Samsung Ativ Tab 3 power button not working, device battery always at 0%

Anonymous

I am writing to you regarding a Samsung Ativ Tab 3 that I recently bought.

The item was purchased on 26-September-13, model no. is XE300TZC-K01AE. On 3-October-13 morning, I noticed that the screen was frozen and not unlocking when pressing the power button. After pressing the Windows button below the screen, the login screen came up and I was able to log in to Windows. On the home page, noticed that battery was at 0%, although there was about 45% charge around 7 hours back. I connected the charger, but the battery was drained by then and the device powered down. Though the charger was connected, the blue light was not on and also the device was not powering up. The charger was kept connected till 4 PM, but the device was still not powering up. After several calls and discussion with Samsung, the device was sent to a service center for repair and received on 10-Oct.

The device was working absolutely fine again, till yesterday evening. Again, the device froze and power key was not working and Windows button was used to unlock the screen after several attempts. Battery was showing 0% despite having 78% charge just fifteen minutes previously. On connecting the charger, battery charge was still at 0% but not increasing. Luckily this time the device did not shut down, but after 3 hrs of connecting the charger, battery has still been at 0%. I would like to know any suggestions to help solve this problem. I tried restarting the APC Battery Controller in Device Manager, but there was no improvement. I am also attaching results of the powercfg command.

Rgds,

Amrith

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments

Answer accepted by question author

Anonymous

2 days later....the solution seems to be to just keep it going & not plugged in til the battery empties (backing important stuff up meanwhile). From the fact that it took several days, I gather the "battery 0" warning is part of the misfunction. During this time you can sleep it manually w the "power off" control on the charms bar, being careful not to turn it off (cos then you wont know if the battery's emptied yet), and turn it on w the home key.

Once the battery is totally empty (no reponse of home key, little blue light by power button off), you plug it in and it works.

My guess is this explains what happened previously when I (& others I read) sent it for repair. By the time it got to the workshop the battery had emptied, so they plugged it in, found it worked, & returned it with a message like "you must have forgotten to charge it", missing the problem.

We'll see: if it's something that happens every few months, & is this easily solveable, it's not so bad. Particularly since one can still use it while waiting for the battery to empty.

Wonder if regularly letting the battery get to empty ever few months would prevent the phenomenon?

Be interested to hear what others found.

Rivka

0 comments

46 additional answers

Anonymous

2015-03-02T22:29:52+00:00

Hi guys,

Sleep mode is 'must have' feature. No need to switch it off. My tablet always sleeps in my bag and immediately wakes up when needed.

My only problems were lags and unpredictable blackouts. One reason I found is poor eMMC (internal disk) performance when Windows intensively and sequentially writes swap file. Then I switched off unnecessary startup programs and services, set the swap at 200mb and switched off in Registry the 'resource exhausting warnings'. The device works as a charm!

Need more details - let me know.

But sometimes blackouts may happen. I guess because of power management, video card, touch screen drivers. My workaround is unplug/plug a battery, but you need to open the back cover and unplug the power socket. Will be good if somebody will find a Reset button :-)

Mikhail
Was this answer helpful?

0 comments No comments
Anonymous

2015-03-02T05:40:15+00:00

Hi folks

After reformat and going back to windows 8 mine stopped going unconscious but got stuck in updates. In the end (maybe 10th time in the lab) they agreed it was flawed to begin with & gave me a new tablet. No more of either problem, updated fine to 8.1.

So in spite of all the survival tricks I also suggest trying (repeatedly) to convince them to trade it for an ok version.

Good luck!
Was this answer helpful?

0 comments No comments
Anonymous

2015-03-02T02:26:58+00:00

Thank youuuuu Mike, that really worked!!!!!!!!!!! Because of all of you i think i got the protocol that we have to follow in orden to revive our tablet

1.- it seems to me when you put your tablet in sleep mode for long time (i mean several hours) something happens with the battery or the system that makes the problem, so, don,t put the tablet in sleep mode, it,d be better to turn it off. (anyways i noticed a lot of people don,t put their tablet in sleep mode but what happens is that the power button is very sensitive and when you,re carring it everywhere simething touches the button and the problem appears,so, get a cover that can really protect this button or modify this one so you only can turn the system on til you press the button after several seconds or something like that or don,t carry it everywhere.

2.- to make it work if the blackout is already in the ativ 3 is unplug the battery for several seconds (i mean, once you open up the tablet) plug it again and that,s it
Was this answer helpful?

0 comments No comments
Anonymous

2015-03-01T10:27:57+00:00

Hi All

I am also a great fan of Ativ Tab 3, bought it 1.5 years ago in Germany.

Few times I had surprises: power button was not waking up the device, no power light, could not switch on the device, 0% of charging, etc.

Definitely something wrong with power management. My workaround - unplug the battery and plug it back. No more problems many months!

Open a back cover using any plastic card, locate the big connector in the center below camera, unplug it putting a tooth stick behind it, then in a few seconds plug it back. Viola!

But note! Blackout can happen suddenly, always have a card and stick with you. Just in case :)

Regards,

Mikhail
Was this answer helpful?

0 comments No comments