Registered: Apr 2000
Location: Santa Clarita, CA
Posts: 198

Last night I rode my bike to and from a friends house - about a mile. I had my Visor in it's EB Slipper, and put it in a pouch hanging from the back of my bike seat. (by the way, the last I saw it, my battery level was at about 7%).

Today, I put it in it's little cradle the hotsync, and nothing happened. I thought maybe my computer was messed up or something, so I took it out of the cradle and tried to turn it on (pressing the power button). For an instant it showed the "connecting to desktop" screen, then went blank. I tried to turn it on again, and it started flashing that screen with the low battery warning over it. It flashed maybe 5 times with that same "connecting" screen and , then I saw the Palm OS startup screen (like it had been reset, but I didn't push the reset button) with some streaks, then it flashed again with different streaks, then went out. I thought maybe it was my batteries, so I changed them for brand new ones and tried to turn it on again. This time, nothing - at all.

I've had my Visor for over a year, so thought I had nothing to loose by taking it apart. I've tried to check for loose connections, thinking that the only thing that made sense is something vibrated loose on my bike ride - but nothing seems to work.

PLEASE HELP!!!

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Registered: Feb 2000
Location:
Posts: 264

I've something similar happen on a friend's Visor. He ended up leaving the batteries out for about a day, and it seemed to work after that.

Registered: Dec 1999
Location:
Posts: 45

quote:

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I've something similar happen on a friend's Visor. He ended up leaving the batteries out for about a day, and it seemed to work after that.

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Registered: Apr 2000
Location: Santa Clarita, CA
Posts: 198

thanks

Thanks for the replies and ideas.

I emailed Handspring about it and got a form e-mail back about it which said to change the batteries, check the contrast, soft reset, etc. It said "as a last resort" to take the batteries out and leave them out for at least a half-hour. I'm 14 mintues into that and hoping real hard.

I can't seem to find anything else wrong with it. I checked all the connections and everything looks fine, so I'm hoping it's some kind of software problem. I've had my batteries get lower than they were yesterday, but who knows.

Registered: Apr 2000
Location: Santa Clarita, CA
Posts: 198

IT'S BACK (but something funny happened)

The good news - IT'S BACK!!!

but...

Something really weird happened that I can't explain.

I waited 40 minutes and put my batteries back in. Nothing. So, I called tech support. We went through the usual making sure I'm not an idiot questions ("Make sure the polarity on the batteries is correct" yeah, yeah, yeah). As one of those questions (I thought) he said "try a different set of batteries". I said "they're brand new" (because they were last night when I put them in. He said "see if you have a different set". I seriously considered humoring him and telling him I replaced them when I hadn't, but decided I'd go through the motions.

Suddenly, I saw the Palm startup screen!!!!! Of course, all my data was gone, but it was back!!! So what was weird, was checking my 2 brand new batteries, one of them was still brand new, and the other was dead. Like doornail dead. It came from a brand new package, so I know it didn't go into my Visor like that. Somehow, whatever my Visor was doing completely drained one battery and left the other alone.

I don't know... I'M JUST HAPPY MY VISOR'S BACK!!!

Registered: Aug 2000
Location: Cincinnati, OH USA
Posts: 107

Re: thanks

quote:

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Originally posted by mchlwise
my battery level was at about 7%...I've had my batteries get lower than they were yesterday, but who knows.

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Michael W. Cristiani
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Registered: Aug 2000
Location: Cincinnati, OH USA
Posts: 107

Re: IT'S BACK (but something funny happened)

Love for

quote:

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Originally posted by mchlwise
"try a different set of batteries".

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Michael W. Cristiani
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Registered: Jun 2000
Location: Sunnyvale, CA
Posts: 216

Re: IT'S BACK (but something funny happened)

quote:

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Originally posted by mchlwise
<snip>...So what was weird, was checking my 2 brand new batteries, one of them was still brand new, and the other was dead. Like doornail dead. It came from a brand new package, so I know it didn't go into my Visor like that. Somehow, whatever my Visor was doing completely drained one battery and left the other alone.

I don't know... I'M JUST HAPPY MY VISOR'S BACK!!!

