PRS-650 more problems - now on my 3rd reader!!

loy123cat · 10-23-2010, 11:45 PM

Hi,

I bought my first reader on 8 Oct stopped working to touch (for settings and power off confirmation)

Took that one back - retailer exchanged on 18 Oct.

The new one worked for 3 days!! - Connected to laptop and downloaded 7th book & a couple of pdf files.

Finished charging, closed Reader program, turned off eReader, disconnected from laptop.

Picked it up 3 hours later & wouldn't turn on - light didn't even come on when connected to the laptop

Anyone else having these sort of issues

I now have another one but am concerned that it will be from the same batch!!

Going to try again as I like the size etc but really really disappointed

Retailer good but trying to blame me - not good as I am in IT - managing help desk for entire organisation

Any ideas or advice

Salgueiros · 10-24-2010, 03:39 AM

3 readers??? Are you sure you are not the problem?

astra · 10-24-2010, 04:09 AM

If the third ebook reader goes down, I would suspect user error.

deadgloves · 10-24-2010, 05:15 AM

Either that, or the Vendor got a bum pallet. It does happen occasionally.

However, based on another thread I would recommend never, ever touching the complete shutdown. It seems to be buggy. Just use sleep mode.

More specifically, there is no reason to turn it off or send it to sleep mode while its still plugged in to your computer. I'd guess that's what killed it. Instead, unplug it, let it initialize the new data and THEN once you see the homepage, put it in sleep mode if you must.

I may have only had this device for a week but in all my years of IT I've found that making changes to a system and then shutting down before the changes fully initialize can kill almost anything.

astra · 10-24-2010, 05:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by deadgloves

More specifically, there is no reason to turn it off or send it to sleep mode while its still plugged in to your computer. I'd guess that's what killed it. Instead, unplug it, let it initialize the new data and THEN once you see the homepage, put it in sleep mode if you must.

I may have only had this device for a week but in all my years of IT I've found that making changes to a system and then shutting down before the changes fully initialize can kill almost anything.

Oh, silly me. You are a lot more observant than I.
loy123cat
I can only repeat what deadgloves said:
Don't turn it off before you disconnect it.

Quote:

Instead, unplug it, let it initialize the new data and THEN once you see the homepage, put it in sleep mode if you must

elcreative · 10-24-2010, 08:28 AM

At any point, in this procedure, did you actually correctly eject the reader... I mean, do you normally connect a hard disk, write to it, switch it off and disconnect? No, you follow the normal eject procedures... now with an eReader, you either eject from Reader program, safe removal in tray,right-click or via explorer then disconnect from laptop and wait for eReader to finish its housekeeping before turning off...

Quote:

Originally Posted by loy123cat

Finished charging, closed Reader program, turned off eReader, disconnected from laptop.

Picked it up 3 hours later & wouldn't turn on - light didn't even come on when connected to the laptop

harriska2 · 10-24-2010, 10:13 AM

I've been hooking it to my computer, upload/downloading, many, many times in a row and not had a problem. But then, of course, I eject in both Calibre and clicking on my eject button and not putting it in sleep mode.

Kind of scary that they don't make a better fool-proof system (not that you're a fool). I'm just saying Sony should invest more time/money into keeping that from happening.

deadgloves · 10-24-2010, 11:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by harriska2

Kind of scary that they don't make a better fool-proof system (not that you're a fool). I'm just saying Sony should invest more time/money into keeping that from happening.

I don't eject unless I'm transferring more than 10mb or flashing firmware. I just pull that sucker out with extreme prejudice. Improper ejecting won't kill your devices, in my experience. Worst case scenario it'll cause errors on transfered files. I agree though, Sony should prevent shutdown when USB is connected.

yekim54 · 10-24-2010, 11:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by loy123cat

Any ideas or advice

Before you do anything with the reader, make sure it is fully charged. Plug it into a USB charger or USB port of the computer and let it charge until the red indicator light goes off. After it is fully charged, you can set it up and load ebooks onto it.

jswinden · 10-24-2010, 01:31 PM

Last one especially sounds like user error by putting the reader to sleep while it was plugged into a computer. Did you try resetting it before returning it? If not I would consider that IT error on your part.

tech_au · 10-24-2010, 10:07 PM

I guess you can get a bad run with anything but you'd have to be unlucky.
Before I got my new 650 I was considering getting a K3 wifi instead but got scared off by all the 1 and 2 star reviews with users having this same problem with their new K3 like DOA, working for 1 day then locking up and dying etc etc.(10% of all reviews was too high for me to take the chance)
I thought it would just my luck if I ordered one from the US and it was DOA so I got a locally purchased 650 instead(Glad I did now)

jswinden · 10-25-2010, 01:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tech_au

