PRS-T2 Constant "Low Battery" shutdown

[RichterCa]

My PRS-T2 is constantly telling me I have a low battery and shutting itself off. It was doing this every few page turns, but now I can't even open a book.

I know the battery is full as I left it plugged into the wall over night, and plugged into my computer for several hours as well. The battery indicator reads full, and I can click "Applications" and look around at notes, and settings. I can even pull up the EULA, and turn the page dozens of times without the device shutting down.

Once in a while it'll work fine until I put it to sleep, and wake it up and start reading again, then it'll tell me "Low Battery" after a few page turns. It then keeps doing this every page turn or two every time I restart.

I've tried doing a hard reset, but that doesn't seem to help, the problem keeps occurring.

My T2 is Version 1.1.00.15240

Any ideas as to what I could do? Or is this just junk now?

[HarryT]

Sounds as if your battery has died.

[RichterCa]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Sounds as if your battery has died.

But I have no problem looking around the applications screen, and options, and even reading the EULA. It's only books that seem to have a problem...

[porkupan]

It's been quite a while since you reported this problem, so hopefully you've already addressed it in some fashion.

A couple of weeks ago I started experiencing the same problem with my PRS-T3, which I bought on eBay. Since the Reader has been discontinued here in the States, and PRS-T3 had never been release here, Sony refused to fix it, telling me I needed to ship the Reader back to the country where I bought it to be fixed.

Well, to make a long story short, you are better off fixing it yourself. A Russian technician who specializes in repairing ebook readers told me that the common point of failure is usually the overcurrent protector in the reader's battery. When an eInk screen does a full refresh, the current draw is often high enough to trip the overcurrent fuse, and cause the device to shutdown. After a while these fuses "dry up", and start tripping all the time.

What you need to do it open up the Reader and get to the battery. Open the white paper sticker on the battery, observe that one of the contacts is attached to the little board via a small chip (that's the overcurrent protection device). Bypass it by either soldering a wire between the battery contact and the board, or just by dropping a big drop of solder that reaches across the fuse.

Then put the sticker back onto the battery, and make sure the battery still works. In the worst case you may have to buy a new battery on eBay, and solder it to the board. But my Reader seems fine after the bypass.