What could be wrong with my gp2x, I have it for some time now, and I only had some cheap rechargebles laying around which lasted for about 15 minutes.
But I thought, ah well those are cheap batteries, lets wait for my ansmann batteries...

Thing is, now I have my ansmann 2400mah batteries but even those last for 1.5 hour or so!
Whats wrong with my gp2x???, also when I leave my batteries fully charged in my gp2x overnight, the next day it will not boot.
Everytime I have the same problem, it goes till the black or green screen and just stays there, nothing helps.

I really do not want to send it back...

i only get about 2 hours of video max with mine with full charged 2500 mah . And about 1:45 of playing drmdx while overclocked .

I thought that was normal .

its not

Then do.
I sent mine back, although mine would usually not boot up, and never lasted longer than 4 minutes, regardless of battery quality. If you can confirm with another set of rechargables that you cannot get at least 2.5-3hrs (4 or 5 for 2500's) you might well should send it back. Of course, you might want to run a few cycles on the charger to ensure they were just not undercharged initially...

I heard of folks who clocked 6+ hours with decent rechargeables.

- Alex

Mine has always been 3 hours tops, and usually even under that while playing games with 2500 mah rechargables.

Yeah I want some official benchmarks becasue I really doubt that their is something wrong with mine .
Edit: the only reason I time shit is because igo on a lot of road trips .

I probably suffer from time dilation, but I swear my energizer 2500mahs last at least 4 hours, no OC. I really need to do an actual benchmark soon.

Energizer 2500's here too ... ~4 hours

I find I need to double-charge my 2500mAh batteries to get decent life out of them. I used to get around 30 minutes, but now I get 3 hours.

guys, get a decent charger...
I get ~5h out of mine.

You get 5 hours out of running say the megadrive emu ? what batteries are you using then? Im using 2400mah and i only get 1h 45 mins out of mine so something must be wrong.

As said what batteries are you using mate?

I get about 3.5 hours out of the Best Buy Storebrand 2000's at 200 mhz (MAME - Bad Dudes attract mode)

I get about 2.5 hours out of the same batteries for video playback.
I get about 2.8 hours out of Duracell 2500's for Video playback.
I haven't benchmarked by Energizer 2500's yet, but hope they last a bit longer since I have a slow charger for them...

Just get the 2500mAh energizer rechargeables. I'd stay away from the 15 minute charger and go with the 5 hour one because you get about 25% more battery life out of it. (From what I read, the 15 minute ones charge your battery about 75%) I usually get 4 hours of gaming/videos and 6-7hrs with music (backlight turned off).

Same, in a radio-shack 1hr charger.

I use 2500mah gp batterys and a pretty expensive voltcraft charger.

Fully discharge your batteries and then charge them to 100% before using them again. When I say discharge, I don't mean turn it off when the GP2x crashes. I mean leave it on after it crashes, let it keep burning through them until the screen backlight gives out. If there is still anything onscreen let it KEEP going. When it's blank, turn it off. Turn it on again, odds are it can run a little longer, crashed. Then turn it off, take out the batteries, put them in a CD Player or GBA, etc. and let it run until that device turns off. Then charge them.

If not fully discharged NiMH batteries only charge to their emptied capacity-- e.g. a battery charged to 100%, discharged to 35%, then charged to 100% will last only as long as it would at 65%. Full discharging and recharging cycles correct this.

For the record, with my all-so-common Energizer 2500mah cells and a 5-Hour or so charger, I get at least 4 hours of use out of the machine at a minimum in most tasks. I don't generally actually time the period the batteries last since I'm on the go a lot and don't play for very long periods. But in the last time I used it, I pulled my batteries out of the charger, popped them in my '2x, overclocked the machine to 299 MHz, ran GNGeo and played through all of Metal Slug X, with 22050hz audio. Then I watched an episode of Reno 911 (about 25 minutes, a 720x480 XViD/Mp3 video file at >1500kbps bitrate AVI file), listened to about 8 assorted Mp3 and OGG songs and then shut the machine off, and the meter was still reading "Midum" (Lawl.) I'm impressed, personally.

