FreeRunner is completely dead

Andy Green andy at openmoko.com
Sun Aug 10 13:06:17 CEST 2008


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Somebody in the thread at some point said:
| Hi.
|
| I've been using my FreeRunner quite a lot since I got it and yesterday
| evening I played with USB host mode (the goal was to use a normal USB
| keyboard in the terminal). However, I reported my progress and then went
| to bed. [0]
|
| This morning when I got back to my computer, the FreeRunner's screen was
| black as is expected - the battery would be drained as it has been
| several nights/mornings before. But, today I just can't get it to boot
| anymore. The only difference from all other times (that I can think of)
| is that I left it in USB host mode.
|
| By now I've had it plugged into the wall charger that came with the
| phone for more than one hour, but to no avail - it still won't boot. :(
|
|
| Any tip, idea on what I should do or test?

This is a known issue... basically Freerunner cannot boot successfully
without the battery to help it along.  If the battery is dead, then it
won't succeed to boot.

What's actually happening is that there is a large instantaneous demand
for power, AKA "inrush current", this causes the USB input to enter
current limit, the voltage drops on the Freerunner side, boot fails, it
restarts and so on.

It won't start to charge either until this early part of the startup
action completes successfully.

You can work around it with another battery that has charge; externally
charging you battery with external charger; or the not recommended but
"I did it and there was no smoke in my case" provide external 5V briefly
to battery + terminal (making sure they share 0V too) briefly until it
starts.  After that, if it stays awake it should charge OK.

- -Andy
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