Hi all,
First of all, thanks for all the great advices when I asked for opinions on the Treo 750 a couple weeks ago ... I finally bought the Treo 750 for my wife and has been tweaking it the last few days. It is a good PDA and my wife loves it.
Upgrading from her old 650, there are lot of pro's to the 750:
PROS
- Lighter and feels more compact than the Treo650, and comparable to most WM devices with a full keyboard
- It's always a plus to have a full QWERTY keyboard that you don't have to slide out.
- Keys on the QWERTY keyboard is more spreaded out, and easier to use than 650. It probably has the best 'button feel' of all QWERTY devices I've used
- Believe it or not, but WM6.1 (I flashed 6.1 on it almost immediately) is A LOT more stable than Palm OS. People complain about WM OS's stability, but my experience is unless you use the Palm OS or Symbian OS for PIM functions alone, WM is better. My wife had to reset her Treo 650 on Palm OS5 (the last OS) 2 to 3 times a day if shes uses any kind of internet connection.
- Screen is bright and easy to see even under sunlight
I do, however, have my fair share of gripes with the phone ... and I'm hoping you guys can suggest any workaround / solution for them, if any ...
CONS:
- 320x320 is not much space for anything. With the task bar and the soft buttons taking up valuable real estate there's even less to work with. On her Today screen I already hide the quick dial and the carrier bars. Even then with Phone alarm plugin, ADBWeather plugin, and Windows Live plugin, I have no space left for calender items and always have to scroll to see her schedule. You guys know if there's any way to make the task bar / soft buttons narrower?
- In today's PDA world, 64MB of user memory just doesn't cut it. I flashed the full WM6.1ROM on it and only had ~ 33MB of storage immediately after the install. With so many programs that I have to install on main memory, I'm down to ~ 15MB left, and I have to be very selective on what programs I install now. Program memory is equally lacking ... and it just doesn't cut it for a modern device. I thought about flashing the "clean version" of WM6.1 but I heard it's not very stable?
- My wife doesn't really need 3G but I thought it's kindda stupid to not put an additional camera on the same side of the screen to support video calling.
I dunno if I am a 'heavy user' but those are my gripes with the phone ... it's a good phone, but given its size and that it supports 3G you'd think it's a more capable mobile device. The lack of memory (program and storage) is a big let down to me.
The screen resolution on the Treo 750 is 240x240 (qVGA).
Concerning the realestate you are quite right.
You might try PocketBreeze. The last version supports wiping with your fingers to switch between calendar etc.
I still on my Treo 750 and can't get myself to get rid of it because it's such a good device. I install more than 30 CAB's and never have had issues with my memory. Might be because most apps are installed on the MiniSD instead of the main memory. Of course things like today plugins are installed on the main memory
Good luck with your Treo!
Thanks mccune ... I took a look at pocket breeze and it's not really my cup of tea (or, my wife's, since it's really her phone).
I think I'm fine for now with phone alarm (just gotta choose a slimmer, thinner skin) ADBWeather and calender plugin. The Windows Live pluging can't squeeze in, unfortunately.
It would help if I can get rid of the carrier logo but unfortunately I can't. I tried the registry tweak to disable it, and created even more problems afterwards (lost the 'phone' application when I press "SEND" button, call duration and caller info no longer shows during call)
It'd help if it's a 320x320 screen, but it's 240x240 ... so you just gotta be more selective with what you show on the today menu.
Same thing with the memory / storage ... just gotta be selective with what you install. I hope more applications can be installed on the memory card but many of them still require to be installed on main memory and cause problems if installed on memory card (phone alarm for example, yahoo!go is another)
For now I'm fine though ... once I've tweaked it the way I like, at least it does run very stable.
And it is a nice device if you want QWERTY keyboard on the front (without slide-out keyboard) ... feels light and reasonably compact in your hand.
I also find that by disabling 3G (sticking with GPRS / EDGE) the battery life extends quite a bit too.
Glad to hear you like your 750. I do have my own suggestion for the today screen. I use Spb Pocket plus, I simply love this program. It has tabs to switch between. I currently have alot of programs to launch and plenty of space for plug-ins. As for the plug-ins, I have had no problem putting most of them on my storage card and they work just fine. I usually only have access to gprs/edge where i live, so living without 3G isn't really all that bad. Hope that can help.
Thanks for the advice ... a problem I have with launcher like Spb pocket is it takes up a lot of real estate on the tiny 240x240 screen for apps ... great for launching apps, but bad for other stuff that I wanna display on the today screen, like calender reminder, PA plugin, weather info etc etc. I put the programs that she uses most often in the main menu and that seems to work fine now with QuickMenu.
Speaking of the treo, I ran into a weird network problem recently.
If I launch a program that uses the internet (IE, Opera Mini, MSN Messenger etc), 7 times out of 10 it will NOT connect via EDGE/GPRS automatically. It just pops up with an error message saying "Network Connection is unavailable.", despite I have setup the network connection already.
