Problems with random power-offs and charging?

[Panders]

I’m pretty sure it’s a hardware defect but posting just in case.  I’m about to go investigate returning mine.

Is anyone else having trouble getting their device to reliably charge?  How about with random hard poweroffs?

Using the included charger, my i7 Book sometimes won’t charge.  I plug it in but the light doesn’t do anything.  I just bought the iVoler USB C charger mentioned in the TechTablets review and it seems to charge it more reliably.  At least the LED will always light up.  The included  charger sometimes lights the LED, sometimes not.

Even worse, my device will frequently refuse to power on.  Sometimes it goes for hours.  When it does finally turn on, it will randomly shutdown at some point.  Sometimes it happens it doesn’t even finish booting, other times it will run for hours and then just suddenly turn off.  Sometimes I’ll have it asleep in my backpack and pull it out to find it’s turned off.  It doesn’t shutdown windows, it just instantly turns off completely.  When it comes back up, the battery will be at or near 100% and it also happens when it’s plugged in and charging so it doesn’t seem to be power related.

It was fine for the first couple days and then this started.  I noticed it first after I had done a clean install of Windows.  I suppose it could be driver related but it seems to me more like a hardware defect.  Any thoughts?  Anyone else seen this?

[Likoum]

Did you check if there is any events in the Windows journal system ?

It’s probably hardware related anyway … did you try to boot on a ubuntu live to see if you have the same behavior ?

[Panders]

Those are both great tips.  I hadn’t done those yet.  I’ll do that and report back what I find.

 

Thanks.

[Panders]

I just dug through the Event Viewer logs for System and Application.  In short, it didn’t reveal any hints.  The System log had the normal type of Information events right up until the shutdown.  Then a shutdown happened and when it came back, there were a few Kernel entries saying that the last shutdown was “unexpected” but without clues for the cause.

I’m downloading an Ubuntu ISO.  We’ll see how that goes.

[Panders]

It’s been running fine for ~4 hours on Ubuntu.  But, it would sometimes run fine for up to a day in Windows so it’s hard to say if this proves anything.  I’ll leave it running for a day or so and see what happens.

In the meantime, I sent a message with the AliExpress seller.  I’ll see what they say.

[Panders]

It ran overnight in Ubuntu with nary an issue.  However, it has shutdown on me twice within half an hour of booting back to Windows.

Make that three times.

I can’t explain why it didn’t yet shutdown in Ubuntu but I’m still fairly convinced it’s hardware because it’s also done it to me twice while I was in the BIOS!  Also, why is it sometimes unwilling to turn back on after the shutdown?

I’m really trying to avoid a fresh Windows reinstall.  I just completed that which was half a day of work.  I’m using this tablet as my work computer and it requires a ton of effort to get our company image and software on it.  Any other suggestions before I have to try that?

Thanks a ton for your help so far.

[Chris G]

No crashes here, it has been very stable for me. I’m about to make a backup of Windows and install my 256GB M.2 ssd I just got from Amazon.

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[ahrlad]

I have problems with the barrel plug connector, which made the tablet charge unreliably. Opening it up I found the 12V pin had gotten loose from the PCB, I’ve “fixed” it by stuffing electrical tape on it to put pressure on it until I get home to my soldering iron.

I haven’t encountered any shutdowns or anything like that – it does sound like a hardware issue though it’s weird that it doesn’t happen in Ubuntu. Since thermal issues and most/all other things should leave some footprint in the event manager, maybe it’s a problem with the battery or -connector? That would explain the problems with starting it up again once it’s shut down.

[Likoum]

Yep, investigating the battery connector could be a good idea … does it reboot when you shake it ?

[Panders]

After fiddling with it a bunch more, I’ve reproduced it in Ubuntu, also.

A coworker suggested I install mprime and stress it a bit in Ubuntu to see if that would trigger it.  I’ve been trying to boot back into Ubuntu but I haven’t been able to get it to run long enough to install mprime.  It keeps doing a hard shutdown during boot or shortly thereafter.  Right now I can’t keep it powered on for longer than ~5 minutes in either Ubuntu or Windows.

The seller asked that I record a Youtube video so they can confirm that I’m not making this up.  Here it is for your enjoyment:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHo8zOqRUp4

I’ve given it the ol’ shake test but motion doesn’t seem to be a factor.

[ahrlad]

Yeah, that’ll  be an annoying hardware error. Sorry to hear it, hope the seller doesn’t try to screw you.

[Panders]

They did try to screw me.  I’ve been fighting with them ever since.  I would strongly recommend nobody buy from Shenzhen Ele Technology Ltd / Linda Tang.  If anyone goes wrong, you are screwed and will waste months of your life.

Does anyone in the USA want to buy this tablet and accessory bundle?  If so, PM me with a reasonable offer.  Maybe $50 + $10 shipping?  I can do Paypal and will send UPS tracking once shipped.

I have the complete bundle with the keyboard, stylus, screen protector, and carrying case.  The crappy case had the zipper break almost immediately and the tablet is defective as outlined above.  Everything else is fine, used for less than 10 hours.  I had bitlocker on the tablet so I reset the TPM chip since I can’t power it on long enough to clear my data; consider it wiped and needing an OS reinstallation.

I’ll probably eBay it if I don’t hear something here.

[Katagiri]

I bought from Shenzhen Senyong Electronic Technology CO. I hope it’s not the same or at least I hope my device is not faulty. The best luck for us all.

[lumpy]

Hello, I have the same problem of load/charge with the tablet and the iVoler USB C charger. The led ignites then goes out. I had this problem during several days then nothing more.

Otherwise no problem of cut.

[Hans Wurst]

I downloaded the zip for cube i7 book from cube-tablet.com. It’s a 7GB zip containing win10, bios and ec files and a chinese documentation about flashing win10, bios and ec.

I translated that document. There was a note, that reflashing the ec (ec means embedded controller) might help with power or charging problems.

So it might help with your problems described here. Flash/upate BIOS might help as well.

I can post the translated doc, if you like. But be warned: I don’t speak chinese and used google translator and tried to figure out, what it should mean. But I guess, it’s pretty accurate, at least it makes sense from a techical point of view, also there are a lot of english screenshots.

[Author]

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