Ack…my Kindle, which I use for absolutely everything both school and personally – it is my entire library pretty much since we live overseas – has decided to completely freeze up on me. Worked fine this morning, and now it is just stuck on the ‘screen saver’ screen. I tried re-charging and re-setting it as recommended on Amazon’s troubleshooting website to no avail. I am now waiting to hear back from their customer service people to see if there is anything else I can do about it. But…I have this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that it’s dead. Or that I’ll have to send it somehwere for repairs, which would almost be worse since I imagine that would take longer than just getting a new one. Has this ever happened to anyone? Is there any hope for it?
Same thing happened to my dh… well his screen was a little wonky-ish though… is your screen frozen but clear? As in, it looks like it should except it’s stuck?
Well maybe since it looks okay it’ll be alright? I hope so. My dh’s was DOA but it wasn’t clear like your Kindle is… hopefully you’ll hear back from them soon! Let us know…
Mine did this once and was fine in a day or so. Try powering in down (shut it completely off), but leave it alone for at least a day. It worked for me.
And now…it has appeared to magically fix itself. My dh just came home and I was going to explain to him what was wrong with it. So, I slid the power switch again (just to prove that it was unresponsive) and lo and behold it turned itself on. On the one hand, I’m glad that it seemed to just be in need of a rest (like you described houseofchaos), on the other hand it seems like this always happens to me – I can’t figure out some techy thing while my dh is gone, and when I go to describe the problem to him when he gets home it magically fixes itself. Sigh.
This is fairly typical for kindles unfortunately, but as Jenn said if the screen looks fine giving it a total powerdown usually works.
BTW, if your kindle ever is completely gone as mine was after I SAT on it, then you can get a new one at a reduced price. They sent me a new one for 30% off the amazon price, and mine was 3 years old so not a bad deal. I had to send the old one back though they paid for all shipping so no cost to me. I suspect they do this b/c they will attempt to repair my old one and sell as refurbished. The screen was cracked internaly but not on the outside so possibly could be repaired, but wasn’t worth cost to me.
I got the new Wi-Fi model sans keyboard, which I actually really like, for $60 shipped. It is brand new. Sells on the site for $89 I think? Or maybe it was $79? Incidentally, this was for the ad model, where the screen saver shows ads, but mine doesn’t have the ads. YEAH! Thanks amazon! I think the ad-free model is $99, so I got a really good deal at $60 shipped.
Just FYI for future reference. This replacement program is not advertised, but I read it on a kindle forum and called and sure enough, it is legit. No questions asked really. They offered me several different models at reduced cost including the Kindle Fire.
LDIMom, what did you say to them when you called? My hubby would be beyond thrilled if I could get his replaced… our toddler broke ours. I really am not sure they’d want to replace it in that case? What do you think?
I just told them I accidentally sat on it on the couch, and it cracked loudly. I told them the screen looked like a sunburst now, and they said it was cracked inside.. They did tell me they would have replaced it for free if it was still under warranty. They said it didn’t matter how it became broken.
The number is buried on the site, so I actually did it through their instant chat message system, which was nice with all the background noise that can sometimes be the reality at my house.
Once I decided to accept their offer, she gave me a number to call so she could confirm my address and payment method by phone.
It came 2 days later. I asked for express shipping and she said no problem. They emailed me a prepaid label to send the broken one back. She did say I would be charged the difference if they didn’t receive old one back. I confirmed they did. It took me about 30 minutes to download my library to new one. Had to redo the collections.
Here is my Kindle problem – the darn thing has a mind of it’s own. It seriously turns on all the time when no one is even using it. We put it in standby mode and it just comes back on. Right now it keeps turning itself off and on – so weird. I really think we have a defective one. There have been several other issues too in the past, it really seems like a wonky one. Guess I could call since it’s still under warranty. Anyone else have this problem?