Have you ever noticed your Pocket PC turn on all by itself?  Have you ever left your Pocket PC in your bag for the night and the next morning discovered that the handheld’s battery was flat?  What happened?

Well, two things can cause this type of behavior:

• Some default settings on new devices have caused the Pocket PC to power on in regular intervals to perform some automatic function.
• You inadvertently programmed some features to cause the Pocket PC to power on in regular intervals. 

Here are some things you can check and actions you can take to prevent your Pocket PC from powering on automatically and potentially draining your battery or, in the case of a converged Pocket PC (those that include a cellular phone function), establishing a GPRS connection and potentially incurring significant data charges.

ActiveSync
As discussed in my previous article entitled, “Battery drainage, ActiveSync, and the dummy server fix,” a default setting in ActiveSync causes ActiveSync to power on the Pocket PC in regular intervals to attempt to sync to an Exchange server.  Many people don’t sync to an Exchange server and even those that do prefer to sync only every now and then, and not every 5 minutes.  To disable this “feature,” you need to change ActiveSync’s mobile sync schedule from Automatic to Manual:

Windows Mobile 2003 devices
Changing ActiveSync’s mobile sync schedule is easy to do on a Windows Mobile 2003 device.  Simply tap Start > Programs > ActiveSync > Tools.  On the PC Synchronization screen, remove the checkmark next to “Use mobile schedule to sync with this PC.” Then tap the Mobile Schedule tab and change both the Peak times and Off-peak times to “Manually” by tapping the down arrow next to each box and selecting the Manual option.

WM5.0 devices
Changing ActiveSync’s mobile sync schedule on a WM5.0 device is a little more complicated because the button you need to tap to gain access to the schedule is disabled.  To enable the button requires setting up a dummy server.  See the Battery drainage article referenced above for more information about this.

Messaging Accounts
When you create POP3 or IMAP4 messaging accounts on your handheld, you can inadvertently set an option that causes the Pocket PC to turn on in regular intervals to attempt to retrieve and send email messages – even when the Pocket PC is not connected to the internet.  To disable this feature, you’ll need to check every messaging account you’ve created on your handheld:

Windows Mobile 2003 devices
Open up the messaging application, then tap Accounts > Accounts...> select the email account you wish to change, then tap Next > Next > Next > Options button.  Remove the checkmark in the box next to “Connect and check for messages every xxx minutes.”  Then tap Next > Next > Finish.

WM5.0 devices
Open up the messaging application. Tap Menu > Tools > Options > select the email account you wish to change, then tap Next > Next > Next > Options button. Remove the checkmark in the box next to "Connect and check for messages every xxx minutes."  Then tap Next > Next > Finish.

Notifications
Your Pocket PC’s alarms and notifications may be programmed to repeat continuously until you manually turn them off or they may be configured to flash or display a message continuously.  Check the handheld’s notification settings:

Tap Settings > Personal tab > Sounds & Notifications icon. Select the Notifications tab, and then tap the down arrow next to the Event dialogue box. Select the “Reminders” event and make sure "Repeat" is not checked.  Then modify the setting for "Flash light for” to an appropriate period of time (this setting can be set anywhere from “No limit,” so it will flash to infinity, or from 5 to 60 minutes).

Today Timeout
If you’ve been working with an application or document on your Pocket PC and then turn off the handheld without closing the application or document, when you turn the handheld on later the application or document may still be displayed. If you leave the today timeout feature set to the default period of 4 hours, turn your handheld off and go to bed, four hours later, the Pocket PC will turn on automatically, reset itself to the Today screen and turn itself off eventually (in accordance to the power settings you’ve designated in the Power Settings screen.  The handheld will continue to turn itself on every 4 hours to reset to the Today screen even though it is already on the Today screen! 

To change or disable the Today Timeout feature, tap Start > Settings > Today icon > Items tab.  Remove the checkmark next to “Today timeout” to disable the feature or tap the down arrow next to “Today timeout” to change the time period to anywhere from 1 to 12 hours.

HP Protect Tools
Similar to the Today Timeout feature, HP Protect Tools has a feature that causes the Pocket PC to turn on automatically to stop running programs and to encrypt your data.  So if you’ve set this option to 10 minutes, your Pocket PC will turn on every 10 minutes to stop running programs and encrypt your data even if nothing has changed since the last time it performed the function.  To disable or modify this feature, tap Start > Settings > HP Protect Tools icon.  Then select Manage Security Settings, input your security code and tap the Lock tab.   Remove the checkmark next to “Log off (stop running programs and encrypt data) after” to disable the feature, or tap the up or down arrow to increment to the time period you desire for encryption to occur.

Midnight Ghost
Some Pocket PCs power on automatically at midnight to perform administrative functions, and you can not prevent this from happening. The handheld turns on to check for notifications, alarms, schedule reminders, etc. and then turns off in accordance to the power settings you've designated in the Power Settings screen.  Microsoft describes this behavior on its website:

“Pocket PC devices that are running Windows CE 3.0 turn on at midnight to search for appointments for the coming day. Reminders are set and the Today view is updated with the day's events.

The device then turns off according to the configured power settings (which you can modify). The default setting is to turn the device off after three minutes of inactivity.

If a program such as Microsoft Windows Media Player for Pocket PC were running when the device is turned off, Windows Media Player would resume playing when the device turns on at midnight. In this case, the device would not turn off because there is activity. You should stop Windows Media Player before turning the Pocket PC off. “

You may have noticed that Microsoft specifically mentions Windows CE 3.0, but I have observed this behavior with my hx2415, which runs Windows Mobile 2003 SE.  I can't seem to remember to watch my WM5.0 Pocket PCs around midnight to see if they turn on, so I don’t know if this happens with these later model Pocket PCs.

Running Applications
Make it a practice to turn off ActiveSync, Windows Media Player, WIFI and Bluetooth before powering off the Pocket PC for an extended period of time.  At a minimum, make sure you turn off Windows Media Player (or else you might be surprised at midnight!!). 

Tapping the X button on the upper right-hand corner of the screen does not actually exit and close many applications but only minimizes them.  Applications, such as Windows Media Player, continue running in the background and consuming battery power. You can turn off applications, by tapping the memory icon on your handheld’s Start page.  Then tap the Running Programs tab, select the application you wish to close, and tap the Stop button (or you can tap the Stop All button to close all running applications).

Discovering Ghosts
If you notice your Pocket PC still turning on regularly even after you made all the recommended changes in this article, you can try my sure fire method to discover the remaining ghost in your Pocket PC:

1. Install task manager software to your PDA. If you haven’t already installed a task manager application to your Pocket PC, download and install PHM Task Manager (free software)
2. Soft reset your handheld, then open up the task manager application and make a note of all the tasks that are running (look at the Processes tab). Do not close the application.
3. Turn off your Pocket PC and wait until it turns itself on.
4. Review the applications and processes that are running in the task manager application. If an automatic process is running, you should see a new EXE running as the first item in the list of processes.

Finally, be sure to review and adjust your handheld’s power settings.  Then if the Pocket PC still powers on automatically, at least it will power off automatically after a reasonable period of time.  To modify the Pocket PC’s power settings, tap Start > Settings > System tab > Power icon > Advanced tab.   Make sure the “on battery power” setting is set to a conservative time period.

Did you enjoy this Post? Subscribe to From My Pocket