Tag: battery

A bad month for electronics

On By Michel McDonaldIn Cell Phone, CR-48, Kindle, NookLeave a comment

This has been a bad month for me with electronics. Just a warning, I’m going to do a lot of complaining here lol.

Batteries: So my life partner mentioned something about his phone and he handed it to me and I was like good lord, why is it so thick? His battery had expanded or puffed up I guess you would say. This is the second time this happened to him too. The first time it was the battery that came with his phone, which he has had for a very long time, so in December of last year we bought him a new battery on Amazon that was 3 times as thick because it gave him, I don’t know what the normal batteries are, 4380mAh? Well, the new battery was 6800mAh, which was why it was so thick. Since it was too thick for the back of his phone to be able to hold, they gave him a new plastic one that holds the battery in place. Well, since he only bought this battery in December, I contacted the seller on Amazon because they offer a 2 year warranty, so they sent him a new battery. He had to wait a week for it, and in the meantime I was going to give him my old CR-48 Chromebook to use, and that battery had also puffed up, so that’s no good. Then the battery on my cell phone started acting up. It wasn’t charging, and when it did, it was very slow, also the speaker was not very loud anymore, so Verizon sent me a new phone.

Bluetooth Earbuds: I bought 2 pairs of JLab Audio Go Air True Wireless Bluetooth Earbuds + Charging Case for us. After only a couple of days, the left earbud stopped working properly. I went through all of the steps to reset it to factory settings and nothing worked. Finally after a frustrating week of being told to reset it to factory, I just sent it back to Amazon and they sent me a new one. Then one thing I noticed is a green light on the charging case on my new one. The other one only had a blue light when it was charging. I even had it plugged into the wall for several hours, which was plenty time for it to charge completely. This new pair doesn’t seem to give me any problems. My life partners left earbud also stopped working, but resetting it to factory worked on his pair, so I think I just got a bad one.

Barnes & Noble Nook: So I’ve had a Nook from Barnes & Noble for more than 10 years. I got their original e-reader with the e-ink screen and that little color screen at the bottom of the device. Then I got a Nook HD+ and now I have a Samsung Galaxy Tab A6 Nook tablet. Yesterday I was talking with an author on Twitter about his books which are about the Grimm stories. In fact, his books are called The Fairy-Tale Detectives The Sisters Grimm Series. So it got me thinking about Grimm’s Fairy Tales, which I own on my Nook. So I went to download it because it was only in the cloud, but it wouldn’t download. It kept telling me that something is wrong and to try again later. I kept trying, and trying, and trying. I did some research and on their website they said you need the most current version of the NOOK App for NOOK Devices, which I did, and the most recent Android version for your tablet, which I did. So I thought my Nook was the problem and I reset it to factory settings since it had been acting up lately and was starting to get slow. But apparently that wasn’t the issue because it’s on the Nook servers end. According to Good E Reader, ” The entire system has crashed and it won’t be fixed for a couple of days.”

It’s been a very frustrating month for me. I hope the electronics world gets their shit together because humanity seems to be helpless now without something that has only been in our existence for a very short amount of time. I need a e-reader so I can adjust the size of the text because I am losing my sight and I need bigger text. The text in regular books is too small for my eyes now.

I have the Amazon Kindle app installed on my Nook tablet, so at least I will be able to read Kindle ebooks until the Nook gives me all of my ebooks back.

Ok. Enough complaining from me today lol.

Nook Battery Replacement

On By Michel McDonaldIn NookLeave a comment

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My life partner bought me a Nook HD+ for Christmas in 2013 and I have loved it every time I’ve used it. I appreciate every gift he has given to me, even though I don’t always use those gifts because they either stop working or become so obsolete that I need a new one.

My Nook HD+ hasn’t been the same for a very long time because the battery doesn’t keep a charge for too long. I don’t remember exactly how long you’re supposed to be able to read before the battery dies, but I’m pretty sure it’s not a few hours. I brought my Nook HD+ with me to Oregon recently and let my cousin’s son play a game on there, and the battery only lasted for 1 hour, maybe. I had to bring out a portable battery so he could keep playing.

I have been scanning my groceries with the National Consumer Panel for a few years. I earn points for scanning groceries and for doing surveys, and I get points every week just for being a member, and I can use those points to buy gift cards for Amazon. 21,000 points gets me a $25 Amazon gift card, and I recently used my 21,000 points to buy a gift card specifically so I could buy this battery for my Nook HD+.

