EEVblog 1429 - Sony RX100 Camera Troubleshooting Part 2 

On page 19 (Power (1/3)), it looks like the backup rechargeable lithium battery powers IC8400 on BACKUP_VDD which appears like it could handle the wakeup of the main DC/DC converter IC5101 and others through XWAKE which then powers IC8400 taking over from the backup battery through EVER_VDD and D5100. It’s feasible that a dead backup battery (or shorted battery) could prevent IC8400 from starting the main DC/DC. I didn’t see you measure if the backup battery was good so it’s worth checking. It wouldn’t be the first soft power on device I’ve seen where a dead backup battery bricks it. When you left it overnight did you leave the battery in it? As that will recharge the backup battery. I do note that IC8400 has an input for BATT_UNREG but it isn’t labelled a VDD input and it also has a nearby input for USB stuff so it could be that’s just measurement stuff to tell the SoC. It also has the RTC crystal and digital data interfaces on page 18. Can’t say for sure but I’d say the power on fault is related to something around IC8400, possibly that backup battery. And you forgot to include that link to the schematic!

Until a few years ago (+-3) I repaired cameras of this model and others of the brand, in an authorized technical service. The mk1 mk2 mk3 series were horrible in terms of service (the MK4 was a little better, maybe because it was the latest and had some fixes), it had to follow EXACTLY what the service manual described in terms of disassembly and assembly. But sometimes it wasn't enough....Good luck to you!

A service manual? For a consumer product? Wonders will never cease!

cheers for the follow up vid, was quite interesting seeing the tear down. they are quite a marvel of engineering

How many parts will this series be.....will we all get a happy ending??? Will the thing get tossed out the blummin window??!! ;-) Stay tuned kiddies!!

Just a note. If you discharge the flash cap with a resistor just make sure you're not holding it with your fingers when you do so.💥😖

It's so charming to see Dave so delight to peruse and admire the handiwork of the Sony engineers -- both for their design of the product, and the documentation of it.

The popup viewfinder can be configured to switch the camera on/off could it be a problem with sensors/ switch in this area. The viewfinder seemed to be slightly up when the camera was working.

I love this video series. @EEV This is a GREAT video on how to *learn About Learning* . 👍 I love this. Most videos out there show you how to do a specific X, but not *how to Learn* about what you are interested.

The LCD Rotation sensor could be like a Hall effect sensor, with a little magnet on the frame of the LCD. Once the display is rotated all the way the magnet should stand close to the sensor that way it detects it just like in laptops lid sensor

you can imagine that on the factory floor they have many different custom jigs for testing each individual board. before passing them to 20 years trained origami experts for final assembly. all these modern sony cameras seems just as bad, or worse if you cannot obtain service manual. i think it's pretty gaulling once you consider the difficult to test the thing while in a disassembled state. meaning there is a huge sunk cost in time for an uncertain payoff which might never happen. so maybe if the specific model was more premium, it would be more worthwhile endevour. or if you were doing a large batch of the same model. and could then afford to discard some fraction of the units as being beyond economical repair so all things considered you are very fortunate to have obtained a service manual. thanks for sharing that. maybe studying this model can also help to identify sub components / sub assemblies in other new models. if sony keep re-using large parts of the overall design.... still it feels a lot like we need tobe able to test while disassembled. for the sake of all that time lost doing the obligatory origami

I'm enjoying this 'series'. As Dave has often said you learn more from the failures. Dave I hope that you don't give up even if you can only find time once a month to have another squiz.

I'd say the button cell is dead, causing the boot issue. Had a laptop in for repair once - the customer started a Win 10 upgrade, which then failed on the first reboot and semi-bricked itself. Turned out to be a dead BIOS battery - date was reset on the reboot and Win10 refused to proceed on date mismatch by too large a time.

