Kindle Paperwhite unresponsive touchscreen

[nie]

Hi there,

A friend told me about this community so I decided to create an account in order to ask for your help. I tell you my history.

I bought a Kindle Paperwhite a year ago in Germany while I was travelling and studying aboard. Now I am in Latin America and here there is no support service, shipping, replacement available possible.

A week ago I was using my kindle like always when I decided to stop reading and pressed the on/off button. After that (few hours later) I decided to keep reading when I found out that the touchscreen won't work anymore.

There is any hit, scratch, or broken pixel in the display. I tried the Hard reset holding the power button for 40 seconds like the amazon page says, and I also tried to contact them but didn't solve me the problem.

I would like to ask for your help and I am open to any kind of solution. Of course I would like to try with the easier first. I have been thinking about removing the battery, since I can only restart the device by holding the button 40 but I can not turn it off completely. Maybe this could fix the problem?

I have also heard that it is possible to restart or simulate actions from the computer into the kindle but I couldn't find good information about this.

And the last option I though was to connect to the serie port and play with the firmware as my las option.

I would love to hear any suggestion, since buying another Kindle in my country it cost three times more than the current value (currency problems).

Thank you in advance, and looking forward to see some suggestions.

Regards,
Nie

[Penforhire]

Have you tried charging it? A suddenly dead battery will show up as an unresponsive screen.

[nie]

When this issue appeared it was on 20% aprox. Then I charged it but nothing changed.

Thanks.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by nie

When this issue appeared it was on 20% aprox. Then I charged it but nothing changed.

Thanks.

How long did you leave it on the charger? Wall charger or through a computer?
Plug it in and leave it over night.
Unplug and hold the power button for 40 seconds.

[nie]

I charged it through a computer.

I will connect it now to the wall charger. Let's see if it works. Thank you!

Anyway, I would like to hear further suggestions because I am planing to get down to work as soon as possible, if this option do not work.

[dordale]

Hopefully plugging into a wall charger will fix it for you--if you left it plugged in to a computer it's possible that the computer went to sleep while charging and the Kindle stopped charging or even started discharging.

Good luck!

[nie]

Hi there,

Thank for the recommendations, but it still not working.

I charged it for 24 hour with the wall charger. I restarted it (pushing for on/off button for 40 seconds) and nothing changed. The device now is 100% charged but the touchscreen still not working.

Let's go to the next please. Which one would it be?

Best,
Nie

[Penforhire]

When you plug the USB cable into a running computer does the Kindle screen change in any way, to show it connected?

Have you tried another USB/charging cable? It is possible your cable is damaged.

[robko]

Any chance you can post a picture of the screen? That sounds like it could be a broken screen substrate

[nie]

Originally Posted by Penforhire

When you plug the USB cable into a running computer does the Kindle screen change in any way, to show it connected?

Have you tried another USB/charging cable? It is possible your cable is damaged.

It is the same charger I use for my devices and the devices turn on/off normally.

When I plug the USB to my computer, the PC detect the kindle and open it as a device and the screen change an tell me that the kindle is being charged.

Originally Posted by robko

Any chance you can post a picture of the screen? That sounds like it could be a broken screen substrate

I show you here two pictures, as you can see there is any scratch or hit. (I opened a few days a go to see if I can remove the battery but I do not have the screwdriver needed)


Regards,
Nie

[IFixKindles]

On your computer try creating an empty text file with the name DO_FACTORY_RESTORE without any file type ending. With your kindle connected to your computer, put this file onto the Kindle. Don't put into any inner folder. Eject the kindle from the computer. Then hold the power button long enough to shut the kindle down, then turn it back on. This should do a full factory reset. A factory reset takes several minutes and looks like it is quit and restarting several times before it finishes.

I just tested this on a Kindle Paperwhite 2 and it worked.

Note: this will deregister the kindle and remove all content. So you will have to register again, and download content from the cloudl

This might not fix the response of the touch digitizer, but it the next level of things to try.

[nie]

Thank for the answer.

I have just done it and the touchscreen still not working. Now I am stuck in the language selection screen.

Next step?

Regards,
Joel

[jhowell]

It's hard to tell from the photos, but it looks like something is cracked just left of the ribbon cable just past the lower right-hand side of the screen. Does it look that way in person?

[IFixKindles]

Sounds like a failed electronics of the touch screen. Hard to tell whether the problem is on the circuit board or the screen unless you happened to have another one and could swap parts out to find out which part is bad.
Probably time to get a replacement kindle.

[nie]

I will post a better picture of that side of the screen as soon as I come home tomorrow.

Thank you guys for the answers. I really want to known what did happen here.

Best,
Nie