Alarm Problems? Answer the Survey

[Jason Dunn]

After reading <a href="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=304528">this post in the forums</a>, I was reminded that reminders still don't trigger properly for everyone. I didn't' seem to have any problems with my Axim X30, but one thing I've never done is a survey to correlate alarm problems with device manufacturers. While I'd love to have it break down by device as well that would be too many options. So for now, I'll just focus on the OEM.

[CrashX]

How about an option for "I haven't had a problem with alarms or reminders"?

[TopDog]

I've always had problems with this in the past, on all my iPaqs (back in the Compaq days), Casio and FS.

But on my Qtek 2020 I haven't experienced any problems yet :mrgreen:

[surur]

What happened to always including the silly option in polls?

There should be "I never noticed a problem". It would also put the whole thing in perspective.

I guess with 128 people having votes, its too late to scratch this and start over?

Surur

[Vincent M Ferrari]

I think this poll might be somewhat skewed by the fact that a very large number on the folks here have Ipaq's...

Just thinkin' out loud.

[ctmagnus]

Just like the poll sez: I had problems with alarms. No problems for a few days now. :D

Edit: this is after rebuiding the unit a week ago, so that's only four days I went with goofy/malfunctioning alarms.

[OSUKid7]

I think this poll might be somewhat skewed by the fact that a very large number on the folks here have Ipaq's...

Just thinkin' out loud.Bingo. That's exactly what I was gonna say. Market share is really gonna skew this. The only way HP/Compaq would score well (low) on this poll is if most of its devices do not have this problem.


Anyway, both my 3870 and 4705 do have this problem...even with Spb Time. I need to play around with the settings some more, but just after installing it and setting an alarm, it doesn't always ring for me.

[denivan]

My PocketPC 2002 iPaq 3660 wasn't usable at all as an alarm, but my Dell X30 has never failed me yet...I guess broken alarms is a Compaq/HP issue, judging by the comments

[applejosh]

Yeah, I would have to say this isn't going to be a scientific poll. With the majority of PPC's being iPAQ's (or some Compaq/HP derivative), the results are going to paint HP in a very bad light. (I'm not saying HP is not responsible at all, but rather that this is going to be a bad looking poll.) A more scientific poll (as least as scientific as you can get on these boards) would be a two part poll - I have such-and-such device and I have/have not had problems with alarms. At least that way we can get a ratio and then compare those.

Just my 0.026 (adjusted for falling dollar)

[Jason Dunn]

How about an option for "I haven't had a problem with alarms or reminders"?

That would make the results much harder to interpret - just don't answer the survey (I didn't).

EDIT: Darn, I forgot that phpBB won't show you the results until you vote...you're right, I should have added an option for "not applicable to me".

[Jason Dunn]

A more scientific poll (as least as scientific as you can get on these boards) would be a two part poll - I have such-and-such device and I have/have not had problems with alarms. At least that way we can get a ratio and then compare those.

That would require eight different polls though - one for each of the survey options. :?

I'm not sure why everyone is making a bit deal about this - if Dell gets 30% of the votes for alarm problems, since we know that Dell has perhaps 10% of the Pocket PC marketshare, we'd know that Dell devices have disproportionately high problems with alarms. Ditto for HP, Toshiba, etc. It's certainly not scientific, but it's as good as I can do with the very limited tools phpBB provides.

[applejosh]

Or a poll with 16 options (not sure what the phpBB limit is, though).

eg.

HP yes problems
HP no problems
Dell yes problems
Dell no problems
...

edit: And just use the true numbers instead of the percentage. (I know this will require some adding on the user's part, but hopefully us "power users" will be able to handle that. :) )

[targetdrone]

I don't have problems with my HP or either of my Dell PPC's, since I use Stoptime as my alarm program.

[CrashX]

EDIT: Darn, I forgot that phpBB won't show you the results until you vote...you're right, I should have added an option for "not applicable to me".
Exactly my point! :wink:

[dochall]

This is the weirdest problem.

