Yet another dead LD

[rhs2008]

Hello everyone, I've been a secret stalker of 1src, I've read a lot of things, but now I actually made up my mind and registered :D

UPDATE: After doing a lot of testing, results come up that the motherboard is bad. This can be hardware or software, I still need to check that out.

Well, now to my problem. So I've had my LifeDrive for about 1-2 months now, I got it from eBay (dun dun dunnn). I've never had any major problem with it, except of course for the sluggishness. It was exactly 1 week ago when I really started getting problems.

I was doing a photo shoot, and I was listening to music with pTunes. I decided to turn it off for the moment, and put it back into the leather case. It was when I tried to turn it back on, when I realized something was just not right. I didnt power on, and before I took off, I remember I had it charged. I thought "Well, maybe I just didnt turn it off, or something drained the battery, owell".

I got home that night and put the LD into the cradle, I waited about 1 hour, and it didnt want to turn on. Since I didnt have warranty, I opened it (I noticed it had marks on the case, which led me to beleive it had been opened before, but the warranty sticker on the HDD was intact. I unplugged the battery, plugged it back in and voilà! I saw the palm logo; it was resetting.

So I left it in the charger overnight, and the next morning, it seemed to work, but after I had it up and about, when I powered it off, it didnt want to turn on again :confused:

Now, I thought I could live with this, but it was until yesterday, when I unplugged the battery and put it back again, that it went into a reset loop. It would power on, I would see the Palm logo, and the progress bar, that would load up, and then the next screen would appear for about 4 seconds, and it would turn off, then back on, and would do that over and over.

I have been looking all over the internet, and I have tried everything, every type of reset (yes, ever a warm sys reset) and nothing seems to work. Oh, and when I try to do either a Quick or Secure erase, the screen goes black and the unit powers down.


What I have come down to is this:

The problem is either (or all combined O_O)...
1. [Proven wrong]The Hard Drive is bad, ROM is messed up
2. [Proven wrong]Battery/Charging Circuit
3. [Confirmed]Motherboard is bad?
4. [Still Plausible]I am just a bad user.


And check this out, when I press the d-pad down button, while pushing the reset button, the palm thing loads up, and instead of the circular palm logo, I get this:
http://www.oldschoolwarriors.net/lifedrive.html
EDIT: Now, after extensive research, I found out that this "mode" is the debug mode, now, I know I got in it, what can I do with it?

Thanks for reading, and sorry for the super-long post :D

[stutorker]

hi rhs,
'fraid i can't actually offer any advice, but i'll be watching this thread with interest, as my lifedrive has just joined the legion of the dead last friday :(

exact same senario. fully charged, had a quick game of BikeOrDie, put the lock slider across and stuck it back in my pocket...10mins later...DEAD.

apart from occasional crashes my LD has been faultless since launch month. i was hoping that going back on the charger after a weekend of death would reanimate it, but no joy. so i'm off to find one of those funny wee screwdrivers to crack open the back and unplug the battery...

[rhs2008]

Hey stutorker,
Have you tried the in-cradle reset? If you can get it to "turn on" you can do this:
(might be temporary fix) So completely drain your battery, you can do this by doing a quick/secure reset BUT NOT doing anything, just leaving it on the screen that tells you "Warning...lose data...blah". So just leave it on until it powers off by its own. Now you can either leave it 1 day like that (people say it improves your odds) and then you would plug it in to power, and do a in-cradle reset.

I cant guarantee it will work, but it has for some people, so good luck! :D

Note: I plan on updating my post (the big one :D) once I get a lock-down on things, so I can kinda make it a advanced "troubleshooting" thing.

[Dick Tracy]

Given the age of the LifeDrives being discussed I suspect the battery is no longer holding a charge.

[rhs2008]

Given the age of the LifeDrives being discussed I suspect the battery is no longer holding a charge.
Hello,
Well, you might find it interesting that this is not the case :)
I did not note the voltage of the battery when it was fully charged, but I noted it at 3.75v (and this was when it did not want to turn on). Now, right now, the battery is at 3.45v, and when I press the reset button, the palm loading bar appears for like 5-9 seconds, then it turns off (the bar does not load up)
This is intensional, as I want to fully drain the battery.

