Why does the battery on my Axim keep draining?

[The Big Jay]

I've set the backlight to the lowest setting, rarely use it, and have a bunch of alarms.

But if I even forget to cradle it _one_ day it seems to go to 0% battery!

What's wrong with my battery?

[Janak Parekh]

Sounds like your Axim is not shutting off after it turns on after midnight -- that is, Pocket PCs turn on at midnight to rotate alarms and such, and if you have applications like Windows Media Player running, it won't turn back off automatically after a minute like it's supposed to. Watch it at midnight and see if that's happening.

Either that, or your battery is defective.

--janak

[dartman]

I've only had that happen 1 time in the 2 months I've had the Axim. Pulled it out after carrying it home overnight in my briefcase and it was drained to 10 %. I checked all the alarms, AS settings, etc and couldn't find anything suspicious.

I have no idea what caused it but I did a soft reset and it went away never to recur again.

dart

[NeoAxim]

Dartman,

My explanation of the saga that I have had with Dell can run for paragraphs but you are the first to describe the issue as I have had it. I have had the EXACT same issue. Although I do find the midnight explanation quite interesting, as I had no idea that this was the case or Windows Media Players possible effect on this "midnight turn on", it has not always occurred the morning after a charge and removing from the cradle,

I have written quite a LONG post at another forum which pretty much detailed all my issues with this problem as well as Dell's response, and apparent inability to respond to my problem. If you would like me to link to that post I will otherwise I will break it down for you as simply as possible.

On my second Axim (first I exchanged due to the infamous D-Pad issue) after about 3 weeks of use I discovered the sudden battery drain problem. The first time it occurred it was after I had charged it the whole night, was at 100%, shut it down and put in my bag (whether I shut it down and put it in my bag before midnight I cannot remember). The next day at work it would not turn on. I tried everything, soft reset, removing of both batteries and reseating them as well as removing both memory cards. Nothing seemed to get it to turn on. When I got home I plunked it down on the charger and wham-o it came up but with 5% left on the battery. It happened again once during the day at work where the battery discharged approx 40% while turned off in about an hour. Another time when I turned it on in the morning (again I can’t remember if I took it off the cradle before midnight for sure but in this case I believe I did, whether I left Media Player on is a different story all together). I believe it happened a fourth time but I cannot remember the circumstances so I will leave that instance out. So based on this new info I could say that it is possible the "midnight" issue caused 2 of these battery failures but one clearly happened during the day and I doubt very much the midnight explanation can account for that occurrence.

After dealing with Dell (which was another problem all together) they suggested I had a defective battery and sent me a “new” one. Well I say new only because it was never in my Axim before. But trust me it wasn't new (welcome to the wonderful world of refurbs).
Anyway I used the new refurb battery for a week or so and no more problems. They are all gone! Great right? No, the battery they sent me no longer gave me rapid battery drains but it had about half the battery life that a typical Axim user was getting. In other words their refurb corrected one issue but gave me a whole new one.
So I call to get a NEW battery sent to me which has amounted to a whole new saga for me but I expect it to reach me in the next few days.

Here is where my interest in this topic is aroused once more. I think everything is fine, waiting on my new battery, and all problems are solved right? Well apparently wrong, last night I get home, charge up the Axim, take it off the cradle, power down and go to bed. This morning I wake up try and turn my baby on and it won't turn on right away. When it does it has soft reset itself and now stands at 16%.
So now I am worried. Was it really a defective battery or is this a problem with my Axim? And if it is I dread having to call Dell to get a NEW rather than REFURB Axim out of them. As it is I have a call log with them as long as a phone book.

Has anyone else experienced this issue or been able to conclusively tie it to a bad Axim, battery, or this midnight turn on?

Believe it or not I love my Axim and would like very much to resolve or at least get an explanation for this issue as it has occupied my waking hours for weeks now!!! :?
Thanks on advance!

[rein]

I noticed my battery was draining faster than my girlfriends. Both have the Axim 400. I could fully charge hers and mine at the same time and hers would stay above 65% for days turned off where mine would drain much quicker. The only thing I noticed is that I was using the Dell switch bar app and a few other things where she was not. It seems when I was running something in the background mine drained much faster than hers. However, now I shut down all running programs in memory before turning off the Axim and it seems to be on pace with hers. Hehe, I am so evil I even switched batteries at one time to see of she had a better battery. Turns out, she just doesn't use a bunch of apps that run in the background.

Oh yea, and someone mentioned alarms above. I also remember alarms being a culprit in once instance of my battery draining even faster than it had been. I would check to make sure you don't have alarms repeating and keeping the Axim awake for extended periods of time.

