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graffitici
08-20-2006, 02:51 AM
Hi,

I bought an iPAQ h5555 through eBay 6-7 months ago. It was said to be refurbished, and therefore was reasonably priced (about $180). Since the seller seemed trustworthy, I decided to buy it, hoping that I wouldn't be ripped off. However I am sometimes running into some problems that make me think I might indeed be ripped off, and I was wondering if anyone could tell me if these symptoms are normal, or whether they are indicative of a faulty product.

The main problem is that of the device resetings itself when it runs out of battery. Just recently, a friend of mine was playing Sudoku on my PDA, and he used up all of the battery. I couldn't charge it up at that instant as I was on-the-go, and I had to wait for about 5-6 hours before I could connect it to the AC supply. When I turned it one, I suddenly noticed that everything was gone, and I had to redo the screen calibration.

As I understand it, these come with a so-called "Backup battery," which is supposed to protect the data when the main battery is empty. Do you think the reason for this reset suggests a problem with the internal battery? Or does one need to charge up all the iPAQs the instant they run out?

This post ended up being much longer than I intended it to be, so if you were reading along, I first have to thank you for that. I would also apprecitate any comments on this issue...

Thanks,
Berk Birand

Cybrid
08-20-2006, 07:05 AM
Hi,

As I understand it, these come with a so-called "Backup battery," which is supposed to protect the data when the main battery is empty. Do you think the reason for this reset suggests a problem with the internal battery? Or does one need to charge up all the iPAQs the instant they run out?

Thanks,
Berk Birand Yes, there is a backup battery...or rather a backup capacitor...designed to keep the memory for 30 Min if switching batteries...
What failed is the 72 hour rule...Your main battery was supposed to have enough juice after the low battery warning to have 72 hours of off/standby juice to let you get to where you could charge it.
Your main battery is...not long for this world


But wait, there's more. Pre-Persistent Storage, Windows Mobile had what we called "the 72 hour rule." If you've ever seen a PocketPC run low on batteries, at some point it pops up a dialog that says something like, "You're running out of power, you should stop now." If you keep using it, it'll come back a little later with a more dire warning saying something to the effect of, "You'd better save your data now, because you're on the verge of losing it." Then, a bit after that it comes on and says, "That's it, I'm shutting you down." At that point, you can't use the device again until you plug it in. How much battery charge do you think you have then? 5% maybe?

Try half.

Yes, when we shut you down because your batteries were "critically low," they were still 1/4 to 1/2 full. Why? Because, if the batteries ever fully died, it would be catastrophic. You'd lose your data, and that's, in our opinion, one of the worst things that can happen. So we made a requirement and held our OEMs to it. The requirement was that, at the point where we decided the batteries were "critically low," they had to still have enough power to keep the RAM charged for 72 hours. The idea there was that you could discover that you were out of power on Friday on the way home and you'd still have your data on Monday when you got back to your charger.

A typical battery holds 1000mAh of charge. 128M of RAM takes about 500mAh to stay resident for 72 hours. 64M takes about 250. This is why you never saw a 256M WM 2003 device. It would have run for a minute then decided its batteries were critically low.

This is why switching to Persistent Storage can radically improve your battery life. With PS, we removed the 72 hour requirement. We'll let you run your batteries completely dry, because we know your data will still be safe. Right off the bat, that buys you a significant chuck of time. It also means that no one ever has to make a 128M RAM device again. They can fall back to 64M devices, which burn less power, and store the user data in tons and tons of flash. You'll definitely see 128M flash devices. And there's no barrier to keeping you from seeing 256M, 1G, etc devices. That couldn't have been done with RAM.
http://blogs.msdn.com/windowsmobile/archive/2005/07/14/438991.aspx

Nurhisham Hussein
08-20-2006, 07:39 AM
Bear in mind that if your battery runs out - in pre-Windows Mobile 5 OS - you will lose all your programs and data. This is normal and a reflection of the memory model used.

graffitici
08-20-2006, 03:00 PM
First of all, thank you Cybrid and and hishamh for your replies. I particularly liked the link you sent, as it was very clarifying. It would seem from the failure of the "72 hour rule," that my battery is damaged. I had purchased one just in case, so I'm going to put that in and give it a shot. But before restoring all my files, I want to run some tests.

I have a follow up question regarding the Persistent Storage argument. I currently do not have an extra SD memory card, although I've been wanting to get one for a while now. Is it possible to save everything (programs, data, settings) on that card, and entirely bypass the RAM? This wouldn't obviously change the battery life, since the RAM would still be in use and consuming battery, but at least when the batteries die, the data would still be there after the next charge.

Is it possible to actually save *everything* on the external memory card, and would this have the effects I have described?

Thanks again,
Berk Birand

Nurhisham Hussein
08-20-2006, 04:46 PM
What you want can't be done with the 5555 - the OS is hard coded to use RAM for system files, databases and the registry. What you can do though is to get a good backup program (Sprite Backup, Sunnysoft Backup, and SPB Backup) which will allow you to do a complete restore in under 5 minutes - an SD card would be a good investment in this sense.

Most programs will run quite happily off an external card, even if the OS doesn't recognise it as being installed. I use Sprite on an SD card (with the backups stored on the SD card as well) and I've done a hard reset/restore with that combo in the middle of a traffic jam once.

graffitici
08-21-2006, 12:45 AM
Alright, everything seems to make more sense now. I just have ordered a 2GB SD memory card (which I believe would be sufficient for a while).
From what I understand, I *can* indeed install application on the SD card, right? ActiveSync always asks whether I want to install an application in the default location, or pick a different one. Should I just point that to the memory card when installing applications? Would they now show up on the start menu in that case?

Also do you recommend Sprite Backup as a good backup application?

Cheers,
Berk

Nurhisham Hussein
08-21-2006, 01:18 AM
Alright, everything seems to make more sense now. I just have ordered a 2GB SD memory card (which I believe would be sufficient for a while).

Should be :lol: I'm the wrong person to ask that though.


From what I understand, I *can* indeed install application on the SD card, right? ActiveSync always asks whether I want to install an application in the default location, or pick a different one. Should I just point that to the memory card when installing applications? Would they now show up on the start menu in that case?

Yes, yes and yes. The general rule is, if a program starts up on a soft reset, or is a today plugin - it should go in internal storage or RAM. Otherwise, anywhere is fine.


Also do you recommend Sprite Backup as a good backup application?

It is for anything older than WM5. If you're thinking of upgrading in the future, you might want to have a look at SPB Backup instead.

duzzy1981
08-21-2006, 03:06 AM
i think you need to buy a memory...and save your stuff on it...i think its the best way you can save you stuff away from the battery proplem...so when u run out of battry..u still have all your data....cause i had the same proplem on my h1900 and i found its somhow a good idea