[Q] Touchpad won't turn on - home+power doesn't work

suremail · Dec 8, 2011

Let me start by saying, Power + Home does not work. Yes, really. I know there are a dozen threads about Touchpads not turning on, and they all have "Hold power and home for 20s" as the reply. Please don't respond with "Hold Power and Home for 20s". I have tried it.

Background

I took my Touchpad with me on a road trip. I did not have an official car charger, but I had one rated at 1 amp. I used this charger with my Touchpad, and it said that it was not powerful enough (as expected). I figured I would let the Touchpad at least get some juice while it was not being used. The battery steadily drained over the next couple of days, to the point where the screen did not come on. I assumed this was because the Touchpad was completely drained.

Once I got to a location with an actual outlet I used the original Touchpad wall adapter and let it charge for a few hours. The screen still did not come on, and there was no response (sound/light/vibration) from any buttons. I let the Touchpad continue to charge over night with the same result.

The Touchpad has alpha 2 on it.

What I have done

I have tried:

Power + Home for 15s
Power + Home for 30s
Power + Home for 1min

Power + Vol Up for 15s
Power + Vol Up for 30s
Power + Vol Up for 1min

Power + Vol Up + Home for 15s
Power + Vol Up + Home for 30s
Power + Vol Up + Home for 1min

All of the above with and without the Touchpad being plugged in to the wall and PC.

Trying WebOS Doctor (does not recognize a device)
Trying novacom directly (does not recognize a device)
Letting the Touchpad charge for > 1 day and repeating all of the above
Letting the Touchpad sit on the Touchstone for > 1 day and repeating all of the above
Verifying that the AC adapter is secured properly and repeating all of the above
Changing the USB cable and repeating all of the above
Changing the AC adapter and repeating all of the above

Results

The only time I have gotten any indication that the Touchpad is actually doing something is when using Power + Vol Up (and Vol Down) with the Touchpad connected to the PC. Vol Up has the Touchpad recognize as Palm. Vol Down has the Touchpad recognize as QHSUB_DLOAD. If I have the Touchpad connected to the PC in one of these states, Power + Home will reset the device (and Windows will not recognize it until I use Power + Vol Up/Down again).

That is the only response I get from the Touchpad. Anything else I have tried results in nothing.

My current plan is to attempt to let the battery completely drain, and then charge it again. I was previously under the impression that my Touchpad was out of power, but the testing with Vol Up/Down has shown me otherwise. My hope is that losing all power will truly "reset" the device.

Does anyone have any advice on anything else I should try? Is there a way to recover the Touchpad via booting it as Palm or QHSUB_DLOAD?

DJ_SpaRky · Dec 9, 2011

Volume Up + Power while connected to PC, then run WebOS Doctor?

Dbarker 2 · Dec 9, 2011

You may have done this, but have you tried pressing home first and then holding it and power together? I couldn't get mine to start by pressing power and then home, but when I held home first and then power it came right on. If you have done that then disregard this, but if not I hope it helps.

FishDoc · Dec 9, 2011

Another method

Try power and Volume down. Hold for a minimum of 30 seconds before giving up. It has worked twice for me when all else failed.

FishDoc

chrischoi · Dec 9, 2011

That was very thorough. Once my TP died completely. I plugged it in and it didn't do anything. When I held Power + hitting home 15 times, it would give mea low battery indicator.

I plugged it in and left it over night. By the morning it was on 100%.

suremail · Dec 9, 2011

DJ_SpaRky said:
Volume Up + Power while connected to PC, then run WebOS Doctor?

It may not have been clear since it came after the list, but I did try this. WebOS doctor does not recognize the device in any mode. I do not know if this is simply because I lack the necessary drivers when it is in one of the other device modes. On the off chance that I didn't I will try again when I get home.

Dbarker 2 said:
You may have done this, but have you tried pressing home first and then holding it and power together? I couldn't get mine to start by pressing power and then home, but when I held home first and then power it came right on. If you have done that then disregard this, but if not I hope it helps.

I do believe I have tried this, but I will try again when I get home.

FishDoc said:
Try power and Volume down. Hold for a minimum of 30 seconds before giving up. It has worked twice for me when all else failed.

FishDoc

It is my fault for leaving it out, but I tried this after exhausting the other options.

chrischoi said:
That was very thorough. Once my TP died completely. I plugged it in and it didn't do anything. When I held Power + hitting home 15 times, it would give mea low battery indicator.

I plugged it in and left it over night. By the morning it was on 100%.

I really wanted to avoid the slew of "Hold power and press home!" comments and the followups telling me to hold it longer, hold volume, and all of the other normally recommended fixes. I know how to write a bug ticket or two.

I'm also the type of guy who posts a followup with what actually fixes the problem (No "nm, fixed it" from me).