I think the problem most people encounter is that most cheap chargers, (and some not-so cheap) almost NEVER fully charge a NiMH battery. Even after a few charge/discharge cycles it will hold 90-95% for 'max' charge. A NiMH charger I've seen takes a full 8 hours to charge a 2500 mAh NiMH. Basically the faster it charges, the less the battery will hold.

Also there are newer 2700 mAh NiMH's out there. The GP2X absolutely needs NiMH or Li-ION for proper operation, no Alkalines would ever be able to power it. Its amperage drain is really high.

Lithium (AKA Energizer L-91) or perhaps those Panasonic 'Oxyride' batteries would be the only viable non-rechargeable solution (and hella expensive at that).

I just hooked my gp2x up to an ammeter to see how much current it draws.

Booting: 500 mA
Sitting idle in the menu: 350 mA
Playing a game: 500 - 600 mA depending mostly on the sound
Running the Yeti3d demo: 550 mA
Watching a video: 700 - 800 mA

The past couple of days I've been curious as to how much run-time my Ray-O-Vac 15 minute NiMH (2000mAh) rechargeables give me. So before I turn my GP2X off, I use a virtual terminal and do a "uptime >> upt.txt" command to record how long the GP2X has been powered up.

After the batteries run out and I replace them, I tally up the recorded up times to see what I've got.

I'm getting an average of 5 hours of running time out of these batteries. This includes playing .oggs, playing games between different emulators, and some video playback of an episode of "The IT Crowd".

@epicenter, I also have an ansmann charger which has a discharge function, but it doesn't seem to help.

Yesterday I put fresh batteries in my gp2x, played half an hour. I turned it on this morning and hangs at the boot screen...
This sucks .

I left mine running DrMDx, no overclock with a game playing. I had a pair of freshly charged Energizer 2500s (charged using an energizer branded overnight charger - 12 hours) and it died a few seconds after hitting the 5 hour mark.

I got 4 hr 20min out of Energizer 2500mAh, running DrMDx @ 200mHz.

Am now playing Mame, Amiga etc @ 250mHz after recharging, up to 2 hours so far.
EDIT: Conked out after 3 hours @250mHz (with a bit of 275 & 266 running too).



That's fast. Mine takes 15 hours!

With medium speed on video i can get 4h sometimes with 2500mah uniross.
playing games at 200mhz i do only get around 3-4h max though.

Oh my god...I'm being brain-fuxxored by all this...I really don't know what batteries would be good...and how long each of them last...

Does the GP2x screen use a Backlight or LEDs? I know that if it did have a backlight, and you replaced it with LEDs that the battery life would last probably an extra half an hour or so because it uses much less mAh than a backlight.

about 6led's

to get back to my question....


What could be causing the problem?? Is it just my batteries and how they are charged (i have a good charger and batteries, so that should be fine...) or is this a hardware problem?

Like I said earlier, it could very well be hardware. Might want to buy another set of rechargables, or borrow, to confirm.
Also, I noticed you said 'it hung on bootscreen' so you replaced the battery. Hanging on the bootscreen isn't always a sign of battery issues. I would say most units have about a 1 in 3 chance of hanging anytime they are started. The indicator for dead batteries is the white screen followed by colored lines (and often some wacky noises out of the speakers).

I never have that, it shows colored lines just before its about to boot though, but hangs on the black or green screen not the lines itself...

hmmm, do you turn it off and on again 3 or so times before trying to replace the batteries? It could just be the normal hang that alot of people get. Usually if its the batteries, the colored lines will corrupt the image on the screen, like streak through the green bootscreen into nothingness (may take several seconds, of course). If it just hangs but doesn't fade out, I doubt the batteries are dead...

Of course, it doesn't make sense that it would fail at the black screen. I've never had that happen... well, I did with my first 'bad' unit, but it would usually fade into colored lines as well...

No, it never fades into colored lines...
btw. is it normal that when my batteries are used for some time, the program Im using hangs, so I have to reboot and then it hangs at the black or green bootscreen is this normal, do you have this too?
Or don't you ever have this thing that a program just hangs? (there are no colored lines on the screen or somthing, it looks normal)

about the batteries, I don't have the idea they are empty, they work just fine in my camera, also they do not need to be charged for a long time like when they are completely empty.
Its like my gp2x needs a very very high voltage to operate and as soon as it drops below that it fails to operate normally . (would it be possible to change something like a capacitor or a resistor?)

