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-- Sudden battery drain (http://discussion.visorcentral.com/vcforum/showthread.php?threadid=15594)

I have noticed that my VDx sometimes consumes a set of batteries overnight. This has happened twice so far. The night before I have over 60% left and then in the morning I am almost at 0%.

There was one instance where when I opened my case the Visor was already on. I think that this is the problem. I am using the Rhodiana belt clip case. Could the corner of the case be pushing on the button and turning it on?

I am thinking of putting a battery monitoring program on it just to see if I can see any type of pattern to the sudden battery drain. Any one else had any similar problems?

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I have the same problem lately. I wake up to find my Visor on. I don't use a case. Why don't you try leaving yours out of the case overnight and see if it still does it. That would determine if it was the case turning it on or not.

Are you using a Stowaway keyboard? I've heard that some of the older drivers spontaneously turn on the Visor, though I am using the latest one and have been for months and my problem is suddenly showing up in the last 4 days. I'm also using AfterBurner. I wonder if that has anything to do with it.

Anyway, I hope others will post to this thread to help us out as I am perplexed.

Brad

I'm having intermittent problems with power-off after using the Stowaway, debated in another thread, and I'm on a current version of the software. So, that could be part of the problem, if you're using the stowaway.
If so, a soft reset will fix it, until the next time.
HotSyncing shortly after using the stowaway seems to prevent it as well.

Definitely get a battery monitor. I'm currently using RunTime, which shows a nice graph of your battery power levels, and ATool, which is a little obtuse but still useful.

I recently switched to NiMH batteries and have noticed that they sometimes lose power very quickly. What type of batteries are you using?
The brand may be a factor as well. High-power devices like handheld computers can use up "standard" (as opposed to "maximum" or "heavy-duty") alkalines swiftly. (I say this based on my experience with batteries and on the graph in RunTime on my VDX.)

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Another posibility

Here's another posibilty:

My original Deluxe developed a faulty digitizer. Some of the symptoms were false taps and false tap-holds. When the fault caused a tap-hold on a valid button or field, the Visor thought I was holding the sylus down on the screen continously. This made the Visor impossible to turn off until the false tap-hold cleared itself. This could sometimes take many minutes. Also, since I had "Float advance at midnight" turned on in DateBook+, the Visor would come on around midnight and if the digitizer was acting up, it would stay on for many tens of minutes if the false taps kept on repeating offen enough to keep the Visor awake, or if a false tap-hold lasted really long. One day I woke up to find my Visor on and displaying a "Fatal Error" box. The batteries were nearly dead!

Could this be happening to your Visor?

Same thing happened here. I disabled Afterburner and although I'm still testing it (this was over the weekend), the batteries do seem to be lasting longer.

Guys,
I have the same problem as yours. I've tried everything from soft resets to system resets to hard resets and I still find my Visor eating up Batteries. New AAA Energizer Alkalines in fact last less than a day, without even using Afterburner III. I e-mailed Handspring's Technical Support Team and here is a copy of their reply:

Dear Arnel O Tan,

Thank you for contacting Handspring.

With normal use, batteries should last about one to two months. Heavy usage (more than one hour per day with some intensive use of the backlight, infrared transmission or Springboard modem modules which draw power from the Visor) may drain batteries in about two weeks. If the batteries are draining very quickly with relatively little Visor usage, consider the following:

1. Does your Visor carrying case fit so tightly it might be depressing the power button? Your Visor may be on without you even knowing it.
2. Do you have a tightly clinging screen protector on the Visor's LCD screen? Steady pressure on the screen sometimes increases battery drain.
3. Use fresh, quality brand AAA alkaline batteries only. The Visor is optimized to work best with this type of battery. Always check the "best before" date when buying batteries.
4. Turn "Beam Receive" off except when you specifically need beaming. Do this by getting to the main Visor launch screen, tap on the Prefs icon, select the "General" category and set "Beam Receive" off. Often, this step alone saves a great deal of battery life according to some users.
5. Also in the General Preferences section, select the lowest time setting from the "Auto-off after" drop down menu.
6. Within that same General Preferences screen, set alarm, game and system sounds to low or off.
7. Make sure the polarities of the batteries in the battery compartment are positioned correctly. The negative terminal of each battery must be firmly seated against the springs in the compartment.
8. If the batteries are running hot, let them cool down. The battery level meter should be higher the next time you turn your Visor on.
9. If you notice the battery drain only when a Springboard Module is attached to the Visor, contact the maker of the module for advice.
10. There are rare third party software applications, which may continue to drain the batteries even when the Visor appears to be off. There is no definitive list of such battery draining programs but they are more likely to be utilities that use the Visor's IR (infrared) port, its USB chip, some Springboard Modules and system hacks which involve timed alarms or automated functions. Delete these third party applications and see if that restores normal battery life. Processor accelerator programs increase battery usage dramatically. These applications run the Visor processor at a higher than designed rate in order to run very processor hungry games such as Nintendo Gameboy? emulators. These programs are potentially harmful to your Visor as they make the device run at too high a temperature. Your batteries are being wasted creating heat.
11. Perform a HotSync operation. Then hard reset your Visor.
12. Do not keep your Visor in a very cold environment such as a car glove compartment in freezing temperatures. Batteries perform poorly at very low temperatures.
13. Springboard modules draw a very small amount of power from the Visor while inserted. This enables the Visor to be `aware? of the module instantly on Visor power-up. For optimal battery usage, remove modules from the Visor when you are finished using them.
14. If none of the above helps and you feel the Visor may be at fault, either go to the retail outlet you purchased the Visor from or call the Technical Support line at 1-716-871-6448. We are open from 8am to 10pm EST, Monday to Friday and 10am to 7pm on Saturday and Sunday.


Thank you,
Handspring Technical Support


I hope that it isn't Hardware related.

I recently started experiencing sudden battery drain on Vdx. I have not found the screen on, I don't use an external keyboard or any springboard modules. I have gone through 3 sets of batteries in the last week.

Sudden Battery Drain

Well, its good to know that I'm not in this club alone. Recently, I added Afterburner III and purchased a Stowaway for my VDX. Shortly after that I noticed my batteries draining swiftly. Some mornings after replacing the batteries the previous nite, the VDX would be on and the battery low indicator lite on. Wow, I thought, "what in the world is happening?" I have had my VDX since January 2000 and have not expereienced this problem.

I am wondering if age has anything to do with the unit. I am going to remove Afterburner and the stowaway driver and see what happens. I have already removed my case and now use the hard cover that comes with the unit. I'l let you know the outcome.

Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Since I only use my Stowaway once or twice a week, I make sure to disable the keyboard in the Keyboard application after each use. This seems to take care of the issue.

Strangely, it seems to be after using the keyboard that the problem happens. If I were to enable the keyboard right now, I wouldn't have the issue. But, if I were to use the keyboard and forget to disable the application afterwards, I might find my with low batteries later.

My symptoms are that the keyboard seems to make the Visor not turn itself off in a timely manner afterwards. It seems to be solved by either disabling the keyboard in the app or doing a soft reset.

Roland

My latest set of batteries for my Vdx lasted 3 days. Now I'm trying to determine what application is causing the battery drain. I suspect an updated version of Vindigo or Avantgo, or possibly an expired demo app. I'd like to hotsync only the basic applications now that I had to reset from scratch. Is there a way to limit what gets installed in a hotsync? Under the Custom|Conduit what are the items "Install", "Install Service Templates", and "System"?

Batts seem to siphon faster the more things are on your Visor.

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