Plugged in Kindle, now dead battery

[dwallbaum]

Gentlefolk;

The battery on my K2 was low due to some indexing from downloads. Brought it home and plugged it into the AC outlet and let it charge overnight. Came up today to transfers the books over to the desktop, and the kindle displayed a Critical Battery notice indicating that the K2 had to be plugged into a power source. The battery was dead.

The K2 was in sleep mode during the charge, no whispernet activity going on, so now I am throughly confused.

The charge status light was not on when I came into the office. It usu. is green when fully charged. It was not on at all. The unit was plugged into a computer UPS, but we have had no power outages and the UPS was working correctly.

Ideas?

Thanks!

DonW

[poohbear_nc]

Sometimes the USB connection to the Kindle is loose/ill-fitting - try gently jiggling it, or pull out the connector and reconnect a few times to see if the charging light comes on. If that fails, call Amazon Customer Support for a replacement unit.

[sirbruce]

For whatever reason, it didn't charge. But you didn't say if you can get it to charge now? When you plug it in the light by the USB port on the Kindle should be amber.

[dwallbaum]

Gentlefolk;

Well, I unplugged the micro-USB connector from the K2 and plugged it back in. The amber light glowed and when I checked back, it had changed to green, so all is well.

BUT, I still don't know why, with the unit plugged in and starting to charge, I should come back to a dead battery. The most I would have expected was to have no increased battery charge, not have the charge depleted entirely. This is most passing strange to me.

I also noted that when the K2 was plugged into just the computer's USB port to charge, the amber light went out after a while. I thought perhaps when the computer powered down, this disabled the USB connection and would have turned off the power to the K2. But the K2 was plugged into a powered USB multi-port expander, so even if connectivity to the computer would have been terminated by a power-down, power to the hub continued and I would have thought power to the K2 would have continued.

Well, I have a warranty on the thing, so I will watch and see... and backup and backup and backup. Fortunately, I am not yet heavily invested in paid books from Amazon, so if the unit fails entirely I won't be out a lot of money, if there is an issue with getting my downloads restored from Amazon. (Though I am still unclear if I need to pull the books back down from Amazon or if I can restore from a backup on my computer, owing to the DRM issues.)

FINALLY, I thought that after a period of charging, and the unit being fully charged, that the entire charging system turns off, to prevent overcharge. This, in my thinking, would explain the lack of any light at all on the K2. But this apparently is not the case.

Finally, I went to the local Radio Shack to get a USB -> MicroUSB cable to carry with me, and of course the Shack didn't have any such thing... the sales guy said "I wish we would get some in, that is getting to be a common connector..."

So, Im off the a 'puter store to pick one up... don't need the AC-microUSB replacement from Amazon, just a cheap generic to haul around with me.

So, lots of questions, few answers. Any opinions appreciated. Thx!

(Mainly, is this failure to charge and completely discharge a random event or a known issue that needs to be addressed by Amazon?)

Thx!

DonW

[sirbruce]

Originally Posted by dwallbaum

BUT, I still don't know why, with the unit plugged in and starting to charge, I should come back to a dead battery. The most I would have expected was to have no increased battery charge, not have the charge depleted entirely. This is most passing strange to me.

You said it was low due to indexing. Perhaps it was still indexing. Or perhaps you left the wireless on. Both will use the battery while the Kindle is sleeping.

I also noted that when the K2 was plugged into just the computer's USB port to charge, the amber light went out after a while. I thought perhaps when the computer powered down, this disabled the USB connection and would have turned off the power to the K2. But the K2 was plugged into a powered USB multi-port expander, so even if connectivity to the computer would have been terminated by a power-down, power to the hub continued and I would have thought power to the K2 would have continued.

This isn't very clear to me. Can you turn off your computer, leave the hub turned on, plug the K2 into the hub, and tell us exactly what happens? Then compare with what happens when the computer is on?

(Though I am still unclear if I need to pull the books back down from Amazon or if I can restore from a backup on my computer, owing to the DRM issues.)

You need to pull the books back down from Amazon if they send you a new unit.

FINALLY, I thought that after a period of charging, and the unit being fully charged, that the entire charging system turns off, to prevent overcharge. This, in my thinking, would explain the lack of any light at all on the K2. But this apparently is not the case.

Why do you think this is not the case? The light changes to green to tell you it's full, but that doesn't mean it's overcharging. It has a power management chip to prevent such things. I think leaving it plugged in will allow it to recharge as needed, though.

[dwallbaum]

Hi Sirbruce;

I will try to answer your questions:

Originally Posted by sirbruce

You said it was low due to indexing. Perhaps it was still indexing. Or perhaps you left the wireless on. Both will use the battery while the Kindle is sleeping.

