Hi everybody.
To get the most out of my battery I always wait until my device shuts down due to lacking battery. The I chargt it until it the end and the battery displays 6+ houres.
When I recharge the battery before its empty I only get 4+ houres when its full.
I also read that the battery's lifetime is increased by only charging it that way.
My problem is the cradle that charges it everytime I sync.
Is there a way or tool to switch charging on/off for the cradel?
Thanks alot
Alex
The way I understand it, modern batteries do better when charged regularly in small increments. They do very badly with multiple deep discharges, which can actually damage them.
So I would actually disagree with you that what you are doing is a good idea.
If you still decide to do this, the simplest way is probably a manual activesync via bluetooth, using a dongle, as it actually charges via USB too.
Surur
Right the bluetooth thing would be a good idea.
And you might also be right that you should not charge it in such an extreme way...
I read this an a PC Magazin.
I don't know if its wrong or right. the only thing I know is that the battery lasts longer when I charge it thta way.
Thanks
Alex
The battery in the xda2 is designed for constant charging, I dont see how you would get more battery life because if you acheive your desired aim the xda2 will be discharging during sync and will give less battery time than if you let it top up the charge.
I read that Ion battaries have only a limited number of complete chargings bevor the are broken...
alex
Hello,
I bought a second hand Qtek 2020. The seller didn't have a cradle, but he gave me a USB sync/charge cable and a AC plug with USB slot. So I insert the one end of the cable to the PDA, one end to the plug and I recharge.
The device came with 90% charge and I could easily charge it to 100%. Today, I ran it down to 0% and now I can't recharge it!! Every time I turn the device off and plug everything in, it starts to recharge. The led on top shows red. It charges for about a minute and the device wakes up. The red light turns yellow. It says on the screen that the device is still charging but the meter is stuck at 0%!!!
I've been trying for hours but I can't even get to 1%. Maybe it would be better if I had a cradle but that's not an option now. Besides, it recharged beatifully yesterday.
I have a feeling that if I can stop the device from waking up automatically when charging, I can recharge fully, but I don't know how.
Any help will be very appreciated.
Update
Here's a quick update. It's gone from bad to worse. Now I only have a blinking red light and the device doesn't come on at all!!
Any advice please?
Have you made sure that the plug is connected tightly to the PPC? If the charge isn't being held, then the battery might be the culprit.
li-ion batts have a limited number of times it can be recharged before it's lifespan is over
maybe your batt's time is up ?
Follow-up
OK. I bought a new battery and everything works fine now. So if you're having a similar situation, a new battery may solve your problem too.
same problem
I had the same problem as you. When the battery was on 30% to 90% it could be easily charged via USB from PC or via usb adapter. Once the battery fall under appr. 20% I was unable to charge it. I wanted to throw to the garbage. I have done many upgrades many resets. While the qtek was without any software (nothing was installed on it) tha battery successfully charged. So used the qtek as ussual and tried to charge it before 20%. BUt now it fall again under 20% and it's happening the same, I can't charge it. The other strange think is, that I have tried 5 computers with USB.1 and USB.2 but is didn't help. Only one computer can charget from 0% to 100% and this one is in my work.. very strange and don't know what couse this... Normaly the battery holds power for two and half days, so don't wan't to buy new one now. If anyone has any explanation why it can be charge only with "one computer" or what can that couse, I really appreciate it.
Thank you
Ok I am a new member to this whole PocketPC thing since I just purchased my first PocketPC which is an i-mate JASJAM. I honestly think that it's a great product with a lot of features and potential. My problem though, lies in the fact that I haven't had the chance to enjoy it for a full day yet. Ever since I bought it, I always charge it for like 7 to 8 hours, even though it fills up after like 3, but i leave it on charge anyway, because I was told that "that's what you should do!".
Anyways, no matter how long I leave it on the charger, once i take it off the battery begins to drain like there's no tomorrow. I'm talking about going from 100% to 0% within 5 hours, while on FLIGHT MODE. If I turn the screen off then it might last for an extra hour.
