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I have a problem. I just bought a Toshiba Pocket PC, refurbished to a brand new condition.
I am having problems charging it up. It gives up after a short time. it flashes orange while charging, green when finished. sometimes after a few minutes it turns green, sometimes after an hour or more. I think it got a full charge when i first charged it, after 3 very short times of stopping. sometimes it flashes green orange green orange.
i have pushed the cable in as much as it can go and sometimes that makes it go back to orange again. Sometimes it charges for about 15mins, sometimes it starts flashing orange green orange green. I know this is not good for the battery. Please could someone help me? Do you know what the cause might be?
The same thing happens when using both methods of charging, I think it might be the cable. Any help would be appreciated.
Laura,
I might be wrong here, but the first place I'd check is the battery. I can't tell by your message what model you have, but many people have complained about the batteries on certain models disconnecting easily. Seems to me that perhaps your battery connection might be flakey
Oh, sorry! It's a Toshiba e740.
What should I do? Take it out and put it back in again? I don't know much about pocket pcs, I had a palm before this and it didn't have a removable battery
Laura,
Yes, as a test, I would spend some time trying to isolate the problem. What I would do is remove the battery and reseat it and try a charge session. See if it charges normally. If not, I'd try soft resetting it and then charging it. Normally, so much experimentation isn't necessary, but if you can isolate the problem, it helps.
Ok, I took the battery out and put it back in. Luckily I didn't have much to lose. My battery just now is at 19%, should I wait til it goes further down to charge or charge it now?
Thanks
Laura,
The rule of thumb with l-ion batteries is charge them as much as possible. Keep it plugged in when you can, they aren't like the old nickel cadmium rechargables where a full discharge was needed before a recharge. It's better that you keep "topping yours off" with frequent recharges.
Brad
Ok, well after I took the battery out and charged it up again, it was still doing the same thing. I've since done a soft reset and started charging it up, and that was about over an hour ago, it is still charging.
But last night I managed to charge it up for about over an hour and I had not done anything apart from take the wire out and put it in again without forcing it in too tight or too much. It was a bit worrying when I turned it on this morning though, and after a few mins of turning it on I looked at the battery power and it only said 85%.
I think I read somewhere that if you put a new battery in Toshiba e740, it has trouble charging it up to full power. Since this is a refurb, I assume it's a new battery, could this be the cause of that part of the problem? I can't remember where I read that piece of info and not sure of all the details or if it's true though.
Quick update:
It just stopped charging a minute ago, and it seems to have switched on by itself (unusual?). Anyway, it was up to 90%, I plugged it back in, leaving it on this time and hoping it will charge to 100%.
Laura
Treat your Toshiba like a new puppy. Don't take no for an answer. If it doesn't want to charge - unplug it and plug it back in until it does. Don't worry about hurting it. leave it plugged in all day and all night if you want - I do! Since it is new to you, now is the time to put it through the ringer. What I don't want to happen is for you to have a defective device that you are treating with kid gloves and no matter what you do it's still defective. The quicker you can find out if it is defective the better.
Of course, if you feel you have a defective unit you really should send it back. Is this a sync cable you are using to charge it? If so, those CAN go bad or can be bad right out of the box.
I have no idea really. The sync cable came with an American plug, so I am using the plug I got with my Clie to plug into the sync cable. This should be no problem as you cna use those to plug in anything, it's just standard.
I know the problem happens when I use the cradle OR the sync cable, so perhaps it IS the sync cable, I do not know. As I said, I got it charged up to 90% and when I plugged it back in, it went up to 100% in no time at all.
you could also, gasp, BUY a new battery - then see if it happens with the new battery - if yes, there's a problem with your pda or charging cable(s), if not, then at least you know the original battery was bad (and i'd send it in for replacement), and this way you'd also have 2 batteries = more power!
