hans_wachtmeister

I had the same issue with an A7R that still was within the warranty period. Therefore I did not have to pay for the repair. The bill mentions that a particular PCB Board had been replaced at the repair shop. A few weeks after the repair I had access to the schematics in the Sony workshop repair manual for this camera. Now there is an issue that you will not believe me, if you did not see it: Each and every Sony A7R and later models have a small LITHIUM BATTERY SOLDERED to on of the PCB Boards inside the camera. It is supposed to be a backup battery for the memory to hold the camera settings while you switch batteries. If you store the camera with no battery or leave the battery discharged, then this internal lithium battery will loose its charge. The camera does not boot anymore with this lithium backup battery discharged. Whatever guesses the members of this forum have to offer, they fail if this backup battery is discharged. These are just standard size batteries, parts worth less than 50 cents. However you need to disassemble the camera and you need to know how to solder this little thing. Even for a skilled repair technician this won't be less than at least one hour of careful work, probably rather two or three hours. I never disassembled a A7R nor its successors. I saw these batteries on the repair manuals. I once took apart a defunct DSC-F828 bridge camera and found the same backup battery, and soldered a new one and then camera worked again. The meaning of these observations is that all and any Sony Digital Cameras will eventually fail once these Lithium backup batteries come to the end of their life. Even if you truly care to always have a charged battery in the camera, the lithium battery will terminate the life of your Sony within less than 6 years. Having said all of this: This really is something to yell SHAME ON SONY! Kind regards