It's awesome a service manual even exists for the thing. I guess that's one reason Sony can charge a premium. Now they just need to let us "hobbyists" at it. They could end up with a new troupe of fans that buy Sony cameras. 🤷‍♂️👍

My Canon DSLR's have a switch on the battery door that will keep the camera from booting. You might look for a hidden one. You did mention a kind of battery in place switch, which may also be the culprit. I would definitely check the voltage of the backup battery though. As you said, the camera should boot without it, but knowing that the backup battery is good would be a plus.

Do you remember you received an electrical shock due to the flash charged capacitor?.... you hand was touching other devices and flex too..you may have induced high voltage and damaged the sync video chip

I generally go out of my way to avoid click baity stuff but having watched so many of your videos i felt like it would be criminal to ignore the effort you put into your face on the thumb!

I love all the jump cuts, it gives the video a sense of excitement xD

I noticed last time when you pushed the viewfinder in when it was powering up that it momently lost power. So, I believe that problem is caused by a lose physical connector somewhere.

this series is soo good, that now I hope this camera won't fix for a while so we can watch more videos like this!

Still have the first gen RX100 .. still runs circles around 5000 million MP camera's in most phones. The dynamic range of that sensor and lens quality beats it all.

We are waiting for part 3!!!!

You are not alone, each camera I have disassembled even if the original fault was fixed, so other thing cropped up after reassembly , even more issues on subsequent tries. More thsn one remained a pile of unused parts on finally deciding more time not justified. By the way my Sony RX100 M4 works fine obtained after your slow mo fuse blowing. It could be made available at reasonable offer, as I have many cameras and that one has not been used for several years.

You left out that black tape that was obviously holding the screen from scrolling. :-)

5.44 It is the hinge. I checked on a Canon camera and it works exactly at the same position regardless of the orientation.

I knew you wouldn't give up, can't leave a mystery like that unsolved.

First of all I'd say power it from the bench supply to bypass the battery protection and get a current readout. Then, thou shall check voltages, and check for shorted power rails. See if anything gets hot too. Maybe it's just a shorted MLCC or something. If it was an IC, we'd surely have seen it in part 1.

The suspense is killing me!!

Dang Dave! This thing can land itself on the moon!

Repair of this kind of thing depends on a lot of skills related maintenance, related repair... must be a repair man.... even a genius not skilled in repair will destroy more than fix

Looking forward to part 3....and maybe part 4....

It seemed like when you pushed the flash down in the last video it turned off. Maybe something to look at with that?

Use your finger to poke around a bit while pressing the power button, if you get it to suddenly turn on again, then you know you have a dodgy connection.

Dave we love those videos please continue to investigate :)

8:08 - 2-1-3 "The charging capacitor for the flash has been charged at a high voltage. Therefore, there is a possibility of an electric shock if you directly handle this capacitor" - Well, better than 'a possibility' if Dave & Murphy work together on that it.

I have exactly this problem with my RX100 Mk6 - won't power on. I was hoping eventually you'd find the fix was easy - like for example replacing that lithium backup battery. But in this video at least it seems you skipped over that? A number of people talked about the battery here, but I don't see if you tried replacing it? Maybe I have to go looking for Part III!

Magnum follow up. Good times.. Good times. Thank you.

from lvl2 manual: assembly info (one use parts) p60, p62, p68. backup bat (154) p89, top pcb p90, lcd magnets p93. from lvl3 manual: boards connection p23, top board flex pinout p40 (XPWR_ON). flex cables pinout p48 (RL-1038 CN0001 & BT-2014 LND001) (BACKUP_VDD). XPWR_ON & BACKUP_VDD signals main pcb p59. Maybe the backup battery is bad/shorted and prevents the IC8400 from powering on or the IC8400 is bad (or broken solder connection). There is a chance that another XPWR_ON signal is shorted and the IC8400 stays in a reset state. The camera uses magnetic sensors (SE0001) for sensing the possition of the lcd.

