HP Touchpad tips and tricks

The Mulk

A little help needed!

I downloaded the Kindle app last night and a few free books, all working fine.

I have a few books(kindle ready) on a memory stick. Do I need to use the Kindle import app to bring theses across from my pc, or can i drag and drop to a specific folder.
I've tried to install the kindle import app, but it keeps freezing when i go to update any books that are on the touchpad.

Edit: I'm still on WebOS

Ballyv24

The Mulk wrote: »

A little help needed!

I downloaded the Kindle app last night and a few free books, all working fine.

I have a few books(kindle ready) on a memory stick. Do I need to use the Kindle import app to bring theses across from my pc, or can i drag and drop to a specific folder.
I've tried to install the kindle import app, but it keeps freezing when i go to update any books that are on the touchpad.

Edit: I'm still on WebOS

For Android ICS, you just have to copy the files to the Kindle directory. Do not put new directories into the kindle folder because files within the directory will not be picked up by the kindle app.

Also, make sure that the files are the correct format. I think the Android kindle app does not read .epub format so maybe WebOS might also require a specific ebook format

The Mulk

Thanks, I'll try that tonight. I can't remember what format they're in but usually I can just copy them directly onto a kindle via usb/laptop

Do-more

Any joy on the usb lead and getting your TP back to life BenThere?

BenEadir

Do-more wrote: »

Any joy on the usb lead and getting your TP back to life BenThere?

Got the replacement charger this morning. Plugged it in and there wasn't a budge out of the TP. I had hoped for a minimum of a flashing home button to indicate that at least some juice was getting through but nothing. I'll leave it plugged in overnight hoping it will eventually power up enough to start flashing the home button and then progress to the red battery icon on the screen and then eventually to a power up when the battery level gets to accepted minimum but I'm not that hopeful.

I'll update tomorrow.

If the TP won't charge when it's plugged into the official charger is it 100% goosed? If so I'll be very disappointed.

Ben

missingtime

I had a very similar problem to yours ben. Flashing light on home button, not turning on etc. In the end I left it plugged in for a day and then pressed a combination of power volume up or power home button. Then the usb icon came on and stayed on for about half a day. I left it plugged in for another day or so and it eventually turned on by itself?!?!

I have android on it as well.

All hope may not be lost just yet

EDIT: The plug is the hp one, but the cable is from a sony x10.

BenEadir

Cheers Missingtime, I'll certainly spend an hour or two trying the various button combo's before giving up on it.

Fingers crossed it'll come back to life. I find it very handy for checking email and web browsing + the kids love it for watching movies in the car, playing games etc. A comparable replacement would probably be €200 and I just know if I went back inot th emarket for a new notepad I'd end up spending €500 on the latest Samsung or Motorola :eek:

Ben

BenEadir

My TP is still goosed. It's been plugged in for over a week (was away for the weekend without my TP!!) and tried loads of button combo's last night without any joy.

Looks like it's totally bricked. Very sad

Ben

missingtime

Ahhh crap. At this point i'd bet its the cable you are using. Mine died over the weekend but once i plugged in the sony usb cable it started charging fine.

See if you can get your hands on a sony usb cable; one that works with an x10 phone. I have to get one soon as the one i have seems fecked; I have to wrap it around the touchpad for the charge to run through.

Trinnersboy

BenThere wrote: »

My TP is still goosed. It's been plugged in for over a week (was away for the weekend without my TP!!) and tried loads of button combo's last night without any joy.

Looks like it's totally bricked. Very sad

Ben

Annoying have you tried the Touch Stone, that's the only thing I haven't tried yet as I haven't got one. Don't really want to waste €50 buying one either

BenEadir

The Touchstone was the first thing I tried. It worked in the past when the TP had fully discharged but not this time

Ben

lafors

BenThere wrote: »

My TP is still goosed. It's been plugged in for over a week (was away for the weekend without my TP!!) and tried loads of button combo's last night without any joy.

Looks like it's totally bricked. Very sad

Ben

Ben I need a screen for one of my TPs. Would you sell me your broken TP? Screen is OK on it right?

Trinnersboy

lafors wrote: »

BenThere wrote: »

My TP is still goosed. It's been plugged in for over a week (was away for the weekend without my TP!!) and tried loads of button combo's last night without any joy.

Looks like it's totally bricked. Very sad

Ben

Ben I need a screen for one of my TPs. Would you sell me your broken TP? Screen is OK on it right?