Possibly it was indexing..but the last book was pulled down earlier in the day.. would it take 5-6 hours to index a couple of books? In any event, the K2 was plugged into the AC for it to charge. I went back.... 36 hours later?? and saw the charging light was OFF. Wireless was not on and when I looked at the screen, I saw the Critical Battery warning.

This isn't very clear to me. Can you turn off your computer, leave the hub turned on, plug the K2 into the hub, and tell us exactly what happens? Then compare with what happens when the computer is on?

The hub retains power and the K2 charges normally.. in that the amber light was glowing. But I was sufficiently spooked about the CRITICAL BATTERY message that I dumped the USB charging in favor of AC charging. I will reconfirm that USB charging IS active when the computer is OFF, but I don't think that is the issue. I could forsee where it could be, but in my case, with independent power going to the USB hub, and with other peripherals plugged into the hub, each getting power with the computer off, I don't see this as an issue in this case.

You need to pull the books back down from Amazon if they send you a new unit.

thx!

Why do you think this is not the case? The light changes to green to tell you it's full, but that doesn't mean it's overcharging. It has a power management chip to prevent such things. I think leaving it plugged in will allow it to recharge as needed, though.

Well, I have seen other systems that, when fully charged, turn completely off. So when I saw the K2 had no charging light, I thought the same might be true for this unit. But apparently, it was just not receiving power for whatever reason.

Now I am interested in leaving the K2 plugged in for a prolonged period of time - couple of days - and see if the green light continues to glow or if the power input completely terminates. Then the question will be is this by accident or design? Based on what has been stated here in this forum, I would expect the green light to stay on anytime it had access to external power.

So, the unit is not receiving power, I can explain that by any number of circumstances...not good explanations, but I can come up with some. But the continued depletion of power -- THAT mystifies me. Unless something was forcing a complete re-indexing of everything on the K2? But with... around 40 books on the K2, it is not heavily burdened. It currently displays 1467 MB free. And having been in sleep mode for the past three days, it now shows.... 90-95% power remaining? So there is _some_ power draw in sleep mode. Wonder if there is power draw in OFF mode?

DonW

[sirbruce]

Originally Posted by dwallbaum

Possibly it was indexing..but the last book was pulled down earlier in the day.. would it take 5-6 hours to index a couple of books? In any event, the K2 was plugged into the AC for it to charge. I went back.... 36 hours later?? and saw the charging light was OFF. Wireless was not on and when I looked at the screen, I saw the Critical Battery warning.

No, indexing would have been done in only a few minutes with just a few books.

Originally Posted by dwallbaum

The hub retains power and the K2 charges normally.. in that the amber light was glowing. But I was sufficiently spooked about the CRITICAL BATTERY message that I dumped the USB charging in favor of AC charging. I will reconfirm that USB charging IS active when the computer is OFF, but I don't think that is the issue.

Cool, so at least we know that that works. I can understand why you went to the AC charging, though.

Originally Posted by dwallbaum

Now I am interested in leaving the K2 plugged in for a prolonged period of time - couple of days - and see if the green light continues to glow or if the power input completely terminates. Then the question will be is this by accident or design? Based on what has been stated here in this forum, I would expect the green light to stay on anytime it had access to external power.

From what I know, the green light should stay on. But I've never left it plugged in for 36 hours before so maybe it does turn off eventually. But I doubt it.

Originally Posted by dwallbaum

So, the unit is not receiving power, I can explain that by any number of circumstances...not good explanations, but I can come up with some. But the continued depletion of power -- THAT mystifies me. Unless something was forcing a complete re-indexing of everything on the K2? But with... around 40 books on the K2, it is not heavily burdened. It currently displays 1467 MB free. And having been in sleep mode for the past three days, it now shows.... 90-95% power remaining? So there is _some_ power draw in sleep mode. Wonder if there is power draw in OFF mode?

Yes, there is some power draw in sleep mode even with wireless off and no indexing. As for OFF mode, there is probably an even smaller draw from the battery, but experience has been that the power consumed by turning the Kindle off and on takes more energy than simply letting it sleep. So I would recommend just letting it sleep.

It sounds like that maybe the cord or connector was loose, and it just didn't charge the one time, and eventually the charge ran down low enough to trip the battery warning. Another possibility could be a brief power surge or power outage while it was plugged in; I could see how this might put the Kindle in a state where it would stop charging, but that is pure speculation on my part and I don't think nearly as likely as just a loose cord or connector.

