Guest Robsie71 Posted September 27, 2004 Report Share Posted September 27, 2004 When I connect my phone to my PC using the USB cable the icon on the C500 changes to the plug but the phone does not seem to charge. I have left it connected for a couple of hours but the battery level never increases. Do I need to activate something in activesync to get it to charge or is something wrong? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Dr Who Posted September 27, 2004 Report Share Posted September 27, 2004 Is your battery almost flat? I found that when I was getting warning messages about charging the phone it wouldn't charge when it was on. I definitely saw this via USB and I think also via mains!!! Had to turn it off to recharge. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest travisb Posted September 27, 2004 Report Share Posted September 27, 2004 Haven't had this problem. My phone was completely flat this morning, connected via USB to pc and started charging ok. Takes twice as long as via mains to completely charge though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Robsie71 Posted September 27, 2004 Report Share Posted September 27, 2004 Nope the phone had half its battery left. I have done some digging and other posts talk about sepecific drivers being installed onto the pc. Anyone know about these? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Djarid Posted September 27, 2004 Report Share Posted September 27, 2004 The drivers are installed with Activesync (3.7.1 anyway) providing that is installed, it should charge fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest markauk Posted September 27, 2004 Report Share Posted September 27, 2004 Does anyone know what is required for the C500 to charge? I was just away for a few days and couldn't get it to charge with any of:- * original USB charge cable plugged into various macs and PCs (none of which had activesync installed) * third party USB cable as above * same cables above, plugged into a USB wall charger (originally bought to charge my palm with USB cable) - the charger was working fine and charged other things OK Now I am home, the C500 charges fine with the supplied charger or from my PCs USB (which has activesync installed). If the phone needs to 'see' activesync to charge (which strikes me as rather dumb), how does the wall charger work? mark. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Dr Who Posted September 27, 2004 Report Share Posted September 27, 2004 Yup, it needs activesync to charge as far as I am aware. Which IS dumb. But until you have connected activesync to your phone their is no connection. At all. Don't think the wall charger will work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Dr Who Posted September 27, 2004 Report Share Posted September 27, 2004 Yup, it needs activesync to charge as far as I am aware. Which IS dumb. But until you have connected activesync to your phone their is no connection. At all. Don't think the wall charger will work.Strange, my phone has definitely not charged TWICE when it was low on battery and switched on. Once via mains and once from the USB. Phone ended up going completely dead on both occasions because I assumed that when it was showing the plug icon it would be charging. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest markauk Posted September 27, 2004 Report Share Posted September 27, 2004 So how does the supplied wall charger work if activesync is needed?! Anyone know if this 'feature' is specific to C500 or applies to all smartphones? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Spinnekop Posted September 27, 2004 Report Share Posted September 27, 2004 It's very easy; the usb driver architecture only delivers power to the bus if a correct driver is installed. It's not a problem caused by the phone, but it's a driver association problem. If you install activesync;, the driver for the phone will be installed. From then, the phone starts charging. Greetings Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest markauk Posted September 27, 2004 Report Share Posted September 27, 2004 That doesn't quite correlate with my experience:- (1) my Palm and SE t610 charge off any USB port without any drivers installed, nor does my little USB keyboard light need drivers. (2) why does my C500 charge from the wall charger it came with, but doesn't charge with my old wall charger which I just plug a USB cable into (which works fine for everything else). Seems to me that it's the phone that needs to see something on the bus, and that somehow the supplied wall charger is giving it that 'thing' but my other one, or standard USB without drivers don't. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Robsie71 Posted September 27, 2004 Report Share Posted September 27, 2004 I have activsync installed on my pc and although the charge icon is seen on the phone it doesnt charge the battery. Could the fact that is plugged into a muti usb socket be the reason? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest stern Posted September 27, 2004 Report Share Posted September 27, 2004 I doubt you need to activesync it before it will charge because when I got mine I was at work, I used the mains charger to charge it for the first time and it worked with no problems. Unless orange avticesync it with something before they give it you which I would very much doubt One thing I do know is my PC won't supply power to it to charge until it has working drivers loaded however this is probably because it won't communicate with it at all until it's recognised as a device. This is the same for any USB device. Which is why I can't just plug it into any PC to charge it without loading the drivers for the phone. I also woudn't have thought the mains charger is all that clever either. it's just an adapter that downrates the power then supplies it to the usb connection. If you're using a hub you need to make sure it's a powered hub otherwise it won't be able to provide enough power to charge. I use a hub and it charges thrugh USB without as problem as long as the hub is powered. If you're having a problem charging via usb I would advise turning off your c500 and with the cable still plugged in restart. This has worked a couple of times for me when I plugged in my c500 xp didn't recognise it as a device. restarted the phone with the cable still plugged in and it worked fine Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest stern Posted September 27, 2004 Report Share Posted September 27, 2004 It's very easy; the usb driver architecture only delivers power to the bus if a correct driver is installed. It's not a problem caused by the phone, but it's a driver association problem. If you install activesync;, the driver for the phone will be installed. From then, the phone starts charging. Â Greetings Sorry Spinnekop I didn't notice you message while posting I have sorta repeated you you're right, Drivers are installed when you load activesync which is whn it will start charging, which is why there may have been a confusion about activesync being required to charge from your PC. However it's possible to install the drivers seperatley from activesync. I have also uninstalled activesync while going through some troubleshooting with bluetooth and I can't be certain but I'm pretty sure I charged it from the PC while