That is definately not normal, you should most likely return it from the place you got it from. My GP2x only hung on the bootscreen twice. One time was when I took out headphones while it was booting up and the other time was when I took out the SD card while it was booting. It is most likely a faulty unit, not your batteries.

Damn, I wish I hadnt sold my good old gp32.

Sigh. I was just about ready to buy a GP2X after I heard the joystick would be fixed. Now more battery problems? It's too hard to buy a GP2X

It was pretty easy for me. I had to send my 1st edition unit back, but the one I have now has lasted for about 4 months with no problems -- except the joystick gets fuzzy sometimes

I got great service from Dynamism. They sent me a replacement unit as soon as they had some in, and didn't wait for me to return my old unit to do so (I could still play using power adapter, just not using batteries). Of course, I think they might have been mistken and thought I had sent my old one back(which I eventually did), but still, a very positive experience. Didn't cost me a dime.
regards,
Matt

I got my gp2x from lik-sang, how do I return it, should I sent them an email?
Or just send the gp2x right away (with an explaining letter of course).

just buy from gp2x.de or gbax.com, they test evy single gp2x before sending them out.

Though some inevitably fail regardless.

sure, but you minimize the risk, and if something realy fails, theese to have VERY great support.

Well you should learn to handle your drink!

I'll get my coat...

Given these numbers, the video decoding helper core is clearly using a ridiculous amount of power. Probably more than both the 920T (looks like around 100-150mA given that the power draw is so significantly lower with the 920T sitting idle at the menu.) When a video player is ported that DOES NOT utilize this helper chip for its decoding (once running at a reasonable speed, not unreasonable at all since comparable ARM9 based processors in PocketPCs manage the same decoding tasks purely in software just fine) it should significantly increase battery life in video playback; even with a heavy ARM920T overclock. ARM9 cores just don't use that much power.

A backlight control is absolutely crucial. Backlights generally use more power than the CPUs in the systems they occupy.. the '2x appears not to be an exception.



You won't read about the hundreds of people buying '2xes and using them uneventfully..

Here, read about mine.

I bought mine. It came in the mail. At first I thought the screen came scratched (it took me about 10 minutes before I tried removing the second screen.) I updated to the latest firmware. Went very smoothly, no problems. 1600mAh batteries last an average of 2.5 hours, and they are old 1600mAh batteries. Every SD card I've tried has worked correctly. The default joystick cap is playable, though not ideal. I just recently updated to open2x, and the whole thing went very smoothly with no problems at all.

There, see, they occasionally do work as they are supposed to

Best way I've found to discharge batteries is to put the things in a GBA and leave it on overnight. Connecting them to things like lights or other run-until-it-dies devices also help.

Heres my benchmarks:

Radio Shack 1800s: 1:45-1:55 of video.
6-7 hours idle.

Quantaray 2500s: 2:45 or so of video.
Nearly 10 hours idle.


I was really impressed by the lifetime demonstrated. I run out of video on the SD card before I run out of battery (1 GB). I haven't benchmarked things like TV-out or peripherals in action yet, will get those in as soon as I get my damned unit back from repair.



hehehe, NO. first off, PocketPCs don't use ARM9s (except lower end ones), they're packin Xscale CPUs. Some of which have MPEG decoder functions on them. My iPAQ hx2795 is able to play any video I want. AT 624 MHz. My previous unit @ 400 MHz: WMV encoded at under 320KBps video and 192 KBps audio. The unit before that @ 200 MHz: Not a chance for playing DivX, and anything I could play resembled RealVideo for dialup. (3600's outperform many modern budget Pocket PCs ) and that was running StrongARM.

Now, I don't transcode my avi's before putting them on the GP2X. Its running at 200 MHz, and plays my video within satisfaction. Thats beating my old 400MHz Pocket PC, which had twice the RAM.