Surely this can't be something normal, and I have been beating my brain trying to find a solution. As far as ActiveSync goes, I did the tweak that stops its automatic scheduled syncs, hoping that it would be the problem, but to my disappointment, no luck. Also made sure that no programs were running in the background. It came with a battery with a capacity of 1300mAh and then I bought another one hoping it was a problem with the battery. The new one had a capacity of 1350mAh, not much of a difference but it was all I could find. But there's no difference between them whatsoever, when it comes to battery life.
My first question is whether it is possible that this may be a software issue rather than a hardware issue (such as a power leak)?
If it is, then would upgrading the ROM or Radio or upgrading to WM6 make any difference?
Problem's that I don't have the phone on me right now so I can't give ROM or ExtROM versions etc., but I do know that it is running WM5 with AKU 2.3 and Radio is either 1.21 or 1.31.
N.B.: Until I get this issue sorted out, I am using a Nokia 6680 which has an average battery life of 3 days (72 hours), so should I be expecting something in the vicinity with my i-mate?
Well it sounds as if you've done all the obvious things. There is a power saving registry tweak in the wiki somewhere but that should not be necessary just to bring it to normal power consumption. If I don't use mine much (not on flight mode) I'll get a couple of days at least.
A ROM change might help a little but if you have a warranty I'd be tempted to use it. Radio change is unlikely to change things if you have been testing in flight mode.
Anybody else got ideas?
Mike
The only problem that I have with getting it fixed or replaced under warranty is that I have to send it to another country. So I am trying everything I can do before going through that hassle. So is there any test that I can carry out at home, or a certain diagnostics software that can test the phone for me?
Would a digital multimeter help if i can measure the current being drawn from the battery? What should the current rating be for the phone, is it 1A? Because there is one other interesting thing i found while just snooping around, there is a sticker that just has 5VDC and 1A written on it, and it's stuck to the phone under where the battery goes. I can only imagine that this is the voltage and current rating for the phone. The interesting part is that the battery that came with it, as well as the one i bought are both 3.7V batteries.
:-S
Best to just update your phone.... But becareful! read and research on flashing b 4 you do it... VERY IMPORTANT... USE only softwares for your phone...
I wanna make sure that anything i do doesn't void my warranty as well.
Used their offical update for your phone... However, my friend brick his phone and sent it back to the company and they replace it for him... I dunno if you would have that luck however... if ur careful and read all the information... and ur computer is stable... you shouldnt worry about it bricking ur phone...
jlaham said:
The only problem that I have with getting it fixed or replaced under warranty is that I have to send it to another country. So I am trying everything I can do before going through that hassle. So is there any test that I can carry out at home, or a certain diagnostics software that can test the phone for me?
Would a digital multimeter help if i can measure the current being drawn from the battery? What should the current rating be for the phone, is it 1A? Because there is one other interesting thing i found while just snooping around, there is a sticker that just has 5VDC and 1A written on it, and it's stuck to the phone under where the battery goes. I can only imagine that this is the voltage and current rating for the phone. The interesting part is that the battery that came with it, as well as the one i bought are both 3.7V batteries.
:-S
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The ratings you see written inside and the battery ratings are just standard - nothing unusual there. You could test current draw etc but even if you find it a little high it doesn't really help you to pin down a problem save to say it's the phone and not the battery. However as you have two batteries it's fairly reasonable to say it's not the battery. (reasonable but not impossible of course that two batteries are not working as they should).
Unfortunately we do not yet have our hands on the test file that HTC use.
Mike
I guess I have no choice but to get it shipped back. Thanks for your help guys.
Are you using a wall charger or a trickle-charger such as the USB Cable? The wall charger is the only way to truly charge it to full.
If you are using a USB charger or other trickle charger, after the device says it is fully charged remove it from the charger for about 2 minutes and then reconnect it. It will then charge (most of) the rest of the way.
If you don't do this, the problems gets worse and worse. After 1 day, the trickle charger may get you up to a 90% charge. After two days, 80%, etc. After a week you'll only be holding half a charge, even though the device is reporting a full charge while on the charger.
Another tip I have found is to perform a soft-reset after removing it from the charger, particularly if it has been plugged in for a long time at full charge (more than an hour or so). It seems like the device doesn't always detect that it has been unplugged and tries to suck down juice as if it were still plugged in. If you have noticed that your device gets pretty hot when the battery drains quickly, this is probably what is happening to you.
