Shut Down Kindle showing critical battery error

[Jitto]

Hey guys,

I have a 3rd gen Kindle which I have been using for more than a year. In January I was starting college so I felt that I wouldn't be reading as much from my kindle so I shut it down rather than just putting it to sleep. The weird thing is that after a couple of months when i took it out it was showing the critical battery error.

My question is this - How can the battery be drained if I had completely shut down my kindle? Secondly, is this a normal occurrence and how can i prevent it from happening again?

Hope some of you can help me out with this.

[HarryT]

Batteries do slowly discharge even when a device is turned off. This is an entirely normal occurrence if the Kindle's been switched off for 4 months.

... Having said which, I'm a little puzzled by what you mean when you say that you "shut it down". I don't know of any method for shutting down a Kindle. You can put it to sleep, or you can reboot it, but how do you shut it down?

[geekmaster]

Originally Posted by HarryT

... Having said which, I'm a little puzzled by what you mean when you say that you "shut it down". I don't know of any method for shutting down a Kindle. You can put it to sleep, or you can reboot it, but how do you shut it down?

To completely power down a kindle, hold the power switch until it erases the screen (about 7 seconds), then release.

If you hold the power switch too long (20 to 30 seconds), it will do a hard reset instead of a power down.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by geekmaster

To completely power down a kindle, hold the power switch until it erases the screen (about 7 seconds), then release.

No, that's just sleep mode with a blank screen. Press the power switch when the Kindle is in that state - does it wake up instantly, or do you get the "boy sitting under a tree" boot sequence? Certainly on my Kindles, it wakes up instantly.

[Timoleon]

Originally Posted by HarryT

No, that's just sleep mode with a blank screen. Press the power switch when the Kindle is in that state - does it wake up instantly, or do you get the "boy sitting under a tree" boot sequence? Certainly on my Kindles, it wakes up instantly.

Harry, are you sure about that? The google searches I just did on this topic seemed to indicate that "sleep mode" and "turning the kindle off" were two different things, and that you did the latter by holding the switch for seven seconds... I'm at work, so I can't test it on my Kindle 3, but will when I get home...

[HarryT]

Yes - just tried it again to be sure. Instant wake-up; the Kindle is most assuredly asleep, not shut down.

[vaughnmr]

You can put the kindle to sleep, or turn it off by holding the power switch for 7 seconds. If asleep, it can still activate the wireless downloading, for example, so it can still use power.

[HarryT]

No, it is NOT turned off when you hold in the power switch for 7 seconds; it is asleep, with a blank screen.

[soulfuldog]

We've had this discussion here before and despite what the user guide says about holding the switch to turn your Kindle off, it does actually just seem to put it into a sleep mode with the display turned off.

The Kindle wakes instantly from both sleep mode and from when it's supposedly switched off, so it's clearly not really fully switched off then is it? All sorts of things take a while to properly turn on (mp3 player, games console, computer etc), so it makes sense the Kindle would be the same.

There is one a difference between the sleep mode with the screensaver on and sleep mode with the blank screen. If you leave the Wi-Fi on and put the screensaver on, it will download books that you send to it while sleeping. When you switch it back on, the books are there waiting.

If you leave the Wi-Fi on and put it in sleep mode with the screen off, it takes a few seconds when you first turn it back on for the books to appear, but not as long as you'd expect it to take if it was going through the process of reconnecting the Wi-Fi signal and connecting to Amazon to download.

[Jitto]

Thank you very much for your replies guys. Really appreciate it. I didn't realise that holding the power button down for 7 seconds does not shut down the kindle. Guess i was misinformed. I'll never make this mistake again.

Once again appreciate the replies

[geekmaster]

Originally Posted by HarryT

No, it is NOT turned off when you hold in the power switch for 7 seconds; it is asleep, with a blank screen.

In screensaver mode it periodically wakes up to "phone home" to check for OTA updates, and to sync your collections to your amazon account, and it can index your books in this mode.

In "blank screen" mode, all of these functions are disabled, and it draws no power. You can even disconnect the battery. Try it. I did. How can it NOT be powered down with no battery and no USB connection?

After reconnecting the battery in power down (blank screen) state, it stays powered down until you tap the power button. It wakes up immediately even after the battery was disconnected. It does not spend time at the "kindle tree" while reloading the desktop framework.

I suppose for a REAL test we need to leave the battery disconnected overnight and see it it reboots then. It may be sleeping on energy stored in a capacitor. ???

[geekmaster]

Originally Posted by l_macd

We've had this discussion here before and despite what the user guide says about holding the switch to turn your Kindle off, it does actually just seem to put it into a sleep mode with the display turned off.

And were those conclusions based on evidence, or just pure conjecture?

[Jeff L]

Originally Posted by geekmaster

And were those conclusions based on evidence, or just pure conjecture?

There have been people who checked the system logs, comparing sleep and shut down. They differ in minor details only.

I no longer recall the command to access the logs. Perhaps someone here knows.

If the Kindle uses non-volatile memory (does it?), then maybe sleep = hibernation.

[geekmaster]

Originally Posted by Jeff L

There have been people who checked the system logs, comparing sleep and shut down. They differ in minor details only.

I no longer recall the command to access the logs. Perhaps someone here knows.

If the Kindle uses non-volatile memory (does it?), then maybe sleep = hibernation.

Could somebody please supply a link to these threads (or PM me)? I want to read about this. I want to learn why and how my understanding of this disagrees with other information out there. I am only going on what I found in the amazon and freescale reference manuals. I searched the forums, but apparently I do not know the "magic" search keywords needed to find that information.

I suppose comparing system logs during LONG PERIODS of "blank screen shutdown" and screensaver mode would be one way to investigate this.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by geekmaster

And were those conclusions based on evidence, or just pure conjecture?

The evidence - which seems pretty conclusive to me - is the fact that, when you press the power switch from the so-called "shut down" state, you don't get the lengthy "boy sitting under a tree" boot sequence; the Kindle starts up instantly. What more evidence is needed?