[dwallbaum]

Thanks, sirbruce;

I still have my orig. packing, and a year's warranty, so I think the best thing is to put the K2 thru its paces and see if anything amiss happens again. OTOH, I don't know about the LiPo technology, but other batteries enjoy a good, thorough discharge periodically.. .though I have seen that this is not the case for the LiPo.

All this reminds me of when I bought my Tandy 200, the 2nd generation of the venerable Tandy 100, the first laptop. People fixated on the 100/200s to a painful degree - extolling the virtues of 6v lantern batteries for power sources, bubble memory for storage and hacking the units for optimal whatever-you-wants. New technology is a trip, if you enjoy roller coasters.

DonW

[dwallbaum]

Gentlefolk;

In an ongoing experiment to understand the K2 and its use of power, I bought a USB->microUSB cable to carry with the K2 and use while at another PC.

I USBed (ahh.. another noun into a verb...) a mobi file into my K2, and thought I would leave the USB connected to power the K2 while it indexed.

The green light was on as soon as I plugged in the USB, indicating full charge (the battery monitor showed less than full, but not remarkably less than full, so close enough, I figure.)

The book appeared after I unmounted the Kindle, but still leaving the USB connected.

The K2 stayed on the Menu page for a few minutes, then went to sleep, displaying the screen saver.

The charge light is now OFF, no color showing at all.

Opinions? This seems to indicate that after a certain amount of time, the K2 will "disconnect" from the power source and put itself into sleep mode. OR, I could have a faulty K2.

Thx!

UPDATE: ahhh... klever, klever Kindle.... When I took the K2 out of sleep mode, it automatically remounted to the computer. The display indicated that if I wanted to use the K2 as a reader, to dismount the Kindle. I did this, and the Menu page appeared again, and the green light came back on.

So, it appears that after some point, the power system does shut down....just put the K2 in sleep mode and the green light is still on. Well, Im confused....

DonW

[sirbruce]

Well, I can tell you this: it does not do this when plugged into the wall socket, even when fully charged.

Furthermore, when *not* fully charged, I can tell that even in sleep mode, plugged in via USB, the light stays on and it keeps charging. And when it finishes charging, it puts on a green light, even in sleep mode.

What you *might* have a case is, if it's fully charged, and it's plugged in via USB, and then it goes to sleep, it will turn the light off and no longer charge. But I can't confirm this at this time. I have no idea why it might behave this way.

I would not worry about this at all unless you plan routinely leave your Kindle 2 plugged in, while fully charged, to the USB for long periods of time. If so, then this bears further investigation.

[dwallbaum]

Well, my next experiment is to let the K2's battery deplete for a while, then plug into the AC and see what happens.. since this is what triggered the entire discussion.

Sirbruce: your contention is that sleep mode or off mode, the charging system remains the same - that when full charge is indicated by the green light, that green light remains lit all the time the K2 is connected to a power sources, is that correct? Irrespective of what the unit is actually doing at the time: being read, indexing, sleeping or off?

thx!

DonW

Originally Posted by sirbruce

Well, I can tell you this: it does not do this when plugged into the wall socket, even when fully charged.

Furthermore, when *not* fully charged, I can tell that even in sleep mode, plugged in via USB, the light stays on and it keeps charging. And when it finishes charging, it puts on a green light, even in sleep mode.

What you *might* have a case is, if it's fully charged, and it's plugged in via USB, and then it goes to sleep, it will turn the light off and no longer charge. But I can't confirm this at this time. I have no idea why it might behave this way.

I would not worry about this at all unless you plan routinely leave your Kindle 2 plugged in, while fully charged, to the USB for long periods of time. If so, then this bears further investigation.

[sirbruce]

Originally Posted by dwallbaum

Sirbruce: your contention is that sleep mode or off mode, the charging system remains the same - that when full charge is indicated by the green light, that green light remains lit all the time the K2 is connected to a power sources, is that correct? Irrespective of what the unit is actually doing at the time: being read, indexing, sleeping or off?

That's my experience with both the outlet and the USB, but I've never plugged one fully charged into USB before and then had it go into sleep mode, which is the particular case you're seeing.

[jgilliam1955]

If you are using a USB hub or extender, sometimes they will not do a good job supplying power to a device like the Kindle. Try using a USB port on the computer.
Good luck

[clamelisa]

Please try the following proceeding, it worked for me :

1. Slide the power button and hold it for 30 sec.

2. Release and wait for 20 sec until the screen begins to flash.

3. As soon as it does, plug in the power and keep it connected for 2 hours.

[Pushka]

I have heard that some wall chargers can actually drain the power.