Weird battery behavior

[scotto]

I have a T-615 I bought last July. No real problems until this. A couple of days ago, for no reason I can track down, my Clie went bonkers in the cradle and I had to do a hard reset to get things to what I thought was back to normal. I restored all the data and things appeared fine until I took the Clie out of the cradle.

In doing so, I was losing about 1% of the battery per 30 seconds use! I was watching the meter drop before my eyes, just sitting in the OS. I removed the memory stick and the meter still dropped at the same rate. I put it in the cradle it charges fine, pull it out, same oddity.

To make sure it wasn't some funky software behavior, I did another hard reset and left the base system in place - not restoring a single file. Same behavior - the Clie lost roughly 1% battery per 30 seconds.

I call up Sony tech support, and in the process of talking with them do a third hard reset. This time, the system behaves normally. No loss from 100% over roughly 5-10 minutes use.

I reload all the software I had (from the same MS Backup set off of my 128 meg MS card that I used previously, trying not to throw too many things into the mix) and I have now gone all day with normal battery drop for the use I've had over the day.

Granted, I don't know why the beast went nuts in the cradle, but it must have affected the Clie's battery managment software, or had the CPU grinding like mad on nothing.

So, I ask, has anyone else seen this kind of behavior?

Also, does anyone know of a "top" or "other CPU utilization monitor out there for Palm OS?
:confused:

[Mastervtec]

At least your "beast" seems to be working fine now huh:) That is really wierd, I have never heard of thi~~ Did it take 2 hard resets to get it working again?

[scotto]

Yeah, 2 hard resets, but I'm not sure I'm out of the woods yet, though. After the last time out of the cradle, now the battery level is not dropping from 100%. :confused: I'm going to run some hardcore CPU intensive processes on it over the day to see what happens.

Now, if I've accidentally stumbled onto a perpetual energy system, I'll be happy. :D

[cpgreen]

I had something similar happen. I loaded something it didn't like, did a hard reset (several of them) and finally got it working again. Just a day or 2 later I had the same charge problem. After recharging several times it started working again (retaining it's charge) for a day, and now it is starting to loe it again. I've heard the batteries for this thing are hinky, do you think it is the battery goig bad?

I know you have to send it back to Sony to get the battery replaced and I've heard it takes about 6 weeks before you get it back and is quite expensive (not sure how much). I'm thinking of looking for pda - I need something I can rely on.

When I talked to the guy at Best Buy he said all of the PDAs only lasted 8 to 9 months. Talk about planned obsolesence

[Mastervtec]

They last much longer than 6-9 months, he sure didn't know what he was talking about. If you treat the battery right you should get a couple of years use out of it. Treating it right is:
1) let it fully charge the first time
2)letting it lose most battery power at least twice a month, by this I mean almost letting it go completely dead.
3) don't just throw it on the cradle everynight, this is torture for batteries.

The above battery recommendations come from my Dad, he is a electronics tech and this is what he has been told about PDA's.

[scotto]

As for my errant T-615, it did not hang and 100% forever, it just seems to be holding a charge longer than it did.

From the above post, perhaps this is due to letting it drop to near nothing a couple of times before charging it back up?

I imagine I'll need to keep an eye on it, but for now, at least, it appears that I have a net gain out of this mystery. :)

[migey]

I had this very same problem. Except it wasn't when I put it on the cradle, it just happened out of no where. To fix it all I did was put it on the cradle for a couple of hours. After that it was fine, so far anyway.

[aaronrkelly]

Originally posted by Mastervtec
They last much longer than 6-9 months, he sure didn't know what he was talking about. If you treat the battery right you should get a couple of years use out of it. Treating it right is:
1) let it fully charge the first time
2)letting it lose most battery power at least twice a month, by this I mean almost letting it go completely dead.
3) don't just throw it on the cradle everynight, this is torture for batteries.

The above battery recommendations come from my Dad, he is a electronics tech and this is what he has been told about PDA's.

Actually from what Ive read Lithium Ion batteries last longer if you charge them regularly instead of deep discharging them before recharging. You are supposed to charge it every night or couple of days. This has been discuess at lenght but I dont remember what the general concensus was.

[Mastervtec]

Just what my I have been told, seems to work for me :)