Re: The power on/off enigma..
 

I haven't seen any problems at all with turning the N800 on. I sometimes shut it down via the power button and the menu, and sometimes by just holding the power button. Either way seems to work. I turn it on by holding the power button for a few seconds, until the LED is steadily on. I turn it off several times a day, because the boot time is so short and I prefer to keep the battery charged instead of running it down, which it will if the wifi is kept on, and it's easier to turn the whole device off than to turn off the wifi, at least for me. Maybe I'm lucky, but I've never had a single problem with it coming back on. It's absolutely reliable for me. Just pressing the power button won't turn it on though - it has to be held down for a few seconds.

Re: The power on/off enigma..
 

Just another person with this problem, I guess. But, I hardly even got to use mine! :) Here's what happened:

After waiting for weeks, I finally was able to get an N810 from Buy.com. It arrived on the 28th. I opened it up, put the battery in and plugged it into the wall. It showed "charging" on the black screen and I left it there for a few hours. After a few hours, I turned it on and played around with the browser for maybe 5-10 minutes. Then, I shut it off and left it there, with the charging icon and text for days.

That was until a few minutes ago. It still said "charging" even after days (seemed weird to me). I unplugged it and turned it on... didn't do anything. Tried plugging it back in and turning it on. Also nothing.

It's a bit disconcerting that so many are having these issues. I was really excited about this device, but I'm thinking and returning it now. I would expect something that cost me $430ish dollars to work when I first got it. I may just return it and buy something else/it again once this is worked out. I don't want to bother with various hacks to get it to turn it on when it's brand new. Frustrating.

Patrick

Re: The power on/off enigma..
 

I have read the 15 pages of this thread trying to find a solution for my power-on problem.
Mine seems a little different. For two times my N800 (with OS2008, last revision) did not start when I tried to power it on in the morning (first power-on of the day). No power-on problems for the rest of the day.

In both cases I opened the back cover to check that the battery was in place, I did not find anything wrong, then I re-inserted the cover, I pressed the power button again, and voila, the N800 powers on correctly.

It sounds like the action of disconnecting and reconnecting the back cover, somehow, fixes the problem.

Any idea about what causes this?
Is it a hardware problem? I can still ask a replacement.

Re: The power on/off enigma..
 

It happened to me a couple of time. I really think this is coincidental. I think the trick is, you press the power button, nothing happens, you then muck around with the back cover long enough, then power on again, now it works. I think time slack between first power button and second power button press is the active ingredient, the cover plate thing is a red herring. Dont throw tomatoes to me..........I know this is NOT a double blind study


bun

Re: The power on/off enigma..
 

Just to throw in my experiences... I had the same prob on my 770 when I first got it, and I eventually re seated the battery (actually i had taken it out to look at the serial number sticker underneath) and then it started working perfectly! It stayed working perfectly untill the next time I removed the battery (a couple months later, again to check the serial #) and then went back to only occasionally powering on. It always turns on if plugged in, and the on/off button is always responsive when the unit is on, so I know those arent issues on my 770, so I think the battery terminals are just picky about the way they are seated.

Re: The power on/off enigma..
 

I also have this problem with my n810 purchased around 04/12/2007 at buy.com. It powered up normally for the first time. I did not charge it before turning it on but the indicator showed a decent charge level. I used it for about 20 minutes without the wifi before I pluged it in then it charged normally. The batteries should be OK as the device lives up to the specs wrt the operation times. I didn't switch off the device for at least a week, at least I don't think I did. Then after at the end of a charge cycle when I removed the cable it shut down and I figured I had this problem :(.

None of the tricks listed here work, like removing the batteries or waiting for at least three minutes before trying to turn it on. The only way I can turn this thing on is putting it on the charger and waiting until it thinks so.

Today I tried a non-official charger, an nokia acp-12e from an older device, that provides less current than the AC-4U that came with the device (800mA vs 890mA) and it seems that now it takes more time until the charge sign appears. I also suspect that it takes more time if the battery is more discharged. From this I would think that the device falsely sees as if the battery was discharged too much.

However I found a bug that might be related #2290. This is also describes a case when the power button doesn't work properly. If you configure your device to go to soft poweroff when duple pressing the power button then it won't come back from a duble press. It's only able to wake up by a long press (if you configure so, of course). This might or might not be related.

Anyway it's an interesting option for those who don't send the device back (yet): configure your tablet to go to soft-off on a long press. It will come back instantly (<1 sec) on the next long press and it will prevent you from turning off accidentally and still you'll be able to save some power. (I haven't looked it up but I guess this soft-off mode is like suspend on desktops and laptops. The CPU is shut down but the memory stays powered.)

Re: The power on/off enigma..
 

I just wanted to follow up on my previous post. As noted above, I RMA'd the original N800 due to the power on/off issue. The replacement came in ~ 3 weeks ago and it has worked perfectly since then. I have turned in on/off on average every other day or so, since it arrived. It has always started without incident. No funny button pushing, no removing the battery, no holding it a strange angles, no crossing of fingers, no blood scarifice necessary it just works. It has also been charging just fine. I load OS2008 the day it arrived, again without issue.

If my experience is any indication, if you have an N800 with the on/off bug either return it for replacement (if possible) or if it's still under warranty return it to Nokia for repair. I can tell you from experience, you should not be having these problems (whether based on hardware or software), as this is not how a properly working N800 should ( or does) behave. I'm not trying to cause problems with anyone, but I only suffered with these issues for ~2 days before returning mine and that was more than enough. The new N800 I received is just a joy to use. I can't wait to get a pair of 16GB SDHC cards and really trick this thing out. I wish everyone out there with this problem good luck in getting it resolved.

Re: The power on/off enigma..
 

Sorry, I was wrong, the soft poweroff does not shut down the system it just seems to turn off the display and (optionally) the network interfaces.

Re: The power on/off enigma..
 

Here are some more results. Now I'm almost sure that this is either a softwer bug or a software correctable one. I removed the battery for the night so that the device would ceompletely power off and the RTC backup battery would run out. When I inserted the battery 6 hours later the thing would just boot up. I switched it on and off several times and it was OK. Then I switched it off once more and when switching on, which I'm not very experienced in ;), the power led blinked and then nothing happened. I might have released the power button too early, I don't know. I'll investigate this too.

Actually the RTC backup battery seems to have lasted for about 1.5 hours vs 20 minutes as it was suggested here by someone. When I booted up the device showed 6:36 am and I removed the batteries around 5:00 am.

Re: The power on/off enigma..
 

Would I have been careful and patient enough not to order it from the US I would have had it replaced the following day. Now I hope that it can be solved from software and I don't have to wait for months to get it back. BTW could you tell me how much time the whole replacement procedure took from the day you sent it back?