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Batteries !!!!! SOLVED !!!!! hardware issue.

Posted: Tue Jul 14, 2009 4:26 pm
by plane_crazy
I bought a brand new external battery for my 366. I put it on and charged it all night. So how surprised was I when the computer shut down 10 minutes after I boot it up! Windows XP recognizes the external battery and tells me that it is 100% charged. But when the internal battery runs down with 96% left in the external, the computer shuts down. It is not using the external battery at all. Is there a BIOS setting that needs to be changed? I am using MicroXP. Is there a possibility that part of the ACPI was left out. The screen saver does work, but it does not hibernate. I have the power setting to "Always On" and shut down the screen after 15 min on battery and never shut down the hard drive. But I don't think these work either as I have never had the screen shut down, just goes to screensaver.

Any thoughts.

Bruce

Re: Batteries

Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2009 5:51 am
by plane_crazy
I see a bunch of people have read this. Is anybody else having trouble with their external battery? Could it be a Windows thing? There are a couple of you guys running MicroXP out there, do both your batteries work right?

Maybe I'll try one of the linux distros and see if that works better. That way I can tell if it's hardware or software related.

Bruce

Re: Batteries

Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2009 6:18 am
by plane_crazy
Just tried another test. Took the internal battery out, the unit will not boot. Plugged it in and it booted to Windows. In control panel Power properties sees one battery 100% charge. Pull the plug and the unit goes dead????

Sure hope it's not hardware related as I want to use this on the battery in the plane. Before someone says it: the 12V adapter is no good. My Cigar lighter outlet already has a splitter on it for the numerous other gadgets that are requisite to flying.

Bruce

Re: Batteries

Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2009 6:18 pm
by plane_crazy
Booted up Ubuntu on the external CD with the internal battery out. Got the same result when I pulled the AC - she shut right down.

Bruce

Re: Batteries

Posted: Sun Jul 26, 2009 11:05 am
by JouriM
Already post in the topic with same description: same sh**t as you get.
Windows say all is OK, battery charged, used and so on.
After internal battery done (or without it) - tablet shuts down in second.
It seems tablet does not use ext battery al all :(

Re: Batteries

Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2009 7:01 pm
by plane_crazy
Jouri,

Is your external battery brand new? If it is where did you buy it? Did it ever work, or did it stop when you installed MicroXP?

Bruce

Re: Batteries

Posted: Tue Jul 28, 2009 9:38 am
by serialjoepsycho
I took a look and I think I have it figured out. On mine with xp the second battery doesn't show that it is there. Missing driver?
since it doesn't recognize the external battery but it does the internal so it sucks juice from that battery and is set up to shut down when that goes low. You could modify the power profile. Right now it's set to mobile. Before you do try a small test. Take out the internal battery and put on the external battery and see if it will power up the screen. windows shouldn't load but the external battery should attempt to boot it up. If it does then you can change the power profile but good luck.

Re: Batteries

Posted: Tue Jul 28, 2009 10:12 am
by JouriM
The batteries of mine are used and in unknown condition.
But thay are work and condition is not bad.
Actually I buy a moust expensive WebDT on Ebay and it seems the secondary is new.
But may be I mistaken and its used...

Anyway.
After reading this topic I make several experiments with batteries and have... strange results.

Situation
I experiment under WinXPe.
Windows sees both batteries and both successfully change to 100%.
Experiments under two loads:
a) idle: no hdd (flash and interfaces) usage, full backlight. Emulate book reading.
b) hard: continuos copying files from CF, full backlight. Emulate working.

Experiments

Experiment "A"
Remove external battery.
After power ON windows say where is only on battery with 98% on it.
Testing:
idle - battery loose 2-4% every 5 minutes
hard - battery loose 8-10% every minute (1 minute!)

So, under hard load battery have been totally emptyed in 15-20 minutes!

Experiment "B"
Put external battery, unplug internal battery.
a) Plug tablet to AC-DC
b) Power  up unit
c) windows says it has sigle battery with 100%
d) unplug powered tablet from AC-DC
e) windows  in several seconds say: 80%, 40%, start beepeng, shutdown

So, with single external battery tablet live very little amount of time.
1-2 minutes maximum.

Experiment "C"
Connect both batteries, change them fully.
Power up unit without ext power, windows say it has two batteries with 100% on one and 98% on the second.

Start to waiting in idle mode.
After an hour onle battery loose 10% (windows show 88% on it) and I tired of waiting.

Start hard test from 88% on one and 100% on another.
In 20 minutes one battery down to 74% and second to 90%.
Windows shows total as 88%.
During this time capacity loosing was about 2-4% in 2-3 minites but, sometimes, it was standing still for a 5-7 minutes.

