It is likely that the battery pack is dead or dying.
in my experience the prolonged waiting message is accompanied by the
charging system sending short bursts of higher current till the
battery pack gets to some critical voltage.
Use Frank's Newt Test or Avi's backdrop to see what your starting
voltage is and monitor the temperature and charging process.
If the battery reaches a critical temp before the cells reach the
minimum voltage it stops trying and may give some error message, if
the temp stays below that critical point it may just keep trying.
Don't put the whole Newt in the fridg. just the battery pack, this
does sometimes help, but in your case if you are a regular user and
this problem has suddenly started I suspect that one of the cells is
in bad shape,
As to whether the temp sensor is bad, the use of newt Test or Avi's
backdrop will give you some clues
These packs can be re-celled
see <http://www.pda-soft.de/index.html>
Woody
On Aug 2, 2006, at 7:13 PM, BobR wrote:
> Hello, from a new subscriber.
> I'm a long-time Newton owner, and now I have a small problem with my
> MessagePad 2100. It's been in constant use while I develop some Newton
> data-logging software. I think the battery pack might be failing -
> instead
> of saying 'charging' when the power adaptor is connected, it says
> 'waiting'.
> It will sit 'waiting' forever. That is, it did sit waiting - until I
> discovered a workaround. If I put the Newton in the fridge for an
> hour (at 5
> degrees C) and then remove it and connect the power adaptor it will
> charge
> just fine. It will continue charging, and then revert to 'waiting'
> at some
> point. Another session in the fridge, and then it will charge up
> again. I've
> done this 3 times, but now I'm wondering if there's a better fix.
> Do I need
> to rebuild the battery pack ? Or maybe some temperature sensor has
> failed ?
> Meanwhile, in the cause of science, I will continue chilling the Newt.
> But if anyone can shed light on this problem I would be most grateful.
>
> Bob Redknap
-- This is the NewtonTalk list - http://www.newtontalk.net/ for all inquiries Official Newton FAQ: http://www.chuma.org/newton/faq/ WikiWikiNewt for all kinds of articles: http://tools.unna.org/wikiwikinewt/Received on Thu Aug 3 01:05:22 2006
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