Wifi power management

06-03-04, 11:52 PM

Is there any way to force wifi power management on the X30? I check that option but when I go back to check on it it is off again. The battery on this thing is bad enough without wasting it on wasted power. I'd rather not do a registry edit.

HighTymes · 06-04-04, 02:08 PM

do you have a Mid or High. I noticed my High had power management on by default.

sdbfood · 06-05-04, 07:28 PM

My problem is that I am unable to turn the power management off on my AXIM 30 Mid. Any suggestions?

blakex · 06-05-04, 08:04 PM

On my High, Power Management is OFF by default. I think a registry hack is the way to go if you want to fix it.

06-05-04, 08:11 PM

I have a mid X30, and the Power Management is checked OFF all the time. If I click on ON, it won't stay. Is it worth doing the registry hack? Are there really power benefits with it ON? What aboutI connecting, does it lose the connection faster or not connect as quickly? It seems a shame to have to start hacking on this thing already.

Gigi · 06-05-04, 09:50 PM

bookie, I have the same problem... very annoying

bigds63 · 06-05-04, 10:53 PM

May be a dumb question, but what exactly does the power management do for wifi ?

Howard2k · 06-06-04, 09:21 AM

Power Management in theory turns the wifi off for periods of time to save battery life. So instead of it being on all the time whether there is data or not it will stay off and then turn on at regular intervals, if there is data to send it will send it and it will also ask the AP if there is any data the AP needs to send.

The problem is that it's very badly implemented. It doesn't work well in MANY situations and even if it DOES work it will reduce your throughput. So it's a tradeoff.

To put it in perspective, I did some testing on my 4150 with power saving and it took me 20 minutes to copy a file. With power saving OFF it took me just over 2 minutes. That's an example of power saving working poorly. It shouldn't be that bad.

I believe the big issues is getting the PDA and AP in sync so that the AP is not sending data to the PDA when the PDA wifi is off. There is a setting on the AP called the DTIM. This is the timer. I tried playing with this but had no luck. So for me, I've had success with some APs and failures with others.

06-06-04, 10:34 AM

Thanks Howard. If mine is going to be stuck at least I'm glad it's off.

ikehiker · 06-06-04, 11:31 AM

I cannot be sure about the power management issue, but with many settings on the PPC, you need to completely exit the settings for it to ''take."

Try to change the setting then exit to the today screen before reopening the settings page to check. If this still doesn't work, take it one step further by doing a soft reset after exiting to the today screen.

06-06-04, 11:46 AM

Thanks for the suggestion Ike. It looks like I'm just stuck in off -- and my Axim is too.

bigds63 · 06-06-04, 02:08 PM

Thanks Howard, But I'm in the same boat as sdbfood, I'm unable to turn power management off. I uncheck it but it doesn't take. Would like to really test with it off to see the difference in battery time, for I would like as strong of connection as possible if it doesn't help much with the battery power to have it on. Any ideas how to disable power management for the X30H?

bigds63 · 06-06-04, 07:03 PM

Got wifi power management off and does just fine now. I seen on another post by X30r that you have to first turn wifi off then change the setting to off and then turn wifi back on to accept the changes, Thanks

06-06-04, 07:25 PM

I'm glad it worked for you bigd. Unfortunately for me, when I turn wifi off or just the radio off both the on and off options are grayed out.

bigds63 · 06-06-04, 07:38 PM

Try and uncheck Load/Unload auto and Suspend while connected, then do a soft reset...Go to settings,connections, then Dell WLAN Utility and see if it will let you make the change. Then if so unable wifi and see if it sticks.