Now, who is to thank? That chip.

thats not gonna help me now....

by the way, liksang also test their units, but my problem is not really testable, I mean when I put in fresh batteries it works normal but after like 1.5 or 2 hours it already isn't working whilst I have 2400mah ansmann batteries. GRRR

@AireTamStorm: are you sure that after 9 hours when you unit is still running it is not frozen, im sure that I can leave it displaying the main screen for 10 hours but mine just freezes after some time, but the screen looks normal. And when I try to reboot it, it will hang at boot.
What does your unit display when its batteries are empty, does it just freezes like mine?

A mate of mine had a similar problem with his GP2X from Lik-Sang. He sent it back, and they told him that they had it working fine for over two days, but they sent him a new one anyway (which he has no problems with). So you should send it back if you believe it really is a problem (which from the sound of it, it is). Just make sure to tell them in detail what is happening, what you're doing etc.

And to send back to Lik-Sang, you have to get an RTA from them, so you will have to email them first.

thanks, I think I'll do that.

I said that way back on Page 2. God, read the thread already.



Uh. XScale is a bastardization of ARM9 by Intel. They won rights to the old StrongARM architecture in a legal battle a while back. It's essentially a new chip inspired by the ARM5TE architecture and compatible with ARM code. It's ramped up to very high clockrates, but has very low overall efficiency-- this is why most XScale-based PDAs get fairly poor battery life and produce very noticable amounts of heat under heavy load. Due to the exceedingly low efficiency of these chips, a "pure" ARM9 implementation like the ARM920T in the Gp2x's MMSP2 usually performs to the same performance level of an XScale of TWICE the clock speed. For example, an XScale @ ~400 MHz will perform on par with a pure ARM9 or on the PDA front, Samsung's S3C2410 SoC based on the ARM920T, at 200 MHz! Reviews have proven this again and again as the reviewer picked up a shiny new PDA with a 624 MHz XScale only to find it was not significantly faster than the 312 MHz ARM9 derivative-based PDA they reviewed the month before.

You'll also see something interesting if you overclock an XScale, like Intel pretty much does at the factory for you by ramping up the rated clock speed and testing it to be stable.. you can get a ~312 MHz XScale and take it up to 700 MHz, but you won't see much in the way of performance gains past ~450-500 MHz. The performance actually starts to DROP the more you overclock. I've witnessed this firsthand; the chip burns through your battery life but provides no actual performance gains. Clearly high clock scaling does not aid the XScale architecture in performance. (Although this seems to be how it got its name. It scales well. It just doesn't get more done.)

Furthermore, as for hardware video decoding support, relatively few PDAs utilize it. For example, of Dell's famous x5x line, only the x50v-- their highest end and VERY expensive PDA has a video decoding helper core, and it's accompanied by a 3D accelerator-- see many of THOSE in PDAs? I didn't think so.

Yet, on my 2 PDAs with 300 MHz XScale processors (again, relative performance of a 150 MHz pure ARM9-based PDA) I was able to play XViD and DivX videos with encoded audio (e.g. AC3, MP3) without incident, achieving a full 24 FPS or 29.97 FPS often without an overclock of any sort, or with an exceedingly tiny one to ~400 MHz (again, rough estimation of ARM9 performance, 200 MHz.) This was with no hardware acceleration for video or audio decoding whatsoever-- all decoding done entirely in software. I don't know WHAT kind of video playback software you were using, but the video QUALITY should not vary based on the speed of the system unless you did a bad job of encoding it-- e.g. FAR too low a bitrate to look decent. You could also be using some downright terrible programs for playback. I never had problems playing most video files at more-than-acceptable framerates with my XScale at 200 MHz, UNDERCLOCKED, relative performance level of a 100 MHz pure ARM9; and if you had a PDA with a 200 MHz CPU at STOCK it was probably a pure ARM9-based SoC.

Your 'facts' definitely do not add up.

Just to report 2500mah MAHA batteries im getting similar run times as our OP here.

Did discharging 3x with MAHA high rated charger/discharger. Did the whle leaving the batteries running till they die thing over and over but i cant get the batteries to last longer than my communte which is a little under 2 hours.