It sounds like my current plan of action is going to mimic what you did. I originally thought the Touchpad was getting no power, so I kept trying to charge it. Now I am waiting for it to lose all power, so I can repeat the process after the device (hopefully) resets. I'm not sure how long that will take since I cannot actually use the device to drain the battery.

Thanks for the responses. Some replies are better than no replies.

pseudotrash · Dec 10, 2011

So i had a similar situation and tried everything you had mentioned and all the suggestions in the thread. Nothing. No power, completely dead. I even left it
overnight on the charger... nothing. For sure i thought I bricked it. Then, I read online that someone tried the following:

Press and hold Power + Volume Up and click the card (menu) button a thousand times.

Wow! It worked! The TP is alive! In actuality, it only took about 30-50 times (not a thousand) of pressing the menu button while holding power + volume up.
I then got the white USB icon in the middle of the screen and then pressed and held the power + menu button to reboot.

What I did find interesting though is the battery was almost discharged even after having it on the supplied charger (not touchstone) overnight.
Anyway, hope this resolves your issue as well.

suremail · Dec 12, 2011

No go with Home + Power, Power + Vol Down, Power + Tapping Home

pseudotrash · Dec 12, 2011

suremail said:
No go with Home + Power, Power + Vol Down, Power + clicking Home

Just making sure you read it right since you didn't list it above.

Power + volume up + clicking home button repeatedly.
All 3, same time. Just trying to help.

rflnc1 · Dec 13, 2011

^ worked for me..thanks

Sent from my HTC Inspire 4G using XDA App

Danners · Dec 15, 2011

Well this is a really strange one...

Touchpad was completely non-responsive, I'd tried everything above about 5 times and it just wasn't showing any signs of life. I have left it charging all day today.

Assuming it was completely dead, I sat it down. 5 minutes later, it inexplicably just started booting up.

Wish I knew what I did, if anything to make it boot.

Phillip Fry · Dec 16, 2011

I am having the same issue but what got me there was trying to restore my Touchpad via WebOs Dr. It would restore to like 60% or 80% and then say we were unable to reset your device. It kept failing and no ROM was on my the device anymore. When I hold Power+Vol Up+ Home I can hear my PC detect it but that is all it does.

When I get home tonight I am going to try some of the things in this thread.

But what if I cannot get it into recovery? I read that it is near impossible to brick a Touchpad. How can I still recover without getting into recovery?

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1394061

menting · Dec 16, 2011

Phillip Fry said:
I am having the same issue but what got me there was trying to restore my Touchpad via WebOs Dr. It would restore to like 60% or 80% and then say we were unable to reset your device. It kept failing and no ROM was on my the device anymore. When I hold Power+Vol Up+ Home I can hear my PC detect it but that is all it does.

When I get home tonight I am going to try some of the things in this thread.

But what if I cannot get it into recovery? I read that it is near impossible to brick a Touchpad. How can I still recover without getting into recovery?

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1394061

not near impossible. I actually bricked mine and had to send it back for RMA.
it got to the point where the hp screen will show, and webos doctor will detect it, but it'll fail when trying to reinstall at about the same percentage as you (maybe less).

Phillip Fry · Dec 16, 2011

menting said:
not near impossible. I actually bricked mine and had to send it back for RMA.
it got to the point where the hp screen will show, and webos doctor will detect it, but it'll fail when trying to reinstall at about the same percentage as you (maybe less).

Well I installed Android uninstalled it. Then installed it again and forgot mboot then uninstalled it. So I belive I am back to stock but I wanted to upgrade to 3.0.4 then install Alpha 3.5 as I has having problems with the Touchpad rebooting in both Android and WebOS.

So when do I know if it is bricked. And what do I say to customer support to get it fixed? I just bought the Referbed ones off ebay the other day.

suremail · Jan 8, 2012

Here's an update...

No luck with anything so far. I caved and decided to take the Touchpad apart to disconnect the battery. I did this and still no screen response. The only changes have been it's a bit more difficult to get it into Palm mode (if it does at all), and now it seems that I can get into QHUSB mode just by repeatedly pressing the vol- button (no need to hold anything else). I do not know if the QHUSB thing was like that before disassembly, or if it is a result of me mucking around.

Unless anyone has any great ideas it looks like I will have to hope HP fixes it in order to tell me it is out of warranty for having Android.

DozeBeatS · Jan 8, 2012

If you send it to Hp and If they can't power it on, I'd say they would definitely replace it. Problem is, I doubt they have any more TP's in stock. Not sure how the warranty would work now being that its a discontinued product.

Hopefully after toying with it enough you'll figure it out and get it powered.

slickdexic · Jan 27, 2012

Mine is stuck in download mode too. Still no success.

Here's my experience so far.

Black screen.

