topic Re: POWER DRAIN on Vaio-pocket when powered OFF - READ READ!! in PCs & Accessories

POWER DRAIN on Vaio-pocket when powered OFF - READ READ!!

badde — Thu, 03 Feb 2005 14:50:54 GMT

I suppose that more vaio-pocket owners have noticed the strange power depletion problem with the device ? When you power it off and leave unused for 5 days, the battery is dead!! Then you have the nice job of starting initialisation again.

Also there's a humming sound inside the device when it's powered off.

I opened a call with Sony. They asked me to format the HD and fully charge,etc.... I showed my goodwill and tried all this, but no change. Then they came with the excuse that this power problem and noise when turning the device off is normal behaviour of the system

I then opened a formal complaint and requested them to solve this problem (if possible) by issuing a solution in the next firmware update. I feel that you need at least to have the choice to put the device in standby or real power down.

I think that if we want to have this problem solved we need to put some pressiure on Sony. So if all users who have problems with this so called "normal behavior",open a complaint , maybe Sony will do something about this :smileygrin:

The vaio-pocket is a wonderfull device and I'm really pleased with it, but this power drain problem needs to be sorted out. I payed big bucks for this thing and I want it work as it should be. It's like buying a car that leaks fuel all the time and the reseller tells you it's normal behaviour!!

Thanks a lot for reading !!

Badde.

Re: POWER DRAIN on Vaio-pocket when powered OFF - READ READ!!

Twisted-Rizla — Thu, 03 Feb 2005 16:16:15 GMT

Hi Badde

Welcome to the Forum:smileygrin:

You are right to assume other people have had similar problems with the battery (see herefor another thread on the same topic)

It appears to me that Sony are not quite coming clean about the problem.

You are right to urge other disgruntled users to put pressure on Sony because they do, believe it or not, take this Forum seriously and some comments and issues do filter their way through.

Don't suffer in silence fellow Vaio people. Air those opinions, complaints or compliments and hopefully Sony will respond positively.

I'd like to think that the Vaio Members had some influence in Sony's recent decision to support mp3 in future products. There was certainly no shortage of critisism on that topic in this this forum anyway!

Re: POWER DRAIN on Vaio-pocket when powered OFF - READ READ!!

kee-lo_ — Thu, 03 Feb 2005 20:00:33 GMT

Strange how Sony and Apple have had battery issues.

Re: POWER DRAIN on Vaio-pocket when powered OFF - READ READ!!

octhem — Thu, 03 Feb 2005 20:55:09 GMT

Here's one for you all;

Name me a battery powered electrical product that doesn't have issues with battery drain, or loss of performance.

Leave a car battery for long enough and it will drain, mobile phone batteries drain, allbeit after at least a couple of months - and why does my 6 month old phone now only hold power for a day! Let's hope the VP doesn't suffer from this problem to.

Have you guy's/gal's ever thought that consistant power drain maybe a good idea? I'm no scientist but they do say that to keep batteries in good condition, they should be discharged to 0% then fully charged. Maybe Sony's experience has decided that battery drain and a better performing battery is favourable over; a battery that only holds charge for 5 hours play time in 6 months time.

I think the real issue is having to initialise the device every time it is discharged - and this only happens if the battery is used to the point that it shut's it's self down and is then left for more then a day. If it run's out get it charged within a day and you wont have to initialise it again.

Only my two pence worth, maybe it is a real big issue - just not to me and the way I use it. If you want real issues get yourself an apple crapintosh ipod!

Re: POWER DRAIN on Vaio-pocket when powered OFF - READ READ!!

seb21__ — Thu, 03 Feb 2005 21:16:07 GMT

Nickel-metal hydride,Lithium Ions
or Lithium Polymer rechargeable Batteries?

what for batteries use the VAIO-Pocket?

When I hear your problems, I think the first one.
Bad Sony, bad

Nickel-metal hydride batteries have a max. life time of 1 year,(thanks memory effect)
when you use the battery carefully.

Re: POWER DRAIN on Vaio-pocket when powered OFF - READ READ!!

Pentagram — Thu, 03 Feb 2005 23:31:21 GMT

It's a Lithium-Ion battery so they shouldn't be discharged to 0% before recharging this actually reduces the batterylife.

