Click to See Complete Forum and Search --> : 3870 soft resets when battery below 60% under heavy task


calvinte
11-18-2002, 01:59 AM
Thanks for reading this for I'm already helpless about my 40 days old iPAQ.

I didn't use my bluetooth to go online for the first 37 days, but when I do, I start noticing something about the battery (Voltage or current problem with it) When it's on battery and with backlight setting next to MAX, it's no problem with it until I play MP3 with volume setting on the 2nd last mark. When I do so, the light would flicker lightly, not really noticible unless you take a real look at it in the dark.

The real problem came when I use it for so long that the battery meter drops below 60%, the screen would look like as if it's been hard reset. Pressing the power button won't turn it back on and soft resetting it will work SOMETIMES, it usually won't work when it's below 55% and either I have to wait for 5 or 10 min for it to turn itself back on or I have to plug in AC to have it turned on. Without losing any data of course.

if I turn it back on before the battery goes below 55% with backlight next to MAX, the unit will still boot, but if I keep the light at that level and turn on anything that's "CPU intensive" such as activating the BT or play MP3, the same thing will start again. I believe that the battery inside it isn't supplying enought current to keep it going even there's still 55% left. No low battery warning appears before all this. A Call to Compaq technical support didn't help for they didn't know why it's acting like this.

Man, I only had this baby for 40 days and I had to take it back to Futureshop (Canadian store like bestbuy), and they say they will take up to 30 days to get it fixed.

I just wonder are there any people out there have the same problem like me. Any help would be appreciated.

Actually, if you see this, it's a big help already for having the patient to finish it all.

Thanks y'all out there for even reading it.

CAL :)

Nitestrike
11-18-2002, 11:26 AM
As I don't know exactly what model of iPAQ you have, I'm guessing you have a 387x or 397x because of the mention of Bluetooth. There is a setting in the battery settings that when it reaches a certain percentage that it will not turn on until you charge it to above that mark. This is put in place to prevent loss of data. Instead of putting a backup battery in the iPAQs they use the main battery as back-up and this little feature sounds like what has happened. I had used my 3975 iPAQ for a few days without recharging and I went to try and turn it on it had a warning balloon about the battery being below a certain percentage. I said OK to the balloon, and the next time I tried to turn it on it would not.. When I called Compaq/HP about, it they mentioned this and said I needed only get more power to it. I have linked below to a battery white paper below that explains about the battery on the iPAQs and some tips on using them.

iPAQ Battery Whitepaper (http://wwss1pro.compaq.com/support/reference_library/viewdocument.asp?countrycode=&prodid=5420|iPAQ+H3900+Series+Pocket+PC&source=308402-001.xml&dt=21&docid=11364)

calvinte
11-18-2002, 12:06 PM
Thanks for the info NiteStrike, it helps a bit.

If the iPAQ does that at 30-40% remaining power, that's tolarable, but I think it's a bit too early for a new 3870 with 58% battery remaining to do this.

Well... I've sent it in for repair now, but I don't think it can be fixed because even Compaq engineers never seen such a thing, they better give me a new unit which I'll upgrade to 3970 when I go pick it up. Heheee...

Thanks again.

Nitestrike
11-18-2002, 02:00 PM
Not a problem. The 3800 have been known to ahve some "issues", battery one in particular.