Ben don't suppose u would sell me the Touch Stone

missingtime

Christ lads, let him grieve!

Trinnersboy

Good, good news. After refusing the £218 quoted repair quote I got for my dead Touchpad, I got it sent back for £30. Guess what - I turned it on and it works, battery 90% full. They wouldn't repair it in warranty because Android was installed on it so presumably they had to kick start it to find out that Android was on it.
So if anyone has a dead TP I recommend you give this a try. The most it will cost you is the return postage. I've another TP with the same problem I'm going to try with that one too. Any questions PM me

BenEadir

missingtime wrote: »

Christ lads, let him grieve!

Too bloody right missingtime. You lads are like a flock of Vultures circling a corpse!!! Don't blame you too much though

It'll tell you what, Lafors, instead of me breaking up my nice TP set up, why don't you sell me your battery pack???

I'll have to be pretty cheap though because apparently for €30 I can get HP to jump start it and send it back to me. Happy Days

Ben

lafors

BenThere wrote: »

Too bloody right missingtime. You lads are like a flock of Vultures circling a corpse!!! Don't blame you too much though

It'll tell you what, Lafors, instead of me breaking up my nice TP set up, why don't you sell me your battery pack???

I'll have to be pretty cheap though because apparently for €30 I can get HP to jump start it and send it back to me. Happy Days

Ben

Ben, i was looking for a tear down for screen replacement and found on ifixit.com that some guy put up a question on the battery pack and found you can buy the official hp one from ebay. He put a link up to the seller, 29.99 plus shipping i think he said. Might be worth your while getting that.
Don't worry I'll find a replacement screen for my one sooner rather than later. My nexus 7 is filling the gap nicely at the moment

Do-more

I posted a link to the replacement battery pack on Ebay 2 pages back, here it is again.

But going by Trinnersboy's experience your battery is probably OK. I'd imagine if you tore down the TP and were able to connect a charger directly to the battery poles you would get to charge it OK.

Don't give up on it yet.

Trinnersboy

Do-more wrote: »

I posted a link to the replacement battery pack on Ebay 2 pages back, here it is again.

But going by Trinnersboy's experience your battery is probably OK. I'd imagine if you tore down the TP and were able to connect a charger directly to the battery poles you would get to charge it OK.

Don't give up on it yet.

I tried the teardown on another TP, I broke all the clips and it doesn't go back together very well afterwards. I'm useless at that kind of stuff though

BenEadir

Guy's I'm looking for some guidance on what to do next. So far I've tried the following:-

1. Charging on the Touchstone for a few days. No flashing home button, no red battery icon on the screen and no sign of life.
2. Charging with the official HP mains charger for a few days. No flashing home button, no red battery icon on the screen and no sign of life.
3. Tried all the power + volume up + home button options i.e. power button on it's own, home button on its own, power + home button, power + volume down + home etc etc without any joy whatsoever.

Has anyone got any ideas about how to jump start the thing? If HP can jump start a TP in order to determine it's got android on it and then charge you €30 to send it back how do they actually do that???

Ben

missingtime

BenThere wrote: »

Guy's I'm looking for some guidance on what to do next. So far I've tried the following:-

1. Charging on the Touchstone for a few days. No flashing home button, no red battery icon on the screen and no sign of life.
2. Charging with the official HP mains charger for a few days. No flashing home button, no red battery icon on the screen and no sign of life.
3. Tried all the power + volume up + home button options i.e. power button on it's own, home button on its own, power + home button, power + volume down + home etc etc without any joy whatsoever.

Has anyone got any ideas about how to jump start the thing? If HP can jump start a TP in order to determine it's got android on it and then charge you €30 to send it back how do they actually do that???

Ben

Are you still using the cable that came with it? I've found that if its dead, it wont charge without that cable.

I've been using a sony x10 cable with the official main charger and its the only cable that seems to work when its fully dead; you will probably get one here http://www.ebay.ie/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=m570&_nkw=sony+x10+usb+cable

I've tried a ton of other usb cables with no joy so there must be something with them.

When mine died, and was dead for about a week, I left it plugged in with the sony cable. The home button started flashing intermittently. One day I pressed the power button and the volume up button and held it for about a minute and it seemed to come back to life.

