Sorry guys. I have to ask, 'cos I am having a quiet panic.

I re-plugged my Karma into it's cradle yesterday to charge it up and thought all was fine. However, after a while I started to get "flashy screen" (on/off/on) from the backlight, then a HUGE icon of a battery appeared before things went dead.

Pulling the apparently "dead' but supposedly charged unit, it simply wouldn't start up. At all. I thought it had latched in a weird state, so I poked the reset button with a pin. No change.

I now discovered I had managed to dislodge the charger connection, and that the unit was absolutely flat. Phew! Sigh of relief, re-connected the charger and then I re-plugged it. It immediately started up and showed the "Huge" battery again, followed by the normal startup screen.

However - it's stuck like this after several hours showing "Starting". It's making hard-disk access noises and I am bothered: either the disk is dead or it's re-building a DB (??) after the reset.

Re-assure me, give me advice! Should I pull it again? Is this normal? As a new Karma owner I am still a scaredy-cat, so HELP! (please)

It's not immediately apparent but the unit needs to be plugged in to the power for the paperclip reset to work. Took me ages to work that out.

Well, things have turned out well in the end:

I plugged it into the charger last night and reset it as it wouldn't shut down after removal from the sled. I left it plugged in to charge till this morning. It was showing a large battery icon again.

When I checked this morning, the large battery icon had gone, and the unit seemed to have shut down. I pressed the power button, and - wonder of wonders - it came back to life!!! Phew!

So I am really unsure of what has happened - but one thing is certain, it's time to RTFM, methinks.

Thanks for your help, guys.

ahhhhh - looks like I spoke too soon

I have been using it this morning, and the HD has now started buzzing like an angry wasp.

I am both sad and disgusted with myself: I thought I had treated this unit with kid gloves - obviously not. Now I will have to start looking for a hard disk I suspect.

You should check out Karma Limbo it is very cool. Here is his parts / price list.

Hmmm... the case is "under pressure" (swelling a bit), and I thought that it seemed to have forced the case apart from inside. Damn, I have cooked the battery! It has been losing capacity over the last week or so, maybe this is the problem. The buzz seems to be orientation, and squeeze, dependent.

So wanna know the next problem? Registered with Riovolution: filled in my profile: now if I log in, it explodes and I get XML errors.... Aggghh! Definitely bad luck week.

OK, the symptoms described in Hum Hum Hum re. case swell near the power switch are what I am seeing, so it is pretty obvious the problem is battery swell. I need to find the dismantle FAQ, which try as I may, just does not seem to want to be found. I have a good idea about how to do it: it's time to research safe battery choices! Thanks for help received - watch this space

http://www.karmalimbo.com/disassemble.htm

The above has abit more steps but these steps help in not breaking the lock switch.

Knowing that I had a spare battery lying around, I went over to my tiny little Karma graveyard, and sure enough it's bulging. I never noticed it before. Now I know why that one died.

I have bought a replacement Li Ion battery, capacity 1800mA/h (about 200mA/h increase in capacity over the new original) which I will have a go at installing when it arrives.

Keep watching this space.

An excellent guide: I followed it carefully and had mine apart and completely dismantled without damage within about 5 minutes. Highly recommended. Now, if only the Post Office wasn't on strike, I'd have my battery by now....

Watch this space...

LicketySpit Auctions on eBay.

Thanks, my Karma came in the mail today! Using Jemplode to unload the music that came with it. Now I need to find a case for it. The Mindknob site is down, I'm not sure if they are going to re-open. Off to eBay again....

petteri, where are you? I have a Technohm case I'll let you have for cheap. Say $10 US plus shipping?



My Karma died about three months ago, and I'm finally starting to come to terms with it. Time to let go.

If you have another one of these, let me know.

Sorry, my friend, I only have the one.

I've got the technohm case, excellent although I did have to make the holes for the controls a bit bigger.

Well, almost.

As I type this I am listening to my healthy, newly-repaired baby.

Lickety-Split auctions on eBay have delivered - literally: this morning, a small package appeared 4 days after ordering (including a weekend and a postal strike!) containing a new battery and a set of small screwdrivers. Not all of these were needed: only the tiny crosshead.

I rehearsed putting it back together again (quite simple according to JIm Thompson's (KarmaLimbo) instruction sheet) and inside an hour of careful work, removed the old battery, installed the new one, and re-assembled. Great stuff: worked first time, nothing broken.

A couple of points to add as a caution during re-assembly:

- when you remove the old battery, make sure you don't inadvertantly short the + and - leads together while you are working. I also clipped the ends off the leads to stop this after I de-soldered them from the charger PCB. Put it away safely.

- there are four self-tapping screws inside the unit: one of them is longer than the others. Don't forget to use two short screws to hold the main board into the casing, then use one long and one short going through the front case into the back case. These were both dabbed with black paint on my unit: the long one goes through THREE mouldings in the hole under the rotary control wheel. Be careful here, it's tricky.

- the new battery I got was already half charged up - so the same safety rules apply when soldering it onto the charger board.

- it was a little tricky to get the top case moulding to sit properly in place: be careful here as it would take little effort to break it.

- I re-used the yellow kapton sticky tape on the new battery to secure the thermistor sensor on the side of the battery, in the same position.

So there you go! Back in business, and not as difficult as I had thought it would be. Just needs a little care and patience. I can recommend LicketySplit auctions for their fast delivery and thoughtful inclusion of the screwdrivers: I'll follow this up soon with my impressions of battery life and charge times.

Happy bunny

PS The old battery had swollen from 6.5mm thick to a rather gross 9.2mm in one cell and 8.95 in the other. Not good!