PRS-350 Sony PRS-350 - screen frozen

[autolycus]

Hello everyone. This is my first post and i'm still just getting used to my new ereader. I had the good fortune to pick it up from my local electrical store at an 80% discount due to a lack of a lead and packaging. So i bought a cheap USB micro usb cable and plugged it in to my computer and it seems to work fine. I'm slowly getting my head round Calibre and have loaded some books into the reader memory and done some reading.

I'm enjoying the experience, however there seems to be a slight problem with the charging sequence. I can have the reader plugged in for hours and the red light remains on with the "charging battery" screen. During this time, I can transfer books in calibre and see the reader contents in this or the sony reader library app. The only change in the screen is the message 'do not disconnect' when the reader library is open. When i shut the app. the warning disappears.

I can mount or unmount the drive (using 'safely remove hardware') and disconect the lead, but no matter what i do, the red light and the "charging battery" screen remain. This happened the first time i charged the battery from dead/new and in the end i stuck a paper clip in the reset hole and things worked OK from then on. But i don't want to do that now as i'll probably lose some data, and anyway, i can't believe this is what's supposed to happen.

Perhaps i'm doing something wrong. Does anyone know what's going on and how i can fix the problem?

Thanks.

EDIT: one other thing, i don't know if it's relevant, but everytime i plug in the reader, the red light flashes to orange a few times and the photo printing wizard in XP launches.

[Analogus]

Hi!

I would try to use another USB-port.

On the other hand: resetting the reader with the paper-clip do not delete anything. No problem. But an advice: make a safety-copy of your reader-drive!

No big deal: copy everything from the reader in a folder - doesn't take long. If anything goes wrong, reset your reader or reformat it and copy the whole thing the other way. I do this often (cause I play very rough with my 350).

A

[pidgeon92]

If your Reader is attached to your computer via USB, and your computer goes to sleep, it can actually start draining the Reader's battery instead of charging it. I suggest you pick up a USB outlet adapter and plug it into a wall outlet instead to charge it.

[gurion]

Charging via USB cable connected to the computer is a slow process, easily could take 3-4 hours or even longer. As already mentioned previously, invest in an USB outlet charger (like for a cell phone) - it'll charge your reader in a couple of hours instead.

Blinking orange light a few times as you plug your reader to the PC is normal. It shows that your reader is being read by the computer. That's also prompts the software to start up automatically in WinXP.

[autolycus]

Thanks for the replies. I'm really not concerned about how long the charging takes. I just feel there were a few things that are not working as they should. Specifically, the red light remaining on when the reader is fully charged and especially the screen freezing that necessitates a reset. I'm also curious about the photo printing wizard - does everyone get that? Using a different USB port doesn't make a difference. Maybe i should try a different USB lead?

[Analogus]

I would do following things in this order (more or less):

1) Try another USB-port (allready done by you)

2) Restart the reader (allready done)

3) Reset the reader with the pin-hole

4) try annother cable/charger if available (cell-phone chargers often work)

5) make a backup of the reader content and format the reader (over options). You will loose your data! The try charging again without books on the reader.

6) Make a full factory reset (the brute way):
Reset your reader with the pin-hole. Switch it on again and hold both, the page-left-button and the zoom-button as long a new screen appears which is asking you if you want a full reset. Press the option button to say 'yes'. That reverts the reader to the factory-state (with 3 books on the reader). You will loose all your data!
Try loading again. Best with a new cable on another PC/charger.

7) If that doesn't work I would have no glue what to do except calling SONY.

A.

[Ripplinger]

Analogus covered your best options to try. As far as this issue:

Originally Posted by autolycus

EDIT: one other thing, i don't know if it's relevant, but everytime i plug in the reader, the red light flashes to orange a few times and the photo printing wizard in XP launches.

Windows is incorrectly picking up something about the reader where it thinks you want to print something. That's a setting within Windows that's incorrect, not the fault of the reader at all. You'll have to hunt down why Windows is doing it, probably in the same area as where you set drives options to open certain programs automatically and begin playing CDs, DVDs, etc.

[autolycus]

Analogus - Trying step 5 but when i hit the options button, all i get is the orientation option. Reading the manual, it says it will display the menu for "related supplementary functions". But i have no idea what 'related' means. Settings - Initialization gives me a 'format internal memory' coice. Is that what you mean?

Incidentally, if i connect the reader for a short while, everything works fine. It's only when it's been connected for a longer period that the frozen screen arises. (Sorry for the imprecision, but i'm still experimenting.) The reader is of course charged up by now so i wondered if maybe the problem arises when the unit becomes fully charged and freezes rather than shutting off the charge - which i presume is what is meant to happen.

Ripplinger - i'm sure you're right about this being a windows problem. I've had printer driver problems and suspect this is related. I've not been able to fix it with registry tweaks so i guess i'll live with it for now.

[Mark Nord]

Settings - Initialization gives me a 'format internal memory' coice

Yes, that is it.