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Subject: USB charging issues when H340 is low battery

USB charging issues when H340 is low battery

From: Mat Mirabella <mathew.mirabella_at_gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 5 Oct 2006 09:37:47 +1000

Hi all.

I am having problems with charging my Iriver H340 via USB. I am using
the Oct 1 rockbox build at the moment with patched Iriver firmware
v1.30, and the charge via USB option in the Iriver firmware is set to
"on". Charging works fine with the power supply, but USB has
problems.

If the unit has good enough battery charge to be used in rockbox for
normal use, and i want to charge it a bit via USB, i can do so by
turning it off, holding REC, plugging it in, waiting for it to go into
the Iriver firmware, and then it does go into "Charging" mode... but
this does not seem to work for when the battery is flat - i would have
thought a more critical time for it.

When the unit just dies due to low battery when in use, it used to be
able to charge via USB as soon as it was plugged into USB. Now, the
unit keeps cycling through boot and shutdown with low battery
warnings, and does not seem to get into charge mode. This is the case
even when holding down REC when starting.

the sequence is this:
1. plug device into USB
2. device begins to power up and you see the rockbox boot loader screen.
3. Device begins to go into rockbox
4. Before the rockbox logo etc, there is a "low battery" warning
5. The device shuts down.
this takes about 5 seconds or so, and all steps repeat over and over.
it stops if i remove the device from USB.

If i hold down REC at any time during the startup sequence, or even
hold REC before plugging the unit in, the device does the following:
1. plug device into USB while holding REC or hold REC just after plugging in.
2. device begins to power up and you see the rockbox boot loader screen.
3. Device screen flashes off and on to indicate that it is going to
go into the Iriver firmware
4. Device goes into the Iriver firmware and sits for a bit as it
5. The device shuts down, first showing the iriver firmware shutdown screen.
this takes about 10 seconds or so, and all steps repeat over and over.
 it stops if i remove the device from USB. the same happens no matter
how long i hold REC.

Normally, you would expect the device to go into charge mode after
booting into the Iriver firmware. This does not happen when the unit
has a low battery.

Could this be because rockbox (when in normal use) does not die until
the battery is so low that there is not even enough charge to boot up
to the point where charging can occur via USB? If so, then this seems
to be a problem. Has anyone else experienced this problem?

I think it would be useful to have something in the wiki or the manual
that describes all the possibilities related to battery charging via
USB or power etc. AFAIK the manual does not have any section on how
to work with the battery etc.

Also, sometimes i can hear a high pitched sound coming out of the body
of the unit when i have the USB cable plugged in. This is like the
high pitched TV tube sound you can sometimes hear coming from TV sets.
 It does not happen all the time, but is most common when the unit is
in the state i am describing here - that is, has a low battery and
won't charge via USB.

Regards.

Mat.
Received on 2006-10-05

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