Amazon Kindle 4 eReader Won’t Turn On & E-Ink Display / Screen Not Working Properly (Solved)

I solved an issue with two Kindle 4 eReaders. Both wouldn’t boot up/turn on and later I discovered one of them had an e-ink screen not working properly.

Warning: Don’t hold me responsible for your own actions and costs. You do anything to your Kindle at your own risk!

Please note: You might not be as fortunate as I was and what I did to fix two Kindles might not work for you. If you find this blog post helpful, please leave a comment at the bottom. If your Kindle e-ink display is partially broken, you might want to read my other blog post here. I am not blogging about a touch model, but the Kindle 4. What I did might work for some other Kindle models.

Introduction
I purchased a job lot of Kindle 4s on eBay. The listing said they wouldn’t charge and basically said the screens appeared to be damaged. So I decided to buy them to see if I could fix them for free!

Problem 1 – Kindle 4 eReader won’t boot up/turn on
I placed the Kindles on charge for approximately twenty minutes and saw the orange charging light. I probably should’ve left them charging for a lot longer, but I was impatient and tried to see if I could get them to do anything.

For two of the Kindles, I could see the charging light, but I couldn’t see any life. I think one of the Kindle eReaders might’ve shown the battery image, but I’m unsure now. Even when I pressed the power button, I couldn’t get the Kindles to appear as removable drives when connected to a PC via a cable.

So I decided to perform a hard reset for those two Kindles that wouldn’t start.

How to hard reset a Kindle 4

1. Make sure the Kindle isn’t connected to a power source.
2. Hold the power button for thirty seconds.
3. Immediately start charging the Kindle.

Immediately one of the Kindles started and appears to be working without issue, which leads me onto the second Kindle…

Problem 2 – Kindle 4 eReader with horizontal lines and frozen screen
So I had a Kindle with horizontal lines across the screen. Due to the way the lines were shown, it seemed like it could be a different issue to a screen that has permanent damage.

So I performed the hard reset two more times and on the second time after a few seconds, I pressed the bottom left page turn button on the side and the screen came to life! I could now see the progress bar of the Kindle starting up with a hint of the faint horizontal lines, which disappeared when I saw the books list.

However the screen again failed, so I decided to gently ‘massage’ the Kindle with my thumbs, applying a bit of pressure, starting at the bottom and working my way up. The screen then came back to life again and hasn’t stopped working since!

Conclusion
I think sometimes due to the age of the Kindle 4 model, some people might confuse a Kindle needing a hard reset with needing a new battery. I feel fortunate to have got the two eReaders working again.