When connected to PC :
Home + Vol UP - Device Manager shows PALM (with yellow exclamation) - no driver found.
Vol Down (no need to press home or power) - Device Manager shows QHSUSB_DLOAD (with yellow exclamation) - no driver found.

WebOS Doctor fails to detect device (palm ! in device manager)
I tried forcing novacom drivers on the Palm device (both novacom and novacom-bootie) and then running WebOS Doctor, still refuses to enable next button.

Tried connecting with novaterm, cannot find device. (both novacom and bootie driver).

Power + Home for 15 - 20 secs always resets and clears device from device manager.

I installed QHSUSB Drivers.
now when I Vol Down it installs as a com port (Qualcomm HS-USB QDLoader 9008).

I installed QPST_2.7.323 and am able to see the device as Q/QPC-XXX - ESN=*Download* - Phone Number=*Download* - Banner=*Download*.

I tried resetting the device with QPST, fails to complete the command.

I think I need a new boot.hex to flash to the TP, or a way to force it to charge (if that is the problem).

My Touchpad was low on power when I put it away in the car while on a road trip. I plugged it in to the wall the next day when it wouldn't turn on. After charging overnight, it still refused to power on. That's when I started combing the web for possible solutions.

Please stop posting irrational solutions, such as Power + tap home 5,000,000 times as the few times this did work for others, it was merely coincidence, and power + home would have worked also.

Any rational solutions are welcome.
I may just send it in for warranty. Although I bet that at HP, they will just hook it up to a machine with "special" drivers and re-flash it with Web-OS. I wish they would just let me do the repair myself with the appropriate files.

Who knows, maybe it is a hardware issue, but I doubt it.

skiinginstead · Feb 2, 2012

I'm having the same problems too. What happened on mine is that my webOS was crashing doing random things like watching videos so I figured I'd just reflash the whole thing. I rebooted and went into the webOS recovery and that's when I think I bricked it. All I got was a USB cable symbol and the touchpad was unresponsive. I couldn't make it do anything and I tried all the appropriate button holding combinations and so I let the power run out over night.

Now when I plug it into the wall all I get is a low battery charging symbol. If I hold the home+power button down the screen will turn off after about 20-30 seconds of holding it down. But when I try to boot into recovery by holding the power+volume up buttons, all I get is the same low battery charging symbol. I'll add that I have had it charging for most of the morning so I don't think it is low battery still. And when I unplug it from the wall I get a symbol of two pronged plug that shows for about 5 seconds and then disappears.

Now when I plug it into the computer, I get the low battery charging symbol for a quick second and then it flashes to the message telling me "To reliably charge, use the cable and power adapter that came with your device" in 5 different languages. When I run webOS doctor I get to the screen where you connect your phone to the usb but it doesn't recognize anything and doesn't let me click next. I was able to have my computer recognize the power+volumedown button as the weird Qhusab thing but my computer said it couldn't find any drivers for it. Now I am not able to reproduce that.

I'm not sure what else to try so if anyone has any suggestions, that would be great. Otherwise I'm going to have to try my luck with HP support.

hbk5585 · Feb 2, 2012

skiinginstead said:
I'm having the same problems too. What happened on mine is that my webOS was crashing doing random things like watching videos so I figured I'd just reflash the whole thing. I rebooted and went into the webOS recovery and that's when I think I bricked it. All I got was a USB cable symbol and the touchpad was unresponsive. I couldn't make it do anything and I tried all the appropriate button holding combinations and so I let the power run out over night.

Now when I plug it into the wall all I get is a low battery charging symbol. If I hold the home+power button down the screen will turn off after about 20-30 seconds of holding it down. But when I try to boot into recovery by holding the power+volume up buttons, all I get is the same low battery charging symbol. I'll add that I have had it charging for most of the morning so I don't think it is low battery still. And when I unplug it from the wall I get a symbol of two pronged plug that shows for about 5 seconds and then disappears.

Now when I plug it into the computer, I get the low battery charging symbol for a quick second and then it flashes to the message telling me "To reliably charge, use the cable and power adapter that came with your device" in 5 different languages. When I run webOS doctor I get to the screen where you connect your phone to the usb but it doesn't recognize anything and doesn't let me click next. I was able to have my computer recognize the power+volumedown button as the weird Qhusab thing but my computer said it couldn't find any drivers for it. Now I am not able to reproduce that.

I'm not sure what else to try so if anyone has any suggestions, that would be great. Otherwise I'm going to have to try my luck with HP support.

Having the EXACT same problem....anyone have any solutions to this? WHy is this happening?

rbarkus · Feb 3, 2012

It's a long shot, but it might help if you are getting to the USB symbol on the Touchpad .

I spent hours trying to connect with no luck with the Touch pad in that state. I rebooted my PC and it connected to the TP right away. (I was using a Win 7 64 bit PC.)

[Q] Touchpad won't turn on - home+power doesn't work

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