The battery is rated at 3.7v
(also note that before it had this problem, it would last about 4 hours playing music with pTunes)

Ok, well, now that I look over the post, it does not make much sense. The point I'm trying to make is that the battery is in great condition, and its the hardware/software that is giving us a hard time.

[sgosnell]

If the battery is only reading 3.75V when fully charged, it's not in great condition. A fully-charged LD battery should have over 4V, and 3.45V is nearing the cutoff point where it can't provide enough current to power the handheld. I think you need a new battery.

[rhs2008]

ahhh, I didnt explain quite good, I said that it was not fully charged, but working, at 3.75v

and that 3.45v was the least I could get it to operate (for about 5 seconds)


Well, in other news, I got a friend's LifeDrive which I will open up, replace MD, and test, any reason why I should NOT do this?

[rhs2008]

ok, just did the testing:
1. I proved it was not the MD; this was by swapping both MDs and testing
2. I proved it was not the battery; again, I swapped them, no change.

So whats left?
The motherboard is bad. I dont know if it can be fixed, but I can get a replacement from usedpdaparts.com for $95.

The question now, is, is it really worth it going to all this trouble (and money)to get my LifeDrive working again?

[stutorker]

hi rhs,
did the battery unplug (and a bit of internal cleaning while i was there!), stuck it back on the cradle and it went through a reset without issue. didn't loose any data *PHEW* - only needed to adjust the date/time - all other prefs etc intact. just done a full backup (hadn't done that for months!), just incase this turns out to be a rolling fault (which i'm expecting).

i also believe that the battery is *not* the issue. mine is giving almost identical performance now as when it was new. i've seen the motherboards for sale too...but if this problem continues, i think i'll opt for a TX as a replacement. i'll miss that extra internal storage though...

good luck with yours :)

[sgosnell]

What were the results of the swaps? Did your HD work in the other LD? Or did you just check your own?

[rhs2008]

What were the results of the swaps? Did your HD work in the other LD? Or did you just check your own?
The results are as follow:
(Note: For this, "Bad LD" will be my dead, looping lifedrive. "LD2" will be my friend's working LifeDrive)

Bad LD + Good LD's MicroDrive = NO SUCCESS

Good LD + Bad LD's MicroDrive = SUCCESS!

Good LD's motherboard + Bad LD Case = SUCCESS!

Bad LD's motherboard + Good LD's Case = NO SUCCESS


And I also did battery swapping, which proved no difference. Thus proving that the problem was not the MicroDrive, but the motherboard itself.

[sgosnell]

Are you certain that all the connectors are properly seated? There are several of them, and one poor connection could cause your problems. It's certainly possible that it's a bad mb, but not yet certain.

[rhs2008]

yes, I am 100% sure.

I even cleaned them with a DRY cotton swab. I also tried switching the connectors for the MD (both ways) and still no working LD =[

Right now, I think I am set on selling it for parts. The LCD screen is in excellent contition, the Digitizer works, but with few minor scratches, and battery is almost as new.....but, no one wants to give me more than 85 dollars.

I loved my LifeDrive, while it worked. But I think that repairing it will only fix it temporarily, since they are so prone to problems.

[stutorker]

well, my LD worked perfectly again all day yesterday as if nothing had happened. then i tried to start it again after a few hours off the cradle and it had died. replugged battery again and it booted up & worked fine the rest of the evening. i woke during the night to find it mid reset - got as far as my lifekeys splash screen and died again. replugged it and put it on the cradle again this morning and it's fine...

...the pattern i had feared... :(

..."dear Santa, there's this cool thing called a Palm TX which i would really like..."

[rhs2008]

well, my LD worked perfectly again all day yesterday as if nothing had happened. then i tried to start it again after a few hours off the cradle and it had died. replugged battery again and it booted up & worked fine the rest of the evening. i woke during the night to find it mid reset - got as far as my lifekeys splash screen and died again. replugged it and put it on the cradle again this morning and it's fine...

...the pattern i had feared... :(

..."dear Santa, there's this cool thing called a Palm TX which i would really like..."

Yeah =[
As other people have said, its the charging and batt level circuit that has problems.

