Dell Axim X5 - Battery life/issues?

DeadRX7 · 06-01-04, 04:47 PM

Hello,

I have had my Dell Axim X5 for about 5 months now and I am running into an issue:

I charge the Axim up to full power, and I don't use it that much. I let the device sit for say 2 weeks then turn it on, and the Li Ion battery is dead. I go charge up the battery and turn on the Axim, and the device has been defaulted (have to go thru Pocket PC 2003 setup again, and all my contacts and personal info is gone). It seems that the internal CR2032 pen battery has a life of 1-2 months.

Has anybody else seen this and is this normal? I highly rely on my PDA to store critical information, and if I set it down for a week/2 and don't touch it, I understand the LiIon battery might be dead but what about that CR2032 battery that's supposed to hold the memory?

Am I doing something wrong or is the average life of that CR2032 battery about 1-2 months in an Axim with minimal use? I use CR2032 batteries on many other things (motherboards, cameras, etc) and the average replacement time is about 4-6 months, not 1-2. If it keeps it up I'm going to get rid of this Axim for something that is reliable.

Any thoughts?

Tx - DeadRX7

pcdoctorca · 06-01-04, 06:22 PM

The LiIon battery has an idle life of about 3-4 days. The Cr2032 does more in your PDA than on a motherboard when the main battery is down. Bottom line is that PPC are not designed to be left unplugged for that long. My wife can get away with recharging her old Palm 515 for 2 weeks. I'd never dream of that with any PPC I've owned.

06-01-04, 06:39 PM

Your PPC turns itself on every night at midnight to change the date and check appointments, 2 weeks without charge should drain the battery, try turning on Windows Media Player, turn the volume up then turn it off, now watch at Midnight when it awakes and parties down.

Tom61 · 06-02-04, 01:07 AM

If it doesn't 'wake up' on its own, make sure you're running it in Power Save mode, or at least Auto.

Why are you using the Axim so little anyways?

DeadRX7 · 06-02-04, 09:24 AM

Well I work in the networking industry and I mainly use my PDA for keeping contacts and storing text files (memos). I used to have a Palm M100 and I would just use the memo feature then setup categories. This worked great for a long time then my M100 died and I picked up an Axim. I am in front of a PC all day, then all night and I just have no more hours in the day to use that Axim lol. It's a great device but I need something reliable. If you guys are saying that the Palm PDA's retain their memory theres a chance I may go back just due to that.

DeadRX7 · 06-02-04, 09:34 AM

What about the SD media / CF slots? See I have Microsoft ActiveSync setup a folder on my desktop called "My Axim Documents". I can drag documents into that folder, then when I sync the Axim it pushes those docs to it, but it puts them in a section of memory on the Axim that is not stable (due to this power/battery issue).

Is there a way for me to change the location of where it stores them on the Axim so that I can install an SD media card then have it push those files to it automatically? This would give me the result I need mainly because I can't afford to lose the info on this PDA.

Tx again for your input.

DeadRX7

Tom61 · 06-02-04, 09:19 PM

With as little use as this gets, you could just back up, using the built-in utility, the contents to a SD card, or to built-in storage(if you have the 64MB/Advanced model) before you put it away. Then restore it after it's recharged agian.

If you want really long battery life, modern Palms won't do it for you either. You could an Older Palm that runs off standard batteries pretty cheap (less than $70) that would probably suit your minimalist needs. Heck, you could probably get by with a paper agenda, don't have to worry about batteries at all then.