Nia Kobo Nia White screen

[TeaBot]

Hello y'all

So I've got a Kobo Nia that my dad gave to me.

When he did, it was stuck in a boot loop after an update gone wrong. It also had a semi functional power button, this model has a weird full rubber soft material on top of the switch.
So I turned it off, I opened it and got the SD card out to see if i could either reflash it or change it or whatever.

This is where it started to go sideways, literally.

So i plug the SD in my new(ish) computer and lo and behold, the SD socket was a tad bit low with relation to the PC frame. Long story short the SD is stuck in there. It is stuck between the frame of the computer and the top of the SD socket.

This was just to relate my woes and does not really affect my questions.

I got a new SD card after a while. During that time the Nia without SD card is staying in a drawer.
I finally get the SD card but no Nia image can be found. So i look up the specs and whatever i can find about the hardware and realize that it is very close design to the Clara.
I get the Clara image and flash it to the new SD, plug it into the Nia.

And the thing doesn't want to turn on. The screen is a white slate at this point.

The switch for power up is busted beacuse the rubber is coming apart. So I cleanly take it out and unsolder the switch itself. This goes smoothly (it is my job after all, I'm an electronics technician).
I figure the switch is a NO switch, and pressing down creates contact. I jerry rig an outside switch but still no power no nothing.
The LED next to the power button has not made any light.

Question: Am I shit out of luck and the hardware is fried somehow, or is the Clara image not working at all and keeps the soft from recognizing the switch press ?

I have evidently charged it up for a long time after taking it out of the drawer.

Is it worth it for me to keep chasing the Nia image in the hope that this is the issue? I guess it doesn't hurt.

I'd be curious if anyone has had something similar happen.

[NiLuJe]

Originally Posted by TeaBot

is the Clara image not working at all and keeps the soft from recognizing the switch press ?

There's a very low chance it would actually boot, yeah.

The boards are *not* similar, (like, at all, it's not even the same SoC, i.MX6ULL on the Nia v.s., i.MX6SLL for the rest).
(The Clara is also not usually bundled with it in terms of similar-ish boards, the groupings go something like Clara/Forma/Libra; while the Nia is closer to the Libra 2/Clara 2E pair).

On the upside, I'm pretty sure someone should have a stock Nia image to share, though?

[TeaBot]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

The boards are *not* similar, (like, at all, it's not even the same SoC, i.MX6SULL on the Nia v.s., i.MX6SLL for the rest).
(The Clara is also not usually bundled with it in terms of similar-ish boards, the groupings go something like Clara/Forma/Libra; while the Nia is closer to the Libra 2/Clara 2E pair).

Oooh that's interesting. So I was way off on the HW similarities then. Where do you come across information like this ? did you get over time or is there a place for specific HW info ?
Thanks for the response though, it means I've got to try a proper Nia image before doing anything to it then.

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

On the upside, I'm pretty sure someone should have a stock Nia image to share, though?

There is not one on hand in here I don't think but I'll find one somewhere I'm sure

[NiLuJe]

The release dates are usually a good starting point . Then it's a mix of the actual hardware (NTX boards have a specific API to "tag" a device and ID most of its components, c.f., the builtin ntx_hwconfig tool & https://github.com/NiLuJe/FBInk/blob...nk_device_id.h for more details about that) and experience with KOReader porting and the various set of quirks/bugs/issues encountered on each board ;o).

As for a Nia image, the device appears to be incredibly unpopular (for... good reason, it has/had a very weird spot in the lineup), but @Szybet has one and works on custom hardware & software hackery on it, so he should have some backups. You can reach him on the Inkbox discord server, which is quite likely linked to in the Inkbox thread on this forum (EDIT: Or see the tail end of the GH readme).