Also, for those who have opened your LifeDrive up. What are the 2 contacts on the top left? (those sticking up, with the inside spring thing)The back case has a small board with 2 contacts for it. Does anyone have any idea what this does?

[Reza_d]

Hello everyone, I am new here, but I've been reading a lot of good stuff here in this from, I thank you all you guys.
I also had or have the same problem with my LifeDrive battry,
I put my fully charched (almost new) LifeDrive away for same days, when I try to trun it on again, the battry was 100% drian & empty of charch! That has already happened maybe 3 or 4 times, with a month or two between!
I have write to Palm center & they told me it could be a third-party softwares, but now I could also read here that some others has the same problem. I do not know now
is that a bug in the LifeDrive or it is thirdparty softwares who make this problem!?

[rhs2008]

Hello Reza,
Well, palm just blames third party software, but its probably the actual lifedrive.

If indeed, it is third party software, you have to check to see if an application is turning the LifeDrive on to check something (such as Versamail). If you havent installed anything, and not messed with scheduled programs, everything *should* be working good.

[Reza_d]

Hi rhs2008,
Well,however it's almost impossible to have a Palm with no third party software, I
have moved all my third partys software to the SD & MMD cards, & I removing my cards from LD slots before I put my LD away!
But there is still some other third party software in the LD, such as Packet Tunes,
Versamail & a few others which cammes with original Palm when you buy a new one.
If those third party has bugs & making problems for Palm devices, so why Palm installs them in there devices?!
Anyway I think as you mentioned, the Bugs is probably in the LifeDrive :-(

[rhs2008]

yeah =[

If you can, I suggest you try to sell it (while it still works), and buy something that actually works for a long time.

I loved my LifeDrive =[

[stutorker]

well, just to close the chapter on my lifedrive's demise...

i managed to re-animate it successfully 4 times, but on 5th attempt it would not finish booting up - just a blank white screen. with more attempts, the screen got darker and darker each time, until it was dark blue almost black...

dug out my old faithful m500, which is tiding me over at the moment.

read up on lots of PocketPCs and deliberated at length before deciding to stick with PALM. i loved the lifedrive basic tasks, music, vids & games. i'm hoping the TX will match those needs and trump the LD by being a lot less brick-like ;)

i had >2yrs of joy from the LD...but i'm off to the TX forum now.

[rhs2008]

oh man, I am sorry for your loss =[

[hgradeca]

:( Me too!
May it rest in peace!

[1lessLifeDrive]

I got like 6 LD from Palm and they all stopped working and the last one I got I did the CF card mod and my LD is happy and working well and I love this thing now do the Mod...

[benst]

My LD has also just died.

If I put a blank CF card in place of the MD will it boot, assuming the MD is the problem?

How should the CF card be formatted?

[sgosnell]

No, a blank CF won't work. See the threads on the forum for instructions for formatting. IMO it's not worth the trouble. UsedPDAParts sells a preformatted card that works out of the box, just unplug the HD, plug in the CF, and it works. 4GB is the largest the LD can physically address, BTW.

[benst]

Thanks for the info.

Fortunately my MD is still operational and the motherboard I swapped in from my wife's broken LD fixed my problems - I drove over her LD but it only broke the screen and some of the buttons but it would still turn on and enough of the screen worked that you could access the drive mode. I previously also took the MD from her LD as my MD started making grating noises then stopped working. So now my only available spare part is the battery.

The preformatted CF available on usedpdaparts.com is US$95. I'm not sure I want to spend that much money given that the LDs seem so likely to fail when they're only a couple of years old. I think I'll just wait for the MD to die.

[forcemaker]

Hi there!

I read Your postings in the thread You opened one or two months ago. My LifeDrive died in a similar way, I've been at an electronics exhibition, just making a few notes about stuff. An hour later in the train home I wanted to start the device, it wouldn't go on.

So, nothing new until now.

I checked for warranty and figured out, that I wouldn't get any "free" exchange or so. Well, so I opened the device to figure it out.

I will give You now my conclusions:

* As many people report, removing the battery from device and keeping it so for some while sometimes forces a reboot on pluging in.

