*RAPID* (loss of >50% in minutes) battery discharge in Treo 755

Joad · 07/16/2007, 09:29 PM

I could swear I've seen other people report this issue, but searching yielded zip/nada.

About 3-4 times over the past 75 days or so since owning the 755 - seemingly at random - in a matter of minutes my phone has gone from 70-80% charge down to 10-15% charge. Both using bluetooth and not using bluetooth, talking on phone, and once when not, only charging.

What will happen is suddenly the bluetooth turns itself off, then the phone disconnects any call and turns off. I look at the gauge and it's in the red. Weird.

I'm guessing it's either a faulty battery, faulty charger, or faulty circuit in the phone. long-shot possiblility of some third-party software, but doubtful because of it's randomness and my long familiarity with everything I've added.

It's so spuradic and random that narrowing it down is near impossible except by replacing a component every month and watching it. Am starting with the car charger, will move on to the battery, then the phone itself.

If anyone has experienced similar rapid battery discharge issues with any of the Treos and got a resolution that works, please share your knowledge here. Between the Treos I've owned and the ones I directly support right now, this is the first time I've ever seen this in about 100 Treos, so I'm really stumped.

newtech · 07/16/2007, 09:56 PM

I posted this in another thread about the battery going from maybe half to 3% in a very short time. That was with the extended battery from Seidio (requested a refund today) not with the stock battery which I am back to using. Will see. Battery overall on the 755 is worse than with my 700 but also have been using bluetooth now that it seems to work reasonably well.

Not sure what to do. It sure would be nice to have a phone with all-day battery life. Maybe thats a question for those on different devices and other carriers besides Sprint. I see battery life of some GSM phones and think why cant the Treo do that.

west3man · 07/16/2007, 11:34 PM

I've experienced something similar. I noticed that the data exchange icons seemed to be active around the time the juice dropped down to 27% in two hours.

If I made a phonecall or something that interrupted that flow, it might not resume, then the battery consumption slowed down.

Out of curiosity, did either of you recently install PdaNet?

Joad · 07/16/2007, 11:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by west3man

Out of curiosity, did either of you recently install PdaNet?

I do have PDAnet installed, but noticed the behavior happen prior to it's installation.

Just for the record, I'm using the stock Palm OEM battery. If that $70 Seidio battery is doing it too, then perhaps that indicates it's NOT the battery(?) and instead the unit or charger?

mbaker911 · 07/17/2007, 12:04 AM

I had noticed a similar problem with both my 600 and my 755p. However, my problem was related to being in an area without a sprint signal when the phone radio was on. Evenso, I was hoping the problem would have been fixed. I once had a very old sprint phone that would switch into a special mode once it was unable to get a network signal. The special mode would check only every few minutes as set by the user, instead of checking continuously. I've always wished there was a software fix like that fo this problem.

west3man · 07/17/2007, 08:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Joad

I do have PDAnet installed, but noticed the behavior happen prior to it's installation.

Just for the record, I'm using the stock Palm OEM battery. If that $70 Seidio battery is doing it too, then perhaps that indicates it's NOT the battery(?) and instead the unit or charger?

I'm convinced that the drain on my 755p was due to some type of continuous data transfer since it occurred while I had a strong signal and the little blue triangles were blinking intermittently, but consistently, if that makes any sense.

pauld5999 · 07/17/2007, 11:52 AM

This actually happened to me for the first time last night. I am using the stock battery and have the 755 for about a month and at the time of the drop I was trying to pair a new blue tooth device and had just figured that the attempting to pair drained the battery drastically (dont know exactly but I think it was in the 50-60% range and it took it down to 3%) for some reason, after reading this I am wondering though. I pair the phone daily with my car kit for at least an hour a day so I dont think it is a bluetooth pairing/unpairing issue but I am not definte. To charge I usually use either the stock wall charger or Seido craddle.

hmjd · 07/18/2007, 11:33 AM

I was at near full strength (supposedly) when my battery when to red, EXTREMELY low, and then off within about 60 seconds while on a call. I'm using the battery the 755p came with. This was a few weeks ago.

Then last night I plugged my treo in to juice up (it was at about 80%) and the light turned immediately green. I thought that wasn't possible so I unplugged it to check power -and it went IMMEDIATELY RED to 0%!

Plugged it back in and as of this morning it's charged and working 'fine' now.

