New battery semi-charged but not charging, is protection-circuit broken?

[ankostis]

On Mon, Sep 1, 2008 at 7:14 PM, Michael Shiloh <michael at openmoko.org> wrote:
> ankostis wrote:
>> On Mon, Sep 1, 2008 at 6:28 AM, Michael Shiloh <michael at openmoko.org> wrote:
>>> Did you update u-boot and kernel? There was a bug awhile back causing
>>> USB insertions to be only partially recognized.
>>
>> I have not updated UBoot and i cannot do it anymore since the battery
>> has fallen significantly making it impossible to enter into USB ACM.
>>
>> I've used kernel from 2008.8 and FSO (2 days ago), nothing too recently.
>>
>> I thinki i've seen the bug you mention,
>> when it requires to insert the USB twice in order to enter 'Charging" status.
>> But yet, no real current flows into the battery and the battery's
>> reported capacity remains 0.
>>
>>
>> Yesterday, the current_now started to show some non-zero values, but
>> judging from the voltage_now,
>> the battery did not actually charge.
>>
>> Michael, I would really like to know if there is any possibility of
>> reviving the battery or if i should definitely contact the reseller
>> for a new one,
>> since i live in a different country from the reseller it and it will
>> take some time to receive a new battery.
>
> If you're feeling adventurous, try to revive the battery using Joerg's
> unofficial instructions [1], then update u-boot and kernel, then see if
> charging works better.
>
> If you're not feeling adventurous, ask your reseller for a new battery,
> and if it works, then return the old one as faulty.
>
> Michael
>
> [1] http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Charging_battery_directly

I've tried this already since the current voltage has fallen below the
booting threshold,
by supplying extra current from a separate supplier directly to the
battery receptors.

Yet i think Michael, that we are not dealing with a dead battery that
needs reviving,
but with a broken protection circuit that does not accept the charging current.

If i could suggest a solution that would be first to deeply-discharge
the battery
in order to reset the protection-cpu, and then start charging it.
Is this a viable solution?

Regards,
  Kostis Anagnostopoulos