* This effect can be forced to come earlier by shortcutting a capacitor which is parallel to the battery.
I found this capacitor like this:
** detaching the battery
** volt meter at the battery socket: there was a voltage (very low, dunno, maybe 0,05V or so) which was growing!
** I swapped the volt meter at the battery socket's pins and now the voltage dropped!
** Now again, turned around, the volt meter was charging the capacitor.
** I could identify (most likely) the capacitor as a small SMD part (SMD = surface mounted device) a little in the north of the battery socket. It is turned 90 degrees to the bat. socket as far as I remember.
** Discharging this capacitor by shortcutting makes it more likely to get LD back for some time.

* The battery got maybe overcharged by LifeDrive!!!
** The battery has a named voltage written on the outside. This voltage was much higher in my device, when the battery is plugged in and charging(!).
** I cannot call any numbers anymore, but I think it was more than 1 Volt to high.

* How to enable LifeDrive - I did following procedure sometimes with success:
** discharge the called capacitor (I think it is not neccessary, because of following steps...)
** prepare yourself for plugging in the battery
** add external power to LD
** wait... or press the reset button or some other buttons... You might be lucky and the device WILL TURN ON.
** Now the device will go in a loop, it displays a PALM Logo, shuts down the screen and the hard disk with a clack and turn on again. This seems to repeat.
** now insert the battery plug into the socket.
** OK, often, not always I had now a booting LifeDrive (EVEN I HAD A BOOTING LIFE_F_L_A_S_H with a compact flash card, but this DID NOT solve anything here).

** After booting, the battery was shown as drained 100%. Sometimes it turned off.
** But somehow (replugging the external power?) and typing on the screen I managed to come to the launcher. From there I went to settings and made the device stay on when in cradle (=external power)
** So I watched the device showing me charging the battery.
** The battery now got charged 100%, suddenly went down to 50% and charging up again.

*** Main thing: do not pull the external power and not let the device shut off. It will not return.

Some other conclusions after this back-to-life-procedure:
* A Flash Drive instead of hard drive does not solve the problem (at least not after it occured, maybe it helps to "prevent")
* An installed linux (!!!) I got from ... hackndev ... did not solve the problem
* the lifedrive started without(!!) any drive inside can boot until some PALM logo and can offer the RESET info screen!!!
* removing the drive from device before powering on once made it come on immediatly. I did NOT try to often, because I've been afraid from breaking/ripping/tearing apart the thin plastic foil where the signal is on.

I forgot: I got an "external power source" which I plugged into the battery socket - do not mix + and - !!! - with variable voltage and I did not get the system running, so I cannot prove that another battery would do the job... but I doubt it!

My final thought is that there is a part on the LD which checks the battery power. When the battery gets overcharged the device gets damaged so LD cannot meassure the right power anymore. Maybe the part gets damaged through overcharging.
All in all if one could figure out which part on the device is responsible for measuring the voltage... you could replace it (SMD parts are hard to "solder" but one might know somebody to do this.)

I am not so keen on spending a 95$ for a new mainboard at usedpdaparts just for getting it blowed up again and again.

The only (my only) interest would be in identifying the trouble-making component on the main board and trying to replace.

Maybe I helped You with my thoughts and experience, so please share Yours if You got any new one!

Greetings, forcemaker

[dmitrygr]

labeled battery voltage on li-ion batteries is 3.7, but they charge to 4.2

this is normal and not to be worried about :-)

[forcemaker]

labeled battery voltage on li-ion batteries is 3.7, but they charge to 4.2

this is normal and not to be worried about :-)

Jupp, actually right, but mine was loaded way over 4.2, it was something about 5.0 or so. This was not everytime like this, but my last testings months ago (I don't remember the details ATM) showed voltages that high!

[jmehl]

I will second what forcemaker asserts, regarding the methods (voltage... i've no clue. Not my forte). I actually figured this out moments before stumbling upon Forcemaker's post.