I guess . . .?

peterbanks · 07/18/2007, 06:11 PM

I experienced this today as well. The phone had been sitting for about an hour, when I went to pick it up and it was very warm, as if it had been running constantly for awhile. I reset it to stop what ever was going on, but it didn't help. In 45 minutes it was showing the red battery icon, and this was from a full charge this morning with little to no use. This is with the oem battery. I did notice that the evdo icons where going even though I was not connected to anything.

sarantis · 07/20/2007, 04:08 AM

I've had my Treo for a week now and it just happened yesterday. Went from 75% to 20% in a very short time. Quite odd! Better not be too often.

Coffeeman · 07/20/2007, 12:15 PM

This sure sounds like the "checking for data every 7 seconds" problem that I posted a few days ago.

Data forcing all calls to voicemail

I can literally watch the battery meter go down, when it constantly connects to the data network.

I'm exchanging the 755 for a new one tomorrow. If the new 755 has the same problem, I'm done with Palm.

Joad · 07/22/2007, 05:12 PM

I just had a different person's 755 unit discharge overnight (while turned off) last night. It wasn't plugged into the charger, was at about 90% at 12midnight, and by 11AM (with no usage) it was at 13%. 11 hours and never turned on or used and it lost about 80% of it's charge - that's a problem.

This one has very basic configurations and software, so I'm further ruling out third-party software as the culprit.

Perhaps this issue will soon merit a sticky - never saw this happen on any previous Treo models owned: the 600, 650 or 700p (probably a total of 30 units). If it's a data transfer issue, why would it be happening with the phone off and/or over such a short time for so many people?

mstreger · 07/24/2007, 09:08 PM

This has happened to me a 3 times so far, and all 3 times the device was very warm, almost hot at the end. It seems to me that the radio is radiating constantly when this happens, either doing a ton of data, or searching for a good signal, or both.

One time I was on PDANet inside a building where I knew I had a bad signal. The last 2 times were in my office. One of them something locked up the device during a data transmission (I think) and it just kept radiating.

If anyone has more insight I'd love it - this is a major problem for me.

Matt

matty032 · 07/24/2007, 09:54 PM

The guy that posted that his did it, even wth the radio off. That sounds scary. I just got the 755 as a replacement for the disastorous 700. Please don't give me a set of new troubles....

matty032 · 07/24/2007, 09:57 PM

Whoa, I remember there was another model Treo, that had a problem, a bad code in the camera files, that caused the battery to do the same thing. May have been the 680? Palm's MR for the change over from Cingular, to AT&T, contained the fix. I wonder if this is related?

Coffeeman · 07/24/2007, 11:16 PM

I exchanged my 755 for a new one on Monday. The replacement unit does not constantly connect to the data network, and battery life is excellent. Fourteen hours off of the charger, with moderate use, and the battery is showing 75%. Big difference between this 755, and the first one that I had.

west3man · 07/24/2007, 11:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Coffeeman

I exchanged my 755 for a new one on Monday. The replacement unit does not constantly connect to the data network, and battery life is excellent. Fourteen hours off of the charger, with moderate use, and the battery is showing 75%. Big difference between this 755, and the first one that I had.

Mine didn't do it, either... at first. It took weeks before it started discharging like a... err... well, nevermind.

pauld5999 · 07/25/2007, 11:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by matty032

Whoa, I remember there was another model Treo, that had a problem, a bad code in the camera files, that caused the battery to do the same thing. May have been the 680? Palm's MR for the change over from Cingular, to AT&T, contained the fix. I wonder if this is related?

yes that was the 680, the sent out a camera patch well before the MR to fix

Joad · 07/25/2007, 03:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by west3man

Mine didn't do it, either... at first. It took weeks before it started discharging like a... err... well, nevermind.

Yes, same here, weeks. Thanks for reminding us about the initial 680 drain issues, forgot about that and it might be relevent to this.

I'm interested in knowing if the people who've had their 755's replaced (and do an identical image restore to these phones ie: Backupman) have seen the issue resolved or are still experiencing it.

west3man · 07/25/2007, 05:03 PM

Mine did it, today. Basically a full charge, this morning, little-to-no usage, then 18% as of about 1:30pm.

From 1:30pm to about 2:30pm, I left it charging in my truck. When I returned to the truck, the battery was completely dead. The phone wouldn't even stay on - even after I removed the battery and just plugged the charger in.

I hit the Sprint store at a lucky time and they swapped out my battery in case that was the problem. I guess we'll see. With that funky behavior, though, I'd suspect it's the phone.

Of course, I'm hoping it's the battery so I don't have to get my FOURTH 755p in about two and a half months. I don't know if these software makers will keep transferring my licenses from one 755P to another, without charging me.

*fingers crossed*