After this mornings note, and finding that both myself and a colleague
have OG's with serial nos starting SG54, I decided to call the HP
Palmtop support line and spoke to an excellent chap called Tim Wright.
He was very helpful,informative and only to willing to discuss the
topic. Heres a quick outline of what he said :-
He has not been able to find any details of such a recall,there have been
a few problems that a few units have been recalled for one of which is
a problem of the backup battery not cutting in quick enough when the
normal batteries die and data in RAM being lost and the unit locking up.
His recommendation ( and don't take this as endorsed by HP ), this
is his own findings are :
1) avoid using Duracell batteries,The OG appears to have a built in
current limiter which locks the unit if it does not receive a
minimum of 2.9v from the battery,apparently Duracell after a while
only supply about 2.6v.
2) A similar problem occurs if you use rechargeable batteries,and use them
until they are completely dead,The tail off supply from the
batteries is so quick that again the backup battery does not have
time to cut in, and save the data stored in RAM.
A Recommendation that I think someone else already suggested is to
change your rechargeables when they get down to1 or 2 bars left.
3) From his personal experience he recommends using "EverReady Lithium
Ion" batteries, they retail at about [6:00 for 2 but last upto
about 5 weeks.
4) and lastly I mentioned that I had successfully used a pcmcia
fax/modem, but it used an incredible amount of power from the
battery, enough to take a brand new set of batteries down to below
half in about 30 mins.
Tim recommends using a fax/modem called com1 from PPCP on 0181-8932277
this sounds as if the battery draw is substantially less.
Prices ,spec etc unknown.
Tim is going to check out the initial rumour about the recalled units
and call me back, and obviously I will update you when I here from him.
My thanks go to Tim, for being the most helpful support person I have
spoken to in a long time(outside of IBM of Course :-) )
Regards Steve
Open Application Services - Warwick Business Centre. OSU4.
Phone:Int. - 7/664562. - Ext. - 01926-464562
Email:Int.FELLOWS@UKSSVM1 - Ext. - GBIBM8DH@IBMMAIL.
INTERNET ADDRESS - SFELLOWES@UK.IBM.COM