PRS-950 strange battery issue - Page 2

Shopaholic · 04-27-2011, 03:29 PM

Hi Amalthia, I've only ever put it in standby mode until the recent episodes of two full battery drains. Then I did a shutdown just to see if that would have any effect at all and after reading for the last two days I again only put it in standby mode. *shrugs*

When your standby mode failed did it look the way it was supposed to but didn't actually go into standby or did it not even appear to go into standby mode? Meaning, you'd still see the book you were reading as opposed to your screen saver or blank screen.

elcreative · 04-27-2011, 04:18 PM

Sorry, I read the paragraph quoted immediately below as being a question about doing full charge/discharge cycles to make it normal... rather than as a statement of what was happening... 'fraid it does sound as though it's defective though...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shopaholic

Do you guys think that draining the battery to nothing twice and then doing an overnight charge will 'make it normal' again? I want a working reader but would really rather not send it in and possibly get stuck with a 'blemished' unit.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shopaholic

Elcreative please re-read my post. It was one of your posts that I read on this same topic that had me charging my 350 when it was down only 2 bars instead of waiting until there were no bars. I do understand that Ni-Cad batteries are different from Lithium Polymer but twice now in the last week the reader battery drained before my very eyes from a full overnight charge to nothing in less than 2 days.

Every single time I charge the unit I leave it overnight with my AC Blackberry charger. Only last week have I had the issue with the very fast battery drain. So far I'm on day 2 with no battery droppage after those unusual episodes. +++ fingers crossed

If draining it fully twice (on it's own) and then charging overnight each time wouldn't affect the battery what then do you suggest was the issue that made it drain to nothing and why does it appear alright so far now? If the battery was faulty enough to fully drain in less than 2 days twice in a row, would it not be faulty enough do to so a third time and every subsequent charge?

Shopaholic · 04-27-2011, 06:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by elcreative

Sorry, I read the paragraph quoted immediately below as being a question about doing full charge/discharge cycles to make it normal... rather than as a statement of what was happening... 'fraid it does sound as though it's defective though...

Not a problem. I tend to be verbose so it's easy to lose track of what I was asking or commenting about to begin with. LOL

Bookworm_Girl · 04-27-2011, 06:39 PM

Shopaholic, I think I would wait it out for now and see if it occurs again. It definitely is odd behavior. None of my other Sony's have had this issue. After I powered mine on/off it seems to be discharging normally now, and I just keep it in standby mode most of the time.

trekchick · 04-28-2011, 08:43 AM

My 350 has recently rapidly discharged like this, too. The reader was almost fully charged when I last used it, but two days later (without any use), it was completely dead. I put it on the official Sony charger over night, checked that the battery indicator read full, and put it on standby. 18 hours later, the battery showed only two bars.

My Kindles used to do this whenever there was a problem with indexing, so maybe I'm pre-disposed to assuming that an errant process is more likely to blame than inexplicable battery failure. Since my 950 is fine and both of my Sonys have the identical book contents, I suspect that any file-related problem might have something to do with the thumbnails or one of the device-specific .xml files.

I reset all the defaults, cleared the keyboard history and reformatted then re-loaded everything, allowing Calibre to upload the cover thumbnails instead of making the Reader create them. I left it on the charger all night, and I'll see if I have any battery issues today.

Shopaholic · 05-08-2011, 09:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bookworm_Girl

Shopaholic, I think I would wait it out for now and see if it occurs again. It definitely is odd behavior. None of my other Sony's have had this issue. After I powered mine on/off it seems to be discharging normally now, and I just keep it in standby mode most of the time.

Hi Bookworm Girl!

Those were my thoughts exactly, just wait it out. It's been a few weeks since I posted about this and all appears to be well so far. Watch, as soon as I type this I'll have issues again. lol eesh!

It was very weird and never once had anything like that with my 300. I don't think it was because I left it unused for a couple of weeks. It just shouldn't do that. I'm wondering if it was because I never did a full shut down on it but even then.... Regardless, all seems to be fine now. 2+ weeks before having to recharge. **fingers crossed**

It gave me quite a scare to see the battery drain to nothing in a day. I dreaded the idea of bringing it to Sony and possibly getting stuck with a blemished refurb. No thank you.

Happy Mother's Day to all the mom's in here. Baby mom's, critter mom's and all.

LifeJam · 06-21-2011, 10:53 PM

Cross posting from related thread as this is probably similar issue:

I've recently experienced the battery drain on PRS-650 and have a reason to believe that the incorrect USB dismount causes the drain.

Most likely what happens is that when the reader is plugged in the PC, the USB drive volumes are mounted automatically (reader, config, and memory card if present).

When the reader gets unplugged without dismounting the drives (in the system tray - 'safely remove hardware and eject media'), the filesystem under certain conditions gets corrupted, and (my guess - most likely) some filesystem related process (either the indexing or filesystem repair) would keep running and drain the battery. Soft reset and recharge by itself don't seem to fix the issue.

This does not happen every time.

Being in a hurry, I've unplugged the USB cable without dismount, and the reader drained on the plane after about an hour of reading. Later I've done a soft reset and charging from both pc and charger, and it kept draining at the rate of about 1 bar per 12 hours in sleep mode without reading.

After reading posts, I've done soft reset again, then plugged in the pc and charged, but this time I was careful to dismount all volumes from the sys tray. Battery drain stopped. Been using the reader in normal regime for 3 days now (about 1.5 hours reading / day, then sleep mode), and still on 4 bars.

