m505 battery not powering

[mebacp]

I have a problem with my m505. I took it on vaction and forgot to bring my charger. the battery went dead while on vaction, and now the unit will not power on. I have called palm, and they have indicated that it will cost me $150.00 inorder to fix it. I told them that I didn't think that it was fair, because the battery is the defect and that it wasn't something that I did.

I am at the point of cutting my loses and going with something more reliable. I would like to try and replace the battery my self, to see if that will fix the problem. Does anyone have any information on the battery type??? and how to open the m505 what type of torx set is needed, and so on...

Or does anyone know who I would need to pursue this with, inorder to get a free replacement???

[JohnKes]

Is it still under warranty? Does it charge up, even a little? Does the green light come on in the cradle?

[mebacp]

The unit is not under warranty. But regardless, it's not like I broke the screen or dropped the device. The unit itself has a defect.

The unit will charge on the cradle but the moment when it is off the cradle it will power off. I also need to reset it for the unit to turn on. If on the cradle it will stay powered on, but then after an hour or two it will post an error that the unit needs to be charged. The charging ICON show that the battery is charging, but it only gets enough juice for less then one bar.

The green light does come on while in the cradle.

Palm, has asked me to do a soft-reset and hard-reset. Both types of resets, does not change the battery state.

through problem determination I believe that the problem is with the battery. the one that Palm claims to have a "long life". I really don't think that a year is justifible as "long life". Oh well, I'll know better next time not to buy a Palm. I will also discourage anyone from buying a Palm, due to it design defect with the battery. My lost is not only with the m505, but also the the extra SD cards and applications that I paid for. I believe that my total investment is close to $800. It just frustrates my to know that, that money is all down the drain.

Yeah, so I could use the device while it is in the cradle. But, what is the point?????

[JohnKes]

The charging circuit may be confused. Do an "in-cradle" reset:
http://support.handspring.com/esupport/forms/hsResolutionView.jsp?ResolutionId=7183&ResType=RESEARCH

[mebacp]

Have already tried that........ thanks anyway.

[DrMud]

The following comes from a very reliable source.
Doc

Try this;

#1 Place on powered cradle.
#2 Hold and keep holding the power button
#3 Repeatedly use a paper clip to reset the unit, do about 10 -12 times at a frequency of 1 -3 times per second.

Sometimes after it has been hibernating it takes a little to wake it up

Chris Short
Palm Repairs

[JohnKes]

That's a nice kick in the pants!

[DrMud]

If Chris Short's method for reviving your Palm's battery does not work it is not a difficult task to install a new battery. The folks at gethightech.com will sell you a battery for around $50 USD and have the instructions on their site.

Lithium Polymer batteries do not like to be drained flat and can be damaged when this happens.

As far as finding a more reliable handheld, well I don't think SONY has the answer nor do most of the Pocket PC units, they all use Lithium Ion or Lithium Polymer Batteries. You would have had a similar bad situation with any of them. And for the folks that think Palm Tech is hard to deal with they need to spend a few minutes with SONY customer support to get the real picture.
DrMud

[Skid Solo]

Has anybody any experience of battery replacement on the Tungsten unit, I have read how to complete this on the M515, but as I am currently weighing up which unit to purchase, wanted to ensure that the Tungsten was as easy to replace.

May soiund paranoid but had a bad experience with a Psion Revo which I had to send back to Psion once a year for a new battery to be replaced and at £100 a go I dont want to go through this again

[palmTree]

The revo allows easy replacing of batteried if you have the guts and soldering iron, in fact it will cost you less then a tenner if you have simple soldering equipment.

Cheers

palmTree

[viol8r]

M505;
The charge light has changed orange instead of green or red, and the palm pilot will not turn on.

[DrMud]

Sounds like it is time to send it to Palm if under warranty or to STNECorp.com or gethightech.com. Both are reliable. Email them your symptoms and see if they can give an extimate of the cost. New 505 units are selling in the $160 range.
Doc