[Gta04-owner] Phoenux drained and resuscitated

[Neil Jerram]

Interesting...

A few minutes ago my Phoenux wouldn't boot, and I started writing an 
email to say that I thought the battery was drained, and to ask what to 
do about that.  I know there was a recent email from Nikolaus that 
covered this in detail - and which left me with the impression that it 
was not an easily recoverable situation - but I can't seem to find it.

But I left the phone plugged into my laptop USB anyway, and after a few 
minutes, it started a series of reboot attempts, with each attempt 
apparently getting slightly further than the previous one.  (Through the 
sequence of (1) initial white screen, (2) Golden Delicious big penguin 
screen, (3) Blank screen with small penguin in top left corner.)

On about the fourth attempt, the boot reached stage (3), and then 
continued successfully.  So it seems that if it gets as far as booting 
Linux, it's over the hump.

Then I immediately ssh'd in to look at the battery status:

gta04:~# cat 
/sys/bus/platform/devices/twl4030-bci-battery/power_supply/twl4030_bci_battery/uevent
POWER_SUPPLY_NAME=twl4030_bci_battery
POWER_SUPPLY_TYPE=Battery
POWER_SUPPLY_STATUS=Charging
POWER_SUPPLY_ONLINE=3
POWER_SUPPLY_VOLTAGE_NOW=3222
POWER_SUPPLY_CURRENT_NOW=1615
POWER_SUPPLY_CAPACITY=20
POWER_SUPPLY_TEMP=29

I guess - but don't really know - that these figures (voltage, current, 
capacity) are low enough to support the theory that the initial failure 
to boot was because of battery drainage.  Does that sound right?

Anyway, at the end of the day all is well, and it looks as though 
battery drainage is not as unrecoverable as I had thought it might be.

Regards,
        Neil