I guess I'm lucky, I disconnected the batteries and power cycled the PMS a few times and it now works. What does that really mean though? Anything I should keep in mind in the future?
Thanks so much!
It's hard to explain the mechanics of, mainly because I don't fully understand it myself, but I'll give it a go. Sometimes a switching regulator circuit can retain charge in places that it shouldn't, which confuses smart systems and shuts them off, or one or more inductors can "saturate" with magnetic flux and turn into a short/series resistance. If an inductor saturates it tanks the output efficiency, drops the voltage, and will no longer filter out voltage ripple (it can even sometimes cause even
worse voltage ripple). This will trigger protection shutdowns in properly monitored circuits. I'm not sure how anal the PMS is about that, but seeing as this has happened to a few people in the last couple of years and the systems have been fine after a bleed, I'm going to assume it fails safely as long as you don't keep pushing it.
It occurs sometimes with PC components and confuses the shit out of people. You try to turn your computer on, and then it just shuts off. Depending on where the saturation takes place, your PSU or mobo might bleep a warning at you that there's a power anomaly, but often it's just a silent boot failure that most people have no idea how to fix. It's a part of where "have you tried unplugging it and leaving it for 30 minutes" comes from. Disconnecting the power source and power cycling the circuit or leaving it to discharge passively over time usually resolves any active saturation issue. Try it on any electronic device that appears to have a power anomaly, it's a surprisingly common issue.
I wouldn't worry about it unless it continues to occur once the portable is finished and being used normally.