Here are a couple of links about battery charging en maintenance.
How to prolong life off lithium-ion batteries
Charging lithium-ion batteries

Re: POWER DRAIN on Vaio-pocket when powered OFF - READ READ!!

seb21__ — Thu, 03 Feb 2005 23:38:31 GMT

yeah, never discharged a battery to zero.
And Lithium-Ion batteries don't have this memory effect (like a NiMH),
or better the memory effect isn't so big.

thanks for the link Pentagram.

Re: POWER DRAIN on Vaio-pocket when powered OFF - READ READ!!

badde — Fri, 04 Feb 2005 08:38:47 GMT

octhem, I saw your reply and I must agree that every battery drains power after a while, but there's a difference on how fast the battery is getting empty.

I know for a fact that if I don't use my protable for let's say 2 weeks the battery will be at 50%.

But do you really think that using the vaio-pocket for 2-3 hours and then keeping it powered off for 2-3 days justifies a power drain of more than 50% ??

I think not. I expect the thing to stay off for at least 1 week and still having 50% of power available, this will still give me the opportunity to listen music for a couple hours and then charge it.

I also agree that it's better to charge the battery whenever you have the time regardless the % still available. But at the rate the battery drain is going, I'm almost forced to keep it in the cradle all time when I do not want to use it for more than 1 day

What I want to try with this post is to have Sony create a firmware, if it's a software issue, to give the possibility to the users to put it in standby( like it does now) or to really power it off. That way if I don't think using the thing for a couple days, I know that I will still be able to use it again without first recharging it or leaving it in the cradle. See it like the little red light on your TV set : standby or power it off

Badde,

Re: POWER DRAIN on Vaio-pocket when powered OFF - READ READ!!

Hellknight_FA — Sun, 06 Feb 2005 14:23:51 GMT

I think the Battery-drain-problem is due to the Database which is hold in the RAM of the VAIO Pocket to ensure a fast boot.

On my iRiver H320 (swapped my VP due to this "problem") the boot-time with enabled db-scan is much longer than that of a VP (some users report 2-3 minutes!).

I think this "problem" is a design decission by Sony. Apple had made the same decission for their iPods.

Greetings

Timo

Re: POWER DRAIN on Vaio-pocket when powered OFF - READ READ!!

diverse — Mon, 07 Feb 2005 22:18:16 GMT

so p*$$ed off with the PV i went and bought a HD3 (and HD1 on offer!) you can switch these off for a week or more and go back and the battery is where you left it!

Ditto an Orange SPVC500, i haven't charged this for months and the battery is where it was when i turned it off!

Sony's "OFFICIAL" line is that the unit should discharge in 10 days, YES, that's the same as using it 2 hours per day or it discharges 10% charge per day which is total BS!

I don't use my unit every day, why should i lose a complete battery cycle becuase it wants to "remember" things!

I have a watch to tell me the time, a calender to tell me the date, I want my PV to play music i want and i don;t want it to keep eating my battery!

Will Sony listen, who knows?

Re: POWER DRAIN on Vaio-pocket when powered OFF - READ READ!!

nemo66 — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 12:56:14 GMT

@ octhem !!!

I think u don´t know much about electronics....!?!
Let me give u an example:
-my SONY PSP is in the box since over 2 weeks (lack of time)
-just checked now the power of the system...and guess what???
-not more than 10 % discharge...and this over a time of 2 weeks!!!

The problem with the PocketVaio seems to be deeper....and i thinks SONY can´t do nothing about it.
It may be simply a electronicaly design failure...one of the bugs they may discover after the release....

Only thing that may help is to sell the PV and buy an iPod insted.

Re: POWER DRAIN on Vaio-pocket when powered OFF - READ READ!!

diverse — Wed, 09 Feb 2005 17:46:18 GMT

agreed! come on sony!!

Re: POWER DRAIN on Vaio-pocket when powered OFF - READ READ!!

badde — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 10:46:55 GMT

Thanks to all for the comments. :smileygrin:

I have not the impression that Sony is really reading this Forum, or maybe they are not used to post replies?

What is the experience others have with this ?

