Battery Dying

[shanty]

My battery keeps dying. Sometimes I can listen to my h300 for hours without it dying and other times the battery dies within a couple of minutes of me turning it on. This is really pissing me off can somone fix this battery problem please. Oh I am using norsubans latest build if that helps.

Thanks

Shanty

[shanty]

Also when the battery dies I leave my player off for a couple of hours and when I turn it on again the battery is about half full and I listen to it for a while then it dies again.

[BlackStar]

You neeed a new battery.

[Yngwiejo]

Yes, this sounds that there's a problem with your battery, it's not related to Rockbox. You can open up your player and replace it though.

[shanty]

Ok where would I get a new battery from?

Thanks

Shanty

[matx]

You can get a new battery in various online shops, just use the search function, there are several threads about battery changing, including instructions how to open your player and so on.

[musichound]

I had the same exact battery problems as you are. Before you go about changing the battery take off Rockbiox and try using your player with native firmware. It could be Rockbox might be causing this. Why am I saying this? Because I was using 1.29K firmware with Rockbox. When 1.31 firmware became available I was curious to see how it functioned. For some strange reason the battery is acting better now. This might be coincidental so I am going to temporarikly leave Rockbox off to see if my conclusions are valid.

[DaiABolical]

Originally Posted by musichound

I had the same exact battery problems as you are. Before you go about changing the battery take off Rockbiox and try using your player with native firmware. It could be Rockbox might be causing this. Why am I saying this? Because I was using 1.29K firmware with Rockbox. When 1.31 firmware became available I was curious to see how it functioned. For some strange reason the battery is acting better now. This might be coincidental so I am going to temporarikly leave Rockbox off to see if my conclusions are valid.

No, this has happened to me too. I'd left my 320 plugged in on USB Boot Loader for a while before it happened but that may just be a coincidence. Anyway RockBox with 1.29EU and Norbusan Build was showing dead battery and switching off after a track or two, leave it a while and it would come back with 50% charge showing but then switch off. Wierdly - when I booted into Original Firmware it would always show a single bar of charge but report low battery and then start cycling through both boot options - Rb - OF - RB - OF etc etc.

I have tried removing both firmwares and reinstalling RB on 1.29K but the behavior returns. It's only on a clean Original Firmware only install that it's not evident. That said my battery is old and I don't get anywhere near a full 16 hours from it.

I've looked at replacement batteries and may do this when the life gets really low but I hope someone can suggest a fix in the meantime as I really miss my album-art.

[Broove]

I have the same problem lately.. and I am using Rockbox too.
It's hard to say, but I think that rockbox is to blame, cause too many people are having this problem

[Tonic]

Originally Posted by musichound

When 1.31 firmware became available I was curious to see how it functioned. For some strange reason the battery is acting better now. This might be coincidental so I am going to temporarikly leave Rockbox off to see if my conclusions are valid.

I'm doing the same thing and I have seen a slight performance increase too however I think my HDD is to blame for my poor battery performance as it's quite noisy when spinning up these days.

Just a suggestion that the battery itself is not always the problem.

[shanty]

I have tried Norsubans build, Kosh's build, Minimum rockbox build and the daily rockbox build from the rockbox website and the battery dies with all of them. I have not tried Drippydonuts build yet, cant find a download for it. I am thinking that it is the battery that is dead. I dont think it's rockbox that is causing the problem because the battery should not die with every build, not unless somthing on rockbox is causing the battery to die. Well i shall keep playing around and try and solve this problem.

