Power drain when cold

[budda44]

I left my MonPaq in my car overnight recently. It got rather cold that night (for Alabama at least), about 38 degrees. When i tried to turn it on in the morning at school i discovered it would not turn on. When i got home i plugged it into the charger and it started up again, like it does after a hard reset. The battery had atleast a 3/4 charge on it the day before, so it should not have died like that. Has anyone else had a problem with this, or know what might have caused it?

Thanks,
Daniel

[imported_chrism]

A battery provides its power via a chemical reaction inside the battery and chemical reactions are influenced a great deal by heat. The reaction in a cold battery is sluggish and cannot provide much power causing the iPaq to think the battery is running out.
If you have a cold battery that appears near exhausted you can quite often warm it up and bring it back to life, something I have done many times with Walkman batteries.
So it is possible that if you had brought your iPaq in and let it warm up then you would have been able to turn it on.

Have a go next time you leave it in the cold. But note the opperating temperatures for the device given by Compaq, if you go too far below these then your battery may not be able to provide any power and cause a hard reset. I think it would have to be very cold for that though.

Chris M

[budda44]

I am aware of the chemical reactions in the battery and that is what I thought is was at first as well. However, I allowed several hours, about 7, while at school and it never turned on. The device was plenty warm by that time. The Ipaq did not think the battery was out, it was out. The battery power was drained completely, even when it warmed up. I thought that was strange.

Daniel