Battery Drain on iPAQ 214

[alanp26]

Loving my new PDA .... but ... even when switched off, the battery drains within 12 hours and needs to be charged up again.

I'm sure this is not a new experience to experienced PDAers. Any solutions out there? Or do I need to return a faulty PDA. Cheers

By the way I've switched off WiFi and Bluetooth ... it still drains within 12 hours.

[Charlie]

Welcome to our forums.
Do you have any memory cards that reside in the device overnight? If so try removing them and checking if the battery performance changes.

[alanp26]

Thanks Charlie .... I'll try that tonight. I do have a 2GB SD card inserted ..... however the problem existed before the memory card. Every little helps.

I must get this sorted, or I'm back to Total PDA asking for an exchange PDA

[getsurfers]

Ensure bluetooth and wifi are in flight mode. Also set the device to power down on battery after a small amount of time, say 3 mins, in case it turns on in your pocket.

[alanp26]

Thanks getsurfers.

That's the issue, it turns on without warning. Ocassionally it seems to power down properly and battery life is conserved. However most times it re-starts and the battery is warm to touch when not in use even after a couple of hours. I've re-set both power down settings to 2 minutes.

We'll report my findings. Cheers

[alanp26]

Have tried all the suggestions above to no avail.

I've discovered that the problem is with ActiveSync. It comes on without warning even when the PDA is shut down and then drains the battery.

A part solution is to shut down all running programs via settings>system>memory> running programs. It's a drag to do this every power down. Is there a better fuller solution?

Is there a setting on Active Sync that changes this unwelcome random start up?

[Martin Laverty]

This happened before on the Windows 5 devices from HP as well.

Try this
Mobile 6
go to Start>Program>ActiveSync>Menu>Add Server Source
>In Server address put 1.1.1.1. as Server address, tap Next (bottom right)

youl'll get three boxes to fill : Username, Password, Domain. fill in xxx in all three, tap Next, then,

tap Finish
Once configured you should have another sync source show up on your main AS screen

Tap the menu soft key again and you should see that the sync schedule option is no longer greyed out.
Change your schedule from a timed automatic start of ActiveSync to manual under both fields.
This stops activesync from starting up automatically and draining the battery. It will now only start when you connect it to a PC or the internet.

Now, to remove the fake server you just created:
tap Menu>Option

highlight Exchange Server, tap Delete, you'll get a Warning message asking "would you like to continue?"

tap Yes.


The CF slot may also cause a battery drain and if you dont us a CF card you can also switch the CF slot power mode off.

Press start>settings> system tab and select power. Select the CF card power tab and set this to off.

[alanp26]

Thanks Martin! Talking to others this is the fix I need. However in Mobile 6 I don't have the selection option of Add Server Source.

I'm going to explore when I have a bit more time.

The first 15 minutes of trying every which way, didn't get me to the page you suggest.

[alanp26]

Hi Martin & any others!

I can't find that option in the menu selection "Add Server Source" - see above!

Are you sure we're talking Mobile 6?

[richard029]

Thank you this post been very helpful as I own the same ipaq and was thinking the battery was not lasting that well

:0)

Richard