Zaurus C1000 Will Not Charge

[garmiste]

I've seen similar posts, but have not been able to find clear answers to this one.  Please forgive me if I simply didn't look hard enough.

I have been using an SL-C1000 for about a year and have been very pleased with it up until now.  I noticed I wasn't getting very long battery life (a day, maybe 1.5 days) so when I plugged it in to charge and the light blinked I figured it needed a new battery.  I ordered the new battery, put it in, and the Z still won't work.  I've tried reflashing it from the diagnostic menu and that does not work.  I've tried several of the battery sections in the service menu.  I tried charging both batteries from the charge submenu and that does not work.  The battery light will come on and stay on for hours, but the battery does not charge at all.  I've checked the battery voltage with a separate volt meter and no change even after several hours.  

The Z does seem to respond to batteries of different charge levels.  The new battery only reads 3.7V on my volt meter (not the Z's Low Battery menu).  The old battery shows 4.0V.  If I plug in the old battery (after turning off the Z in the service menu) the battery light will stay on for about 10 minutes and then start blinking.  If I try this with the old battery the battery light just starts blinking right away.  The Low Battery Menu will only show 1.1V no matter which battery is in or if I even have a battery in the unit.

The only thing that works at all is reloading the original Japanese NAND and booting from the emergency console (the one you get to by holding down 'D + B').  I booted it up by typing Qt at the prompt.  It took a while, but eventually I had a Japanese ROM working.  However, when I pulled the power cable, it went dead.  I tried charging the unit with the Japanese console and that didn't work either.  If I try turning the Z off when using the Japanese NAND it will not turn on again even though I have the power cord plugged in.  It seems a little inconvenient to keep it plugged in and on AND try to learn Japanese.

I also cannot get the emergency menu to come up (the one where you pull the battery, unplug the power, hold OK, plug in the power cord, put in the battery, lock the battery and then push the ON button).  

I've seen a few posts that suggest replacing a fuse or some caps on the power board, but I haven't seen any clear instructions about how to do it (getting the unit apart, pulling out the ribbon cables without damaging them, where the power board is, or a good schematic, etc.).  I also would rather not tear into it if there is a simple solution OUTSIDE the unit.

Help!

[garmiste]

I thought I'd mention that when I charge from the Japanese NAND the battery light stays on for a few minutes (with the old battery) and then starts blinking.

[Capn_Fish]

Does your new battery need plastic carved away from the contacts? That seems to be a common problem with third-party batteries.

[garmiste]

Does your new battery need plastic carved away from the contacts? That seems to be a common problem with third-party batteries.

I don't think so.  It looks like it sits in there fairly well, but I will give it a shot.  I'd prefer a simple solution over something like poking around surface mount components with a soldering iron. (YIKES!!!)

[garmiste]

Ok, I tried carving some of the plastic away from the battery terminals.  Sure enough it was not making contact.  After scraping away a little plastic, putting the new battery into the battery compartment, and plugging in the power supply the battery light stayed on steady.  AND sure enough about 5 minutes later the battery light started blinking again.  I tried charging from the service menu.  Even after several hours no luck.  I'm back where I started.  

Oh, I also gave out some misinformation.  When I booted to the emergency console I typed in "reboot".  NOT "Qt".

[pelrun]

Did you by chance select the "Battery Voltage Adjustment" menu option in the diagnostic menu at any point? It resets the max charge level to the current battery level, which makes it very hard to actually get a battery properly charged enough to fix it.

[Capn_Fish]

Did you by chance select the "Battery Voltage Adjustment" menu option in the diagnostic menu at any point? It resets the max charge level to the current battery level, which makes it very hard to actually get a battery properly charged enough to fix it.

In reply to that, you can probably fix the issue, if indeed you pressed it, by doing a NAND flash erase/restore, which will reset those values.

[garmiste]

I did spend some time in the battery menus so I went ahead and did a NAND erase and restore.  I pulled out the power cable, unlocked the battery compartment, pulled the battery out, put it back in, locked the battery compartment, and plugged in the power supply.  The battery light came on and remained lit for about 10 minutes and then started flashing.  No change in battery voltage.  I'm still stumped and wondering about the possibility of a bad fuse, capacitors, or the entire power board.

