How to Troubleshoot Your BlackBerry PlayBook Battery Charger
The BlackBerry PlayBook charger is a small sealed black box. You can only assume it is working when you plug it into your tablet. (It doesn’t even have an LED light to tell you if it’s working.)
Examine the charger and the full length of its cable, looking for any obvious signs of damage. A crimp or cut in the cable could render the charger useless and even possibly damage the PlayBook. Scorch marks near the AC plug are an indication of a possible electrical short or other problem. Don’t attempt to repair a damaged charger; a replacement unit costs much less than a new tablet.
Make sure that the electric outlet you’re using is live. Test it by plugging a portable radio or lamp or other device into the outlet and see if it receives power. Assuming that the outlet is live, you can do two things to assure yourself that the charger is sending power to the battery:
When it’s plugged into an AC source and then attached to a PlayBook, look at the tablet’s home screen and tap the battery icon. If it shows a small lightning bolt across the battery, the charger is sending power. You can also look at the percentage of charge left in the battery; it should slowly climb toward 100 percent.
Plug the BlackBerry PlayBook charger into a BlackBerry smartphone. Research in Motion’s phones have a small LED that flashes as the device is charging. (Memo to RIM: how about adding that to the PlayBook in future models?)