Psion netBook Pro General Maintenance

The sliding lid pulls the display forward as it opens. Note how close to the base the PC Card slot sits — changing a card usually means lifting the machine.

Preventive maintenance for the Psion netBook Pro, the Windows CE .NET 4.2 machine of 2003.

The netBook Pro looks like the netBook and is not the netBook. Different processor, different display, different operating system, different backup batteries, and a different set of things to worry about. Where the EPOC machines are kept alive by mechanical care, the netBook Pro is kept alive by firmware and by not opening the lid too often.

Psion Teklogix published a proper user manual for it, which makes this the best-documented machine in the family — and most of the advice below is theirs.

⚠️ Safety

• Always switch the machine off before removing the main battery.
• If both the main pack and the backup AAA cells go flat, everything in internal memory is lost. Only the flash folder survives.
• There are no mains voltages inside the machine. The lithium-ion pack is the hazard — see Battery Refurbishment.
• Anti-static precautions throughout.

Update the firmware

This is the highest-value maintenance action on a netBook Pro, and it is free.

Four public ROM images were released after launch, and they progressively fixed the defects that got in the way of daily use: IrDA configuration broken out of the box, sluggish redraw, truncated German dialogue strings, and a battery warning that fired at 50 % remaining. An owner who used one daily described updating as urgently advisable.

The last released Windows CE 4.20 ROM image is still hosted, along with the BooSt supervisor-mode document and the manual, by Paul Vigay's Psion archive.

Back up before you flash anything — see below.

Know which machine you have

Check the moulding on the rubber cap over the Honda-connector port.

Identifying the revision

Cap reads	Revision	What it has
"RS232"	Earlier	Serial only over that connector. Serial sync cable. No built-in modem.
"RS232 - USB"	Later	USB as well as serial over the same connector. USB sync cable. Built-in landline modem.

Worth recording before the cap goes missing — see below.

Back up: use the flash folder

The netBook Pro has something the EPOC machines lack. Of its 32 MB of internal Flash, about 10 MB is non-volatile storage whose contents survive a hard reset and the complete depletion of both the main and backup batteries.

Put anything you would hate to lose in the flash folder. It is the only storage in the machine that does not depend on a battery.

A later ROM added Total Recall, a backup utility that can restore automatically after a hard reset. Its one limitation is that individual files cannot be extracted from a backup set — restoring is all or nothing.

Beyond that, ActiveSync to a PC over the serial or USB connection is the supported route.

Batteries

Power

Item	Specification
Main	2200 mAh, 12.6 V Li-ion pack. 8–11 hours
Backup	Two alkaline AAA cells, user-replaceable
Charge time	3–4 hours, constant rate

• Calibrate a new or rebuilt pack: charge it fully on first use, then discharge it fully before charging again. Do not plug or unplug the adapter mid-cycle — that aborts calibration.
• Change the AAA cells on a schedule, not on failure. They are what stands between a flat pack and an empty machine.
• Use alkaline cells as specified, and take them out if the machine is going into storage. A leaked alkaline cell in the compartment above the keyboard is a serious repair — see Battery Explosion, Capacitor or Corrosion Damage.
• Every original pack is past its manufacturer-defined end of life on age alone. Psion Teklogix defined end of life as 50 % of initial capacity and expected it after about 1000 cycles, but noted that capacity also declines with age in storage.

The AAA compartment is above the keyboard on the left; tilt the display slightly forward, press down on the centre of the cover and slide it towards the front.

Full detail, including the calibration behaviour and rebuild, is on Psion netBook Pro Battery Service.

The hinges: open it less

Treat the hinges as the machine's weak point and act accordingly. netBook Pros turn up with a hinge broken or missing, characteristically the left one, and the problem is not purely age — the hinges were breaking when the machines were new.

The preventive strategy, from collectors who manage machines with weak hinges:

• Open and close it as little as you can.
• Do not keep adjusting the screen angle.
• Store and carry it in a hard case, so it is not compressed in a bag.

