Troubleshooting So, Kindles can't be repaired?

I've had a Kindle 2 for years but recently spilled some soup on it and it wouldn't work right after that. So I ordered a replacement motherboard from PowerBookMedic. I carefully replaced the board, inserted my old radio chip in the slot, and it powered up like a champ! Then I tried to register it.

With the 3G on, and after checking it by browsing the Amazon Store for awhile I went to Settings and tried to register the device. Kept getting the message that it "Can't connect" and telling me to reboot and try again. So I did, to no avail. After talking to about 6 different tech people and running through the same rigmarole it turns out that you can't change the motherboards on the devices. They'll work fine, but because Amazon has proprietary code in the firmware that demands a match between the radio chip and the mobo's mac address, it'll just hang.

At one point I said to the tech: "So this is just a way for Amazon to make sure their devices can't be repaired, and they can compel their customers to buy new ones when the old ones break?" And she acknowledged that was the case, but said that I could have "bought a replacement at a reduced price." No replacing the engine on these puppies.

What I don't understand is that PowerBookMedic surely knows this, but they make no mention of such a limitation on their site. What to do?

Buy an iPad or a Nexus 10 I guess. Something that I can at least use with my $500 book collection and chalk it up to lessons learned?

[geekmaster]

If you know your old serial number and mac address, you can write those to the new kindle firmware. Then you can register it. You can learn how in the Dev Corner forum.

[hawhill]

Well, expect some fun when you go and change your iPad's motherboard...
That said - send back the Motherboard and get a refund. As an alternative, get custom with the platform and the "idme" utility and set your new motherboard's identity to that of the old one - but that's a hard way if you didn't work on such a technical level before...

Edit: Ooops, geekmaster was faster :-)

Originally Posted by hawhill

Well, expect some fun when you go and change your iPad's motherboard...
That said - send back the Motherboard and get a refund. As an alternative, get custom with the platform and the "idme" utility and set your new motherboard's identity to that of the old one - but that's a hard way if you didn't work on such a technical level before...

I was able to do this. Lots of oblique references to it, but apparently no one wants to directly cross Amazon's path. Anyway, if I can do it then it's not really that hard.