Although it doesn't sound like you have this problem, Lithium Ion Polymer batteries are very forgiving in some ways (you can charge for short periods of time without a memory effect), they also have a major downside - if it ever over-discharges, it will not hold a charge. period. ever. to overdischarge, you'd need to let it run all the way down, and then not charge it for weeks, i.e. the thing would have to really run itself down. once that happens, no charging in the world will help. then, at that point, you may want to take it apart to see what's inside, like i did! (you can read about that on www.pdajunkie.net - trust me, it's not pretty )
Oh dear, I will look at that in a minute then!
After charging it to 100%, it went down to 85% quite a bit quicker than I would have thought normal, around 5 minutes maybe. 85% seems to be the average length it charges to, although it's sometimes 90% I haven't seen it stay there for long. Hmmmm.
My bf (who also has a pocket pc but doesn't really know what I should do either) says it's v. bad for my battery to keep charging up and so I should let it run right down to no battery, then charge it up as full as I can. Do this 5 times, do a hard reset and then things should be fine. But I don't think he really knows this and I can't really get it to charge to 100% unless I take it out and charge again for a few mins, or at least that's what I had to do today.
His answer to that is, does it turn orange again after I switch it on after it's turned to green? My answer was yes, and he said perhaps it's going through different stages. This, I am skeptical about. He said I should charge it overnight and then I wouldn't be able to interfere, but that's what I did last night, it only said 85% after turning it on.
Should I a, do what he says? Should I b, charge it while it's switched on overnight to see if it makes a difference? Or does anyone else have any other suggestions?
Laura,
Keep your Toshiba plugged in as much as you want. It doesn't matter if it's on or off, connected to the computer or not. Just plug it in and relax 8)
Not to get in between you and your boyfriend, but discharging your battery all the way before recharging it does more harm than good. In fact, that's about the worst thing you can do for your battery life.
Like I said above, you have an L-ION battery not a Nickel Cadmium. If it was NiCad, then you would want your battery to run all the way out. L-IONS work much much better with constant charging or "Topping off"
Hope this helps,
Brad
This is what I found on Lithium Ion batteries, just to back my ramblings up. The source is http://www.cellpower.com/battery_tips.cfm (this effectively contradicts what Mr. Isaac was saying):
“Lithium-ion Batteries
Lithium-ion batteries are the newest technology batteries and offer several advantages over NiMH and NiCd batteries. Lithium-ion batteries are preferred for their lighter weight and higher performance. Lithium-ion batteries are typically 20-35% lighter and will provide 10-20% better performance than a NiMH battery of equivalent mAh rating. Lithium-ion batteries are also unique in that they are not susceptible to the "memory effect".
A new Lithium-ion battery will benefit from an initial "conditioning" of the battery. For the first 3 charge cycles, fully charge the battery overnight and allow it to fully discharge before recharging. Once conditioned, Lithium-ion batteries will perform best when charged at a rate somewhere between a conventional slow charge and a rapid charge. When rapid charging, Lithium-ion batteries require a charger designed to charge Lithium batteries. To achieve a true full charge when rapid charging, the battery needs to be slow charged the last 10-15% of its charge cycle. Most "intelligent" desktop and Lithium-battery rapid chargers provide this capability. A Lithium-ion battery may be damaged by extensive overcharging (continuously on a charger for more than 24 hours).”
I am sorry I haven’t shortened it, but I felt the whole piece of text certainly enhances understanding of the subject.
Also I found this “do’s and don’ts list (which is useful:
“Battery Do's & Don'ts (to maximize performance)
Do's:
Properly "condition" (fully charge/discharge for first 3 cycles) the battery when it is new.
Keep the battery and the contact terminals clean.
Avoid exposing the battery to extreme heat and cold.
Use the battery. If possible, avoid letting your battery sit dormant for long periods of time.
Use only the phone options and accessories that you really need.
Charge and re-condition a battery after an extended idle period.
Don'ts:
Toss, drop, or otherwise abuse the battery.
