A few issues-warm in use, hot in charging, slow soft-reset

twfx · 06-21-08, 07:45 AM

Hi,

I have a few issues concerning about my 210.

1. Warm in use
Monitored by AEBplus, with wifi on and IE running, I noticed that the temperature of the device goes up very fast: 27C->34C after 5-10min, 34C->38-40C after 15-30min. I can feel the back of this device is so warm.

2. hot in charging
Charging the battery from 10%, I feeled hot. the temperature should be above 50C. At 90%, the temperature (checked by AEBplus) is 43C.

3. slow soft-reset
It takes more than 40 sec to restart the machine after a reset.

---------
Just want to know if the above issues are common and normal for Ipaq 210 series and how about other series?

Thank you!

FrinkTL · 06-21-08, 05:11 PM

Originally Posted by twfx

Hi,

I have a few issues concerning about my 210.

1. Warm in use
Monitored by AEBplus, with wifi on and IE running, I noticed that the temperature of the device goes up very fast: 27C->34C after 5-10min, 34C->38-40C after 15-30min. I can feel the back of this device is so warm.

2. hot in charging
Charging the battery from 10%, I feeled hot. the temperature should be above 50C. At 90%, the temperature (checked by AEBplus) is 43C.

3. slow soft-reset
It takes more than 40 sec to restart the machine after a reset.

---------
Just want to know if the above issues are common and normal for Ipaq 210 series and how about other series?

Thank you!

It is normal for the WiFi/Bluetooth radio to make the device warm to the touch. I wouldn't be worried about it.
I don't know about what specific temperatures are within the normal charging range, but I do know that the lower the battery when charging starts the hotter it will get in recharging (there's a lot more "work" to do to restore the charge, after all). Unless it's hot enough to feel like you could possibly burn yourself, I wouldn't be inclined to worry about it.
This is one of the common complaints about the iPAQ 210/211. It takes it forever (it seems) to restart from a soft reset (or even to turn on from an normal power on without a reset). That time frame you describe matches my experience with the 3 devices I have had. Again, nothing to worry about. If it takes over 90 seconds, then you can start worrying.

twfx · 06-21-08, 11:14 PM

Thank you, FrinkTL!

Since you have had 3 devices, I wonder if Issue 1 & 2 are common for all your 3 devices? can you feel some kind of difference in temperature, I mean, one is better or worse than the other two devices. Same question about the insensitive touch screen issue.

For the reset issue, since I used PPC2002,2003 system before, I don't know the slow restart is caused by wm6, or 210 itself. I notice that ~30MB program RAM is used after a reset. Acb taskman shows that all the startup processes take only 17MB. So I wonder where is the other 13MB memory. I also have no idea whether 30MB memory usage is common or not for wm6 system. So firstly, I want to finger out if this is caused by hardware (like VGA screen) or software (some drive, program, settings).

FrinkTL · 06-22-08, 04:19 PM

Originally Posted by twfx

Thank you, FrinkTL!

Since you have had 3 devices, I wonder if Issue 1 & 2 are common for all your 3 devices? can you feel some kind of difference in temperature, I mean, one is better or worse than the other two devices. Same question about the insensitive touch screen issue.

For the reset issue, since I used PPC2002,2003 system before, I don't know the slow restart is caused by wm6, or 210 itself. I notice that ~30MB program RAM is used after a reset. Acb taskman shows that all the startup processes take only 17MB. So I wonder where is the other 13MB memory. I also have no idea whether 30MB memory usage is common or not for wm6 system. So firstly, I want to finger out if this is caused by hardware (like VGA screen) or software (some drive, program, settings).

Issues 1 & 2 have been the same all of the devices I have had, though I haven't tested #2 too much for the most recent one. None of them seem better or worse on these 2 issues. The touch screen, on the other hand, has exibited differences between the devices. The first 2 were less accurate in the outer "rim" of the screen area, but the latest one is perfect. I would refer you to my previous thread on the topic: touch screen sensitivity
As for the reset "time to restart" question, there are a couple of causes. First, this process WILL be slower on a WM5+ device than it was on a PPC2003 or lower. The reason is that the OS is actually being read from Flash under WM and loaded into RAM, whereas prior to that it was still in RAM (though a protected section of RAM). RAM will always be faster than Flash. Second, the flash used in the iPAQ seems to be a little bit slower than the flashe used on, say, the Axim X51v. That just makes the slow load more pronounced.
Your memory usage sounds about right for WM6. True to Miscrosoft software development, each subsequent version of Windows Mobile requires more and more RAM - and don't expect that trend to alter anytime soon. Of course, the more programs you have loaded (especially ones that load on startup), the higher that consumption will be, but WM6 is a bit of a RAM hog. My iPAQ is pretty loaded with stuff and I have about 83MB free right after the system finishes loading after a reset. Of course, with each system folder I open (Programs or Games) that amount drops. The biggest MS program, of course, is ActiveSync. I always kill it after using it, regaining 3-9MB each time.

Hope that helps!

twfx · 06-22-08, 06:46 PM

Thank you, FrinkTL. Your explanation is very helpful.

Now I know why WM5/6 will not lose data even without battery and power. The tradeoff is the reduced loading speed. Considering the loaded 30MB programs/data and the required time <=40sec, the read speed of the built-in flash ROM is less than 1MB/sec, not a good one (The bad thing is that it's not easy to open the machine and change the ROM to a high-speed flash card). In fact for my axim, I noticed that the speed of the built-in storage is much slower than the CF/SD cards.
Therefore one way to shorten the reset time is reducing the size of the pre-loaded programs from ROM. WM5/6 really takes too much system resource. PPC2002/2003 only takes 3-6 MB with several startup/today plugin programs loaded after a fresh reset. I will figure out how to make it faster.