Solved Battery & firmware update woes

[cam30era]

Just received 128gb unit today. Purchased used from Amazon Marketplace. I've encountered 2 problems.
1) charger had to be plugged in to boot. Red X on battery icon. After initial setup, I ran system updates. Rebooted several times, and checked again. Battery problem persists and unit will shut down after about 30 seconds if unplugged. Have been charging for about 3 hours so far. Did a google search and tried updating battery drivers. Also tried volume up + power.

2) 10/28/2014 system firmware update won't install. Have rebooted numerous times and it continues to say "waiting for reboot". It automatically reboots after 15 minutes, and repeats the same cycle. Not sure if these two problems are linked or not.

Before I return the unit to the seller I'd like to try to solve this with any suggestions from the forum.

Thanks, in advance

 

[markusbeutel]

Never seen or heard of this before... but I think I know why seller sold it. Would return immediately, no way seller didn't know about this.

 

[riggi]

Check that the battery is actually charging. After 1 week, my battery icon in the systray would say "plugged in, not charging" when the charger was connected. The light on the plug was lit, but the battery was not charging.
It was working fine for a week up until then.
Took it back to the store and tried the charger on their display unit and that worked OK.
They opened up a new SP3 box and swapped the charger.

 

[cam30era]

Thanks. I'm seeing the same symptoms. Charger LED is lit. But message in system tray says "plugged in, not charging".

 

[silkrooster]

The symptoms sounds like a bad battery. Return to seller or send to Microsoft and pay for a new battery. Being second hand, I don't know if a warranty would be in affect.

 

[malberttoo]

I would at least do a full reset and see if that fixes anything. It won't take much time.

But yeah, it does sound shady.

 

[riggi]

I don't think it's a problem with the battery. Just the charger has failed. The store gave me a new charger and it's been fine for about a month now. First charger failed after 1week.

Trying another charger will confirm if the fault is in the charger or SP3.

 

[cam30era]

I don't think it's a problem with the battery. Just the charger has failed. The store gave me a new charger and it's been fine for about a month now. First charger failed after 1week.

Trying another charger will confirm if the fault is in the charger or SP3.

One thing makes me think it's not the charger: The SP3 will boot and operate fine when it's on the charger. But it's dead as a door nail if it's not plugged in. If the charger was bad, why would it operate OK when on the charger?

 

[Bandito]

We don't really know how the charger works, so it could be as simple as the power circuit for the SP3 and the recharging circuit for the battery are separate circuits. Thus, the SP3 could be powered, but the battery would not charge if that circuit of the power supply had failed or had broken wires.

The charger uses 6 pins to connect to the SP3, so there's more there than just voltage in and out.

If you have a Microsoft store nearby, head there and try the unit on one or two of their power supplies. If not, you should be able to try one at Best Buy. Just be sure and show them the SP3 when you go in and explain what you need to do.

 

[cam30era]

All is now good. I decided to drive to Indianapolis and visit the Microsoft Store. Tech immediately replaced my device with a brand new one. Thanks to everyone who took the time to reply. It's much appreciated.

 

[malberttoo]

All is now good. I decided to drive to Indianapolis and visit the Microsoft Store. Tech immediately replaced my device with a brand new one. Thanks to everyone who took the time to reply. It's much appreciated.

Awesome! Have fun with it...

 

[cam30era]

Thank you.