Short-circuit the battery.
Open and expose the cell contents.
Modify the battery casing and/or housing.
Allow the battery to be exposed to rain or excessive moisture.
Incinerate a battery. Properly dispose of a used battery.”
I think my device may be faulty. Twice now when I have switched it on as normal, it has gone into set up mode and it is like the first time I got it. It's like I've done a hard reset but I know I haven't.
I am now seeing about sending it back and getting a refund.
Laura
This is what I found on Lithium Ion batteries, just to back my ramblings up. The source is http://www.cellpower.com/battery_tips.cfm (this effectively contradicts what Mr. Isaac was saying):
Well then I guess you knew better than me all along -- makes me wonder why you bothered asking. sheesh!
Really, I had no idea you had a lab there and could monitor the charge level from a rate somewhere between a conventional slow charge and a rapid charge and that you could effectively slow charge it the last 10-15% of its charge cycle! Why didn't you say so? :roll:
You see, most of us simply have to rely on our Pocket PCs taking care of that for us.
Oh, by the way, you must have missed the quote from your own link that said "Lithium-ion batteries do not develop the "memory effect". " That basically means that you don't have to discharge the battery all the way. You can charge them a little or a lot.
However, you have to also take into account that maybe the people here are at least a little experienced with Pocket PCs and know how they behave over the long term - you don't have to believe me when I say that topping off your battery more frequently leads to more battery life. Yeah, maybe I made that up, or maybe I've learned the hard way over the past 4 years in the industry. You decide...
Oh no! Hon, that was an email from my boyfriend! I just copied and pasted it all into my post!
I kind of know that since you have your own pocket pc forum, you must know what you are saying. He on the other hand, thinks exactly the opposite. I'm really sorry, I should have said it was an email. I am giving my Toshiba one last chance, and if it resets one more time without me saying so, I am going to question further about sending it back.
Hopefully the seller will agree to this. Thanks.
ahhh...I see. That adds some insight.
Like you, I am thinking your device is defective. hard resets should be something you consciously do, not something that "happens". :?
I hard reset 2 times a YEAR at most and I put these devices through the ringer. Gary, didn't you tell me you NEVER hard reset? Once a day hard reset behavior is not acceptable and I recommend you get them to trade it or send a refund.
Best wishes!
Brad
Ok, the night before I woke up and found it to be reset, I had taken out the battery on my bf's demand, to see how the charger worked. He said it should not go orange because the charger should not be able to charge it. So it stayed green for about 10secs, blinking orange once then green again. My bf says my charger sounds loopy, what do you think?
I'd forgot I had taken the battery out, so that's an explanation for what happened this time. My battery was going right down today, as I was taking my bf's advice to let the battery run all the way down then give it a full charge. It got really low so it'd switched off about 3 times by itself. The next time I switch it on, it was reset.
I think this is probably because my battery had gone right down and I got a few warnings about losing data etc. but my bf says that would normally take a few days to do. Is it common for devices like this to reset after that small an amount of time? I'd had no problem at all with my sony clie (palm) and I'm thinking maybe I should just keep using it.
The person I bought it from (I got it from America, www.getsmartdeals.com) has said I should contact Toshiba because it on warranty and he will send me an invoice. I was trying to give it 1 last chance and I haven't charged it up yet, I think I will again do what my bf says and charge it for a good 12 hours, then it should not matter if my charger is green or orange and I should just leave it. But this resetting thing has really thrown me off.
What do you think I should do about this?
Laura
But I don't think mine is a high capacity battery, it's just the normal default one that came with my device. Aren't the high capacity ones the really big things that you stick on the back and are optional?
It seems to be doing exactly the same thing though.
Keep us posted on what happens.
but discharging your battery all the way before recharging it does more harm than good. In fact, that's about the worst thing you can do for your battery life. 
sheesh!
It wouldn't hurt to call toshiba about this.