PRS-650 Charging issue - battery down to zero

[neilmarr]

Never had my Sony below three bars either, Sweetpea. It get heavy use and I give it a mains charge overnight about once every two or three weeks. Never the slightest hitch. Cheers. Neil

[zmix]

FYI: The red light will go out when the battery reaches 80% charge. For a FULL charge you should leave the Reader on the charger for at least 8 hours.

[FizzyWater]

Originally Posted by zmix

FYI: The red light will go out when the battery reaches 80% charge. For a FULL charge you should leave the Reader on the charger for at least 8 hours.

Where did you get this from - is it in the user guide?

[elcreative]

This is actually the standard behaviour for charging any lithium batteries... 80% charge is relatively quick and usually what charge light refers to, remaining 20% much slower and carries on after charging light has gone out. Sony quotes around couple of hours for 80% and up to 6-8 hours for full charge.In any case, device stops charging when battery maxed out...

Originally Posted by FizzyWater

Where did you get this from - is it in the user guide?

[Bald Eagle]

Originally Posted by Nikko73

I have had the 650 for about 6 weeks now and have had an issue with the battery. About 2 weeks ago it went from 4 bars to 2 in a day (when ordinarily it would have stayed on 4 or dropped to 3). I recharged via a plug charger and the same thing happened. I was a bit perplexed and decided to power the device on and off again (I usually just go into sleep mode). And this has fixed the problem, it now works as it did before. I can only presume that the processor was working while in the sleep mode and this was causing the battery drain. By shutting down and 'rebooting' the device it was no longer having to process the errant thread. Its all guesswork though.

I had the exact same problem, going from full to 2 bars overnight in sleep mode. The fix was also the same - shutting down fixed the problem.

[Alexander Turcic]

Originally Posted by Bald Eagle

I had the exact same problem, going from full to 2 bars overnight in sleep mode. The fix was also the same - shutting down fixed the problem.

So you did a complete shut down (not just turning it off with the slider), and from then one, the problem disappeared? Cool! I have my reader fully charged now (with Blackberry charger overnight), and will analyze how the battery performs. If it's still an issue, I will also follow the one-time-shutdown advice.

[TimeTraveler]

Originally Posted by Nikko73

I have had the 650 for about 6 weeks now and have had an issue with the battery. About 2 weeks ago it went from 4 bars to 2 in a day (when ordinarily it would have stayed on 4 or dropped to 3). I recharged via a plug charger and the same thing happened. I was a bit perplexed and decided to power the device on and off again (I usually just go into sleep mode). And this has fixed the problem, it now works as it did before. I can only presume that the processor was working while in the sleep mode and this was causing the battery drain. By shutting down and 'rebooting' the device it was no longer having to process the errant thread. Its all guesswork though.

I also had the same problem you had with my 650. After charging it (in standby) with my cell phone charger the red light would go out and I would have 4 bars. The next day it would be down to one or two bars. I powered it completely off, recharged it and so far it's working perfect now. So far it looks like you have found the solution to this problem.

[Blackadder]

My PRS-600 has done the same thing, twice over the last 4 weeks. I always use the official PSP mains charger to charge the reader and always leave it overnight.

Had turned it off and left it unused for 2/3 days, went from 3 bars to totally dead in that time.

[igorsk]

Check that you have power management on in the settings. I turned it off once and forgot to turn back on, and it led to very similar symptoms.

[Bvelleko]

I had the same problems last 2 days.
Yesterday I tried to strat it, dead. Started troubleshooting and found out the battery was drained. Plugged it in to an USB port of my pc and left it to charge all day (about 13 hours). Tested it the same night and appeared to be fully charged.
This morning I tried to start it and it was yet again completely dead. Charged it again via USB for an hour and it works again, battery is at 50%??
Now I got it plugged in a AC socket to charge all day again.
My guess is that it lacks to charge fully under USB, quite strange because it's kind of made for it. The real question is, is the USB-controller in my reader broken or is there a compatibility-issue with USB2/3 ports.
If that's true I'm sure that this would be the last Sony product I bought.

[Mark Nord]

May I suggest a compete shut-down and restart, or even a "soft"reset, meaning just push the reset-button and flip the power switch to power on?

Sometimes the OS is caught in a loop, preventing the main CPU from entering power-save-mode. A restart or reset cures this.

HTH
Mark

[pidgeon92]

Originally Posted by Bvelleko

I had the same problems last 2 days.
Yesterday I tried to strat it, dead. Started troubleshooting and found out the battery was drained. Plugged it in to an USB port of my pc and left it to charge all day (about 13 hours). Tested it the same night and appeared to be fully charged.

The Sony will drain if the computer is turned off, and will often drain if the computer goes to sleep. I wager you will find it will keep its charge after you are done charging it via the wall charger.

[carpetmojo]

Just a (probably) daft query - I follow advice about not charging 'till it needs it, avoiding unnecessary "squirts" of charging - but last night suddenly realised that every time I plug into the PC, it stars charging !
For as long as it takes to d/load a book etc..

So what happens there - or is it so minute a charge it doesn't effect the battery performance in the long run ?

[Asawi]

Modern batteries last longer if you don't run them down too much before recharging. So no damage by the occational short trickle charge.

[Bvelleko]

Originally Posted by pidgeon92

The Sony will drain if the computer is turned off, and will often drain if the computer goes to sleep. I wager you will find it will keep its charge after you are done charging it via the wall charger.

For that 13 hours my computer wasn't turned off or went to sleep. After I tested it I unplugged the USB cable and turned my computer off so that can't be the problem.

I did the reset (Soft and Hard) the first time it died, so that problem shouldn't be coming back the next day.

Anyway today I booted it and everything seems to be normal again. I will use it until it's empty again to see if I can charge it with my computer again. It better work that time!