Horrible Battery Life

[DaveC]

I have been reading here how some are getting 4-5 hours on a charge. I have even heard of some talking about getting 2 hours out of those cheap batteries that come with it. Mine lasted 30 minutes with those. I am starting to think I have a dodgy unit.

Mine? It sucks a pair of 2000 MAh Rayovac NiMH batteries dry in 45 minutes. I use DrMD, Frodo, and Atari-800 emu. These same batteries last 4-5 hours on my GP32 BLU. I doubt a properly working Gp2X should use 5 times the juice.

Is everyone else getting 4-5 hours using emus? If so, mine appears to be faulty and may be time for a return.

 

[CoinOp]

Is everyone else getting 4-5 hours using emus? If so, mine appears to be faulty and may be time for a return.

​

Real world on & off stuff I'm getting about 3 1/2 hours with 2600mah 1.2v akkus.

 

[Fez]

Tip if you have a 2000 or 2500 Mah NiMh batteries you will want a good charger that drains the battery first. This will get a good life out of the batteries and recharege them properly. I got more than 5 hours off my last charge. I have been able to use it over two days (not constant obviously) listening to mp3s, playing many levels of quake and another world.

Make sure you have the latest firmware version and some quality rechargeables. Some of the dodgy batteries are not actually rated at what the package quotes.

I have rickberry 2300Mah and powertech 2000Mah batteries and they seem to run great.

 

[PSyMastR]

Wait about 3 days for new firmware then ask the same question...

 

[DaveC]

Tip if you have a 2000 or 2500 Mah NiMh batteries you will want a good charger that drains the battery first. This will get a good life out of the batteries and recharege them properly. I got more than 5 hours off my last charge. I have been able to use it over two days (not constant obviously) listening to mp3s, playing many levels of quake and another world.

Make sure you have the latest firmware version and some quality rechargeables. Some of the dodgy batteries are not actually rated at what the package quotes.

I have rickberry 2300Mah and powertech 2000Mah batteries and they seem to run great.

​

But those same batteries last 4-5 hours on my GP32. They only last 45min-1 hour on the GP2X. Sounds like the unit is faulty.

 

[PSyMastR]

Tip if you have a 2000 or 2500 Mah NiMh batteries you will want a good charger that drains the battery first. This will get a good life out of the batteries and recharege them properly. I got more than 5 hours off my last charge. I have been able to use it over two days (not constant obviously) listening to mp3s, playing many levels of quake and another world.

Make sure you have the latest firmware version and some quality rechargeables. Some of the dodgy batteries are not actually rated at what the package quotes.

I have rickberry 2300Mah and powertech 2000Mah batteries and they seem to run great.

​

But those same batteries last 4-5 hours on my GP32. They only last 45min-1 hour on the GP2X. Sounds like the unit is faulty.

​

Wait about 3 days for new firmware then ask the same question...

​

 

[Eolair]

-improvements : it is true that every consoles have different variation of battery life(HM) so using 2500mA if u are playing movies with earbuds approx. 3 hours u can play straight( late december or early janary, we are planning to extend to 4 hours)

From the GPH statement. I'm not sure how to interpret that though. Either they mean that the battery life can vary between different units or they're just saying the battery life may vary on the same unit from time to time. Maybe try scraping your battery contacts lightly? There were some early reports of residue on them. Could also be bad soldering on the battery contacts, which was my own guess when people started reporting bad battery life. There's nothing that confirms this though. Get some good brand 2500mAh batteries and see if it gets better.

 

[BradN]

Borrow a multimeter and measure how much current it draws... if it's a reasonable amount (~500mA), then the problem's the batteries, not the unit.

 

[triton]

on my digital innovations batteries (sakkar i think?) 2200mah i get around 4 hours off a full charge

 

[SlackwareLinux]

But those same batteries last 4-5 hours on my GP32. They only last 45min-1 hour on the GP2X. Sounds like the unit is faulty.

​

Heh. I completely convinced that my joystick would not register right movements. I even ran a "controlled" experiment, moving it left five times then right five times. I repeated this until I had done 150 movements on each side. I ended up with about a 10% failure rate on the right side.

Then, relaxed, went to sleep, and when I woke up, the problem was gone. I had convinced myself that there was a problem with my joystick after reading all the posts about them. Anyways, I don't have the problem anymore.

If you go in convinced that your unit is faulty, you are going to find minor problems and explode them. I get poor battery life too, but I am going to wait for the upcoming firmware updates to make any final judgments.