In the mean time still enjoying this fantastic machine, even if I need to re-charge it every 2-3 days and leave it in the cradle when not using it.

I hope Sony really makes the effort to do something about this issue

Regards,

Badde.

Re: POWER DRAIN on Vaio-pocket when powered OFF - READ READ!!

supersonyc — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 17:01:47 GMT

the battery "drain" is normal:

when you charge the battery fully for at least 6 hours and it has a full charge, the battery level will continually decrease:

this is due to the fact that certain functions of the vaio pocket, like date and time, your history and other information is constantly using power, even if the vaio pocket is switched off.

typically, when you leave the vaio pocket switched off after a full charge for two days, you should the first battery symbol disappearing, which leaves STILL 75 % CHARGE.

i think sony should be hailed for making the battery symbol PRETTY ACCURATE and not, like many other devices, power on to a full battery status level after several days of non-usage and actual battery life then depleting within minutes...

Re: POWER DRAIN on Vaio-pocket when powered OFF - READ READ!!

badde — Fri, 18 Feb 2005 08:42:32 GMT

supersonyc,

I tend to dissagree with you about the fact that history and other data needs to be kept in memory all the time. For the clock I can understand that it's kept in mem., but the other data should be kept on the disc if you power the device off for several days.
I can understand the reason to keep this info in mem as long as the device is in standby, because nobody wants a device that take 3 min. to start by building his history and other data. On the other hand, if the data was written to disc, it can also be retrieved very fast at startup, and if only the clock/date is kept in mem it will not drain the battery that fast.

But like I keep on trying to make clear is the fact that I want to have the choice of putting the device in standby or relly power off. I hate keeping to repeat myself.

But if you are really happy with the battery life of your VP, do not reply to this post. I want to hear info from people who, like me, have a problem with the battery drain. and have Sony to do something about it. Should they bring out a fix for this, you are not obliged to install it if you don't have problems with it.

A little remark about the battery icon on the VP : you say "i think sony should be hailed for making the battery symbol PRETTY ACCURATE"
I dissagree again with you here. Try and leave the VP off for 2 days, then power it on --> will show 75% free, couple minutes later it will show 50% and again couple of min. later 25%. I do not call this PRETTY ACCURATE.

I hail Sony for making good devices with great looks. In fact almost every peace of Video/Hifi/other hardware I own is Sony. I think Sony ows me a fix for this problem as a valued customer.

Sorry for this long post, but I needed to say what I have to say :smileygrin:

Badde

Re: POWER DRAIN on Vaio-pocket when powered OFF - READ READ!!

diverse — Fri, 18 Feb 2005 10:50:21 GMT

I am NOT HAPPY WITH MY PV!!

Re: POWER DRAIN on Vaio-pocket when powered OFF - READ READ!!

@4967457401015621 — Fri, 18 Feb 2005 11:50:48 GMT

Just out of interest, how many people do leave their Vaios off for extended periods of time? The longest mine's off for is overnight; I paid a lot of money for mine and I love music so it's always on. In response to some of your points, I think that the music info is stored on the HD anyway, my (first gen) iPod is much quicker to turn on, when the battery hasn't been run down (I can leave it paused and it will resume instantly). I'm not trying to advocate iPods by any means though. You can hear the hard drive running when the VP is switched on, and when you turn it off the hard drive spins and a message saying "Please wait" is displayed at the bottom of the screen. To me this suggests the VP is writing it's info to the HD.
Also, don't expect Sony to reply to anything on this forum, I posted an email I received a few weeks ago that said they do not monitor this forum - for more info look through the past threads. You'd be better off contacting Sony direct, and if lots of people do they may take notice.
Ben

Re: POWER DRAIN on Vaio-pocket when powered OFF - READ READ!!

badde — Fri, 18 Feb 2005 13:00:25 GMT

Yes that's why I opened this Post in the first place --> after I called Sony about the problem.:smileycry:

So I this problem bothers you --> Call them :smileysmug:

And yes I love the VP and music, but in the WE I don't usualy use it as I listen MP3 using my Stereo at home and in my car. This means leaving the VP in the cradle all WE in order to have it fresh on Monday.

Badde