jimski
04-06-2003, 06:52 AM
After waiting almost four months :? to purchase a spare battery for my 5450, it finally arrived this week (only standard battery shipped-expanded battery due at end of month). I don't know if my multiple e-mails and phone calls to HP support, sales and corporate offices helped this effort, :devilboy: but would like to think so.
I left the battery in it's charger (works with the expansion pack charger)for a few days to be certain that it was fully charged before trying it in my device. Well, almost as expected, :roll: when I switched out the batteries (only took about 15 seconds) the 5450 would not turn on. Dead as a doornail. Expecting the worse, I performed a soft reset which turned on the device for a flicker and then turned off again.
I put the original battery back in my device only to discover that I had somehow performed a hard reset. I stated earlier that this was not a surprise as I have removed my battery a few of times over the past few months, never for more than 60 seconds, and twice the device performed a hard reset. :evil: I have gotten used to doing backups very often.
Next, I plugged my device into an external charger (basically putting it on life support) and then changed out the batteries again. When I checked the battery charge, I discovered my problem. My new battery was at 0% and after about 1 hour plugged in to the charger it was still at 0%.
I put the original battery back in my 5450 and loaded the Battery Manager update released and the withdrawn by HP a few weeks ago. While this update seemed to describe a different problem, I have always suspected :wink: that spare batteries were held from distribution because HP was aware of the problem that might be experienced and did not want users to experience hard reset problems when changing out batteries.
Again, I connected my PPC to an external charger and switched out the battery, replacing my original battery with the new battery. Initially the device again reported a 0% charge, but after 2-3 minutes the charge indicator changed to 100%. :D
I was glad to discover today that HP has released an update (SP24131) for the original Battery Manager update which would not recognize memory cards loaded into Expansion Pack Plus sleeves.
The morale of the story. Do not try changing out the battery on your 54XX device until you have loaded the most recent Battery Manager update from HP. Unless of course, you like doing hard resets. :mrgreen:
I left the battery in it's charger (works with the expansion pack charger)for a few days to be certain that it was fully charged before trying it in my device. Well, almost as expected, :roll: when I switched out the batteries (only took about 15 seconds) the 5450 would not turn on. Dead as a doornail. Expecting the worse, I performed a soft reset which turned on the device for a flicker and then turned off again.
I put the original battery back in my device only to discover that I had somehow performed a hard reset. I stated earlier that this was not a surprise as I have removed my battery a few of times over the past few months, never for more than 60 seconds, and twice the device performed a hard reset. :evil: I have gotten used to doing backups very often.
Next, I plugged my device into an external charger (basically putting it on life support) and then changed out the batteries again. When I checked the battery charge, I discovered my problem. My new battery was at 0% and after about 1 hour plugged in to the charger it was still at 0%.
I put the original battery back in my 5450 and loaded the Battery Manager update released and the withdrawn by HP a few weeks ago. While this update seemed to describe a different problem, I have always suspected :wink: that spare batteries were held from distribution because HP was aware of the problem that might be experienced and did not want users to experience hard reset problems when changing out batteries.
Again, I connected my PPC to an external charger and switched out the battery, replacing my original battery with the new battery. Initially the device again reported a 0% charge, but after 2-3 minutes the charge indicator changed to 100%. :D
I was glad to discover today that HP has released an update (SP24131) for the original Battery Manager update which would not recognize memory cards loaded into Expansion Pack Plus sleeves.
The morale of the story. Do not try changing out the battery on your 54XX device until you have loaded the most recent Battery Manager update from HP. Unless of course, you like doing hard resets. :mrgreen: