Hi Folks,
I've recently pulled out my old Kindle 2 International that stopped working a number of years ago. It was frozen on the dreaded critical battery screen and just wouldn't charge. I didn't know how to fix it back then but I thought I'd give it another try. I took off the back and saw that the battery was all puffed up. Having some knowledge of batteries I knew this wasn't good so I thought "maybe a new battery would solve the problem?".
I ordered one pretty much exactly the same from eBay but it didn't solve the problem. I discovered that the batteries (the eBay seller gave me two instead of one!) were completely flat (zero volt output) but learned that they can be 'reawakened' with some charge. Seeing that my Kindle wouldn't charge I had to use a Multivoltage adaptor to charge them. So, after some McGyvering, I managed to charge the batteries enough to get the Kindle to come back to life.
The kindle still wouldn't charge. After quite a number of hours searching the net and trying all sorts of 'soft' resets and 'hard' resets and holding the home button and whatnot I still don't have a solution - but I'm convinced there is one out there!
I need your help!
The Kindle seems to work fine when I put a freshly charged battery in it. If I plug in the wall charger the battery indicator says it's charging but it is not and after I take the cable out the indicator says it's still chraging. Sometimes even the orange light comes on but after a while (and it is a short while) the Kindle goes back to the critical battery screen and I have to remove the battery and charge it externally. If I plug it into the computer via USB the computer recognises it (took me a while to achieve this) and I can do all the things one can do from the puta but the Kindle says that it is 'currently not charging' and, of course, wont charge. The orange light behaves a bit haphazardly, too. It may come on if I plug in the charger, or not. Or it may turn on for a little while and then turn off. Either way it doesn't charge.
Here's a list of things I've tried so far:
1. hold the on button for 20/30/45/90/180 seconds (this does a reset but doesn't solve the recharge problem)
2. hold the on button for 30 seconds and then hold the home button for 30 secs (this does the hard reset but doesn't solve the problem)
3. Do a restart from within ('home', 'menu', 'settings', 'menu', 'restart')
4. Do a reset to factory settings ('home', 'menu', 'settings', 'menu', 'reset to Factory Defaults').
4. hold down the on button and keep it there while trying to recharge from a wall socket for many hours. The orange light comes on but the Kindle doesn't charge - I just end up back at the critical battery screen. The orange light turns off after an hour or so as well.
5. I've tried jailbreaking the Kindle to see if it would fix a possible software fault (it didn't) and then un-jailbroke it by restarting it with the jailbreak uninstall file copied across.
6. Updating to version 2.5.8.
7. I've checked for physical faults on the PCB and in the micro-USB connection. No noticeable problems. The USB connection seems fine and the orange light does sometimes come on so I don't think there is any problem there.
8. Asked Amazon for help. I did an instant chat with a fellow. Tried a few of the above steps, however, no warranty? No dice.
9. Danced the funky chicken. Probably out of frustration more than anything.
I feel like the problem lies within the Kindle's software/firmware. It seems to work fine on a charged battery but glitches only when trying to charge it. Is there any way I can refresh the firmware involved with battery management?
There's my story. Any assistance would be most, most oh so very most appreciated.
Neil