Battery questions?

[PapaSmurfDan]

For those of you who watch your battery meter closely, do you notice areas where the meter jumps down quick and then slows down a lot? If so is this normal on any PPC? I have been having a issue where my Axim battery meter drops from 100-90% slowly (~1 hour), 90-70% quick (~30 minutes) then from 70%-40% takes a while (~4 hours) and then 40-0% is nearly instant. While the inital fast drop does not worry me, the near instant 40%-0% drop does worry me.

I have recently done a deep discharge cycle of the battery (drain completly and recharge twice) and watching it closely. It seems much better now however I have yet to drain the battery down to 40% in the past few days. I thought LiIon batteries did not need this type of conditioning. The only other thing I can put my finger on is the meter is out of spec.

If the issue presists, Dell will be getting a call. This is the type of thing I would expect after a year of heavy use, at which point I would of bought a new battery at 50 bucks. However, for a device not even used for two months, I find this rather fishy.

-Dan

[PetiteFlower]

I would suspect something wrong with the battery meter software. Have you tried installing a different software to monitor the battery to see if it differs from what Dell's built in meter says? Pocket Plus is one that comes to mind and has a free trial :)

[blazingwolf]

The battery software for the Dell is suspected to be a problem. If you check the Axim threads you should find 1 in there about it. Many people have noticed this.

[seanturner]

I know that you can "recalibrate" the battery sensor (at least you can on the iPaq's) by letting it drain completely and then charging it.

[vincentsiaw]

I know that you can "recalibrate" the battery sensor (at least you can on the iPaq's) by letting it drain completely and then charging it.

by doing this means you've got to do a hard reset then?

[seanturner]

I know that you can "recalibrate" the battery sensor (at least you can on the iPaq's) by letting it drain completely and then charging it.

by doing this means you've got to do a hard reset then?

Yes. And you will have to leave it in this state for some time (past the time it takes it to loose data).

[Janak Parekh]

But isn't there a risk involved? In general, you don't want to discharge Li-Ion/Li-Poly batteries all the way...

--janak

[seanturner]

But isn't there a risk involved? In general, you don't want to discharge Li-Ion/Li-Poly batteries all the way...

--janak

There might be. HP reccomended I do that on my iPaq 3600 when I had battery problems, but, instead of taking the week or so needed to do that I just got a TAP exchange from CompUSA.

I know that on the 3800 series, I've seen one become completely discharged and then have a message come up saying to let it charge fully so that it can correctly recalibrate the battery life meter.

[PapaSmurfDan]

Well, at least on the Axim, I could remove the battery and keep it plugged in while it discharges completly. However, that renders my PDA rather useless for the week. I woke up today my Axim being fully dischraged (well at least what the battery meter says) because some program decided to wake up and keep my axim alive during the night :( Maybe Hard Resetting isn't such a bad idea.

I am keeping a very close eye on my Axim right now, and I have no issue calling up Dell to get it fixed.

-Dan