PRS-505 505 acting weird / draining battery

[June]

Eeek, my dear PRS-505 19 month old is acting really weird:

I cannot turn off the screen (or power) with the power-slider. I can however turn off power with the remapped volume button or via the menu. And I can turn it back on with the power-slider, so it is not a broken button.

The screen does not blank after an hour like it used to, it stays on indefinitely. Until it runs out of battery.

And it runs down the battery while waiting like that, i.e. when the drainage should be very low, with no pages turned. The battery runs down overnight, from full when I read in bed, to empty and switched off in the morning.

I charge it with external (Sony reader) charger or usb.

If I lay it down for an hour or two and come back to reading, the screen is still on, and when turning a page, I can see that the battery meter has gone down one or two notches.

It does not respond to reset button (I think, I forget what it's supposed to do - I press reset nothing happens, but if I wait a bit and then slide the powerswitch, it reboots). After this it has reset the date to January 1st 2007 and time to 0:00.

I'm thinking one problem might be that the battery is dying - although it's not *that* old, 19 months.

But it not turning off the screen is bound to be another issue? And not reacting to the reset button?

Other than that it's still perfectly usable, as long as I charge it overnight, and always remember to power off when not reading for a while (startup takes a while, which is annoying).

So: anyone got any good ideas? Or anyone want to buy it as spares? (I immediately bought two 505:s for future use, while I can still find new ones for sale)

[petercreasey]

Originally Posted by June

anyone got any good ideas?

June, Your symptoms sound similar to what my 505 experienced a few weeks ago.

I sent mine to Sony repair and got it back in good shape about 2 weeks later.

[June]

Thanks Pete - unfortunately I'm in Scandinavia, and my 505 was bought in the US - so no warranty.

[petercreasey]

Originally Posted by June

Thanks Pete - unfortunately I'm in Scandinavia, and my 505 was bought in the US - so no warranty.

June, Mine also did not have a warranty.

Perhaps you'll consider calling the Sony Reader Customer Service and seeing what the arrangements are. Long distance mailing should not be a problem.

[TeamDax]

Originally Posted by June

Eeek, my dear PRS-505 19 month old is acting really weird:

I cannot turn off the screen (or power) with the power-slider. I can however turn off power with the remapped volume button or via the menu. And I can turn it back on with the power-slider, so it is not a broken button.

The screen does not blank after an hour like it used to, it stays on indefinitely. Until it runs out of battery.

And it runs down the battery while waiting like that, i.e. when the drainage should be very low, with no pages turned. The battery runs down overnight, from full when I read in bed, to empty and switched off in the morning.

I charge it with external (Sony reader) charger or usb.

If I lay it down for an hour or two and come back to reading, the screen is still on, and when turning a page, I can see that the battery meter has gone down one or two notches.

It does not respond to reset button (I think, I forget what it's supposed to do - I press reset nothing happens, but if I wait a bit and then slide the powerswitch, it reboots). After this it has reset the date to January 1st 2007 and time to 0:00.

I'm thinking one problem might be that the battery is dying - although it's not *that* old, 19 months.

But it not turning off the screen is bound to be another issue? And not reacting to the reset button?

Other than that it's still perfectly usable, as long as I charge it overnight, and always remember to power off when not reading for a while (startup takes a while, which is annoying).

So: anyone got any good ideas? Or anyone want to buy it as spares? (I immediately bought two 505:s for future use, while I can still find new ones for sale)

my 505 developed very similar problems recently. Like you my 505 came from the US (i live in the UK) so i decided to try to fix it myself

It was running a hacked version of the firmware.... so the first thing i did was re flashed with the offical sony firmware..... it didnt help. I tried to rehack it, and it didnt work.... the reader wouldnt boot the SD card.

I then tried to format the internal memory.... using the format feature built in to the reader..... it didnt format.... it said it was formatting, but after a couple hours, when i checked it wasnt doing anything.... except discharge the battery.

So getting desperate, i quick formated the internal memory using my laptop (running win 7) and...... IT WORKED the reader now appears to function correctly

I then thried reflashing the hacked firmware and that worked too

[June]

Thank you TeamDax for that hint - and I'm glad you got your 505 fixed!