New Driver Update - Improve Battery Performance and Support Extended Batteries

[Konrad Pierce]

That graph does seem a bit odd, DH. Exactly what I'd expect from a NiCd or NiMH battery. Lithium discharge tends to follow a fairly even curve ... like you, I wonder if it's an artifact of the software itself: it really all boils down to how and what a "1%" is measured.

Did you (or a scheduled event) suddenly change the level of activity on the device?

[David Hettel]

That is not what I would expect for anything other than a shot battery pack. I stopped all programs other than Battery Monitor, and switched the device off. Then randomly over the next 5 hours I would switch it on long enough for Battery Monitor to update, switch it off then back on, for a second update. That probably took a minute in total each time. At 5 plus hours it was showing 100% charge still. I then went to sleep for the night, the next morning I switched it on, and I saw the first drop. I then switch it off again.

Looking at the registry I see that good old HP "appears" to have screw up once again... I now have a \HKLM\Drivers\BuiltIn\Battery and also a \HKLM\Drivers\Builtln\Battery I think....

I really must learn not to trust HP... Can any one else confirm this?

[BKE]

http://www.mpoweruk.com/performance.htm

NiCd were flat and linear and for that reason it was hard to tell when they would hit the knee. Li-ion have a mostly linear decrease in voltage that allows for the battery status output. Lithium metal batteries are too dangerous for hand held devices.

[neillm]

My 214's battery dropped 10% over the weekend with a Sandisk 4GB Extreme III fitted. No processes were running. This is the first time I've put a CF card back in my 214 since my first one failed, so I know the 10% drop is down to the CF card.

So neither the CF or the battery driver update has fixed this problem on my device.

[ctrler]

Is it possible that the e-mail client is doing all the consumption?
I notice this:
I have messaging checking for e-mails every 5 minutes.
I had wireless off and bluetooth off
I had a music player on and turn the pda off, it stopped playing.
I notice that even thou the screen or any led didn't light up I was hearing the music for maybe 10 seconds every 5 minutes. And this with all the wireless off.
I'm a complete newbie and this is my first pda so probably you all now this by now and all the testing is done without the automatic checking of mail.

[laca]

I think if You have the mail checking on, the PDA every 5 minutes weak up, try check the mail, and all of suspended programs (like music player) started again. If the check finished, the PDA go to sleep mode whit all of running programs.
I think this is why You hear the music.

[neillm]

I think if You have the mail checking on, the PDA every 5 minutes weak up, try check the mail, and all of suspended programs (like music player) started again. If the check finished, the PDA go to sleep mode whit all of running programs.
I think this is why You hear the music.

I have no email checking. No processes running at all in fact.

[ctrler]

I have no email checking. No processes running at all in fact.

That's what I thought but I figured it wouldn't hurt to post my concerns.

[laca]

I used today my 214 with the new battery driver. I went with Igo and BT GPS device. Now the battery level is 53% after 1 hour 44 minutes (the device backlight was always on with the highest light level like sound too). The remain time is 1:51. I don't know what was the time without the battery driver, but i think very similar to this time. But I dont meet with Neillm syndrome... beforehand i got two times the battery problem, so crossfinger crossfinger!!!

[emilb]

A new interresting thing about iPaq 214 and battery driver.
Yesterday I've returned from a trip driving in the middle of the summer day and using the iPaq for mp3 playing, connected with a2dp with car player, and GPS navigation in same time. The pda was always powered from the car power source and because of the self heatting and direct sun light heatting the PDA got the battery high temperature condition and the charging was stoped and I've got the message box that informed me. After this the PDA reports the battery power condition, even it was powered externaly. The orange LED was of, all programs used reported the battery power condition and the backlight dimming was according to battery powered. Very strange...
But the good thing is that the pda was powered from external power source. The battery charging condition was the same even after a hour of use. So, the PDA does not used the battery power.
I thing this is another bug in battery driver that need to be solved...My old PDA does not behave like that. It has a normal behaviour.
A lot of bugs with battery driver and power management in the iPaq 2xx...