I had a problem with my 5550 which I fixed with Wakeup Tweak, after that I had reliable alarms. A few months later I did a hard reset and decided I was going to take the opporunity to trace the problem.

For a few weeks I carefully loaded software and followed a method of starting with my internally loaded software and then extending to loading apps on the sd card. I couldn't recreate the problem and finally just went for it loading anything and everything. I ran like this for around nine months and never had a failed alarm with the same software and hardware combo as I previously had.

Now I'm using a 4700 and the problem has reappeared. I'm not using the same sd card (in fact I'm now using a 4gb CF card).

Again it's been fixed by Wakeup tweak.

No wonder it's hard for Compaq to trace.

[Lex]

Wouldn't the poll need to address OS since OS may also relate to alarm misses?

[Lex]

Wouldn't the poll need to address OS version since OS may also relate to alarm misses?

[rmasinag]

I had alarm problems when I first got my hp 2210. It somehow disappeared when I did the ROM update.

[CEGiven]

I fixed the problem with this registry tweak:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power\Timeouts\BattResumingSuspendTimeout

I upped the value to give the iPAQ time to complete alarm maintenance (happens each midnight in a suspended low-power mode). The value needs to be less than your power-off timeout. Mine's set to 3 minutes, so a 175 second timeout is plenty and paranoid. I think others have gone as low as 60 and it fixes the problem. From what I understand, if the value is too small, the PDA powers off after the timeout yet before the maintenace completes. If that happens you miss the first appointment of the day if you don't power on the PDA before that first appointment.

[ctmagnus]

fwiw, that value is set to 0xF (15 decimal) on my unit and I haven't had alarm issues for a while, since I uninstalled, redownloaded and reinstalled the latest Spb Pocket Plus. But then, I've never had more than ten alarms set at once.

My ACResumingSuspendTimeout in the same location is also set to 0xF/15.

[uzetaab]

I haven't tried the reg edit, but none of my repeating alrarms work. wether it's the 1st one or not. I think my repeating alarms don't even work if the unit is turned on at the time. I've given up. This is my 1st PPC, so I'm not missing anything I had before anyway.

I have tried alarm programs with no luck.

[Oregon Trail]

I never had this problem with my Casio E-125. My Toshiba has been intermittent with this flaw. I thought it was a settings mistake on my part. Yesterday I was late for work, a serious irritant for me. I decided to try the Snowtime clock. To my disappointment it only has one repeating alarm. I need several. I do like other parts of the clock. But, I digress. I am curious about the registry fix. However; 1. I am nervous about any registry fixes and the unintended consequences. 2. I am not sure where to start to change the registry. :?:

[ctitanic]

I am curious about the registry fix. However; 1. I am nervous about any registry fixes and the unintended consequences. 2. I am not sure where to start to change the registry. :?:

Tweaks2k2 (http://www.tweaks2k2.com/downloads.htm) could be a good solution for you. It includes two hacks relative with the topic of this thread and a total of more than 80 other registry hacks ;) 8)

[omikron.sk]

Well, but the results of this poll don't show the most problematic device (brand). The HP has got the most votes, because the most users own an iPaq . So what was this poll about?

However I don't think that brands should be responsible for alarm problems. MS is.

[Oregon Trail]

Thanks, I'll check it.

[ctitanic]

Well, but the results of this poll don't show the most problematic device (brand). The HP has got the most votes, because the most users own an iPaq . So what was this poll about?

However I don't think that brands should be responsible for alarm problems. MS is.

Exactly, there are two MS settings that are causing problems currently in many devices and in different brands, one is this case, the alarm issue and the other case is the time that takes an external memory card to be initialized during the boot. The second issue is not such a big deal because it produce an error only when a program or process is started during the boot and the files for are located in the external memory. I believe that both are software and hardware relative, and it seems to me that what is happening is that OEMs are using the default settings "as is" from Microsoft without tweaking them to adapt them to their hardware.

[ctitanic]

HP probably is 60% of all PPCs owned. So IMMO this poll is good to show that the issue is present in all brand but not to say that HP are more likely to have this issue.