Hard reset should be able to fix this issue too (haven't tried myself - no need) as it will probably reformat and restore partition and filesystem to the vanilla state.

JSWolf · 06-21-2011, 11:02 PM

Run checkdisk on the reader.

vxf · 06-22-2011, 12:26 AM

It sounds like this will not apply to everyone... but I had something happen recently that drained my 950 - it took me a while to figure it out.

I have a subscription to the Financial Times. Since I am in the USA, I usually get it delivered in the morning. On two occasions the issue was corrupt - and would not download. But my 950 kept trying for the whole night - and drained an almost full charge. The first time I didn't figure it out - the second time I was reading and noticed the 3g icon not going off for hours and the battery level dropping by almost one bar per hour.

06-21-2011, 10:53 PM	#22
LifeJam Junior Member Posts: 2 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jun 2011 Device: PRS-650	battery drain PRS-650 - possible reason - incorrect USB dismount Cross posting from related thread as this is probably similar issue: I've recently experienced the battery drain on PRS-650 and have a reason to believe that the incorrect USB dismount causes the drain. Most likely what happens is that when the reader is plugged in the PC, the USB drive volumes are mounted automatically (reader, config, and memory card if present). When the reader gets unplugged without dismounting the drives (in the system tray - 'safely remove hardware and eject media'), the filesystem under certain conditions gets corrupted, and (my guess - most likely) some filesystem related process (either the indexing or filesystem repair) would keep running and drain the battery. Soft reset and recharge by itself don't seem to fix the issue. This does not happen every time. Being in a hurry, I've unplugged the USB cable without dismount, and the reader drained on the plane after about an hour of reading. Later I've done a soft reset and charging from both pc and charger, and it kept draining at the rate of about 1 bar per 12 hours in sleep mode without reading. After reading posts, I've done soft reset again, then plugged in the pc and charged, but this time I was careful to dismount all volumes from the sys tray. Battery drain stopped. Been using the reader in normal regime for 3 days now (about 1.5 hours reading / day, then sleep mode), and still on 4 bars. Hard reset should be able to fix this issue too (haven't tried myself - no need) as it will probably reformat and restore partition and filesystem to the vanilla state.

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04-27-2011, 03:29 PM	#16
Shopaholic Cockatoo Mom! Posts: 1,509 Karma: 1841741 Join Date: Dec 2009 Location: Ontario, Canada Device: PW4, Kobo: A1, Clara, Libra 2, iPad Pro 11, iPad Mini	Hi Amalthia, I've only ever put it in standby mode until the recent episodes of two full battery drains. Then I did a shutdown just to see if that would have any effect at all and after reading for the last two days I again only put it in standby mode. shrugs When your standby mode failed did it look the way it was supposed to but didn't actually go into standby or did it not even appear to go into standby mode? Meaning, you'd still see the book you were reading as opposed to your screen saver or blank screen.

04-27-2011, 06:39 PM	#19
Bookworm_Girl E-reader Enthusiast Posts: 4,873 Karma: 36536965 Join Date: Aug 2010 Location: Southwest, USA Device: Kindle Oasis 3; Kobo Aura One; iPad Mini 5	Shopaholic, I think I would wait it out for now and see if it occurs again. It definitely is odd behavior. None of my other Sony's have had this issue. After I powered mine on/off it seems to be discharging normally now, and I just keep it in standby mode most of the time.

04-28-2011, 08:43 AM	#20
trekchick Lurker Posts: 226 Karma: 9245 Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Walton, KY Device: Sonys and Kindles and Nooks, oh my!	My 350 has recently rapidly discharged like this, too. The reader was almost fully charged when I last used it, but two days later (without any use), it was completely dead. I put it on the official Sony charger over night, checked that the battery indicator read full, and put it on standby. 18 hours later, the battery showed only two bars. My Kindles used to do this whenever there was a problem with indexing, so maybe I'm pre-disposed to assuming that an errant process is more likely to blame than inexplicable battery failure. Since my 950 is fine and both of my Sonys have the identical book contents, I suspect that any file-related problem might have something to do with the thumbnails or one of the device-specific .xml files. I reset all the defaults, cleared the keyboard history and reformatted then re-loaded everything, allowing Calibre to upload the cover thumbnails instead of making the Reader create them. I left it on the charger all night, and I'll see if I have any battery issues today.

06-21-2011, 11:02 PM	#23
JSWolf Resident Curmudgeon Posts: 79,796 Karma: 146391129 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Roslindale, Massachusetts Device: Kobo Libra 2, Kobo Aura H2O, PRS-650, PRS-T1, nook STR, PW3	Run checkdisk on the reader.

06-22-2011, 12:26 AM	#24
vxf Guru Posts: 944 Karma: 1490348 Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: Norman, OK Device: Sony PRS 350, 900, 950; Kindles (ALL of them!); Kobo Aura One	It sounds like this will not apply to everyone... but I had something happen recently that drained my 950 - it took me a while to figure it out. I have a subscription to the Financial Times. Since I am in the USA, I usually get it delivered in the morning. On two occasions the issue was corrupt - and would not download. But my 950 kept trying for the whole night - and drained an almost full charge. The first time I didn't figure it out - the second time I was reading and noticed the 3g icon not going off for hours and the battery level dropping by almost one bar per hour.

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