The symptom pattern

Pull the trigger and nothing happens, or the chain starts and stops on its own part-way through a cut. On a cordless chainsaw that’s unsettling — there’s a brake and a battery both in the loop, and it isn’t obvious which one is responsible. Einhell’s own manual splits this into two separate fault rows, “Chainsaw does not work at all” and “Chainsaw operates intermittently”, and they don’t share a cause list. One is almost always free to fix yourself; the other isn’t.

What Einhell’s own table says

For a saw that won’t run at all, the manual gives two causes, in order: the “quick stop brake (chain brake) tripped”, remedied by pulling the front hand guard back to its normal position, and “no power supply”, remedied by checking the power supply — in practice, the battery’s seating and charge. Both are checks anyone can do in under a minute with no tools.

The chain brake catching people out is the more common of the two. It’s a safety mechanism in the front hand guard that trips if the saw kicks back, and Einhell is explicit that it should stop a moving chain “in less than 0.1 seconds” when it does. Once tripped, the saw simply won’t run again until the guard is pulled back to release it — that’s by design, not a fault, and it’s easy to mistake for a dead motor if you don’t know to look at the hand guard’s position first.

“Chainsaw operates intermittently” is a different row with a shorter, worse list: a loose external connection, a loose internal connection, or a defective ON/OFF switch. Einhell gives the identical remedy for all three — “consult a specialist workshop” — and offers no continuity check, no switch test, and no procedure for opening the handle yourself. That’s the manufacturer’s own way of saying this one lives inside a sealed assembly, not under a cover you’re meant to remove.

Working through it

Start with the brake and the battery, in that order, because they’re free and they cover most real-world cases: look at the front hand guard’s position before anything else, then check the battery’s seated fully and showing charge on its capacity indicator. If you want to confirm the brake itself is working rather than just resetting it, fold the guard forward and pulse the switch briefly — the chain shouldn’t move at all.

If the saw runs but cuts out intermittently once a flat or marginal battery is ruled out, there’s nothing further to try at home. Einhell’s table doesn’t give an internal inspection step for a reason — a loose connection or failed switch inside a sealed handle assembly is a workshop job, not a DIY one.

Verdict

A chainsaw that won’t start at all is usually a thirty-second fix: reset the chain brake, check the battery. A chainsaw that starts and then cuts out is a different problem that Einhell’s own documentation doesn’t give the owner a way to fix — every remaining cause on their list goes to a specialist workshop. Get a repair quote before deciding whether it’s worth it; on a 36V cordless chainsaw, a wiring or switch fault inside the handle can cost close to replacement once labour’s added.