 

[unlucky]

I think the difference with the gp2x is that its required voltage is much higher. My old 2000 mah famearts barely work as that required voltage is soon lost but my 2500mah's last so much longer its ridiculous. I think the point is that the new batteries stay at top performance for much longer and then very very suddenly die a death of plummeting voltage (which is a much better design.) That and i think my old 2000mah are broken : | they barely even work when they've just been charged whilst the 2500mah last hours and hours....

 

[sam fisher]

I have been reading here how some are getting 4-5 hours on a charge. I have even heard of some talking about getting 2 hours out of those cheap batteries that come with it. Mine lasted 30 minutes with those. I am starting to think I have a dodgy unit.

Mine? It sucks a pair of 2000 MAh Rayovac NiMH batteries dry in 45 minutes. I use DrMD, Frodo, and Atari-800 emu. These same batteries last 4-5 hours on my GP32 BLU. I doubt a properly working Gp2X should use 5 times the juice.

Is everyone else getting 4-5 hours using emus? If so, mine appears to be faulty and may be time for a return.

​

Well straight a way i can tell you its the batteries. I use my 1800 Mah Boots The Chemist batteries and get at least 9 hours out of my BLU. And 12 hours out of my flu. With my old 2500 Mah Uniross (before they vented and exploded in a faulty charger) I got at least 12 hours out of mt BLU and 15 out of my FLU. Turning off the light on my flu (not tested with blu yet) allowed me to run it at 133mhz for 24 hour without it running out !

Im more interested in how you got the Bexel Batteries out of your gp2x without sending it flying across the room. Im so annoyed that almost happened to me. It got flicked!

 

[Snagzy]

Does the battery power affect the screen and performance? I figured, if it's running on AA's with dual 200mhz processor, it must guzzle some juice, I.E a PC runs through the mains etc, so it never dies out

 

[DynaMight]

A few times I've had the GP2X suck the life out of one battery and hardly touch the other strangely enough.
My charger does each battery on it's own, not stuck to doing 2 or 4 like most chargers and when I charge the two batteries after it had done this, one battery was done within 5mins and the other took an hour.

It's only happened once or twice, I'm still unsure if it's the batteries/charger tho.

Feel the heat of the batteries, one was hotter than the other.

 

[Squidge]

Don't forget some batteries will drain faster than others depending on how much current you are sucking out of them. Don't assume, for example, that a 2500mA battery will last 5 hours with a 500mA current drain. If it was only designed for upto 300mA, then it will drain much quicker.

One way of finding out if this is the case: Charge the batteries fully, place them in your gp2x and play until they seem flat. Put them aside for a few hours and then try again - you may find out that they work again. If this is the case, then you need better batteries that can withstand higher current.

Considering your batteries work in your GP32 for a lot longer says this is exactly whats happening. Try buying some AA batteries designed for digital cameras.

 

[Sonic-NKT]

with the included batteries mine also worked only arround 40min, then i bought 2900 mAh and those are quite good...

 

[sam fisher]

Squidge the free in batteries made my unit fly across the room almost! Damn they are too fat!

 

[judge0]

@DaveC: You either didn't mention whether you had upgraded, or I missed it.

I spent almost three weeks trying to upgrade the firmware, during which the best battery life I had was approximately 1 hour 45 min. Using 2200 mAh Energizer NiMH
and 2500 mAh Energizer NiMH batteries.

Upon using my SEVENTH SD card, the system finally upgraded. The system will run (fully charged 2500 mAh) for just under 4 hours heavy use. Using the CPU tweaking utility and running at 250 -266 MHz shaves about 10 to 15 minutes off that time.

From everything I've read, The 1.01 r3 firmware upgrade doesn't really even address the battery usage issue, just turns off the battery LED completely, and the included apps for video, music, ebook reader are tweaked to not use extra hardware.

I've also read that there is another firmware upgrade in the pipeline (evidently due the 15th December), that does address the battery life issue. Again this is all third party information, to be taken with a grain of salt . . .

In the meantime, I'm trying to locate a suitable power supply for the unit, including an Auto/Air adapter

 

[EvilDragon]

And... if the batteries only last 4 - 5 hours on your BLU+, they're not the best ones... the ones I use with my gp2x (last 4,5 hours here) last about 8 - 9 hours on my BLU+.

 

[sam fisher]

exactly what i said further up ED. . But mine are 1800 Mah and run better than yours ha!