Terrible Battery Life


Alpha eX

Still Fresh
Joined
Nov 19, 2005
Messages
65
I just payed £30 for a rechargable battery pack with with 4 2500mAh batterys, fully charged them, put 2 of them in the gp2x, no less than half an hour later of the odd 5 minuite burst, not even that, the first pair of batterys are fully dead.

this is ridiculous, the ammount ive spent on batterys this weekend! :angry:

Whats up with that, I know about the processors but they cant be running that fast to drain newbatterys in about 20 minuites.

How long are we going to have to wait for a firmware update to fix this?

Anyone else experiencing this or is it just my GP2X?
How did something this bad get overlooked in testing?
 
I tried 3 brands of batterys,

Those cheapo Korean brand
TDK something or others
Uniross Rechargable 2500 mAH

Could it just be my GP2X?
 
Feels like people get very varied battery life. Could be battery type, battery brand, how you charged them, what you did with the gp2x (video, games, nothing). But I suppose it could also be a higher power drain in some units than others. Who knows. 20 minutes for 2500mAh NiMHs sounds extremly short.
 
All I did on the device was,

Watched the intro of family guy episode, about 30 seconds, whatched about 2 minuites of american dad.

Played C64 emulator for about 2/3 minuites, played the SNES emulator for about 10 minuites in total.

Went to load up the new family guy episode so i could watch it over dinner and then the screen froze, checked the battery status screen..."Empty"

Its really bad, any idea whats eating the batterys so hard?
The only thing I can think of is that the device drains the battery while its switched off.
 
Send it back for a replacement mate. If that was mine id defo want it replaced....something doesnt sound right with the way its eating batteries.
 
All I did on the device was,

Watched the intro of family guy episode, about 30 seconds, whatched about 2 minuites of american dad.

Played C64 emulator for about 2/3 minuites, played the SNES emulator for about 10 minuites in total.

Went to load up the new family guy episode so i could watch it over dinner and then the screen froze, checked the battery status screen..."Empty"

Its really bad, any idea whats eating the batterys so hard?
The only thing I can think of is that the device drains the battery while its switched off.
Are you using the latest firmware?

If not, upgrade before sending it back :)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Errm, as me in another thread and Squidge said: Use Ansmann. Use special PHOTO batteries.
All other ones are simply to weak for the mighty gp2x.
 
You need decent batteries, some of these '2500ma' ones you can pick up in asda are complete rubbish. Like Evildragon says, you need Ansmann or something similar to get 5 hours.
 
ED tested them (he posted the results on gp2x.de) that the batteries he mentions lasted for ca. 5 hours and that is, with all bugs like TV-Out sucking energy, processors at 200mhz and switched on backlight, really good!

So don`t bitch around that early, wait for the firmware updates...


EDIT: Just noticed, that ED posted the results here, too.
 
I use Uniross 2300mah and they go for a few hours. Maybe not five, but certainly 3+, maybe more.

Hmm, and Alpha Ex doesn't even get 30 minutes with same brand but 2500mahs... kinda worrying. Maybe bad soldering somewhere is causing a power drain in that particular unit?

btw...ansmann photo batteries...problem is we don't all live in germany. I can't even find photo ansmann batteries in sweden and shipping all the way from germany for just a few batteries cost a fortune. I'll keep looking though. But I really can't see how one brand can give 8 times the battery life of another.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
The batteries could be duds too (I've had this problem with cheap rechargables). Try taking them back and replacing them for other ones.
 
The batteries could be duds too (I've had this problem with cheap rechargables). Try taking them back and replacing them for other ones.
I dont think £30 is cheap for some batteries, Uniros have always done a great job in the past but the GP2X just drains the life out of them within minuites litterally.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Back
Top