the impression it did from what was going on. :uhoh2:

It looks like you are right NatCh. I thought the Reader turned on after pressing the reset but it doesn't. :smack: I think I will reset it every time when I finish reading to see if it makes a difference.


EDIT: every time I reset and select a book the "continue reading" is showing page 199. The funny thing is I'm at page 235.

So it's not very handy to reset it every time because it's not easy to go back where you left.

EDIT 2: I found out what's going on. The Reader will bring itself to the state when you last connected it to the PC. I just connected it and after the reset it remembered my last page 235. Even the "continue reading" on the first page was pointing to the right book.

. Probably the best option would be to have a choice: 'hard switch off' (maximum energy save, longer start up) and 'normal switch off'. Unfortunately first Sony firmware update was far from perfect so I'm afraid they won't solve the battery problem anytime soon.

Another option might be to add a physical power switch, in line with with battery. The simplest way would be something like a magnetic reed switch, which would require you to put a magnet over the "magic spot" when you want to hibernate the device. Or, if you don't use the MP3 player, it might be possible to re-purpose the headphone jack so that if you plug something into it, it disconnects the battery.

Another approach would be to put a MOSFET (solid state switch) between the battery and the circuit board, then toggle it on and off with a repurposed volume up/down switch.

There may be a less crude approach by forcing the CPU into/out of a standby state, interrupting the clock, etc. but that would require a lot of research and some more complex circuitry.

I'm not sure what the side effects would be; certainly the time-keeping would be stopped. And obviously the warranty would be out the window

It would be nice if Sony took MikeS's suggestion and put in "storage mode" in the firmware.

This thread has made me slightly curious - how many of you do leave your Reader for weeks, unused? I'm like Nat - I use mine literally every few hours!

Mmmm. MOSFETs! I love those little guys. :grin:

That sounds like a good poll question, HarryT, perhaps I'll put one up if you haven't already done so. :smiley:

I see you've done so - thanks! :grin:

You give me an interesting thought, MikeS. I wonder if a Reader were charged fully, and then had its reset button clicked, and were then left for a month, what the battery would do.... http://www.sims99.com/forum/images/smilies/y_thinking.gif


I think I can answer that.

After three week and no more than 15 pages grand total pages turned. After a full charge and the reset step. My unit has droped three bars... Turn about 3 to 4 per turn on and check the bars.

Going to, ugh, do one more week... Man this it drivng me nut NOT using the reader! :rolleyes5

Before the last upgrade I think I got down to 1/2 bars during a month with major page flipping.

After next Sunday may do a full charge with reset. And do a test with max turning pages...

Nightwing means that after the update the Reader can't hold its charge. ;)


To be honest, my reader has shown this behavior already before the update. I thought I had a bad battery but now everyone has the same strange problems. :p


Wonder if the battery is bad?

I don't think it's anything to do with the battery. Diablo's figures clearly show that the battery is draining because the Reader's operating system is drawing pretty much the same power whether the Reader is "on" or "off".

It's possible that the firmware update messed up some piece of code which should put the CPU into a low-power "standby" state when you turn the Reader off. If that is so, a future update should fix it. I note that one the "questions" on Sony's support web site is that "my battery life has decreased since the firmware upgrade" and the answer is "we're looking into it".

I don't think it's anything to do with the battery. Diablo's figures clearly show that the battery is draining because the Reader's operating system is drawing pretty much the same power whether the Reader is "on" or "off".

It's possible that the firmware update messed up some piece of code which should put the CPU into a low-power "standby" state when you turn the Reader off. If that is so, a future update should fix it. I note that one the "questions" on Sony's support web site is that "my battery life has decreased since the firmware upgrade" and the answer is "we're looking into it".

That's something, at least! I can definitely say my battery life has decreased since the update. I did a little test myself, actually. I did a full charge, including the pull-AC-cord-out-put-AC-cord-back-in-while-Reader-on test. I had a full charge at that point. That was last Tuesday evening (May 1st). This morning (May 7) I have 3 out of 4 bars full. So in about 6 days, a bar drops. I also have a 2GB SD card in there. I never had such a drop before the update.

I think I too can confidently say that my battery runs down a bit faster after the update.

The battery life is still more than ample for what I need, but it's a bit annoying to think it could be better and isn't. http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/forums/images/smilies/sigh.gif

Agreed totally. At least Sony are aware of it- that's good news, at least.

The battery life for me is the same before and after the upgrade. Maybe Harry is right and the CPU should go in a "low power mode". I'm starting to think that because I had this problem with the battery life already before the upgrade that maybe my CPU refused to go in "low power mode" before the upgrade.

I know it's all speculation but I can't understand why I had/have the problem you guys have already before the upgrade. :huh:

Because you're precocious? :mad:

I have not updated the firmware and I experience the same battery depletion as the rest of you, which is about 3-4 weeks before I have to re-charge the reader again. The only difference is that I don't have this bug with power meter. So, I believe the new firmware didn't mess this particular aspect of the reader.

That's interesting to know. Thanks, A-L!

