HP Pro Tablet 608 G1

Windows Mini Tablets (11" and Under)
1

What? Why is @Hifihedgehog posting about an ancient, dog-slow Intel Atom tablet that is well-known to have failing lithium batteries. In fact, I just purchased two for the lovely low, low price of just $70 for the entire lot of 'em on FleaBay. Well, if you aren’t using them as tablets but are buying them for their lovely high pixel density display to make either automation panels or digital photo frames, it doesn’t matter since you can just remove each’s swelled batteries/spicy pillows completely! I will be turning at least of them into a digital photo frame. I have not decided the other’s fate quite yet.

image
image1602×466 83.5 KB

https://www.ebay.com/itm/275639554662

3 Likes
2

I owned one of those.

1 Like
3

Nice! I got it specifically because I wanted an iPad Mini-like device whose display was razor sharp and colorful. Did you find the display was pleasing to look at?

4

As I recall the screen was fine but the pen was terrible. Good thing that’s not something you’re looking for!

1 Like
5

Please update how the battery extraction process go.

I remember Atom tablets seem to be wired the same way phones and Android tablet does: they only take power from battery, not the power jack.

Some workaround I found on the internet ( if finding an original replacement is out of the question) are either:

  • keep the depleted battery as a medium for electricity to pass though.
  • remove the power line assembly of the battery and do some wire soldering to trick the tablet that there was a battery.

The second method was convoluted and difficult, requiring you to know which wire go to which, and every devices are different.

The first method could be a fire hazard if you have it plugged in all the time and the battery bloat up. The chance is low but I wouldn’t leave it running unsupervised. Edit: just read that the Hp 608 G1 is notorious for spiky pillow, so keeping that battery is out of the question.

Worse yet, some power hungry models (big, high res screen, high power processor) can’t be sustained by the wired connection alone. But that was the days of micro USB 10W adapter. I remember the Hp 608 G1 was USB-C so hopefully it had some high power fast charging mode?

2 Likes
6

So I learned this the hard way in two ways. First, the once-100% positive feedback seller claimed these were in excellent cosmetic condition with the only issue being spicy pillows or expanding batteries.

Well, the seller also tried pulling the oldest trick in the book, marking it as shipped and then shipping it two days later and updating it with a tracking number, so this isn’t exactly George Washington and the felled apple tree we are talking about here.

It turns out the displays have some scratches on them so I am not exactly thrilled. The other issue was as you said and as I suspected: you cannot run these without the batteries*. In the first unit, I removed the battery, and in the process destroyed the battery’s power management PCB in the middle, which happened to be the clue to this whole mystery.

*=mostly :wink:

Having manhandled the first tablet’s battery PCB, I was thrilled to make this happy discovery in the video above. The trick, pray tell? Well, my brave knight in shining armor, clip the wings off of this fire-breathing battery-dragon. Extract the battery’s internal PCB, trimming off the battery cell leads from the sides, and then carefully peeling off the two battery cells from the internal battery tray (what HP calls the middle frame) which are cemented down with the strongest adhesive known to man.

Let me stress this emphatically. This technical procedure is not for the faint of heart and you will need to do this outdoors suited up with protective gear in the event you accidentally deform or puncture a battery cell and watch your mad scientist experiment go up in a puff of smoke.

But once completed, you have a fully working tablet that has no dangerous battery cells inside. And unlike a system without the battery’s PCB connected, as long as you have the battery’s PCB connected, cells or no cells, it will not get caught in a boot loop. (Why, HP BIOS makers, do you need to see a battery connected to boot into Windows?) Eureka! It works!

I will keep the other non-working unit around for parts. In the meantime, who knows? If any of you have a for-parts Pro Tablet 608 G1 handy, I am gladly take it off of your hands for a small sum to harvest a battery PCB.

1 Like
7

Glad to hear you got the procedure done and got it worked. I guess the first experiment was a failure so the battery controller was broken?

Did you have to do any soildering to keep the connections fixed in place?

And yeah, I wouldn’t want to try that myself but go out to find the repair shop that would be brave enough to take this challenge. Unfortunately more and more repair shop are getting increasingly less liberal on their repair procedures and depending more on factory parts availability, but I believe there are still many backalley repair shop who is still taking part in battery mod on niche products.

8

I did, and good thing you should ask, but not necessarily to keep things in place. I partially tore the ribbon cable on the second tablet’s battery’s PCB. Thankfully, it was just the edge of the ribbon cable and just one trace so with a quick soldering job, I was back in business!

2 Likes
9

Nice experiment. When one day my Tab S7 FE battery die (hopefully some day far far away), hopefully I can find some repair shop who is willing to do this procedure for me, so I will have a far superior Wacom One alternative using Super Display without risk of puff and burn.

The modern thin light tablet these day is not so easy to open up in your home garage, unfortunately.

10

As a quick addendum, it turns out this method does not work. I discovered that the HP Pro Tabet 608 G1 has an underpowered power supply and it uses a non-standard 5.25V power output for the USB-C so standard USB-C chargers are a non-starter. If I attempt to use the tablet above 50% brightness (auto brightness disabled so it is true display brightness), then it will have a power cycling event if the processor is heavily utilized or if I engage the motor on the haptic-capacitive Windows button. Since I need these to be viewable under bright living room light, that makes these unusable.

1 Like
11

So this fall into the case the power controller not supplying enough power? I wonder if a device having 30-45w charging mode would have the same problem.

Is it still usable at low brightness? Remind me of my 15.6 inch XP pen screen than can run from the laptop USB under 50% brightness but go black if it go higher. Maybe you could find other uses for it.

12

Yes, but quite dim for my bright living room, which defeats the purpose of having a razor-sharp high density 2048x1536 display for photo viewing.