Does anyone know how to check if battery is dead on Palm V?

[rocksy77]

Hey!

I just inherited a palm v from my brother, who hadn't been using it for the last year or so. At first, when I powered it up in the cradle, it seemed to be working fine, but only for five minutes. After that, it went blank, and I haven't managed to turn it on again. I have already recharged it for an entire day, but nothing happens. I've tried hard and soft reset, but not a single reaction from the palm.

So, what I'm thinking is that maybe the battery is dead or unable to recharge. However, I think it would be stupid to order a new battery only to find it doesn't work then either.. So, so far I've opened the unit and measured the battery with a voltmeter: it showed 5 volts across th epoles. Anyone know if this is normal, or if this could be an indicator of something at all?

Anyway, if the battery is dead, wouldn't the Palm work in the cradle?

Alternatively, I'm thinking that I might not be able to do a hard reset because the power button is faulty or something like that. Is there a way to get around this?

Any suggestions?:(
Help would be much appreciated!!

Regards,

Mathias

[Jim Cooke]

Put it back in the cradle. While it's receiving power, do a soft reset. Leave it charge for six hours.

It's likely that the charging circuit is unable to determine the battery state. The in-cradle reset also resets the charging circuit, which should allow the battery to get the correct charge and the Palm to recognize the correct battery state.

[srg42]

Honestly, the Palm V is not worth reviving by putting money into them. You can buy Palm Vx PDA's all day on Ebay super cheap that work better than the Palm V by a long shot. I just recently bought a very nice Palm Vx with extra goodies for $40. It's still a great PDA but not worth fixing.

[DrMud]

I tend to agree with the "not worth fixing" line of thought. I almost hate to admit it, even on this site, but I have owned more than twenty Palm Vxs. I only have one now. But I have four m515s, a TE and T3. The real issue is that the battery on any rechargable palm can go bad and the Lithion Ion batteries in the Palm V and Vx commonly are dead for real after being uncharged for more than 9 to 12 months. Shorter periods of inactivity can be recovered from but full range of the battery will in most cases never be regained.
Reseting the circuits in the V as described by Jim Cooke will sometimes work if the problem is "confusion." The V and Vx are the last of the Palms to benefit from such a reset.
Doc