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HC - White Screen of Snowżżż

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Gibs:
G'Day All
I thought I'd share a little glitch that I had the other day with my HC (2B). I read that there was an update for the HC (thanks Tim) from Ring so I decided to get my HC ready by making sure it was fully charged prior to the update attempt.
Now my HC had been sitting on top of my PC for some time due to me being away as some of you may know and it seemed like the most prudent thing to do first before I cranked up the RPA. I grabbed my Charging cable that came with the HC, my ever reliable USB A/C charger for AU power, plugged it in to both wall socket and HC, turned it on and .............. WHITE SCREEN OF SNOW.

First thing that came to mind was "Oh its that flat that its not powering up correctly just like the day I received the HC from Bill." No Probs, I'll let it charge a bit and do a reset like last time, no biggy.
Later that day around 6-7 hours later I came back to the HC, tried to turn it on (it had powered off like normal) and again, white screen of snow!
So right away I tried a reset like I had before, HC reboots like before and......WSOS.
WTFżżżżż
After several failed attempts (or so I thought) to do a reset I decided it was surgery time for the HC in that either there was a bad connection on the USB port (cable checked out fine on another device), bad charging circuit in the HC or...bad batteries. I was really hoping it was just the batteries, an easy fix.
So doing what was easiest first I pulled the HC apart, got the batteries out and placed them into my Battery charging station that can handle 8 batteries up to a type D all at once.  One hour later the Station indicated all 3 batteries were fully charged (they where around 80-90% charged according to the charger before I charged them up). Plonked them into the HC, turned it on and ........ WSOS.
WTFżżżżż
Now it was looking like there was a serious issue with the HC, and in frustration I tossed it onto the desk. Well bugger me if the damned bloody thing didn't turn on.
W T F !!!!
I grabbed it back up (its still in bits at this stage) and it went back to WSOS, and I'm thinking, Ohhh no you bloody don't. So I started to push shove twist squeeze and generally try anything I can to get the screen to come back to life. Another quick tap on the desk and away it goes.
Anyway after some very careful diagnostics (NOT) I discover that the PCB Ribbon that connects the screen to the main PCB has oxidized a little and its making an intermittent connection at the plug end on the main PCB socket. A quick spray with some contact cleaner, a wipe over with cotton buds and shoving the plug in an out of the on board socket a few times and its a gooden. One PCB Sealer spray later over the entire PCB and socket (will seal and hold plug into socket) and its been working better than the day I received it.

So if you do get a WSOS at some point, don't despair straight away, there is a good chance its just a bit of oxidization on the PCB Ribbon Plug/Socket and now you know what to do (minus the tossing part).

And now, back to our regular viewing........Running Trains!

PS: Oh yea the HC update went a treat after the fix btw.   ;D

G8B4Life:
That's an interesting one; that socket on the PCB for the ribbon cable is a tight fit, wouldn't think one would get any oxidization there. I noticed on mine when I had a recurring phantom button press event happening the plug was not seated in the socket all the way (which wasn't the cause of my problem) , yours must have been nearly all the way out!

- Tim

Alan:
It is January after all. A little snow is to be expected.

Gibs:
Tim.
That would seem to be the logical conclusion except for one small technical note. I had to pry the connector out of its socket with a tiny screw driver. So no it wasn't just a loose connection. It was in fact oxidized - could tell by the bluish tarnish colour on the pins (bit of a give away after I got it open).  :D

Alan.
Mate ...Snow....in Western Australia..... in January.......I wish.
Not a snowballs chance in hell here lately - been in the high 30° to low 40° for the last two month's (that's C° not F° btw)  :D

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