I had a dead lifedrive. I got an amber light when plugged in, with no other response. The lifedrive is used off of ebay, so i've been assuming that there would be no warranty. I yanked the battery, as some users have reported success in doing just this. No luck for me. I plugged the unit in w/o the battery and got the white 'palmone' screen in a loop-reset. Only the palmone screen. No gray palm screen. I was able to get it to do a reset without the battery plugged in. That was all. I then plugged the battery in during the 'palmone' screen and it loaded. I have progressed no further. I'm seeing what will happen if i leave the battery in and the palm on over night.

Any further guidence as to what to do to solidify the working unit?

jared

[jmehl]

Further testing...

I've come to the conclusion that it is a battery issue. I was able to get my palm up and working for a short time, charge it and it seemed fine. Within a few hours of being fully charged it seemed to be dead again.

HOWEVER!!!

I got a great idea! I was talking to a client of mine at my place of work (i'm a mental health social worker) who recommended that i try putting the battery in the freezer to see if it gives a kick. Of all the places to get this kind of idea! I tried it, plugged it back in and voila!! It kicked right on without even the charger!

Hope this works for the long term for me... and restores hope for others regarding the status of their lifedrive!

Jared

[jmehl]

Unfortunately, the long term fix didn't happen... I sent my palm away to Chris Short (http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZitsnothere) and he stated that it was a cold solder joint. The repair cost is $49.

Good luck to the rest of you!

jared

[BarryR]

rhs2008, did you get any further with locating the problem on the LD motherboard? I have similar problems, and while I haven't done the detailed tests that you have I've become convinced that the problem is to do with the battery sensing and management.

My LD is almost 3 years old. The microdrive died about 5 weeks ago, so I did the CF upgrade. That worked well, but in the last couple of weeks I've had power-on and reset problems very like those described here and elsewhere. The problems started with strangely short and erratic battery usage and charge times, then I couldn't start or reset it at all. I replaced the battery, but the problems are still the same. The battery voltage is behaving as you'd expect, but the charging light never goes green now. When I can get it to start up it crashes with a blank screen at different points in the startup sequence, and the only way to get it going again is to disconnect & reconnect the battery (and even that doesn't always work).

I thought the CF card might have bad sectors so I re-wrote the CF card with a fresh factory default image (which worked a few weeks ago), but it makes no difference. So like you, I've concluded that the problem is on the motherboard and most likely related to battery management. It looks like the low battery sensor is shutting down the device almost randomly.

So does anyone have any more information on this? I'd really like to bring my LD back to life for another year or two. I reckon it will take that long for something else that fits my needs to appear on the market!

[JavaJiveJump]

Well, if you need to get parts like batteries and the like, you can try here:

http://usedpdaparts.com/Lifedrive.html

[BarryR]

I've already ordered a new LD motherboard from usedpdaparts.com, and I'm hoping that will fix the problem.

I've done some more experiments, and it really seems like there's a fault in the power supply management on the motherboard that causes it to lock up the whole device. When it happens the only way out is to disconnect the battery, and then short out the 0.5 volts or so that remains on the capacitor just above the battery connector (I have no idea whether doing this is likely to damage anything, so if you do this don't blame me...). Then reconnect the battery, and the LD will reset automatically.

The LD will usually behave completely normally, but attempting to replace the cover or applying pressure to the motherboard will cause it to lock up again. When it's in this state the screen is blank, the power switch doesn't do anything, reset (of any kind) doesn't work, and battery charging doesn't seem to work correctly. Sometimes both the orange and green lights are on together. It behaves as though the power management circuit has flipped into a state that it can't get out of.

It looks to me like a bad solder joint somewhere, but my days of being able to fix a fault like this by going over the board with a soldering iron are long gone (components too small, eyes too old) Just have to wait for the new motherboard to arrive. Meanwhile, my life is on hold. No diary, no contacts, no music, no podcasts, no mobile email.

[joepagIII]

you also could pick up used dead drives off of ebay for under a 100....for spares ...i have one just for that purpose...incase i get a dead mobo in one theres 3 live ones here in this house...

[BarryR]

My replacement motherboard arrived from usedpdaparts, and it fixed the problems I've been having with lock up and crashing. So my LD is back in full operation. Over the past 5 weeks I've replaced the microdrive with a CF card, replaced the battery and now replaced the motherboard, so only the screen/button assembly and the case are original now.

Here's to another 3 years!