USB chargers don't work with the Reader - you'll find that the charge light doesn't come on. Even charging on a PC's USB port won't work unless the "Connect" software is installed on that PC!
That is another piece of astounding daftness from Sony which I discovered for myself last week. At work with the Reader I saw it was down to one bar and wanted to take it away with me for a day. Decided to connect it to the USB of a computer that didn't have the Connect software installed.

After a couple of hours I disconnected it and set off on my trip. Only when I got on the train did I discover that my charging attempt had actually completely flattened the battery - and I didn't have the Sony charger with me! Grrrr!

This is probably a good point to re-mention that the PSP chargers will charge the Reader quite handily -- they're cheaper than the Reader chargers, and more widely available too. :nice:

... and have the advantage, if you're travelling, that they are available world-wide, whereas the Reader charger is only available in the US!

The battery life for me is the same before and after the upgrade.

The same here. If there is any difference at all then it is hard to notice. No matter how many pages I do, the battery meter drops 1 bar per week. As HarryT pointed out, Sony could have done much better since the battery itself can hold for many months (this is what I've learnt from some other thread). It seems that when you switch your reader off then if fact you don't switch it off at all, besides the fact that the screen goes blank. I really don't understand why they decided to do this way.
As far as I understand it 'shutting down' the OS and putting cpu in sleep mode could save lot of energy. Take a look at ACPI and how many different sleep modes ordinary notebook supports. I wish the reader could do at least the basic ones, G2 or G3 ;)
Whereas I'm not a big optimist here, I hope the new firmware will be a step in good direction, in terms of saving energy.

P.S DiabloNL - you did a great job. BTW, it is funny, because once I read some of your posts I thought to myself that possibly we are experiencing the same thing and the problem isn't a bad battery but having the ability (or rather lack of ability) to read 4 or 5 thousand pages in 3-4 weeks. :)

The same here. If there is any difference at all then it is hard to notice. No matter how many pages I do, the battery meter drops 1 bar per week. As HarryT pointed out, Sony could have done much better since the battery itself can hold for many months (this is what I've learnt from some other thread). It seems that when you switch your reader off then if fact you don't switch it off at all, besides the fact that the screen goes blank. I really don't understand why they decided to do this way.
As far as I understand it 'shutting down' the OS and putting cpu in sleep mode could save lot of energy. Take a look at ACPI and how many different sleep modes ordinary notebook supports. I wish the reader could do at least the basic ones, G2 or G3 ;)
Whereas I'm not a big optimist here, I hope the new firmware will be a step in good direction, in terms of saving energy.

P.S DiabloNL - you did a great job. BTW, it is funny, because once I read some of your posts I thought to myself that possibly we are experiencing the same thing and the problem isn't a bad battery but having the ability (or rather lack of ability) to read 4 or 5 thousand pages in 3-4 weeks. :)

I think that is the problem. So if we want to experience great battery life we have to read more. :p

I am getting a bit pessimistic regarding new software updates. Looks like there are going to be more advanced eInk screens out there pretty soon. In fact just in a few month time and Sony might have decided it would more benefitial to invest their time/energy/money/resources in a new version of the reader instead of bothering with the old one, because there are going to be more companies making ebook readers with new screens and the old reader will not be able to compete with them.

Hopefully we will get one more update.

I found out (the hard way) that overnight plugged into the USB charger for my Blackberry did a good job of draining the battery. I guess the reader kept trying to connect to a non-existant host, and drained itself dry. I was able to recharge through my Mac Powerbook, even though there is no software, the USB did connect, which was, apparently, enough for the reader to charge.

Just finish the month long test... Would estimate no more than 20 pages total fliped, The meter was correct on charge for the month but died before 4 week went by. Just filiped it on and got the welcome screen.

Before the upgrade usually went about 5 to 6 weeks now can almost get 3.5 weeks with no use!

So either the battery has a defect or some one mucked up the sleep mode...

Next test will be full charge and flipping like crazy. May take a day or so to test...

PS: Thats with no SD card. Just main memory... and all original book still on it.

PS: Just started the recharge... Battery meter is only reading 3/4 but both light and lighting symbol are showing...

I have to say this battery thing is driving me nuts. I understand the whole trick of unplugging it when it's charged and then plugging it in for a second after you turn the Reader on. However, that ONLY works if you use the AC adapter. When using USB, this doesn't work at all since the Reader goes into its "Do not disconnect" mode. I discovered this after charging my wife's Reader:

It had one bar left of charge. I did a full charge via a USB cord to my computer until the red charge light went out. I unplugged the Reader and it still displayed one bar. I plugged the USB cord back in while the Reader was on and then unplugged it. STILL one bar of charge showing.

The solution? Soft reset.

Hardly an attractive fix now, is it, having to find something to poke into the back of your Reader while bending the cover back. Not pleased at all.

Try this... Get a paper clip and a pair of pliers.. Bend the "free" end out but leave the rest as a handle. Then bend the stretch out end pependicular to the handle.

