Onyx Boox M96 Died

[pocket]

2 years and a few months after purchase, my Onyx Boox M96 died for an unknown reason. There was no crashing or smashing, only gentle touches.

When I press the ON button, the light briefly flashes (orange, violet), and turns off. It seems the battery is depleted. But: When I connect it to the computer via USB cable, there is no reaction what so ever. I have tried different USB cables, and different chargers and PC USB. But no reaction. Nothing.

Any advice, please?

[bsnick]

A few (likely unhelpful) thoughts for more information/possibilities:

Hold the power button down for like 30 seconds to a minute, release, then do a brief 5 second push. This is in case it's in some alternate mode like the download mode.

Speaking of download mode: http://ereader-store.de/en/content/8-downloads mentions how enter that mode (pgup+pgdown+power for a few seconds until the light flashes). You might want to see if you can make your computer connect to the M96 by trying it, turning on mfgtool, and then plugging in the device. Likely nothing will result if the computer hasn't seen the device via usb before, but it's something to try.

c) Have you successfully connected it to the computer in the past? Whether you have or haven't you could try removing and reinstalling the driver. A utility called usbdeview could be helpful for that as it's a utility that shows all the usb devices/drivers installed and lets you remove whichever you want. You could run that, reboot into the 'disable driver signature' mode on windows, and only then connect the M96, thereby re-installing the driver fresh to see if that makes a difference. I mention this method on the assumption you're on windows 8 or later as I had trouble on 8, 8.1 & 10 until I did that

I know that my devices have sometimes been on but asleep and then refused to do more than briefly flash a light. I had to keep pressing the power button 4-5 seconds until the screen would came on and the device asked me if I wanted to reboot. I'm guessing it's not that, but when that happened to me I eventually reflashed the device to get it to behave normally again. That was with the 4.4 firmware, however.

[pocket]

bsnick, thank you for your detailed suggestions. Unfortunately it did not help. It's not only about the USB connection not being recognized. The device is simply not charging. I almost suspect some hardware failure of the USB connector and related electronics on the device.

Probably the next step would be to check the battery state and charge it externally or replace it. Then it could be confirmed if the issue is in the charging via the usb. So I should probably send it in to some service centre.. but where? There seems to be no global support network, just some vendors here and there doing warranty repairs.

Now the device is just over 2 years old, a typical planned obsolescence story...

[viceant]

Originally Posted by pocket

... So I should probably send it in to some service centre.. but where? There seems to be no global support network, just some vendors here and there doing warranty repairs.

Where did you buy it?

[bsnick]

This might be of interest:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=175472

It's only for the M92, but the read could answer some questions about a similar situation.

[Pajamaman]

I think Booxtor will attempt repair for a price, but he is in Germany.

[pocket]

Originally Posted by viceant

Where did you buy it?

I bought in the Chinese Boox Store on Tmall

[pocket]

Originally Posted by Pajamaman

I think Booxtor will attempt repair for a price, but he is in Germany.

Thanks, I will contact the ereader-store.de ... let's see if they would be willing to deal with a device that I did not buy from them. I bought it in China but now I am back in Europe, Germany would be fine.

[pocket]

Originally Posted by bsnick

This might be of interest:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=175472
It's only for the M92, but the read could answer some questions about a similar situation.

Thank you... might be of interest once I get to some tools for diagnosing what's wrong with it..

[viceant]

Originally Posted by pocket

Thanks, I will contact the ereader-store.de ... let's see if they would be willing to deal with a device that I did not buy from them. I bought it in China but now I am back in Europe, Germany would be fine.

My best wishes... I ask them to repair my M92 (bought from their web) and A YEAR LATER they haven't answered yet...

[pocket]

Originally Posted by viceant

My best wishes... I ask them to repair my M92 (bought from their web) and A YEAR LATER they haven't answered yet...

Thank you... I know the chances are close to zero, so I posted here to tap into the collective intelligence of the mobileread community.. this site is a great resource. I am glad that I received some suggestions above.

[eReader fan]

You can dismantle it and check the battery, even you can disconnect it and connect the eReader to a voltage transformer giving to it the exactly same V and A and see if it work. I think this is the first step you have to do. Depending on what happends there you could knonw a little better what to do.

Luck

[pocket]

Thank you... unfortunately I don't have any metering or charging equipment at hand... I did contact ereader-store.de and they agreed to have a look at it, so I sent it to them and now waiting... I just hope they will react in reasonable time and not like in some other cases mentioned on this forum.

[pocket]

My case had a happy ending. A month after sending the M96 to ereader-store.de they replied, and a few days later my ebook was back via UPS.

As other members of this forum noted, I suspect posting here helped to move my case forward. They seem to be kind people, just not that streamlined.

It remains a mystery to me, what exactly was broken. Maybe it was just a matter of pressing the reset button, absent from the exterior of the device. In fact, they apologized for the delay and did not charge me anything! I am glad to have it back ^_^

[Pajamaman]

Glad to hear it.