Your issue seems very similar to mine, albeit I had a flashing home button.

griffdaddy

missingtime wrote: »

Are you still using the cable that came with it? I've found that if its dead, it wont charge without that cable.

I've been using a sony x10 cable with the official main charger and its the only cable that seems to work when its fully dead; you will probably get one here http://www.ebay.ie/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=m570&_nkw=sony+x10+usb+cable

I've tried a ton of other usb cables with no joy so there must be something with them.

When mine died, and was dead for about a week, I left it plugged in with the sony cable. The home button started flashing intermittently. One day I pressed the power button and the volume up button and held it for about a minute and it seemed to come back to life.

Your issue seems very similar to mine, albeit I had a flashing home button.

This seems to work for a lot of people. It seems a slow trickle from a standard micro-usb actually manages to charge it

jimmycrackcorm

I've fixed my dead battery issues with the touchpad but putting on the latest CM9 nightlies ROMS and holding down the power and home button for 15 seconds. I also changed my usb cable as it was a little loose.

I've no more issues with dead battery not charging.

In retrospect, I think the Home key and Power key together for 15 seconds seemed to make a difference.

missingtime

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

I've fixed my dead battery issues with the touchpad but putting on the latest CM9 nightlies ROMS and holding down the power and home button for 15 seconds. I also changed my usb cable as it was a little loose.

I've no more issues with dead battery not charging.

In retrospect, I think the Home key and Power key together for 15 seconds seemed to make a difference.

Is it easy to install the nightlys if you have cm9 already installed?

BenEadir

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

I've fixed my dead battery issues with the touchpad but putting on the latest CM9 nightlies ROMS and holding down the power and home button for 15 seconds. I also changed my usb cable as it was a little loose.

I've no more issues with dead battery not charging.

In retrospect, I think the Home key and Power key together for 15 seconds seemed to make a difference.

How did you flash CM9 if the TP was dead??? When I connect mine to my laptop the laptop doesn't see it at all.

Ben

milltown

What do you replace your USB cable with?
It's not a standard micro USB connector is it?

Mine is very contrary of late. It's very hard to get a charge into it. I need to plug in the cable a heap of times before it will show as charging. The electrical end of the charger seems fine, anything else I plug into it starts charging straight away.

stevenmu

missingtime wrote: »

Is it easy to install the nightlys if you have cm9 already installed?

Yes, if you installed Clockwordmod when you put CM9 on then it's very easy. Just download the latest nightly .zip file to the touchpad, you probably already have a cminstall folder to put it in.

Reboot to Clockworkmod Recovery, and choose to flash from a zip file, then browse to the zip file you downloaded. Most people also suggest that while you're in CWM you should clear the cache and the dalvik cache. The just reboot and it's up and running.

Ballyv24

It finally happened to me.. The dreaded dead Touchpad.

I pressed the power button down for ages and nothing.. Then I tried power and the home key combination for 30 seconds.. still nothing.

You hear about it happening to other people, but you think it wont happen to you

Fortunately I found out online that if you hold the power and home key for about 2 minutes a message will come up saying to release the keys and you have a working Touchpad again. Thankfully that worked for me!

Sorry if that solution for a dead touchpad has been posted before. It was a new one for me

Do-more

Ballyv24 wrote: »

It finally happened to me.. The dreaded dead Touchpad.

I pressed the power button down for ages and nothing.. Then I tried power and the home key combination for 30 seconds.. still nothing.

You hear about it happening to other people, but you think it wont happen to you

Fortunately I found out online that if you hold the power and home key for about 2 minutes a message will come up saying to release the keys and you have a working Touchpad again. Thankfully that worked for me!

Sorry if that solution for a dead touchpad has been posted before. It was a new one for me

It sounded like a wind up saying you had to hold the buttons for 2 minutes, but I googled it and there are quite a few references on the net to this working.

I also found this advise which might be helpful to anyone running android on the touchpad.

If/when you get your Touchpad working again install an app called Llama as you can have that turn off your Touchpad when the battery reaches any level you want, I have an alarm at 20% and shutdown at 10% .

I got my TP back from HP with a new case on it last week. Now that it is out of warranty I might finally stick android on it, is CM10 stable or am I better going for CM9?

Ballyv24

Do-more wrote: »

If/when you get your Touchpad working again install an app called Llama as you can have that turn off your Touchpad when the battery reaches any level you want, I have an alarm at 20% and shutdown at 10%.

Thanks. I was looking for an app like that.