Help Device will not boot until the battery is replugged

[OneOfTheLastOnes]

Hello everyone! This is my first post on this forum and I hope you can assist me with a little problem regarding my Nexus 7.

As the title says, my 16 GB Nexus 7 (2013) won't boot unless the battery is unplugged and replugged. If I turn it off and then try to boot it using the power button - nothing happens. And not a single button combination that I could think of would turn it on (I tried holding the combinations for up to 2 min). But what will turn it on is removing the back cover and unplugging the battery connector for a few seconds and then plugging it back in. This procedure works but it is not very practical as taking the back cover on this tablet does take some time .

I have tried the manual full flash of the stock Android 4.4.2 image but nothing has changed. I have also unlocked the bootloader and cleared/wiped the cache prior and after the fresh installation. I have never tried flashing the device with custom ROM or played around with custom kernels.

I really have already spent too much time looking for an answer online, so I would like to hear what possible solutions and suggestions you might have? I will appreciate every suggestion or an opinion. Oh and yes - I don't have the receipt for the device so warranty does not come into consideration.

 

[DeadDude]

My best guess is faulty battery. No experience personally. Sorry.

 

[OneOfTheLastOnes]

Thanks for the reply DeadDude. I does seem to be a hardware related issue to me too, even though it would be clearer what the problem is if the tablet wouldn't turn on at all.

I have never had experience with a mobile device that had a problem like this and haven't even heard of it. Still, I am open for further suggestions and solutions if someone has any. If I will find a definitive answer - then I will post it here. I am in contact with Asus as well.

 

[DeadDude]

please remember I have never removed the cover on mine!

Have you connected it to a pc and attempted to use fastboot OR adb commands?

Aside from SLEEP=Power Off until real power cycle, are there any other symptoms?

Forgive me, but how can you flash 4.4.2 without a PC and fastboot? I'm assuming it had 4.4.3?

Have you tried plugging the charger in FIRST?

When it *is* on, does the battery life seem 'normal'?

Can you set it up to never auto sleep? And leave it on the charger, and use it? Really test it. The weekend is soon, maybe load up a game and go at it for 4-6hrs? Heck, a 'big' enough game might make an appreciable dent in a full battery in 1 hour. Point of this, see if the battery is reporting correctly.

Good luck- I'm just throwing out there everything I can think of.

Any extra details available? is your battery the stock battery, or third party purchased replacement? Etc.


I don't know... could be a tripped overload protection chip in battery...? Waaay left field.

 

[OneOfTheLastOnes]

Oh, sorry for late reply - I have been quite busy for the last few days.

I would never have opened mine as well, but I have tried everything else, so I was left with no choice .

I don't think you really understand the problem that I have. The sleep mode works fine. The problem occurs when I turn off the device - then I wouldn't turn on until I remove the back cover and unplug and replug the battery connector. Yes, keeping the device on forever is quite a handy solution but forever is a long period of time and not an actual solution as the device is bound to turn off or reboot at some point in time. And actually when the device is turned off - if I try to charge the battery, absolutely nothing happens. No onscreen animation and nothing -> until the battery is replugged.

As far as symptoms are concerned, the failure to boot until the battery is replugged issue is the only one. There is another weird thing but I am pretty sure it hasn't got anything to do with my problem is that everytime I try to change the volume on the tablet by using the dedicated buttons - the animation (the blue line) does not change until it fades away. But the actual volume does and when you press the dedicated volume buttons again, the correct volume level is displayed. Another funny thing is that only the general volume level animation does not work but the notification level displays as it should. This is the only weird symptom that I have with the tablet, everything else works superb.

I'm afraid that you misunderstood the part with flashing the device. I said that I never flashed the device with custom rom, as I used the stock one (4.4.2). And yes, I used a PC and fastboot mode to flash it. The adb commands worked without a problem and even the reboot command worked fine. And before I flashed it, I actually had the 4.4.2 already installed - I just thought that a fresh install might do the trick.

Hehe, believe me - I've tried every possible trick to avoid having removing the back cover in order to boot the tablet. I have used 5 or so USB chargers ranging from 500 mAh to 2000 mAh. Have tried multiple household sockets, PC USB slot and even a car cigarette lighter socket. As I said I tried pressing, holding and the combination of both on all the physical buttons that the tablet has - and not holding them just for 10 seconds, but for up to 2 minutes.

Otherwise the battery does behave as it should. I can easily get 6-7 hours of video playback, even more hours of web browsing and the standby time is amazing. Of course the battery while heavy gaming (Real Racing 3) is down to a hour or two. The battery is stock and nothing looks as if it was tampered with at some point in life.

In the meantime I've also received the reply from Asus and they stated that this is a known issue and they don't have the solution yet. But this is just a stupid reply and I bet that they just aren't bothered to give a proper reply.

Thanks for the good luck and especially for your reply!