My brand new PB will not charge when in standby or when on

Question

I played with a number of PB's so far and finally have my own but... My brand new PB will not charge when in standby or when on; as soon as I plug the charger into the USB port it detects it and brings the screen up (if in standby) showing the lighting bolt on the battery but it does not charge; the lighting bolt stays but the % charge does not change (or hopefully increase) at all; it will actually decrease (??); the only way I can charge it is when I attach the charger and the PB is powered off… the PB brings the red (or green can't remember) LED on and starts to flash it on off and charges; tried the hard reset with no change; I am running the latest OS release 1.0.8.6067. Has anyone seen this? Is it h/w or f/w? Any Fix?

Answer 1

Here's a final update on this... the units goes back to its maker or the store sometimes tomorrow... Why? First I tried to understand if this was s/w or h/w related or maybe both before calling support which in the end I did; so I did try a different charger, hard resetting the unit, discharging and recharging etc; nothing helped or fixed the charging in standby; the unit continued to charge only after being turned off and then plugged into the charger. Here's what I learned:
1. Going through the initial setup and OS update it is quite possible for the unit to NOT load the OS image correctly i.e.  it appears that it loaded the OS and displays the OS version as if it loaded properly when in fact it did not and the image loaded is corrupt. I found this out during a live session with support when they were looking at my PC screen while the PB was connected to the PC only to point out that the Desktop Manager was showing a s/w update being available (1.0.8 bundle 6067) while the unit was reporting 1.0.0 bundle 0. Strange, I thought I already had 1.0.8.6067... after accepting the update, which takes a bit to load, I started more testing, charging, discharging, hard reset (i.e. Volume Up + Power) etc with no positive results to report. This also proved that the USB port is working, both data (PC to PB communication alright) and power (PB displays the plug over the battery bar when the power contact work)
2. The charger I have works and it is the correct one: P/N PSM09A-050RIM; make sure it is not one of the incorrectly rated chargers some received.
3. In order to reduce the amount of current the unit consumes when on, you have to run the Video Chat app at least once and acknowledge the (c) page; otherwise this remains as a background app that take more CPU cycles on the battery. After doing this I did notice a slight improvement in the sense that PB did charge some instead of discharging. The problem is that it only charged to about 60% and did not move higher no matter how long I waited (yes I did reset just to make sure it is not the s/w acting up and deciding to not update the power bar)
4. The way the RIM RMA works is like this: they start the process for you to return the unit back for repair which I understand may take 10 days; you may get a unit to use for this time if so desired, it will be charged to your CC; your unit may get repaired if possible; if not possible to repair, your new unit will be replaced with a refurbished unit; once you get some unit back you need to send the “10 day replacement unit” to RIM to get your CC charge cleared. I find that this program is good for when you can not return the unit to the place you purchased it from. Otherwise it is not good as I do not like getting a refurb for something I consider brand new (not to mention that you may get a unit with a few bright or dark pixels)
5. Throughout this process I looked at three (3) Playbooks: 2 had bright pixels and were returned immediately; this last one does not charge correctly. No win for me!
6. The battery lasts approx 4 hours with the unit playing a video clip in a loop and WiFi on with a WEB pulled stop watch running as well (had to allow multi tasking in setup/general).
Finally, my theory about this problem is that it is h/w related and that it is caused by the noise the board or the display is making when the unit is either on or in standby; a component not soldered properly (cold joint) or out of spec may be the culprit; for example a resistor in resistor divider monitoring the battery voltage or a decoupling capacitor missing or not soldered...