They do not put schematic on their website to avoid people not skilled to damage more their model cameras

LOL at the "I just had the jab" facial distortion in the video thumbnail.

Check for shorted ceramic and tantalum caps, then check the battery door switch. @EEVblog

dude the YT algorithm will love you for that thumbnail.. you forgot the curved arrow though...

Where did you get the service manual from? I curious if that source has these manuals for Sony Xperia smartphones.

Check the two caps on the release button board. Also there is a magnet fallen out of place from the top of the rear frame. It's probably stuck inside somewhere like on the lcd section of the pcb.

perhapps the coincell is empty and thus, the camera is not starting. When You took it out, it perhapps got some charge back which was enough to start the camera a few times after you put it back.... easy to check

My respect for Sony has increased a lot because of the fact that they still provide schematics for their products so you can repair things. I wonder if this applies to their phones and laptops and other things

fantastic service document!!

guess you didn't see my post about doing a hard reset to fix the problem. Trap for old players. Modern electronics have PMICs and a pram. When those lock up the device won't boot. A hard reset clears them and lets the device boot. Yesterday disconnecting the coin cell cleared it. I had the same problem on my Macbook Pro. PS. Those screens usually use mipi or spi interfaces by the way. My guess is mipi.

I wonder if the lithium battery is crusty and drained the battery. Perhaps it is causing high currents that automatically shuts down the system. Also check if the fuses you found are still good.

8:53 "When assembling, adjust the position" to Scene?

Your SE-1010 ribbon has sensor SE0002, which is a Hall Effect sensor. It needs a magnetic field to change state. When the LCD is moved to a point outside of the magnetic field, the sensor changes state, and the camera knows the LCD is inverted.

Murphy lives in the rabbit hole....

The lcd rotation is most likely a hall effect sensor

It has to be a dicky connection. Remove that backup battery connection so the camera boots from scratch each time as that might have held it in a crashed state. Try messing with viewfinder too as that must switch LCD panel off when its popped up. If these things get carted round in pockets they get high humidity and things corrode. Come on Dave, you can do it!! We need that part 3!!

I maybe try and open mine again to see if the LCD and EVF might be recoverable. After my LCD worked for a bit (the ribbon has a kink, it stopped to recognize the flip at all. What I figured out was that you have to place magnets into the chassis around the LCD(something you didn't take apart) - and I had some of them wrong way around. Did you try to power it via USB? If it doesn't indicate charging, maybe bridge the battery contacts?

I reckon its that dent on the top. Knock that out and it'll work.

Take the screen apart, might be it's had a knock that affects the vsync. Even might be something in there that affects the boot sequence and prevents it from powering on. But yeah, could be anything. The flex with the screen flip sensor would also be worth a look.

So yeah, what was the question again ? 😆 I reckon it's the backup bat + a ribbon fail. Should clean gold contacts and ribbon ends with white-rubber pencil eraser, only.

You could check if the screen has an accelerometer sensor by holding it still, and rotating the camera itself.

Simple Suggestion time. The board under the power button with the TACT switch on looked like FR4 but it was flexing when you were pressing the power button. Is it as simple as a fractured solder joint on or around the TACT switch? It may explain the deterioration (Fracture growing) and the seemingly intermittent fault now? Might be worth a Squizz

I dont see you trying to turn it on with the viewfinder. If you pop it out it turns on the camera I believe. (I have hx90V which is similar design)

How on earth do they manufacture these in any volume? They must surely be hand assembled, that would drive me nuts..."what did you do at work today dear? I assembled 100 cameras"...get a factory visit Dave...!

Did you check that battery sense signal, the 4th one on the battery flex cable?

I have felt your pain

I wonder if the power on signal is a pull up or pull down. Bad connection on the resistor would do it and explain why it worked after everything got wiggled.

Thought he should check the standby battery or at least replace it, batteries do strange things when faulty.