It came with tools and I watched a video on YouTube on how to open my Nook HD+ so I can change the battery. it’s a lot harder than I had originally expected. I thought the back would just come off, but apparently I have to peel the frame around the front screen off, then unscrew about 20 screws, then flip it over and unplug the battery and peel the battery off the back because it’s glued on there, then I can put the new battery in and screw all the screws back on, then snap the frame back on. It’s a lot of work, and I am willing to do whatever it takes to be able to use my Nook without worrying about my battery constantly dying on me.

Now I will be able to read books again and not worry that the battery is going to die on me right in the middle of the good part.

Update: Well, I followed the instructions in a YouTube video to the letter. I removed the frame around the screen, it’s got like a double sided tape all around it which most of it came off and I had to toss in the trash, but I got the frame off. I unscrewed all 20 screws and removed the back and unplugged the battery, then carefully removed the old battery from the back of the device, as told in the instructional video I found. The battery was just on with double stick tape. Then I placed the new battery in the Nook and plugged it in and replaced the back and flipped it over and I noticed the screen had started up, so I went to press the circle up to turn it on so I could basically just turn it off while I screwed in the screws, but it didn’t respond to my touch. I screwed all 20 screws back in and replaced the screen frame and tried touching the screen and it wasn’t responding again. So I turned it off and did a soft reset and still no response. I did a factory reset and STILL no response. Now I have a brick. A $200 brick and a $23 battery that doesn’t do me any good. I am so pissed off right now I can’t even see straight.

Another update lol: Well, somehow I got it to work, but then I went to the gym and it wouldn’t work. Touch screen is dead. So, since my gym is right next door to a Barnes & Noble, I just decided to buy a new Nook. I bought a Samsung Galaxy Tab A Nook since they were out of the cheaper $50 Nooks. I figured the Samsung one looked better than the cheap $50 one, and you get what you pay for, so now I have a new 7 inch Nook tablet. It’s not 9 inches, but that’s fine. It works.

PS Vita Not Properly Charging

On By Michel McDonaldIn Games, PS VitaLeave a comment

psvita charger

Today I was faced with a problem that I was not mentally prepared for. My PS Vita refuses to charge.

Last night I turned my PS Vita on so I could see if the weekly sale was in the PS Store yet. Each week on Tuesday they have a sale on games. I knew I was early because it was Monday night, but it was after midnight so I thought I’d check. I noticed that the battery icon showed that it had about 50% battery. It doesn’t say 50%, but it was around there. I plugged it in and let it charge for about an hour and the light turned off. I assumed if the light turned off that it was fully charged, so I went to sleep.

This morning I turned it on to check for the weekly sales, and I noticed that the battery icon was still at that halfway point, so I plugged it in again and forgot about it for about an hour.

PS Vita Screen

After an hour, I thought this has to be at full charge by now, but as you can see, it was still at the 50% mark. I didn’t understand why it was doing that, and I was starting to panic, so I went to Google and searched for the problem. I searched “PS Vita not charging” and the first post that I came across said to just plug it in and start playing a game, so I did. I plugged it in and started playing Minecraft. I played for about 10-15 minutes. You would think that after being plugged in for 10-15 minutes it would have at least gone up to 75% or something, but it didn’t move at all.

I turned it off all the way off by pressing and holding the power button until I saw POWER OFF. I actually did that last night and before the Minecraft “fix” that didn’t exactly fix anything. You can usually solve any problem by turning it off then back on again. Usually.

I read another message board post that put me in a panic attack. It said if you have only had it for like say a couple of weeks or a month to go back to the store and return it for an exchange. Well, I’ve had mine for 5 months, so yeah I can’t exactly do that, now can I? I kept reading, and was getting more discouraged by the minute until I went to find the original box that the PS Vita came in, which yes, I had because I save things like that lol.

Inside the box I found a couple of things. I found that I have a 2 year warranty from Game Stop, thank goodness for my partner buying the warranty with my Christmas present. I also found something, it’s a little box that you plug the USB cable into and a plug. I never unpacked those because I figured if it can be charged via USB cable, why use that? So I took it out, took a picture (above) and plugged it in and guess what? It charged my PS Vita to 100%.

This is my fix for this issue, and it may or may not work for everyone else just like the plug it in and play a game fix didn’t work for me, but if you haven’t tried it, try it and see if it works. I sure am glad I figured that one out. Technology doesn’t love me as much as I love it.