I guess you can get a bad run with anything but you'd have to be unlucky.
Before I got my new 650 I was considering getting a K3 wifi instead but got scared off by all the 1 and 2 star reviews with users having this same problem with their new K3 like DOA, working for 1 day then locking up and dying etc etc.(10% of all reviews was too high for me to take the chance)
I thought it would just my luck if I ordered one from the US and it was DOA so I got a locally purchased 650 instead(Glad I did now)

People who get a bad item or don't like it are way more likely to post about it and/or give it a bad rating than the opposite group. So polls, ratings, forums etc. are all skewed in my opinion. In the case of the new Kindles I think you had a lot of first time ebook reader buyers who were quite frankly not learned in how to use and operate an ebook reader. Stupid is as stupid does. Just like a Sony reader, when a K3 burps it probably can be fixed by not doing the stupid thing you did to cause the burp, or by simply resetting the device. I was amazed at the ignorance level of most of the first time buyers, and some who have bought other readers. There are plenty of cases of user error and stupidity posted about Sony readers as well.

I've owned most of the Kindle models and most of the Sony reader models. I have to say that both brands are rather reliable, but overall I've had many more lockups on Sony readers than on Kindles. I've had my K3 since late August and have had no issues at all. So far my 350 has had no issues either. But the older generation of 300, 600, and 900 would lockup on me quite often. But at most they only required a reset to get them running again.

I truly think some people will return an item the first time it hiccups and without even trying to solve the problem. They then declare the product a bad product. In some cases it is as simple an issue as forgetting to charge the thing or not knowing that if you load a gillion books at once a Kindle will take hours to index all of them and will probably run down the battery if not plugged into the AC. I'm pretty sure a similar issue would occur with a 350 or 650 if you loaded a gillion books at once. These devices have limited processing ability that can be overloaded.

loy123cat · 10-31-2010, 05:30 PM

it is interesting that the tone of this thread was not more helpful.

Even if it was user error (which is possible) more helpful tone would have been nice especially to someone who was a "junior" member.

Obviously there are a lot of members who answer these forums who are extremely computer literate BUt there are many who are not it literate - i am not one of them but I would not expect any of you to believe it.

Just wanted to let you know that the retailer has contacted me & it is a bad batch - they have had more returned.

Heaven help anyone who is not computer literate because they wouldn't even come to this forum again for help.

Comments like "Stupid is as stupid does" and "fool" are making major assumptions about other people - learn to be helpful and make the tone inviting in the forum.

Unless the idea is to keep the forum for tech heads only

I look forward to your comments on how to invite people to participate without making the new members feel like idiots.

doreenjoy · 10-31-2010, 09:09 PM

I'm glad you found out the vendor got a bad batch.

And I agree with you that there are a lot of dismissive comments on the forum. It's sad to see.

tech_au · 10-31-2010, 10:12 PM

I think I may be partly responsible for jswindens outburst because it sounded like I was knocking the K3 when I wasn't really.
I am glad that I bought a reader locally rather than be faced with the issue of having to return a US purchased device.
Now 10% failure of any device these days is too high. I think the original Xbox was more like 30% which was a nightmare for Microsoft.
There have been a few comments on the Amazon reviews that said that the quality of the K3 has been reduced and it feels cheap compared to that of the K2.
It may have been a bad batch of K3s similar to this bad batch of 650s that caused the rash of bad reviews that I mentioned.
White flag flying in the Kindle vs Sony War

10-23-2010, 11:45 PM	#1
loy123cat Junior Member Posts: 4 Karma: 9294 Join Date: Oct 2010 Device: PRS-650	more problems - now on my 3rd reader!! Hi, I bought my first reader on 8 Oct stopped working to touch (for settings and power off confirmation) Took that one back - retailer exchanged on 18 Oct. The new one worked for 3 days!! - Connected to laptop and downloaded 7th book & a couple of pdf files. Finished charging, closed Reader program, turned off eReader, disconnected from laptop. Picked it up 3 hours later & wouldn't turn on - light didn't even come on when connected to the laptop Anyone else having these sort of issues I now have another one but am concerned that it will be from the same batch!! Going to try again as I like the size etc but really really disappointed Retailer good but trying to blame me - not good as I am in IT - managing help desk for entire organisation Any ideas or advice

