kelford

Hello all,
I've had my X5 since September '03 and I've been very happy with it with no major issues (even had a SanDisk SD card that WASN'T made in Japan that didn't give me any trouble before I recently upgraded to the PNY 512 card when they had their $80 rebate!) I may not post much here, but I visit this site daily and have gotten a LOT of good info from everyone, so thanks for all of that. I'm hoping someone might be able to help me with this or even just confirm if they've had the same issues...

Hearing all the talk of PIMs I tried both Agenda Fusion and Pocket Informant (trial versions.) I preferred the feel of Pocket Informant, so when they were offering the discount for Aximsite members back in Feb. I decided to go ahead and buy it.

Shortly after installing PI I got the "Back-up Battery Low" message. This was the first time I had ever gotten that message on the Ax, and I would have thought maybe the back-up battery (which was the original) might not have been completely fresh when I installed it in the first place except that when I checked the power settings both the main and back-up batteries showed at 40%. The main battery was just coming off a charge, so I knew that wasn't right. Having previously had a Toshiba 740 I was all too familiar with battery issues and "false low" readings, so on a tip I once got from a Toshiba tech rep I did a soft reset while still on the power screen (on the Toshiba anyway this is supposed to help reset the indicator) and sure enough, both batteries went back to 100%. I chalked that up to a fluke until it happened again...and then again. At that point I thought about what I had recently added, and PI was the only thing. So I unistalled PI and I haven't gotten the "low" message since.

(End part I...sorry this is so long! )

A few weeks later I decided to give PI another shot, but this time install it to the SD card instead (I'm not sure why I installed it to main the first time, but most everything is going to the SD card now.) Things looked to be going well this time until...
Just this morning I decided to switch out the mp3s I have on my CF card (this was the first time I tried to do this since reinstalling PI.) I usually send over a "CD" at a time in a folder. It would start, but would fail and disconnect Active Sync before even the first song was finished. My first thought of course was that it was Active Sync having a moment, so I tried it a few times with various combinations of making sure nothing else was running on the Ax and soft resetting etc. Curiously, one of the times it failed I found a PI screen (it looked like the notes page of an appointment) in the display although PI was not listed as even running at the time. After 5 failed attempts I uninstalled PI (based in part off of the "ghost" screen I had just seen) and presto! uploaded the song files with no problem.

I don't know that I can definitely point to PI as being the source of these two issues, but it is interesting that both issues seemed to be resolved after PI was uninstalled. I liked PI and would like to be able to use it, but I'm concerned that it's causing these quirks. Has anyone else had any experiences like this or have any thoughts on what might have been going on?

Gigi

I have used PI on both my X5 and X3i and haven't had any of the problems you have described. Well, I did get the batt low warning on the X5 initially, but after having updated the ROM, the problem disappeared. Last month I got another batt low warning but knew that it really was low because it had been almost a year since I've had the unit. After I replaced the backup batt, everything was fine again.

The other thing is that I usually install PI onto main memory since it seems to be slow in opening up (especially on PPC2002 on my X5). I'm not quite sure what you mean when you talked about switching out your mp3s from your CF card. Were you just moving them off your CF card using ActiveSync? ActiveSync is not good at transferring large files; try using a card reader instead if you have one. Also, make sure you have the latest version, with is ActiveSync 3.7.1.

Not sure if any of this helped, but hopefully, it will give you some leads. :)

JakeRich

I use PI and I haven't seen the problems you referred to, either. I do get the occasional false low battery warning which goes away with a soft reset (You don't have to be on the batt page, either, a soft reset resets the circuit no matter where it is when invoked). The low batt warnings stopped when I gently bent up the little fingers in the bottom of the battery compartment to make more solid contact with the backup battery. I haven't seen any problems with file transfers, and I have moved files up to about 20 gig back and forth between my desktop/axim and laptop/axim. I don't think it's PI, but you might want to post at their support site to see if anyone recognizes the issue there.

pswets

I also use PI and have not seen the difficulties you describe. I have in the past gotten occasional (presumably false) low backup battery warnings, but they have stopped since I followed the advice given here at aximsite and put a small piece of cardboard (I'd call it pasteboard, quite thin, really) between the backup battery cover and the battery itself. No troubles since, but it has only been a few weeks now.

kelford

Thanks for all your input!

I have read some of the posts about the back-up battery and making it more snug in it's compartment, and I'll probably try that if I ever get the warning (and determine that it's false) again. I haven't gotten the message since though. What's made me think that this warning wasn't a result of the physical issue of how the battery is seated is that the main battery also was showing a false reading of 40% (when it was really no less than high 90's) at the same time. I'll keep all of your suggestions in mind though if I do ever see the message again.

Gigi, yes, when I talked about "switching out" the mp3s that was just how I refer to deleting the old ones and uploading some new ones onto the CF card using ActiveSync. I'm pretty much stuck with that for now since I don't have a card reader (though it may be time to invest in one.) The thing is I hadn't had any problems in several months of transfering mp3s that way, so it was surprising when it happened. I may dedicate some time this weekend to testing to see if I can recreate the issue under controlled conditions.

Thanks again to eveyone for responding!