Aura H2O Screen is stuck on "sleeping"

[dcbaker]

Long story short, my wife went to read a book, and the pressing the power button no longer causes a change in the screen. I tried all of the reset mechanisms, none of them cause the screen to come back. The LED still flashes when you hold down the power button, but no change in the screen.

I've pulled it apart, checked the SD Card, replaced the sdcard with a new one with a fresh imaged provided by a helpful user here. Still nothing. The only think I have left to try is hooking serial up to the UART headers on the board, but I haven't been able to figure out what the voltage to use is (and don't want to fry the board if it's still possibly good).

At this point I'm guess that the screen has died for some reason, but I thought Id ask to see if anyone had other suggestions.

[frostschutz]

if the screen does not show any life sign then it's either broken or the screen cable is disconnected

does the frontlight still come on? that's a separate cable though

if the power led blinks the device should be booting fine (with nonbootable sd card, it just lights up without blinking)

broken eink substrate usually leaves distinct patterns on the screen but it can also be invisible sometimes so cant' really tell

I replaced H2O screen once with a replacement part from aliexpress [there are some old posts about it somewhere]. However that screen suffered partial failure after some time (one dead pixel row / column after stressing it too much with fbink ...) and it also has more ghosting than the original screen

[dcbaker]

Originally Posted by frostschutz

if the screen does not show any life sign then it's either broken or the screen cable is disconnected

does the frontlight still come on? that's a separate cable though

No, the backlight doesn't come on. The ribbon cables look solidly in on the back of the main board, and I haven't taken them out (I hate reseating those things).

Originally Posted by frostschutz

if the power led blinks the device should be booting fine (with nonbootable sd card, it just lights up without blinking)

The led by the power button comes on solid (no blinking) for ~6 seconds then turns off, with both the original SD card, and a spare I had around flashed with the factory image. (it's a 32gb, maybe it's too big?)

Originally Posted by frostschutz

broken eink substrate usually leaves distinct patterns on the screen but it can also be invisible sometimes so cant' really tell

There's a small smudge in the bottom right corner, looks a bit like an ink fingerprint.

I replaced H2O screen once with a replacement part from aliexpress [there are some old posts about it somewhere]. However that screen suffered partial failure after some time (one dead pixel row / column after stressing it too much with fbink ...) and it also has more ghosting than the original screen[/QUOTE]

[rtiangha]

Do you still get the LED behavior when you plug it in? Doing that should turn it on and continue to boot. That way, you can at least rule out the battery not holding a charge and powering off right away.

Otherwise, I would have guessed a bad SD card that couldn't boot but you trying two (I assume) working ones would rule it out.

[frostschutz]

Originally Posted by dcbaker

The led by the power button comes on solid (no blinking) for ~6 seconds then turns off, with both the original SD card, and a spare I had around flashed with the factory image.

something is wrong with your sd card(s) then

you can take the sd card out entirely, it will still light up that way

the led starts blinking once the device actually boots and that's where it refreshes the screen too

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by dcbaker

There's a small smudge in the bottom right corner, looks a bit like an ink fingerprint.

If you still have the device open, have a look at the back of the screen. The damage is to the backplane. Sometimes this is more obvious when looking at the back.

[dcbaker]

Originally Posted by rtiangha

Do you still get the LED behavior when you plug it in? Doing that should turn it on and continue to boot. That way, you can at least rule out the battery not holding a charge and powering off right away.

Otherwise, I would have guessed a bad SD card that couldn't boot but you trying two (I assume) working ones would rule it out.

I tried a third card that I was using as a second SD card in my Aura H20 (I have one too). Still the same behavior. I've also tried with it plugged into power, and that doesn change anything.

[dcbaker]

Originally Posted by davidfor

If you still have the device open, have a look at the back of the screen. The damage is to the backplane. Sometimes this is more obvious when looking at the back.

I'm not sure exactly what the components in the display are, but the clear layer (that's about 1mm thick) is pulled away from the layer below that in the corner, is that the sort of damage I'm looking for?

I went ahead and attached my serial to the UART (j5, as I found on another thread here). I don't get anything back while it's powering on. I'm used to some sort of hardware diagnostics (I work for a silicon vendor) even when the firmware gives up on handing off to the next layer, but maybe that's a bad expectation here?

At this point I'm about to just call it a day and admit that it's 8 years old and had a good run and maybe it's just time to buy my wife a new one.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by dcbaker

I'm not sure exactly what the components in the display are, but the clear layer (that's about 1mm thick) is pulled away from the layer below that in the corner, is that the sort of damage I'm looking for?

That isn't what I was thinking of, but, it could be the issue. There are plenty of pictures of broken screens due to the substrate cracking that will show what I mean.

I went ahead and attached my serial to the UART (j5, as I found on another thread here). I don't get anything back while it's powering on. I'm used to some sort of hardware diagnostics (I work for a silicon vendor) even when the firmware gives up on handing off to the next layer, but maybe that's a bad expectation here?

There are a few people who do this, but, it isn't something I have experience with.

At this point I'm about to just call it a day and admit that it's 8 years old and had a good run and maybe it's just time to buy my wife a new one.

Yes, it is time to for the new ereader. A Libra 2 or Sage should make her very happy. And you can keep the Aura H2O to tinker with when you have time.

[dcbaker]

Kobo is running a sale on the clara HD, so I ordered one of those. If she doesn't like the size then she can keep my Aura H20 (I have it set up for her right now and I'm working through my backlog of paper only books).

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by dcbaker

Kobo is running a sale on the clara HD, so I ordered one of those. If she doesn't like the size then she can keep my Aura H20 (I have it set up for her right now and I'm working through my backlog of paper only books).

Did you use the code PERKOPOLIS to get even more off?

[dcbaker]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Did you use the code PERKOPOLIS to get even more off?

Nope, tried about a dozen codes that got rejected and gave up. there would, inevitably, be a code that does work but I wouldn't find it

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by dcbaker

Nope, tried about a dozen codes that got rejected and gave up. there would, inevitably, be a code that does work but I wouldn't find it

You should have a look at the Kobo deals thread to find out what might work and try it.