10-24-2010, 05:15 AM	#4
deadgloves Enthusiast Posts: 42 Karma: 2634 Join Date: May 2010 Device: PRS650	Either that, or the Vendor got a bum pallet. It does happen occasionally. However, based on another thread I would recommend never, ever touching the complete shutdown. It seems to be buggy. Just use sleep mode. More specifically, there is no reason to turn it off or send it to sleep mode while its still plugged in to your computer. I'd guess that's what killed it. Instead, unplug it, let it initialize the new data and THEN once you see the homepage, put it in sleep mode if you must. I may have only had this device for a week but in all my years of IT I've found that making changes to a system and then shutting down before the changes fully initialize can kill almost anything. Last edited by deadgloves; 10-24-2010 at 05:24 AM.

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10-24-2010, 03:39 AM	#2
Salgueiros Eudaimonia Posts: 898 Karma: 9164418 Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Vancouver, Canada Device: Sony PRS T2, Sony PRS T3, Sony DPT-RP1	3 readers??? Are you sure you are not the problem?

10-24-2010, 04:09 AM	#3
astra The Introvert Posts: 8,307 Karma: 1000077497 Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: United Kingdom Device: Sony Reader PRS-650 & 505 & 500	If the third ebook reader goes down, I would suspect user error.

10-24-2010, 10:13 AM	#7
harriska2 Addict Posts: 272 Karma: 8000000 Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Corvallis, OR Device: Kindle PW2, iPad Pro	I've been hooking it to my computer, upload/downloading, many, many times in a row and not had a problem. But then, of course, I eject in both Calibre and clicking on my eject button and not putting it in sleep mode. Kind of scary that they don't make a better fool-proof system (not that you're a fool). I'm just saying Sony should invest more time/money into keeping that from happening.

10-24-2010, 01:31 PM	#10
jswinden Nameless Being	Last one especially sounds like user error by putting the reader to sleep while it was plugged into a computer. Did you try resetting it before returning it? If not I would consider that IT error on your part.

10-24-2010, 10:07 PM	#11
tech_au Oz Bookworm Posts: 516 Karma: 4056 Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: Australia Device: Sony PRS 505,PRS 650	I guess you can get a bad run with anything but you'd have to be unlucky. Before I got my new 650 I was considering getting a K3 wifi instead but got scared off by all the 1 and 2 star reviews with users having this same problem with their new K3 like DOA, working for 1 day then locking up and dying etc etc.(10% of all reviews was too high for me to take the chance) I thought it would just my luck if I ordered one from the US and it was DOA so I got a locally purchased 650 instead(Glad I did now)

10-31-2010, 05:30 PM	#13
loy123cat Junior Member Posts: 4 Karma: 9294 Join Date: Oct 2010 Device: PRS-650	it is interesting that the tone of this thread was not more helpful. Even if it was user error (which is possible) more helpful tone would have been nice especially to someone who was a "junior" member. Obviously there are a lot of members who answer these forums who are extremely computer literate BUt there are many who are not it literate - i am not one of them but I would not expect any of you to believe it. Just wanted to let you know that the retailer has contacted me & it is a bad batch - they have had more returned. Heaven help anyone who is not computer literate because they wouldn't even come to this forum again for help. Comments like "Stupid is as stupid does" and "fool" are making major assumptions about other people - learn to be helpful and make the tone inviting in the forum. Unless the idea is to keep the forum for tech heads only I look forward to your comments on how to invite people to participate without making the new members feel like idiots.

10-31-2010, 09:09 PM	#14
doreenjoy 01000100 01001010 Posts: 1,889 Karma: 2400000 Join Date: Mar 2009 Device: Polyamorous	I'm glad you found out the vendor got a bad batch. And I agree with you that there are a lot of dismissive comments on the forum. It's sad to see.

10-31-2010, 10:12 PM	#15
tech_au Oz Bookworm Posts: 516 Karma: 4056 Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: Australia Device: Sony PRS 505,PRS 650	I think I may be partly responsible for jswindens outburst because it sounded like I was knocking the K3 when I wasn't really. I am glad that I bought a reader locally rather than be faced with the issue of having to return a US purchased device. Now 10% failure of any device these days is too high. I think the original Xbox was more like 30% which was a nightmare for Microsoft. There have been a few comments on the Amazon reviews that said that the quality of the K3 has been reduced and it feels cheap compared to that of the K2. It may have been a bad batch of K3s similar to this bad batch of 650s that caused the rash of bad reviews that I mentioned. White flag flying in the Kindle vs Sony War

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