[bonusbartus]

Strange, I got the same problem lately and my player (H340) is only 7 months old... My 2,5 year old h120 still works, it started, after I installed a new build, I used a build from september first and everything was fine, in octrober I updated to a newer build.
When I try to transfer anything over USB the battery dies in a few minutes, even with stock firmware, so I think it realy is a battery problem, but I wonder if it is caused by rockbox because I see so many others have the same problem

well, I'm going to send it back to iriver, they should repair it
but I hope it isn't realy rockbox related

[RoliPoli2411]

I have exactly the same issue as described by bonusbartus. I also have the gut feeling that one of the latest Rockbox versions might have caused the problem somehow, although I would not have the slightest idea how... The strange thing is that the battery always worked fine, and suddenly it is gone after couple of minutes. I believe that it happened in October, too. I think it was the first build I installed that was somehow video-capable. Very strange.
Especially strange is that after a while the battery seems to reload itself by magic! Maybe there is something happening in the player that causes the voltage to temporarily drop?!
I definitely have the issue with the original firmware, too, so it cannot be related to Rockbox only.
I will probably try buying a new battery, hoping that this will solve the problem.

[shanty]

I am now starting to think that Rockbox is causing the problem. I think I shall try a build that wasnt created in october and se how that goes. I think it may have somthing to do with rockbox because there is more than one person getting this problem so we cant all have dead batteries can we?

[k0r34n_jjashik]

i actually have this problem too

[RoliPoli2411]

I just posted our problem in the Rockbox Forum. Maybe somebody over there has an idea what is going on...

[Agincourt]

Read this - you may find it useful:

http://www.batteryuniversity.com/parttwo-34.htm

Try doing a complete charge and discharge to recalibrate the battery meter.

[RoliPoli2411]

These guys over at the Rockbox forum all speak with one voice, saying that it is indeed the battery that cannot handle temporary voltage peaks any more as they might occur when the audio buffer is filled. Sounds reasonable to me, and explains why currency re-builds itself after a while and why the same thing happens on original firmware.
Febs also explained that this problem occured even before Rockbox...
Looks like we should check for new batteries!

[rivers]

yeah i can totally agree. I'm using 1.29k with RB and my battery is just not keeping up anymore or something. It dies super quick. Also if i shut it off for awhile it work for a little bit longer then will die again .

[theone1234]

http://forums.rockbox.org/index.php?topic=7215.0

[shanty]

Before you all go and send your money on a new battery you may want to check this out. I still think we should all buy new batteries but what I have found may help. OK I was searching throught the menu on my player today and I found the setting battery capacity. I went into it and it was set at 1300 mAh So I changed it to 2000 mAh then I turned off my player and charged it.

A couple of hours later I began listening to my player and I managed to listen to it for about 25 minutes before it shut off. Usually it would only last a couple of minutes but this time it lasted a lot longer. As I was listening to it I was watching the battery and at first it went down slowly then after a few minutes it jumped and half the battery was gone. Then a few minutes latter it jumped again and it was almost dead. Then a couple of minutes later it died.

I still think it is a new battery that we all need but I think the battery capacity may also have somthing to do with it. Before I decide to buy a new battery I think I will play around with the battery capacity settings some more. You should all change your battery capacity to somthing higher than what it is now as see how long you players last. Also post on this thread what your battery capacity is on your player now and what it is after you change it and how long your player lasts after you change the battery capacity. I want to know how long your player lasts with what battery capacity so we can work out if it is the battery capacity or not.

Thanks
Shanty

[matx]

i don't think that playing around with the battery capacity changes anything. you won't have longer battery life just because you change this setting in rockbox. as far as i'm concerned, the only difference that this setting makes, is the time remaining function. it's just because a battery with a bigger capacity has a different behaviour compared to the standard battery (for example if you have 3.4V with a 2200mah battery you will have longer battery life remaining compared to 3.4V with the standard battery, although you have the same voltage.) i hope i could make myself clear, it's kind a hard to describe technical stuff in a foreign language

[ozjeremy]

It would fool Rockbox into thinking there's more time remaining than there is, which means it wouldn't shut itself off quite as quickly.

But the reason it shuts itself off is that Li-On batteries are not supposed to be run completely flat - it kills them. So if you trick rockbox into running your battery completely flat you'll get a few more minutes play out of your player once or twice, and then the battery will pack it in entirely.

[MrMeowMeow]

Same problem. Can someone show me a link as to where I can get a new battery?

[Denny]

Originally Posted by MrMeowMeow