The main thing is why is it eating so much current in sleep mode? Or does the battery has a defect in it? I guess charging the battery and then disconnect it from the reader internals for a month shelf test would be the last possible test to run.

It should be using just enough micro watts to pole the switch on the side and possible the timer. Everything else should be off so to speak.

Here is the bother. Only turning 20 pages for 30 days it should not be dead! But was dead. Before I ran the month and was about 1/4 to almost 1/2 gauge and flipping pages like crazy!

I saw just after the update that I was getting less running time or found it basicaly dead when I should have had enough power for a read...

Power level meters are tough to hit right on these type or any batteries...

I have not updated the firmware and I experience the same battery depletion as the rest of you, which is about 3-4 weeks before I have to re-charge the reader again. The only difference is that I don't have this bug with power meter. So, I believe the new firmware didn't mess this particular aspect of the reader.
I have not upgraded the firmware and my reader exhibits exactly the same behaviour.
I read every day for about an hour and I have to charge it every 2-3 weeks. No matter how many pages I read.
Sometimes my Reader goes from 3 bars to 2 bars and in two days it refuses to start - the battery is drained.
Not that it is a problem for me, I just say that the firmware "upgrade" did not screw the battery behaviour, just the battery meter after charge.

This is probably a good point to re-mention that the PSP chargers will charge the Reader quite handily -- they're cheaper than the Reader chargers, and more widely available too. :nice:

Just before my Reader arived here - in Europe - I went to the SONY store to have a look at the prices for PSP charger.
The price was BLOODY INSANE!

You can buy much fancier switching power source from a reliable manufacturer at a *fraction* of the price here.

Sony is not the only company that sells PSP chargers -- try a game store, they're $12~15 there. :wink2:

Sony is not the only company that sells PSP chargers -- try a game store, they're $12~15 there. :wink2:

Well, what *I* was offered in an official SONY store here was more like $70.
The problem is, there is very small market for PSP accesories in my country (Central Europe)
I haven't even seen an actual physical psp here. Not that I was looking for it ;-) . I am definitely not going to visit the official SONY store anytime soon. Until very recently I was actively avoiding SONY products.
I caved in because I wanted to get an e-ink device and the Iliad was tad expensive for me :wink2: . And the e-ink screen is the only thing I like about the Reader.

It is a shame that walkbook has became available only very recently here in Europe.

Well, what *I* was offered in an official SONY store here was more like $70.I'd say that qualifies as "insane" too, kacir. http://www.mobileread.com/forums/images/smilies/eek.gif

I'm guessing you didn't buy it. :laugh4:

I'd say that qualifies as "insane" too, kacir. http://www.mobileread.com/forums/images/smilies/eek.gif

I'm guessing you didn't buy it. :laugh4:
I bought an "European" power cord for the original Reader charger for slightly less than $2 ;-)
Then I made an artificial load (fancy name for a resistor ;-)) for power source and measured if it gives desired output. Then I measured if there is no "leak" current against ground. Finaly I said a short prayer and connected the Reader. The power source has been working happily ever after. :2thumbsup
The reason for being so careful is that I am quite far from the nearest place where I can claim warranty for my Reader.

I bought an "European" power cord for the original Reader charger for slightly less than $2 ;-)
Then I made an artificial load (fancy name for a resistor ;-)) for power source and measured if it gives desired output. Then I measured if there is no "leak" current against ground. Finally I said a short prayer and connected the Reader. The power source has been working happily ever after. :2thumbsup
The reason for being so careful is that I am quite far from the nearest place where I can claim warranty for my Reader.
The Reader's power adapter supports 100-240V 50/60. So all you'd need is a plug converter to convert to whatever plug type you use. Why would you need to make an artificial load for the Reader's power adapter?

3rd party chargers for the PSP are about £10 here. I recently bought one in a game store for my Reader. Works great!

The Reader's power adapter supports 100-240V 50/60. So all you'd need is a plug converter to convert to whatever plug type you use.

Exactly what I have done.

HarryT
Why did you buy charger instead of plug converter? (I am just curious, maybe I am missing out something).

The Reader's power adapter supports 100-240V 50/60. So all you'd need is a plug converter to convert to whatever plug type you use. Why would you need to make an artificial load for the Reader's power adapter?
You do not need a plug converter.
You simply buy a new power cord that plugs into the Readed power adapter instead of Americam power cord. The socket on the adapter is standard so there is no problem to buy a power cord. A new power cord is cheaper and smaller to carry

I have made an artificial load in order to make 100% sure the adapter works like it says on the label it does. There have been reports on this forum about adapters that hum slightly during use. There have also been reports that some adapters have tension against ground. I just wanted to test it thoroughly. That is it.

It works great ever since.

Exactly what I have done.

HarryT
Why did you buy charger instead of plug converter? (I am just curious, maybe I am missing out something).

So I could have a charger at work as well as one at home. Just wanted a "spare". I use the one that came with the Reader at home.

So I could have a charger at work as well as one at home. Just wanted a "spare". I use the one that came with the Reader at home.

Oh, I see :sm