I'm actually amazed that there are any schematics even for purchase by anyone. You want schematics for rotten apple phone, you need to pay someone who illegally leaked those and they cost thousands.

Why don’t you find the pins on the connector from the top board that turns the main board on and just short them, if the the main board powers up, you know that top board is faulty.

I'll bet pesos the pastries the screen orientation is related to the power button via power or common ground.

Is the backup Lithium battery stays in parallel of the main voltage line? I mean that can it be a "show breaker"? :) I know it could be stupid...

The ribbon cable at the corner next to the battery door was not connected properly.

Sounds like a power fault. The cpu registers the power fault after some time. capacitor related. And maintains that state with the cmos battery. When you pull the cmos battery and reset the cpu state. it takes a while to register the fault.

A real Scooby Doo mystery!

The replay / view pictures button on the back also powers on the camera…

I had a Lenovo motherboard that would spin on and do nothing else if the CR2032 onboard was low. Usually you get a CMOS battery low or something and it boots. I tried it as a last ditch and it worked. Maybe the not booting is a bad connection that got jarred while taking it apart, or component on the edge that is making the memory corrupt or something not booting all the time.

The complexity of this device is overwhelming.

Why is the video private?

I mean credit to Sony, at least you can get the manuals for a nominal fee, Apple won't give you anything.

You have plastic over the display..... remove it and your scratches will vanish

Dave: @15.53 looks like that ribbon cable is not seated right (pushed home properly) ... I did't see/hear you correcting it even at the ("Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah") end of the rebuild section of the video ... did you sort that? ...

I need a service manual for sony dsc-s700, can share where i can got service manual like yours? thanks.

When you are testing power (15:58) isn't the small power connect ribbon disconnected?

Wonky question but does enyone know what "pdf viewer" is is using for the schematic?

It looks like all the different sensor departments didn't like sharing.

So what's the repairability score on this device? I sense a part 3.

If You dint want to fix it send it to vince I’m sure he would love to have a crack

very interesting how much does assembling cost for such thing

Man I hate stuff like this, where crappy flex PCB's have been crammed in everywhere. I repaired a GoPro after a bit of struggle. The wires going on inside that thing were brittle like wire wrap, and would snap if they had been worked even a tiny bit. Another thing I hate is all the chintzy snapping plastic crap that we see everywhere. Totally unserviceable and I hate such things.. I love gadgets as much as everyone else, I just wish we could design them differently.

Thermal fuse of some kind?

This is how every service manual should be. Apple needs to be put on their place, and is sad that we have to make a law to make them do it.

Did you check the fuses on the main board?

at least sony provides a service manual...can't imagine apple doing them again for the general public

@16:10 The RL-1038 board seems to interconnect RL-1028 (which seems to work) board & SE-1010 board which doesn't work (lcd rotation detect & eyepiece sensor). Plus the rl-1038 board handles power-on switch. So FP-2311 flex or RL-1038 board (partial) issue ?

Right to repair, even Sony provide such a detail service manual, not every one can did the repair job, since it's not the good old 70's large components but SMD all around. So I think the manufacturers did not have an excuse and reason to hide these information, they're so stupid to pay so many money to pay lobbyist and make their brand look ugly.

Give all the boards a blast with the hot air gun.

Sony really does some amazing bits of gear and they really think of the end user. I don't think there's any other company that goes above and beyond so if you really wanted to fix it, you probably could but then again, time is money. If you were trying to fix this for money, I'd of given it back to the client already. I'm pretty sure that Sony makes more sensor's than any other company out there. All the sensors in my CCTV are Sony.

would like to know more about the phantom resistor he used to discharge the flash cap. can "ANYONE" tell me anything about it or how you would know if your meter has one, or are they a speciality to certain meters???? Please & Thank You.

Three cheers for Japanese industrial engineering!

On old PCs i had it that it wouldn’t boot with a drained battery.

at this point i bet you that a representative from Sony will give you a new Sony RX100