So.
Under idle load WebDT will live very long (several hours).
Under hard load it will live at least 2-3 hours. I got the same result then tablet was used in my car as navigation system and I forget to power up it from lighter. It starts light with power leg after and 1 hour and half (or may be two hours).

Conlusion
I cant explain situation why tablet live so long on both batteries and so small amount of time on every one single.
But, as a result of these experiments, its seen what:
a) both batteries are used
b) unpluging of batteries do not show thay real capacity
c) tablet live on batteries (only on both!) very long time.

Re: Batteries

Posted: Tue Jul 28, 2009 10:23 am
by JouriM
serialjoepsycho wrote:I took a look and I think I have it figured out. On mine with xp the second battery doesn't show that it is there.
Missing driver?
There are no any special drivers for batteries.
I ever see another driver except standard windows on any laptop and table I use.

In my case ext battery is recognised by windows and charged correctly but if I unplug internal battery WebDT even cant start up with single external battery.
It does not even try to do this as if battery absolutelly dead.
But it not! :)

In the post before I make full tests and have a strange results.
The one of conclusions from these test is: there is no way to check ext battery condition trying to power with it single.
It seems tablet used some sort of technics used in handheld devices with two batteries - it used one to charge another. So, device will work fine and long only with both batteries.

Re: Batteries

Posted: Tue Jul 28, 2009 12:57 pm
by ynopum
I think it is not so complicated as it seems (of course - when everything works).

If both batteries are fine the following can be said:

1. The external battery has 2 times more charge than the internal.

2. If the unit can work 100% with internal battery, then it will work 300% with both batteries.

3. As a rule which I can confirm on my unit - if we have two batteries, one of them removable, then the last one (the changeable) is first discharged. The charge of the internal battery should be kept as much as possible to allow changing of external batteries. My unit works like that. I can easy check it by removing and swapping the external batteries - I have two of them. If the unit first drains the internal one - then the engineer should be a very stupid one.

4. Any strange effects with almost any battery are due to reduced capacity, increased internal resistance, or improper contact. Shortly: the battery doesn't behave properly WHEN LOADED. It can keep some proper voltage level, but can't give enough current. This is usually old battery, or one kept long time discharged, or being subject to short circuit. The last one is very easy for the WebDT external battery contacts (actually the engineer was half-stupid).

5. Don't forget that the unit should be very energy effective - the CPU is about 1.1 W only, the flash SSD is not hungry as HDD. If you remove the Wi-Fi, CF and keep the brightness low - this has nothing common to the modern notebooks which drain half kilogram battery for 2 hours.

Again I am confirming with both of my old external batteries I don't have any of the described problems on WinCE and MicroXP. There is some difference in the external batteries - one has a black label and the other bronze label.

Re: Batteries

Posted: Tue Jul 28, 2009 3:48 pm
by plane_crazy
I have been thinking exactly along the lines of your point #4 lately. Although the battery is new I have no idea how long it was sitting. It is not a DT Research battery. It is an aftermarket. I am no hardware expert but from what I know about L-Ion batteries they will slowly self discharge while sitting, and I do believe there is some point below which the voltage will no longer allow the charging circuit to charge these batteries. If that is the case is there any way to get a charge back in them? Does anyone know which of the battery contacts to use to measure the battery voltage to check it?

This all makes sense as when I am looking at the battery status in Windows it shows both batteries as full but shows the external battery as 100% charge but discharging while plugged into AC while the internal battery shows charging.

Bruce

Re: Batteries

Posted: Thu Jul 30, 2009 6:03 am
by rectic
That's strange. I have 2 externals that were sitting for probably 2 years, but I can run my 366 for 3 hours at least with them. I never really run the thing on battery though. I haven't had any of the issues you are experiencing, but mine are DT products.

Re: Batteries

Posted: Sat Aug 01, 2009 5:55 pm
by plane_crazy
I took my battery apart tonight and measured 4.3 volts on each side. So the battery is definitely charged. But windows says the battery is 100% charge and shows it's state as "discharging" when plugged into AC. This is a real puzzler.

Bruce

Re: Batteries

Posted: Sat Nov 14, 2009 12:13 pm
by Foxx
The batteries in the WebDT are not smart. They are plain cells. There is no ACPI or I2C charge information going to the host OS. There is really no way for the OS to tell how much of a charge remains, as there is no Smart battery circuitry inside any of them. The DT can only take a best guess at how long they will last, and if you have cells that are aged and not at 100% operational capacity, its best guess is going to be very inaccurate.

Re: Batteries

Posted: Fri Nov 27, 2009 12:25 am
by akhileshss
I found someone selling batteries on ebay. Did anyone buy one from him?
http://cgi.ebay.com/WebDT-366-Internal- ... 3ca63bd945