You also haven't mentioned the programs that you are using during the day. Some programs, particularly chat clients, will drain the battery in about 5 hours, though obviously you're not using anything like this while in flight mode.
One more thing. You noted that you were told that leaving it on the charger whenever possible is the thing to do. This is incorrect. The more the battery is exercised in this way, the shorter the lifespan of the battery will be. With any PocketPC device we're all bound to charge it every night, but once it is charged you want to take it off the charger. A battery being fully charged is just as bad as a battery being fully drained, so you want to keep it somewhere in between as much as possible.
My battery doesn't last either.
I've ordered an extended life battery with its own back.
I've also ordered a car charger.
I also carry my old hiptop with me when I need to switch sims.
Apparently touchscreen phones that do so much, ie. bluetooth and wifi, eat batteries.
Doom Tints said:
Are you using a wall charger or a trickle-charger such as the USB Cable? The wall charger is the only way to truly charge it to full.
If you are using a USB charger or other trickle charger, after the device says it is fully charged remove it from the charger for about 2 minutes and then reconnect it. It will then charge (most of) the rest of the way.
If you don't do this, the problems gets worse and worse. After 1 day, the trickle charger may get you up to a 90% charge. After two days, 80%, etc. After a week you'll only be holding half a charge, even though the device is reporting a full charge while on the charger.
Another tip I have found is to perform a soft-reset after removing it from the charger, particularly if it has been plugged in for a long time at full charge (more than an hour or so). It seems like the device doesn't always detect that it has been unplugged and tries to suck down juice as if it were still plugged in. If you have noticed that your device gets pretty hot when the battery drains quickly, this is probably what is happening to you.
You also haven't mentioned the programs that you are using during the day. Some programs, particularly chat clients, will drain the battery in about 5 hours, though obviously you're not using anything like this while in flight mode.
One more thing. You noted that you were told that leaving it on the charger whenever possible is the thing to do. This is incorrect. The more the battery is exercised in this way, the shorter the lifespan of the battery will be. With any PocketPC device we're all bound to charge it every night, but once it is charged you want to take it off the charger. A battery being fully charged is just as bad as a battery being fully drained, so you want to keep it somewhere in between as much as possible.
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Click to collapse
Wow, I am very surprised to hear some of these. First of all, are you sure that using the usb charger kills your battery capacity so fast? I mean, I almost always charge my phone with the usb charger and it seems to be quite fine. Of course once in a while I charge it with the wall charger when I am in a hurry. But I was thinking that charging it with the usb will be better as it charges slowly.
Also I usually keep my phone plugged to the usb. Indeed, I already ordered a desktop cradle so that I can see the screen while it is being charged. Is it a bad idea to keep it cradled all the time? This is what I did with my Dell Axim all the time and it was quite happy with it.
The process of charging/draining modern batteries won't shorten their lifespans. However, having a chargable battery at full charge or at no charge are both bad and both will reduce the lifespan of the battery.
So no, you shouldn't leave it plugged in/cradled all the time.
The problem with trickle chargers is altogether different. They just won't always charge a battery to its full capacity -- so in this way they are actually better for long-term battery health. This is why I said that if you want to get a full charge off of a trickle charger, you have to (usually) take it off the charger and put it back on when the device reports that it is fully charged. After unplugging the trickle-charger you'll get a new battery reading on the device which will usually be anywhere between 60% and 90%. You can then put it back on the charger until it shows full again.
Deleted, invalid, i didnt read the whole post.
Well, it seems that i was just unlucky with my buy. Thanks to all of you first of all for all your support it really did help me learn more about PPC's in general, and it also made me sure that there is a problem with the phone. I sat through what i like to call a debugging session, just following the phone's every "move". I know, sounds kinda crazy but i was just that determined. What i realised was that whether i performed the soft-reset or not, it still had a problem, even though the solution did sound very promising.
This is what happened, charged it to 100%. I also tried charging it a little more later, but that was it, so i'm pretty sure that the capacity was right. After detaching it i performed the softreset, hoping that it would help. Then i just left it over night on flight mode. Next morning it had only decreased to 90%. GREAT! And it felt rather normal, but then about an hour later, it jumped down to 80%, 70%, 60%, then 50%. Then when I held it, it felt pretty hot, i figured that whatever was the problem earlier, just happened again. So I turned it off for a few hours then turned it on again and it started off on 40%. As before seemed to be performing quite normal, then within a minute it heated up again and jumped down to 20%. And that was when i just lost my nerve and packed it to send it back to my retailer.
