Ever have a cradle fail ?

Wondering if anyone has run into the issues that I have seen this week. Usually a soft or hard reset is all my E750 needs when it starts to get flaky. This week I had noticed that while putting it in and out of the cradle wierd things would happen like( not necessarily in any order ):

* Unit would not turn on with power button
* One hard reset
* Hard reset would only bring up a plain white screen
* Connections would be dropped at random

After a few attempts at recovery from the " white screen" hard reset. I tried syncing with just the USB cable and the other computer that I sync with and after two or three unsuccesful attempts, turning on and off the power during the sync creates a success and voila I am finally able to complete and a hard reset and restore the device.

I tried the same cable with computer # 1 and the unit does its sync perfectly. I can only conslude that there is something wrong with the cradle connection.

Just curious, if anyone else out there has had one of these go bad.

Thanks

R

 

I would investigate the battery connections. Take the battery out and see if one of the 4 pins is loose which would indicate a bad solder connection. If they all seem ok, the seat the battery firmly - sometimes it takes a couple of tries. Mine needs this done every 4-5 months. Maybe just dirty contacts, I don't know. I had to send the unit in for repair of a broken solder connection about a year ago. Still have an occasional reset or 1% battery level problem but reseating the battery takes care of things.

Brad

 

Thanks for the reply. I believe you were 100% correct. This morning there was no battery and the unit again needed a hard reset. I've also noticed that if i press hard on the battery lock switch, the charging light goes on and it does the same thing if you press hard on the USB connector. Let up some pressure and the thing goes out.

I had it charging in the cradle for a while and the battery was up to about 25% charge and when I came home, nada it was again empty. This leads to be believe a bad battery or something bad inside.

I checked the 4 pins in the battery compartment and none of them seemed to be loose or dirty. They float in and out as they are supposed to but they are not loose in any way. Should i open the unit and check the solder connections anyway?

I'd hate to go out and get a new battery on ebay (it seems they are not easy to find) and then find out that something is broke inside, and I'll need to get a new PDA or send it in for repair anyway. If its the internal connections and something that i can not fix myself I am inclined to trash it and get something new.

 

The switch that holds the battery seems to be a bit flaky too. As well as the 4 pits, there is a 5th contact on the side of the battery compartment that might not be making contact. Any time I change between my extended battery and the small one I seem to have trouble until I fool around with seating the battery. It seems to help to hold the battery in (push a bit) as you lock the switch.

Brad

 

Another thing, some batteries that come with the e740/e750 don't seem to sit in the battery compartment properly. I originally bought a refurbed e740 from ebay and it's battery was fairly loose (the battery 'gave' a quite a bit when pushed in) and pushing it in helped relieve the 1% battery problem for a while. The model number for this battery is: PA3187U-1BRS. I recently got a replacement battery for it with model number: PA3187C-1BAS and it fits into the battery compartment perfectly and just feels a lot more 'solid' when connected to the unit.

If the battery contacts are broken and you're feeling a little adventurous, is it a good idea to repair it yourself if it is no longer under warranty (I did this and it was an interesting experience to have a look inside my PDA)??? I'm not 100% sure about this, but if you send it back to Toshiba for servicing, don't they just pull out the motherboard and stick a new one in? Since Toshiba mass produce these things aren't they all the same and will just suffer the same problem again if they do this? Does anyone know?

 

Folowing up: Thanks for this information. After about the 5th or 6th attempt at re-seating the battery and restoring the device, something worked because I haven't had to do a hard rest all week and everything has worked fine, syncing from both of my computers.

I'm wondering if changing to a new battery would solve the issue for good. Which leads me to ask if anyone knows how available batteries are out there? Does anyone still stock them? A quick search on ebay last week just turned up a couple high capacity capacity batteries and both had bids, with lots of listings for battery extenders.

 

In my opinion a new battery will probably not help. I had a hard reset yesterday after having had my 740 out of its case while using it with my GPS card in the car. I think I let the battery switch get half cocked when messing with it. I really should tape it in the closed position.

Toshiba seems to have the battery in stock as it is the same one as the e755. http://www.toshibadirect.com/td/b2c/adet.to?poid=209771&coid=-27312&ccid=1291043&rcid=-26364&seg=HHO