View Full Version : I need advice on the axim battery
vancouver4
03-01-2003, 09:03 AM
what is the best way to keep the life of the axim battery lasting?
spursdude
03-01-2003, 09:14 AM
In your Settings, keeping the backlight either off (hard to see in most light) or on its Lightest setting will preserve the most battery life.
You can set the backlight to go off after 30 seconds or a minute.
I'm not sure if this is right, since I don't have an Axim, but you can probably throttle down the processor speed to save battery life if you don't need the extra processing power.
Playing games or videos will always drain the battery faster than doing your everyday tasks. When playing media in Windows Media Player, you can map a button to "Toggle Screen" which will turn the screen off while you're playing music.
Beerglass
03-01-2003, 10:56 AM
I have the backlight on any of the first three settings (never needed to have it brighter than that) and get excellent battery life. My axim is always at 200mhz since I use it mainly for ebooks/calendar/tasks/PIM functions although it will happily play MP3s with PocketMusic player at that processor speed. :) It gets used for maybe 2 hrs each day and I can usually go mon-fri before it needs a recharge. ;) I think once you go above the third backlight setting it starts to have a more pronounced effect on battery life, but as I said that's bright enough for most people.
One thing that helped on my ipaq was to turn off the 'recieve incoming beams' in the infrared connections settings. Doesn't seem to make any noticeable difference on the axim but since I'll rarely use that function it may as well be turned 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.
Thankfully, someone figured this out and posted the results, and sure enough, leaving the IR settings box checked makes the problem go away.
mscdex
03-02-2003, 05:08 AM
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.
Thankfully, someone figured this out and posted the results, and sure enough, leaving the IR settings box checked makes the problem go away.
Does this happen with the 300mhz version too?
Does this happen with the 300mhz version too?
I'm not sure. The thread on the Dell users forum only made mention of 400MHz if I recall correctly, and my own device is a 400MHz. But it should be easy to verify. On your Axim, go to the Power settings and tap on the Processor tab. It shows you what speed your processor is currently running at. On mine, it says 400MHz for a few seconds, and then drops to 200MHz since it's not doing anything else. See what happens with your 300MHz - does it drop or stay locked at 300MHz? Now try it with the IR discoverable box unchecked and see if it does the same thing. On mine, when the box was unchecked, it would stay at 400MHz even when doing nothing, which confirmed what other folks had noticed.
I have a quick question, since it has to do with battery conservation I will post it here. Does using a sd card drain the battery more so than not using one? Even if it is powered off? Just curious.
spursdude
03-02-2003, 06:05 AM
I have a quick question, since it has to do with battery conservation I will post it here. Does using a sd card drain the battery more so than not using one? Even if it is powered off? Just curious.
Using an SD card will use more battery, but you probably can't notice it. It won't take more memory while the unit is off.
mscdex
03-02-2003, 11:09 AM
Does this happen with the 300mhz version too?
I'm not sure. The thread on the Dell users forum only made mention of 400MHz if I recall correctly, and my own device is a 400MHz. But it should be easy to verify. On your Axim, go to the Power settings and tap on the Processor tab. It shows you what speed your processor is currently running at. On mine, it says 400MHz for a few seconds, and then drops to 200MHz since it's not doing anything else. See what happens with your 300MHz - does it drop or stay locked at 300MHz? Now try it with the IR discoverable box unchecked and see if it does the same thing. On mine, when the box was unchecked, it would stay at 400MHz even when doing nothing, which confirmed what other folks had noticed.
Well, I was just inquiring in general, as I don't have an Axim, and was just wondering if it was just specific to the 400mhz version. The glitch sounds strange though, perhaps Dell will have some sort of patch available soon (if they know about the problem)?
axim400
03-02-2003, 11:34 PM
well i just got the extended battery and i am wondering what is the life at half backlight and auto processor playing mp3s and games?
TheBacklash
03-03-2003, 06:02 AM
well i just got the extended battery and i am wondering what is the life at half backlight and auto processor playing mp3s and games?
If I remember correctly, a review stated that the Axim could play Mp3's for over 6 hours before the standard battery dies... so the extended battery should hold out a *little* longer...
Personaly I have no need for the extended battery right now, I never see below 60% on the main battery, even while surfing the net with the Wi-Fi card. Which is the biggest power drain.
All SD and CF memory cards will drain power, but it's not going to be that much of a drain. a CF Microdrive or CF Wi-Fi card however will drain life faster.
the only real way to figure it out is to take all mem cards out, and run the Axim with nothing until it drains. then put each one in and do the same.
Boring and very time consuming... but if you really want to know how much power is being drained... :roll:
mscdex
03-03-2003, 06:33 AM
Personaly I have no need for the extended battery right now, I never see below 60% on the main battery, even while surfing the net with the Wi-Fi card. Which is the biggest power drain.
All SD and CF memory cards will drain power, but it's not going to be that much of a drain. a CF Microdrive or CF Wi-Fi card however will drain life faster.
Ok, so what WiFi card are you using? SD or CF?
WindWalker
03-03-2003, 06:51 AM
Personaly I have no need for the extended battery right now, I never see below 60% on the main battery, even while surfing the net with the Wi-Fi card. Which is the biggest power drain.
All SD and CF memory cards will drain power, but it's not going to be that much of a drain. a CF Microdrive or CF Wi-Fi card however will drain life faster.
Ok, so what WiFi card are you using? SD or CF?
The Axim can only use CF WiFi, as the SD slot is not SDIO.....
mscdex
03-03-2003, 07:24 AM
Anyone know how long the Axim will go without needing to be recharged, with light usage and lowest backlight setting?
Also, for anyone who has ordered and received their Axim very recently, does the Dpad still have problems when pressing up or to the right, or whatever? I remember reading about these problems, and was wondering if they had been remedied yet. As I love using my PocketPC for gaming. :)
PetiteFlower
03-03-2003, 08:41 AM
I think the Dpad problem has been fixed but if you do get a bad one you can always have them send you a replacement.
As far as your other question, people have posted that they went more then a week without having to recharge with "light usage". Personally, I had mine out of the house all weekend, used it for some music at work on Friday, some gaming with Pocket Nester Friday night and Saturday, as well as some note taking and other misc use(showing off, heh), and when I went to charge it today it was at 58% battery. You'll hear no complaints about battery life from me :)
MPSmith
03-03-2003, 02:35 PM
...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...
Happily, my Axim does not have this "bug". :)
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