M6 SL charges but never powers on

Hi all,

I love my M6 SL, but a couple of weeks ago, it went to sleep and refuses to wake up, no matter what I do.

I know it's not completely dead because if I leave it alone for a couple of days, and then connect it to my computer's USB port, the display comes on with the picture of the charging battery and will eventually go to "Fully Charged."

But if I try to power the player on, nothing happens. The display remains completely black.

I can hear the faint "tchtt" sound when I slide the Hold button on and off, but that's the only sign of life I get.

I've tried Soft Reset, Hard Reset, Format. Nothing. Even if I keep holding the buttons for 5 minutes.

My XP computer can never see it as a USB device, so trying DFU Tools is not an option for me. (I did start up the DFU tool for SL anyway, but it can't see any device.)

I've only had the player since July, and I was really enjoying it.

Any help or advice would be appreciated.

DFU tools shouldn't see the M6 as an USB device, it should see it as a DFU Server Device. Try again, following the instructions as closely as possible and make sure you are using the SL version of DFU tools.

Thanks for the reply, JkPwNsTeR.

Following your recommendation, I tried again a few hours after not getting anywhere the first time.

Sure enough, the screen flickered briefly when I connected this time. Windows detected a new USB device and put up the New Hardware Found popup. I then followed the instructions in the DFU for SL thread.

Once I fired up DFUManager in step 5, it found a Device 1, but it was called S5L8700 Rev.2-BE 070831 (not S5L8700 Rev.2 as in the example).

I went ahead and pressed the Download button. The grey progress bar went very quickly (about a second) and the Download and Abort buttons greyed out as expected. Then two things happened I wasn't expecting.

1. DFUManager put up a popup that said "USB DFU: Failed to reenumerate the device." (At the same time, the Device 1 entry was cleared out).
2. Windows said it found a new device again and put up the New Hardware Found popup.

I decided to disconnect the M6SL to give it a try just in case the procedure had worked. But it was still a brick. I tried to reconnect again right away, and again no response. So I waited a few hours again, tried to reconnect again, got the white flicker and Windows detected the device again.

I then repeated everything in this post so far, with the exact same results. Only, when I got to the part where DFUManager said it failed to reenumerate the device and Windows asked to configure the new Hardware, I went ahead and followed the New Hardware procedure a third time. I then fired up DFUManager again, it saw the Device 1 again, and I pressed the Download button again.

This time I didn't get a progress bar, the Abort button remains permanently on and the tool remains unresponsive while displaying an hourglass permanently. This is still where it's sitting right now.

Any more thoughts on what I should try?

Thanks again.

Just try it several times. mbarry didn't fix his until around half a dozen times.

I ran the DFU procedure a few times (about 8 in all) on two different computers. I managed to get it to complete several times (meaning that the Donwload ended with no warning pop-up, with the display flashing a quick -- less than a second long, too quick for me to read it all -- message about downloading Image 2 after the initial download with the grey progress bar).

But my player simply never turns on. And it doesn't respond to Soft Reset, Hard Reset or Format.

At this point, I'm thinking this particular player is beyond help.

My player is the Dane-Elec branded model (bought in the US). I don't have my warranty card around. Does anyone happen to know if the warranty period is more than 6 months?

Thanks again for your help, JkPwNsTeR.

I think you're right, it really seems your player is FUBAR. There's nothing you can really do about it, but you never know, restarting your computer or trying a different computer might help.