Dingoonity.org

I applied the POCKET GO 2 "ROGUE" CFW 1.0.4, which was working fine (great work, Ninoh-FOX!).  I was curious whether it supported USB host mode like RetroFW2 on my RS97, so I plugged it into my macbook, only to have the POCKET GO 2 shutdown and become unable to be turned back on.  The screen doesn't even seem to receive power, so it doesn't seem like things are initializing properly at a pretty low level.

It definitely gets *some* power, as it is still able to charge the battery to full (the charging light turns off after being connected to a charger for a while).  I've tried letting it sit without a battery for a while, tried leaving it plugged in for a while, tried powering it on while plugged in but with no battery, tried the original sd card, tried holding various button combination along with power, tried holding power for extended periods of time...  But it seems like the only part of the device still working is the charging circuit.

Is it well and truly dead?  Did plugging it into a computer USB clobber it?  Should I avoid that on my next one?  Or did I just lose the quality control lottery this time?

Still holding out hope that it might be revived, so any ideas appreciated!!!

I'm glad to hear that plugging into a computer USB shouldn't be an issue.  I'd hate to have to remember not to, when that's often the most convenient charging source.  Though that doesn't bode well for my little device.

I'm leaning more towards QC failure at the moment.  Taking a closer look at the mainboard, there are a couple of nasty gouges in the traces leading from the cpu to the screen ribbon cable clip.  Perhaps it was "good enough" to run for a little while, but then it just failed?  The traces and vias are WAY to small for me to try sticking in some bodge wires to bypass...

Guess I'll just have to order another and hope it comes from a different batch, or was assembled with more care.

Though I'd still be happy to entertain any last ditch ideas anyone has to try to resurrect it!

Not a bad idea, but I verified that the battery is working fine with a multimeter.  And when connected to the system, there are a few clearly labelled voltage points on the mainboard that I can also verify get the appropriate voltage.  I also confirmed that pressing the power button does create a voltage difference.

Further, my RS-97 will power on even without a battery as long as the usb is powered.  The green power light comes on, and the battery light flashes red.  Should the Pocket Go 2 do likewise?  As it is, all I get is a flashing red light, but no power light.

Thanks for checking that.  Good to know what the expected behavior for a functional unit should be.  Sadly, it just points more to mine being well and truly dead.  It seems like it's not even getting to the linux boot loader, so maybe the u-boot or some other part of the boot process crapped out.  The sd cards seem fine (vmlinuz.bin and the various file system parts are present and accounted for) so it must be something earlier, or lower level.

Does anyone know if there is any weird state information stored in any non-volatile memory on the device that could be reset somehow?

No fear.  I'm running the CFW on a brand new Samsung card.