activesync was unistalled Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest RikF Posted September 28, 2004 Report Share Posted September 28, 2004 There seems to be some confusion about the functionality of a usb port here. There is *no* need to have a driver installed to have the port supply power. There are many, many peripherals which are powered or recharged without a driver (LED lights, fans, GPS (charging only)) so the problem is *definately* not at the PC end. There seems to be something working within the intelligent charger that requires some signal from the driver to enable it. The power supply appears to simulate this signal as well. It does not appear to be current based (I have a similar USB wall charger to a previous poster which supplies the same current/voltage as the supplied mains charger). This rules out using generic chargers both from the mains and also in-car. Whilst this is very annoying as I don't want to have to cart additional chargers etc around the world with me when I travel, it is made all the more frustrating by the fact that Orange do not provide a car charger yet. Hopefully Orange will rectify this situation fairly quickly. RikF Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Robsie71 Posted September 28, 2004 Report Share Posted September 28, 2004 I have moved my USB cable to be directly in my PC rather than the USB hub that I have and its charging a treat. Thanks guys for all the help!! :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest UnLoCkSmItH Posted September 29, 2004 Report Share Posted September 29, 2004 This might sound a bit dumb but i used to repair phones. If you find the charger isnt chargin after a while with USB (which I also found) remove the battery and insert it again, now switch the phone back on. You will find that the phone did charge, but didnt show it before, but now it will. Try it and post results. Kind regards, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Confucious Posted September 29, 2004 Report Share Posted September 29, 2004 I have a mini usb lead that powers my multicard reader on my PC which powers my C500 (because I have activesync installed?) but I have a mini usb lead on a charger for my Blackberry which doesn't charge the C500 :) which means I can't use a USB car charger. Why? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Djarid Posted September 29, 2004 Report Share Posted September 29, 2004 this is answered here Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest markauk Posted September 29, 2004 Report Share Posted September 29, 2004 UnLoCkSmItH - I have tried what you suggest, but no luck. The phone still refuses to charge from anything other than PC/USB with activesync installed or supplied wall charger. Does anyone know if this is a 'feature' of other Windows Smartphones which charge off USB? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest spikex Posted October 6, 2004 Report Share Posted October 6, 2004 Or sometimes if you've connected too many devices via USB to your PC it simply does not have enough output to start charging your phone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest slippyr4 Posted October 6, 2004 Report Share Posted October 6, 2004 There seems to be a lot of people who who don't actually know what they're talking about posting! shame really. I've done quite a lot of electronics with USB devices, and also driver development. When a device is connected to the USB bus, it is only allowed to draw very small amounts of power from the bus, initially. The USB device negotiates with the host controller to identify itself, and initialise itself. This process is called device enumeration. As part of the enumeration process, in simplified terms, the device tells the host controller how much power it needs. The host controller can then basically allow or refuse that. The USB device may only increase it's power requirements once the enumeration process is complete. Enumeration is not solely a hardware process- the operating system is involved too. Windows attempts to load a correct driver class handler for the type of device being enumerated. This is an important step of enumeration - some dumb devices do not know what they should do until told by the host (ie the PC) what to do. If windows cannot load a driver, enumeration fails, and the device remains in low power mode. Furthermore, not all USB ports can support high power devices. This is particularly common in non-powered USB hubs (that's why i'd always recommend to buy a powered hub). And, if you already have a bunch of high powered devices on the bus, then the host controller might refuse the devices power requirements. Anyway, if you've not installed ActiveSync, then there is no class driver for the phone installed. Enumeration fails. The phone may not draw more power from the bus. So it will not charge. People have commented that they have other USB devices that are able to draw power without them installing a separate driver for them. This can be down to 3 possible scenarios:- 1. The device is not comforing to the USB specification and is exceeding it's negotiated power requirements 2. The device can operate on low power mode, hence can power all of itself before a sucessful enumeration 3. Many devices have class drivers as part of windows. Includes HID (Human Interface Devices) - keyboards, mice, etc. Includes Mass Storage devices - portable disk drives, memory keys, most digital cameras. In these instances, enumeration suceeds and the device can power up. Windows in fact loads a driver, you just didn't know that it did. So, to the original poster:- Check that you've installed ActiveSync, and check that your device is not on an unpowered hub, and check that there aren't too many other devices on the same bus. I hope that clears it up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest slippyr4 Posted October 6, 2004 Report Share Posted October 6, 2004 The power supply appears to simulate this signal as well. It does not appear to be current based (I have a similar USB wall charger to a previous poster which supplies the same current/voltage as the supplied mains charger). This rules out using generic chargers both from the mains and also in-car That is quite an interesting point. I can't see that the charger has any USB logic in it- the cost would be prohibitive. I wonder what it does. I'll investigate with my scope when i get home on friday. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest fozzie Posted October 6, 2004 Report Share Posted October 6, 2004 Excellent informative post. Thanks. Oh, welcome to the site :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest markauk Posted October 6, 2004 Report Share Posted October 6, 2004 Interesting info on USB spec. Both my Palm (T3) and Sony Ericsson t610 charge quite happily from a powered USB hub that's not plugged into a PC so I guess they are either breaking spec or just using low power. Shame the C500 won't do the same. In the meantime, there's another thread which has answered what's going on when the C500 charges from the mains charger, and suggested a simple cable hack to allow C500 to charge from any USB port. http://smartphone.modaco.com/viewtopic.php...p=454918#454918 mark. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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