Strange Wakeup Behavior?


lvlinux

Still Fresh
Joined
Oct 30, 2009
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Well I've had my Pandora for nearly a year now. I love it except for one thing. I don't know if it's normal or not, but I don't think so.

The problem is when my Pandora is in low power mode (slide power switch, lid closed), it randomly wakes up and usually turns on the screen (and wifi if enabled) and starts draining my battery. Happens both when I'm on the AC charger and just sitting there unplugged. It's not consistent at all. I do not use or set alarms. Sometimes I'll charge it overnight and the next day open it and find that the screen/wifi are on and the battery shows 80% or occaisionally even less, with it still plugged in (I understand it won't recharge at 95% or so, but 80%??).

Also, what is supposed to wake it up? Of course the slider switch always works, but usually (not always) I can press the Pandora button, or L or R and it will wake up. Other times those buttons do not work, and I must use the power slider switch to wake it up. There is no ryhme or reason to which works when. The Pandora button _almost_ always wakes it up, and I'd say the L/R buttons do maybe 65% of the time (both with the lid opened or closed). Inserting an SD card also wakes it up.

The buttons waking it up don't bother me near as much as it waking up on it's own at random. When I'm out somewhere where I don't have any way to charge it's kindof disappointing to check the Pandora which was in low power mode, and find that it has been fully on and draining the battery down to 50% or so over several hours when I haven't been using it.

Soooooo, is this by chance normal??? Am I doing something wrong? Can I remedy it someway, or does it need to be sent in for repairs? Thanks for any help or relevant info.

(Other than this issue and a not-so-fantastic-looking case I LOVE my Pandora!! :)
 
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It's fairly normal behavio(u)r , but I thought it draining down to 80% was fixed a while ago in a semi-recent firmware update. I could be wrong, but I haven't seen this a while on mine.

It waking up randomly is still a bit of annoyance and I've been unable to really nail down why it happens. I only observe it waking up when it's on the charger, if its off the charger I can have it in low power mode for over a week without it waking up.  Maybe something to consider if you slide the power button all the way to the left, it puts it in hold mode and it disables any key-presses. Although I've been told this feature doesn't work on all Pandori, on my three it seems to though. About the slider now working, it should always wake it up, there is a slight delay, but not much. 
 
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Yeah the slider always works. Like you said, sometimes it has a bit of a delay, but no big deal. I didn't know the hold would disable ALL buttons, so I'll try that. But it has woke up without button presses, on and off the charger before.

I just updated the system today---been a couple months since I did it last, so maybe that will improve things a bit :)
 
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I have the impression that padding the battery almost cured my Pandoras from waking up randomly. It only happens now if they are moved around too heavily (heavy shaking my daypack or dropping the Pandora...).


Try to put a folded piece of paper or cardboard in the battery compartment just between the two latches so that the battery is pressed to the other side (the side of the sd card slots). In my opinion folding the paper is essential to keep the paper stressed like a spring.
 
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Maybe my experiences will be useful.  I have mine set to go into low power mode when the lid is closed, and it always woke up when charging. Even if I darkened the screen with the brightness keys it would come on periodically, then go back off due to inactivity.  I stopped checking after a while since nothing I did fixed it, and I currently charge it where I can't see it and get irritated by the display going on and off.  It was still doing this last month.

If I leave it plugged in after the battery is charged it will discharge.  I keep it updated, so if there was a fix I should have it.  Currently I only charge when I will be able to check periodically so the battery doesn't get too low.

I have, on extremely rare occasions,  opened it after it had been sitting on a shelf or desk after normal use (not plugged in) and found it was fully on, however there may have been reasons for this that I don't recall.  

When I pocket carry it I have found that it will sometimes either get warm because it is fully powered on, or when I open it the screen will be on.  Initially I suspected the shoulder buttons were waking it, however I have never been able to wake it intentionally with them.  I think I usually use enter to wake it.  I will try messing with the power switch to see if that prevents these problems, since this is when conserving the battery is most important, and is also when it wakes unexpectedly, burning through my battery.

I have the battery padded along one of the short edges since it helps me more quickly align it and prevents it from sliding around.  Mine came with foam along the long sides. 
 
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