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Registered: Mar 2001
Location: Out of my skull, back in five minutes
Posts: 1435

Re: Re: thanks

quote:

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Originally posted by mcristia

It would be nice if someone here could give a brief Batteries 101, so folks would have some confidence about the way batteries work, and what to watch out for in the future. If that has already been done, does anyone know the URL for the discussion?

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Registered: Oct 2000
Location:
Posts: 380

Keep in mind that the display and serial port take much more power than the memory. Even if you run the batteries down to the point that the screen goes blank and you can't HotSynch, you probably still enough power to keep you data for a couple of weeks. Don't just assume that it's dead and remove the batteries or do a hard reset.

Always do a quick battery change even if you think that the unit is probably dead. You may get a pleasant surprise.

Registered: Dec 1999
Location:
Posts: 45

quote:

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So what was weird, was checking my 2 brand new batteries, one of them was still brand new, and the other was dead. Like doornail dead. It came from a brand new package, so I know it didn't go into my Visor like that. Somehow, whatever my Visor was doing completely drained one battery and left the other alone.

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Whenever anyone asks for MHO - I always recommend going with a couple of sets of NiMH batteries. I've been using them for over six months and they work like a charm.

Registered: Jan 2001
Location:
Posts: 118

NiMH

And the choir said "Amen"!

I've recently switched to NiMH and a portable charger, and its the difference between night and day. Now I don't worry if I have low batteries, just plug it in and let it charge.

Also I bought the backup module, and it has been a great relief to know that even if I screw up and let it die, I can
get disposable batteries from *anywhere* and get back to what I was doing. I now backup every morning after my initial hotsync, and can't imagine not doing it.

Cheers!

Tucson Sailors

Registered: Oct 2000
Location: Coppell, Texas
Posts: 64

Why would anyone let the batteries run below 20% you are asking for trouble. At the cost of batteries,you should not worry about the little bit of life that is left in them,as opposed to the disaster that could be awaiting you. As someone else said get a BackUp module it wil pay for it self the first time you are are away from your computer and disaster strikes.



T

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Registered: Oct 1999
Location: Baltimore MD, USA
Posts: 717

I don't have to worry about it for my Prism, but for my wife's VDX I always use Duracells or other batteries that have those built-in power checker devices.

I compulsively use the checker on new batteries before I remove the old ones from the Visor. I've heard too many horror stories about batteries that were dead right out of the box.

Registered: Mar 2001
Location: Out of my skull, back in five minutes
Posts: 1435

quote:

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Originally posted by Airmech
Why would anyone let the batteries run below 20% you are asking for trouble. At the cost of batteries,you should not worry about the little bit of life that is left in them,as opposed to the disaster that could be awaiting you. As someone else said get a BackUp module it wil pay for it self the first time you are are away from your computer and disaster strikes.

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There's very little disaster involved if you regularly backup your data and monitor your battery life.
While batteries are generally inexpensive I'd really rather put as few of them into a landfill as possible.

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Registered: Nov 2001
Location: Canberra, Australia
Posts: 7

I was in a restaurant today, and using my Visor Platinum, trying to eke out every last bit of battery power. It probably didn't help that I had a FlashAdapter and a 32MB Compact Flash card running too...

Anyway, I got dots and streaks across the screen, and it wouldn't respond to anything... resetting it would give me the same streaks (even a hard reset) and I couldn't turn it off. So, in the hopes that I could still preserve my RAM, I left it on until I got home... by then it was still showing the same dots and streaks, even though the batteries must have been pretty low by then.

So, I swapped in a new set of batteries. Now the Palm Powered startup screen came up, with dots all over. One time, it came up with a blinking "cursor" in the upper left hand corner. Holding the down-button down and resetting, the image would slowly get darker, like the contrast was being jacked up... Every time I took batteries out, left it for a few minutes, and tried again, there would be more speckles, until eventually it was a solid black screen. (At this point, I was looking up the warranty info on the Handspring site )

Eventually, as suggested, I left the batteries out for an hour and put them in again afterwards, and all was well. Restored from backup (hey, that CF backup program comes in handy!) and I'm back to normal.

-Terence