Refurbished Axims and backup battery

Psemerson · 12-09-07, 02:36 PM

All is not lost if you get a refurbished Axim and get the dreaded message that the backup battery is dead. Here's my experience, in hopes that you'll be able to pull a nugget or two from it.

I recently bought a x30 (315 mhZ, no wireless) marketed as refurbished on eBay. When it showed up, I popped on a fresh, charged main battery, and then checked the Power status. I saw the backup battery abnormal message, and I thought I'd bought a brick.

After looking at a couple of posts, I decided to charge the unit without an external battery. However, I also turned the x30 on for the charge (as suggested elsewhere on this site) and received the message asking if the memory should be erased or not, and offering the Contacts and Mail buttons for the selection.

Since I figured I had nothing to lose, I pushed the Contacts button to erase the memory. I got the Dell blue screen for about a minute, and then the stylus setup to complete the hard reset. I then set down the x30 and walked away for eight hours, treating the refurbished unit as a "new" x30 fresh from the factory. (I've only bought used Axims, so I hadn't been through this procedure before.)

After the eight-hour charge, I put in a fully-charged external battery and turned the x30 on. The backup battery status showed normal -- and it's still showing that it's OK after a week of use.

The lesson here is that a refurbished unit may have sat on the sidelines for many months, if not years. It's also going to retain previous information in memory, which may include the abnormal backup-battery warning. Treat the unit as new, do a long first-time charge, and then do a hard reset (if the unit doesn't require that as soon as you push the power button). It just might do the trick.

pdogg6 · 12-10-07, 12:23 PM

Nice info. I'll keep this in mind. I haven't had the dreaded BUB message yet. Some confirmation would be nice. So is the BUB a rechargable battery?

Psemerson · 12-21-07, 01:23 AM

BUB is rechargable -- in fact, it recharges every time you recharge your external when it's attached to the Axim. What happens, of course, is that the BUB is like any rechargeable in that amount of use/number of recycles catches up to it and eventually fails to function.

If the BUB is dead -- as in having a minimal charge -- it will show up as being abnormal. However, if you haven't charged your Axim for a long stretch, it may mean that the BUB needs a recharge, and a full eight-hour charge and a hard reset may bring it back up to snuff. However, it also may just be plain dead, and you'll have to do minor surgery to replace it, or send it off for a $25 service call.