[Capn_Fish]

Did you do the NAND erase/restore before doing that? The NAND won't be wiped from just taking all power away from the device; it's an option in the service menu. Check out this thread for info on doing the restore (erasing is easy).

[garmiste]

Sorry for not being clear on my last post.  I did actually go into the service menu and I erased the NAND.  Then, from the service menu, I restored the original NAND.  Once the green bar at the bottom had finished moving and the menu read "ok" I returned to the service menu, turned off the Zaurus, unplugged everything, unlocked the battery compartment, pulled the battery out, pushed the 'reset' button and held it for about 30 seconds.  Then I replaced the battery, relocked the battery compartment, plugged in the power cable, and the battery charge light came on.  It stayed on for about 10 minutes and started blinking again.  I left it like that for a while (another 10 minutes or so?) to see if it would stop.  No luck.  I also checked the battery voltage.  No change.  The voltage read 3.7V before and it still read 3.7.  I measured with a separate voltmeter.  

Am I leaving anything out?

[speculatrix]

The voltage read 3.7V before and it still read 3.7.  I measured with a separate voltmeter.

if you check the batt voltage with no charger, and plug charger in, does the voltage rise? if it stays the same then I would suspect the fuse on your motherboard has gone high resistance or open circuit. if the voltage rises only a little, then maybe the voltage threshold has gotten set too low.

if it's not trying to charge the battery, then you've got two choices - repair the zaurus or buy an external charger.

[pelrun]

The battery circuitry in the cxxxx series isn't like the cxxx's - I recall not finding the small-valued fuses (only ~3A ones) when I was looking at the schematics. So it may not be that.

Hmm. I know you tried the plastic-removal trick, but did you get rid of enough, or from the right place? It should be the plastic between the terminal and the case seam. If one of the terminals still isn't quite making proper contact it may be giving you these problems.

[garmiste]

The battery circuitry in the cxxxx series isn't like the cxxx's - I recall not finding the small-valued fuses (only ~3A ones) when I was looking at the schematics. So it may not be that.

Hmm. I know you tried the plastic-removal trick, but did you get rid of enough, or from the right place? It should be the plastic between the terminal and the case seam. If one of the terminals still isn't quite making proper contact it may be giving you these problems.

Yes, I tried removing more plastic. Here's what makes me think there's a more serious problem. When I removed more plastic from the new battery the amber light remained on for about 10 minutes. I was quite pleased with the result until the light started blinking 10 minutes later. If I try to power the unit without a battery the amber light begins to blink immediately. It acts differently depending on whether a battery inserted or not. If the problem is simply that the battery is not making contact, the charge light should start blinking right away whether or not I put the battery in. Right?

Do you know how I might get access to those schematics you mentioned in your post? I have a friend that would be willing to take the unit apart and look at it, but he says he'd like to have a schematic so he has some idea of WHAT he is looking at.

[utx]

Yes, I tried removing more plastic. Here's what makes me think there's a more serious problem. When I removed more plastic from the new battery the amber light remained on for about 10 minutes. I was quite pleased with the result until the light started blinking 10 minutes later. If I try to power the unit without a battery the amber light begins to blink immediately. It acts differently depending on whether a battery inserted or not. If the problem is simply that the battery is not making contact, the charge light should start blinking right away whether or not I put the battery in. Right?

I have seen several reports here in the forum, that Zaurus refuses some third party batteries. Charging LED continuously blinks.

Additionally, you could try to change charge status manually in the service menu an use voltmeter to check voltage changes.

[garmiste]

I have seen several reports here in the forum, that Zaurus refuses some third party batteries. Charging LED continuously blinks.

Additionally, you could try to change charge status manually in the service menu an use voltmeter to check voltage changes.

I had the original battery checked at a battery shop and was told that it should be fine to power on the unit. Neither battery works. I've also tried changing the charge status in the service menu. That does not produce any voltage increase in the battery. There is also a menu I've tried that manually charges the battery. No luck with that one either. The really frustrating thing is that I can't get it to power up with only the battery charger plugged in. Before I could at least hit the on button and get it to boot up. For now the only way I can do anything with it is through the service menu or the emergency console or what some call the Zaurus shell. I can't get it to work by holding down the OK key before plugging it in. Using D + M and D + B seems to work fine to get to those menus.