[NeoAxim]

Rein, that is definitely one of the things I looked at. I also examined whether a faulty CF or SD card was to be to blame. Removed Journal Bar which in its earlier version had memory leak issues, and tried to determine if shutting down the Axim with the Pocket Candy Matrix screen saver continued to drain the battery with the unit turned off. I could not conclusively tie any of the above issues to the rapid drain the Axim experiences with the unit powered off.

Again for the initial issue (not the poor battery life I experience with the refurb battery) Axim is almost completely discharging after being charged to 100% with the unit turned off. (Or at least I believed it was turned off until the midnight explanation).
But even with the unit turning itself on at midnight and not shutting back down after a minute due to Media Player or any other app, how long is my Axim staying on? Especially since it is not on the cradle and shut to power down after 5 minutes without an external power source? It’s because of these unanswered questions I lean towards a defect with the Axim itself.

[Janak Parekh]

But even with the unit turning itself on at midnight and not shutting back down after a minute due to Media Player or any other app, how long is my Axim staying on? Especially since it is not on the cradle and shut to power down after 5 minutes without an external power source?
It should then power down within 5 minutes. Probably earlier, but the 5-minute-shutoff thing should make sure it goes off. Unless, like I said before, you're running some app that defeats the shutdown timer.

Have you tried watching it at midnight? You might be able to see if that's a cause or not. :)

--janak

[NeoAxim]

Definitely have not watched it at midnight as I was unaware that this occurs untl you brought it to my attention.

As an update I just got word that after almost 3 weeks of what I would term "wrestling" with Dell over getting a NEW battery I just got a call from my girlfriend who said that she believes the box delivered today is from Dell in which case it should contain the battery.

Starting tonight I will be doing some rigorous testing on this new battery and the "midnight effect" to see if it is a possible cause of my troubles. I will be leaving a number of apps on in the background including Media player to see if this has an effect and keeps the unit from turning off.

I appreciate all the suggestions. If anyone else has had a similar problem please let us know as I would love to hear what you have done to resolve it

[QYV]

Also check to make sure your processor is scaling (i.e. shifting from 400MHz to 200MHz when you aren't doing anything). For this to be occurring correctly, you should have the Power settings on "Auto", and also (apparently due to a very wacky bug) make sure you do not turn off your IR discoverable settings - that locks the processor at 400MHz which will definitely drain things quicker.

Sounds like you probably have a different problem altogether, but it's always good to do as much power-saving as possible.

[NeoAxim]

Thats funny, I had read in another forum to turn off the IR discovery settings to conserve power. But as you said I have my PROC set to Auto so I will turn it back on and see if that helps any.

Unfortunately my last update was incorrect, the package I received today was unfortunatly NOT my new battery. :cry:

Ahh, what can you do. But I still do plan to test out a few things on this battery.
Once again I appreciate all the help and advice.

[ender]

I began having this same problem last week. I keep my Axim in its cradle all day and then I bring it home from work and look at it maybe once. I typically have nothing open, I do have some alarms that come on, but not Windows Media Player. Last week i turned my Axim on and it was down to 10%, it just happened again last night and so i switched the battery with my wife's Axim battery to see it its the battery. This is not cool, I do have several today screen plugins, I wonder if this could cause it. I have the auto shutoff set to 1minute and the Powersaver 200mhz on.

[TheBacklash]

Don't know if you saw this or not, may help if you turned the IR off.


DO NOT turn off discoverable IR beams on the Axim!!

This was good advice on other PPCs, but the Axim has an odd bug where the processor stays locked at 400MHz if you do this (well documented in the Dell hardware forums), regardless on whether you have it set to "Auto" or not. I personally did this myself, thinking to save battery power, and wondered why on earth my Axim stayed on 400MHz no matter what I did - with a corresponding very significant drain in battery life.

another batt drain thread (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=9468)

[Sven Johannsen]

I have an idea that might help narrow things down a bit. Power Level by Scarybearsoftware has an On and Standby clock that runs when the PPC is off the charger (it is reset by fully charging). I am sure there are other apps that do the same. You could get a trial of this and see if maybe the device is on more than you think. My Wife swears her's gets turn on in it's case now and again.

[NeoAxim]

Now I don't feel like I am alone in this. I have found a thread in another forum in which a number of users have detailed experiencing this problem.


http://www.aximsite.com/boards/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2711

[mike6024]

I have this problem too. I put in the charger every night all night long (and thankfully I go to bed after midnight). However a couple weeks ago I decided to back up to my SD card and do a hard reset. Oddly enough, this seemed to fix it. So I put the backup back on and the problem came back. What's strange is that NO background programs or anything else are running and keeping it on. I think it's witchcraft.