RAZR V3M Battery life with TransFlash card

[CosmicBlue]

Hi all,

I've had the V3M for a few months now, and decided to add a TransFlash/SD Card to put music it on it.

I've got the music to finally work - went through all the bs that I read most people did in the threads - driver issues, music sync fix, motorola fix, music essentials issues, WMP 10, converting MP3 to wma, etc.

But, thanks to all the info good folks have posted here (and lots of patience and perseverance, not to mention angst and hair pulling - lol) I''ve gotten it to work.

btw - Great site!

But, I do have a question. (which I couldn't find the answer to using searches and reading through the threads on the V3M). Without the TransFlash card in the phone, I get good standby battery times of 5 or six days before the battery level gets down to one dot. With the card in the phone, without using the phone at all, the battery drains down completely after about 20 hours!!!

Originally, I used a PNY 1 GB card, and that was draining to zero in about 15 hours. Now, I bought a Kingston 1 GB card, and it's a little better at 20 hours, but really not acceptable for standby time, especially without actually playing music or using the phone.

Anyway, is this normal for the card to drain the battery like this when not in use? I'd hate to have to be inserting and removing the card whenever I wanted to listen to music - it's such a pain, plus it's so small I'd probably drop it and lose it in the airport or someplace.

Someone said that they thought it might be that the phone is constantly trying to sync with the PC that runs down the battery. Is that true? Is there a way to tell it to stop syncing, and just relax? Is there a seem to do this?

Thanks for any advice or suggestions.

[CosmicBlue]

>Bump<

Anyone else have this battery drain issue when using TransFlash/microSd cards?

Is there a solution (other than always taking the card out), or is that just the way it is?


Thanks!

[tRySt85]

dont have that problem....may be problem with your phone itself

[CosmicBlue]

Thanks for the reply, tRySt85!

I've found a couple of other people that have the same problem with the RAZR V3m/V3mM. I bought my phone mid-January. It's S/W version is 01.05.0A. Searching this, and other forums, I've found out that version 01.09.02 is the latest (non-leaked) version. I'm wondering if that possibly solves this issue?

Can you tell me which version you are running?
Settings & Tools
5. System
2. Device Info
Other Information
S/W Version

Thanks!
CB

[tRySt85]

i have firmware.... NEWC_01.09.02
ps i have a SanDisk 2gb transflash card

[CosmicBlue]

Hi tRySt85,

Hmmm... So, MAYBE the problem is that I need to update the S/W to 01.09.02?

I've downloaded the 01.09.02 software, but don't feel comfortable installing it right now, since I'm leaving tomorrow for a week and a half trip, and will need my phone to work properly. When I get back home, I'll take the phone to the Verizon store and have them update it to 01.09.02
I'll then put the card back in, and see what happens to battery life.

Thanks very much for checking your S/W version for me.

Regards,
CB

[tRySt85]

hey not a problem....cant you update firmware fro *228?

[CosmicBlue]

Nope. Even though it finishes with "Programming Successful/Commit OK", when I check the S/W version it still shows 01.05.0A.

Thanks,
CB

[Chudman]

Originally Posted by tRySt85

hey not a problem....cant you update firmware fro *228?

Verizon wireless does not have OTA programming. You must flash the phone with a PC/cable.

*228 just sets up your phone parameters and/or updates your roaming list.

CM

[CosmicBlue]

Here's an update to this issue (sorry it took awhile for me to get back to it).

I now have loads of music loaded on the microSD card and my battery life is back to normal. 5 to 7 days standby with maybe 20-30 min talk time.

I did not update the firmware to 01.09.02 - still running 01.05.0A.

What I did was copy the songs from my PC (after converting the MP3's to wav) directly to the SD via the USB card reader on the PC (formatted the card in the RAZR first, then dropped and dragged the songs into the my_music sub-directory)

I believe the problem with the battery draining is (as someone suggested) that the "sync" music program was putting the phone in a constantly syncing mode causing the CPU to thrash around and run the batterry down. I had tried using both Music Essentials and Windows Media Player to copy my music the the SD initially. I'm not sure which one may have been the culprit, but it seems as though that was the problem.

CB

[CosmicBlue]

Oops! I meant to say that I converted the MP3 files to wma format, not wav....my bad.

CB

[JLPicard]

I was wondering why in the hell my battery was draining so fast for me, I had just gotten a Mini card for mine a couple weeks ago, and didn't equate that with my battery drainage. I will take the card out and see if that makes any difference. I have a Kingston 1G card.