Can't switch on K1 Tablet

[mintea]

When I switched on the tablet earlier this evening, the battery showed it was still 38% power in it.

When I can back half an hour later, the tablet was off and I can't switch it on. Even after plugging in the power connection, there was no indication that it's even charging. When I plugged in the USB cable, my laptop doesn't even register the tablet when it used to.

I've only gotten this for a week and it's not working anymore.

[Kidromulous]

Does the tablet respond when you hold down powere and the up down volume rocker together. Try this it may get the tablet back on. A few times early on after purchasing mine I had the problem momentarily. This helped for some reason.

[mintea]

I tried pressing the power button and the volume rocker together but it still won't switch on.

[tach95 · Accepted solution]

First off do you know if the battery level dropped to 3% which forces a shut down. Plug it in and recharge. Sorry for the obvious. If you are experiencing the wake up issue that others do including me, then hold down the power button for 6 seconds to force a system shutdown. Then hold down the power button again for another 2-3 seconds to power up the tablet. If this works, you have the wake up problem. See Any Fix for the "Wake from Sleep" and "Random Reboot" issues?. I usually just shut down all the time because the 2-3 seconds start up is better than the 6 seconds+2-3 seconds. Otherwise I would call for support. Good luck.

[tach95]

Is there a green status circle indicator showing charge percent. Once you plug in to charge, it should display.

[mintea]

I do have a wake/ sleep problem. That was my first thought so I did try the hard restart but that didn't work. When I plugged in the charging cable there was no indication at all that it was charging or not; no lifts or percentage level. If I can't still figure out what's wrong, I'm going to take it to the service centre.

[hkimbell2001]

Mine died today while using it (not sure what the battery level was). The "cause" in my case was giving it a somewhat frustrated 4-finger tap because copy/paste wasn't working. It has never been dropped, stepped on, or impacted in any other way: just a firm tap and the thing goes dead and won't come back on. It now has similar symptoms as described above in this thread, specifically:

- pressing or holding the power button does nothing;

- pressing / holding the volume and power buttons does nothing;

- plugging in to charge with the wall charger gives no response at all;

- it is not recognized by the computer when plugging it in via the USB cable;

Any ideas how to either

1) retrieve data stored on the internal hard drive?

2) wipe the internal drive prior to returning it?

[hkimbell2001]

UPDATE: After my K1 apparently died the other day, I let it sit for an hour and tried again with no luck. I was sure it was bricked. However, after leaving it sitting over night, something changed and I was quite surprised when the nav button's LED's flashed after a long (~10 second) power button press. Another power button press and it booted, returning from the dead! Note that it was not in any way battery related because I did not leave it on the charger and it had over 50% charge when it came on again. Glad I can get everything off the internal hard drive now!

Lessons learned:

1) save everything to an SD card so if your unit dies, you can just remove the card (though this may have security issues since if your unit is lost/stollen, wiping the OS to unlock it won't wipe the SD card contents).

2) buy a tablet from a company with the appropriate experience (Toshiba's beta tablet bombed miserably as well, but now it looks like they've figured it out with the Thrive). Maybe Lenovo's next tablet will be better...

[kduncan0310]

I am having the same problem. My tablet will show the green dot with charge percentage after I hold the volume up rocker and the power button for about 15 seconds and then the power button alone for another 15. But then when I try to turn on the tablet, the nvidia and lenovo splash welcome screens just keep repeating themselves over and over. I have tried tech support but I can't understand any of them and they can't figure out what my problem is. 

[ETC]

Remove the back and unplug the battery for a few minutes. 

I had a plastic pry tool with a very thin edge that came with a replacement battery for another type of device.  I found the loosest spot of the cover (to get it started) to be to the left of the charging port (when the tablet is flipped over, screen side down).  

Insert the pry tool and slide to the right until you hear one of the clips pop.  Then remove the pry tool and insert it on the other side of the clip and slide to the right until the next clip pops out.  Continue all the way around the tablet.

The battery is the BIG black rectangle with the Lenovo label on it.  You'll see a white "+" and "-" above the sticker with a rainbow of wires (black, blue, green yellow, white, red) leading to a flat white plug. Gently remove the plug from it's socket. I used an eyeglasses screwdriver to gently pry it loose, first one side, then the other, sort of shimmy it out.

Leave it unplugged for a few minutes, then plug it back in.  Worked for me, hope it worked for you.  Lesson learned, BACK UP YOUR DATA.  I was SO upset to think I lost videos and pictures of my recently departed 21 year old cat and my new kitten.  You just can't get that stuff back.... <3