I am now convinced that the phone is faulty!
Yes, it very well might be.
My device has drained suddenly a few times, with the exact same heat problems that you're describing when it happens. A soft reset for me when this occured fixed it -- and it hasn't happened for months.
But as we all know the same solutions don't work for all people with HTC devices.
I just had the same sort of problem. I've been using my TyTN for several months now under Dutty's WM6, and only just flashed Schaps 3.60 a few days ago.
It worked fine the first couple of days, but now I'm having the dreaded 5hr battery life too.
I had had that a couple of times before, but it was always related to some software, and a soft reset would cure it like Doom Tints said above. The problem is that here, either this or a power-off and reboot doesn't change a thing.
It's clearly a software problem too. I use UpTime Meter from AE, and I can see that the PocketPC simply doesn't turn into standby mode, but only deactivates the screen. In UpTime, the power on time will always be equal to the time since last charge, which means the PocketPC is on all the time. In that case the 5h battery life makes sense.
Would there be a way to find out why it doesn't enter standby mode (which software blocks it up), or force it into it? It would be good to find something as I'm nearly sure this is the reason for most if not all of the cases of short battery life we see around. Without having the meter there's simply no way to realise that the thing just stays on...
Doom Tints said:
The process of charging/draining modern batteries won't shorten their lifespans. However, having a chargable battery at full charge or at no charge are both bad and both will reduce the lifespan of the battery.
So no, you shouldn't leave it plugged in/cradled all the time.
The problem with trickle chargers is altogether different. They just won't always charge a battery to its full capacity -- so in this way they are actually better for long-term battery health. This is why I said that if you want to get a full charge off of a trickle charger, you have to (usually) take it off the charger and put it back on when the device reports that it is fully charged. After unplugging the trickle-charger you'll get a new battery reading on the device which will usually be anywhere between 60% and 90%. You can then put it back on the charger until it shows full again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Your good man, Phone has been charging for about four hours and it didnt go up more than 40% so I unpluged the phone and turned it off and on and then it went up to 80% and now its recharging it again. Thanks
Battery discharge and heating up
kilrah said:
I just had the same sort of problem. I've been using my TyTN for several months now under Dutty's WM6, and only just flashed Schaps 3.60 a few days ago.
...
Would there be a way to find out why it doesn't enter standby mode (which software blocks it up), or force it into it? It would be good to find something as I'm nearly sure this is the reason for most if not all of the cases of short battery life we see around. Without having the meter there's simply no way to realise that the thing just stays on...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Since I had my hermes, a few times it would get very hot and discharge the battery, and I assumed I was turning it on in my pocket and running a program. But now it does this continually. As soon as I take it off the charger it discharges and gets hot. This even happens if the phone is powered off.
I have borrowed a battery of someone else and the same thing happens
I have also hard reset it and have nothing installed extra, so it can not be software problem.
Must be a short circuit inside the phone? Does anyone have any ideas? I can't send it back as it is a Cingular and I live in the UK and have no support contract.
Thanks,
Mark
I managed to investigate and find the culprit - A2DP Toggle in my case. Whenever its Today plugin is enabled, it will prevent the phone from entering standby. Deactivate it - no uninstallation needed - and it returns to normal. Weird as it had been working perfectly for about a week, and I haven't done any change when it started acting weird.
Now it kinda defeats the plugin's purpose if I have to deactivate it everytime...
@simkin: If it drains the battery even powered off completely that's most likely a hardware problem. Does it happen too if you remove the battery and put it again without turning the phone on (as opposed to having the phone on and turning it off with a long press on the the power button)?
There could be a slight chance that the phone actually starts booting and gets stuck there draining power. As a last solution I'd try flashing it with a different ROM, but if that fails it's most likely a hardware fault.
I'm having battery trouble too, I switched to WM6 with a full battery that lasted for about 24 hours and it became 7-8 hours, so I switched back to my previous ROM and Radio ver and it still says I only get 7-8 hours average, I'm gonna try to hard reset it on more time, and then i'm just gonna try a new battery.