A sticking or misaligned hinge is worse than an obviously broken one, because it loads the whole assembly — and a catastrophic hinge failure can take the screen, the case and the board with it.

Case and port caps

Two known cosmetic weaknesses, both present from new on many machines:

• The rubberised lid covering replaced the Series 7's leather and was "quite sloppily glued" on a good many units, not seated flush in the lid recess and standing proud on one edge. If yours is lifting, re-adhering it is straightforward cosmetic work; if it never sat right, it probably never will.
• The rubber port caps stand proud at their corners, are easily pulled out of their sockets and "sooner or later tear off". Keep them if you still have them — they are not replaceable, and the one over the Honda connector is how you identify the hardware revision.

Clean the case with a barely damp cloth. Nothing solvent-based near the rubberised covering.

Screen and slots

• Clean the touchscreen with a barely damp lint-free cloth. No solvents.
• Run the brightness down. Psion Teklogix list it first among their runtime measures.
• Lift the machine to change cards. The PC Card and CompactFlash slots sit close to the base, which makes card changes awkward and easy to do clumsily.
• Remove communications cards when not in use — Psion Teklogix's own advice, both for runtime and to avoid leaving a card protruding.
• Work from internal storage rather than a memory card where you can; writing to cards costs noticeably more power.

Power schemes

Setting these sensibly is maintenance, not configuration. The three timeouts — Switch to Dim, Switch to Stand-By and Switch to Suspend — are cumulative, so the machine sleeps only after all three have elapsed in sequence. Psion Teklogix recommended a total of about 10 minutes, and specifically a 10-minute Switch to Suspend on the Battery Power scheme.

Setting all three to Never leaves the machine running indefinitely. Because it wakes from Dim and Stand-By almost instantaneously, generous timeouts cost nothing in responsiveness and save a great deal of battery.

Environment

Manufacturer ratings

Item	Rating
Operating temperature	0 to +50 °C
Storage temperature	−10 to +60 °C
Relative humidity	0–93 %, non-condensing at 40 °C
Dust and water	IP30
Shock	0.7 m drop onto carpet

That drop rating is the same as the netBook's — Psion's own netBook datasheet also specifies 0.7 m onto a carpeted surface. The widely-repeated claim that the netBook was good for 1 m onto wood comes from a community specification list rather than from Psion, and this wiki repeated it before checking.

Preventive maintenance checklist

1. Copy anything irreplaceable into the flash folder; ActiveSync the rest to a PC.
2. Check the ROM version and update if it is not the last release.
3. Charge the main pack fully; if the gauge reads "Not calibrated", run a full discharge and charge cycle.
4. Replace the two AAA backup cells if you do not know their age; check the compartment for corrosion.
5. Record the hardware revision from the Honda port cap, before the cap disappears.
6. Check both hinges for movement, cracking or a sticking action.
7. Check the lid covering for lifting edges.
8. Clean the card slots and confirm cards are recognised.
9. Review the power scheme timeouts.
10. Store closed, in a hard case, with the backup cells out if it will be a long time.

Recommended tools

• Cross-head and jeweller's screwdrivers, plastic spudgers.
• Anti-static strap.
• Isopropyl alcohol and lint-free and foam swabs — keep it off the rubberised covering.
• Fresh alkaline AAA cells.
• A known-good CompactFlash or SD card for testing.
• A PC with ActiveSync, and the last ROM image downloaded and kept.

See Recommended Tools for the general workshop kit.

Related pages

• Psion netBook Pro · Psion netBook Pro Troubleshooting Guide · Psion netBook Pro Battery Service
• Psion netBook Pro Documentation — the manuals this page draws on
• Psion netBook General Maintenance · Psion Series 7 General Maintenance
• Battery Explosion, Capacitor or Corrosion Damage · Recommended Tools · Battery Refurbishment