[karthikrr]

My H20 is exhibiting very strange behaviour that my forum research has not helped me figure out yet. Some inputs from those more experienced will help.

I'll just post the problem I am having right now first, but more context regarding the life story of this device follows, in case it is relevant.

Screen is completely blank. Trying to power on does not result in white-black-white flash. LED does not blink, just stays on and then goes off. Manual reset (the tap method) does not work. When connected to the computer, it detects as NS Blank Codex. Device has a suspect battery, as you will see in the details that follow. I am wondering if I need to check anything else, or if I should go ahead and open it up. And if I do open it up, what do I check first?

History

I posted about this device a long time ago. It had a funky battery that I "fixed" by letting it charge for 24 hours. The battery used to jump around crazily until I left it connected to the charger for 24 hours, and after that it seemed to be fine, as long as I kept recharging it regularly without letting the battery drain down too much.

Then at one point I did forget to recharge it and the battery died again, worst of all in the middle of an update (that I accidentally started by turning wifi on). It froze completely and 24 hour recharge or not, nothing worked. I finally did the manual reset (turn off, press power and tap bottom till it resets), and that got it booting again. But rather than wipe the device, it ended up finishing the interrupted update and everything was fine.

Until two weeks ago. I was reading on it and it froze in the middle of a highlight. I have no idea what the battery level was, but it must have been on the lower side. Nothing would reset it or reboot it, the screen remained frozen on the same page that I was reading. I read somewhere to leave the device alone and let the battery drain to zero and then start over. Sure enough, after leaving it alone for about 10 days, when I connected it to the charger again, the screen refreshed and I saw two squares at the bottom. It unfortunately froze again at that point. I figured probably because the battery drained to zero yet again, so left it connected for 24 hours.

Now, the screen at some point went totally blank, and nothing happens. Power on does not do the white-black-white flash, the LED never blinks, just lights up for a few seconds and goes off, and no amount of manual reset works. When I connect it to the computer, I get "NS Blank Codex" installing and then everything just goes off (as in the device unplugged chime on Windows).

Moreover, I can only get the power LED to come on occasionally when it is unplugged. It always comes on when connected to the computer, and frequently when connected to the charger, but almost never when unplugged. When unplugged, after it has been charging for a long time, I can get the light one or two times and then never, till I charge it again.

All of this leads me to believe its either dead battery or borked SD card or very likely both! Are there any other tests I need to do, or should I just go ahead and open the thing up? If I do open it up, are the old instructions for cloning the SD card still current, or have the new firmwares changed anything on that front? Do I still need a firmware from @davidfor or can I use the firmware from the hacks thread? Lastly, any idea if the Kobo Aura battery will work on the H20?