A workaround that works everytime so far, is I will select Settings -> Connections ->Network Connections -> Manage Existing Connections, and I'll select the connection I have already setup (Fido EDGE ... the only connection I have setup), select EDIT, and without changing any of the setting just click Next, Next, Next and Finish.
Now, after 'reminding' WM that I have a connection setup, the program will automatically connect to EDGE, and it will work no problem.
Has anybody else experienced this? Any way to fix it? The workaround works, but it's just such a PITA.
Related
Well I finally made a decision and bought the HTC TyTN II a couple of days ago because I just could wait any longer for the Touch Cruise and wasn’t 100% sure I’d like the on screen keyboard to type text.
TyTN II Thoughts:
It’s definitely a power house PDA however in the little time I’ve had the phone, I’m still yet to get use to the size and weight.
Coming from using an o2 Atom Exec which everything is done by using your stylus, it will take a little getting used to sliding out that full QWERTY keyboard rather than pulling out my stylus.
The Keyboard has a nice feel, however you will need a little getting used to pressing the keys closer to the spacebar, other than that I was up and typing like a pro in only a few minutes of having it.
If anyone has any questions, I’d be happy to answer what I can.
Questions I’d like answered:
1: On my Today screen, is it possible to show upcoming appointments for the next 14 days rather than the next appointment only? Or will I need to get third party software to do that example: calplus
2. Current OS version 5.2.1620 (build 18125.0.4.2) is there a newer version or a third party ROM upgarde?
3. Select an Account – is there any way I can delete the E-Mail sample account and Outlook E-mail account?
4. The weather button on the Today Screen, is it possible to replace that with something I regularly use?
5. If I install TouchFlo and the Cube, will that slow my phone down?
6. I installed my miniSD card and the phone asked me if I’d like to install CoPilot so I did. When I loaded CoPilot it tries searched for a GPS but never locks. Do I need to set anything in particular there?
7. What is the on screen keyboard software used on the Touch Cruise, I’d like to try installing that too?
Hi @all,
in the last weeks with my HTC touch dual, i discovered a worse loss of performance during 1-2 days - resulting in the need of a softreset. Unlike some of you i won't accept a daily softreset as a "must" for a WM device.
Looking into the processes with SKTools, i notice a constantly raising CPU load of the process "shell32.exe", which may need 40% CPU load or more just in idle state, making the phone really laggy. I've read about this somewhere in the web and some forums, but i did not feel everybody is suffering from this issue.
So what about it? As a SMS flat user i'll write many SMS per day with my wife - and this seems to be the crux of the matter. Playing an hour with my phone, opening and closing apps, entering dates and contacts - and shell32.exe is still at 0% in idle mode. Writing and receiving 40-50 SMS and i'm at 20% or more.
I just want to set up an discussion about that ... maybe some of you will have the same problem. And maybe some of the clever guys here will have an idea how to fix this ... the problem still exists in WM6.0 and unfortunately still in 6.1
Any discussion / ideas appreciated ...
İ have the exact same problem and was googling about it finding your comment... when i first boot my device cpu usage is %0 when idle and after sending/receiving around 50-60 sms , it increases up to %25 when idle by shell32.exe . I wonder what's it got to do with cpu ...
"Nice" to read someone else with this problem. It seems, that most people make a restart every day or does not write much SMS.
In holiday, my HTC ran 2 weeks without restart and problems ... but abroad you have to pay for SMS and there were only 5-10 of them. But with a flat ...
It seems that Microsoft still did not noticed these problems ...
I actually do restart everyday my htc prophet as it does reduce battery life having cpu at 20-30%
I guess we can solve this problem by comparing software we use and find what could be the problem. Because ,as there is not a lot people suffering from this, it might be a software issue.
well i heard that shell32.exe was also for today plug-ins , i have only bat.status as today plugin. May be i should disable it and try again... Actually i am abit lazy
You can spend this time to other things ... ... i made all these tries. A "naked" Touch Dual with no plugins makes the same - it's an issue of the operating system and/or the SMS app, which is a part of it.
well then these pdas are just not for sms-lovers Or shall we beg for a fix from microsoft ...
I'm experiencing the same problem. And i'm not a heavy user of SMS.
I think it happens even when not a single SMS have benn sent or received.
It seems to happen since I have flashed a 6.1 ROM.
I remark this because my battery is discharging more than usual.
I have the same problem on my new Palm Treo Pro, even without sms sending. Cpu usage is not that high though, but sometimes the battery is almost empty at the end of the day without doing anything special.
Monitoring power consumptions with BatteryStatus (now HomeScreen++) has a best case of 45mA (still almost double of my P3600) and more often than wanted around 150mA-250mA, with moderate backlight and idle state.
If I remember correctly, the P3600 had a similar issue and that was linked to the radio, it was solved by a newer radio rom. But that my be coincidence or just a total different thing too.
I'm having the same problem with my treo 800w. If i reset my phone to begin the day, about halfway through the day wihtout using the phone at all I will notice the battery dropping rediculously fast. Looking at the processes reveals that shell32.exe is using 20% cpu constantly. After a reset, shell32.exe hovers at 0-2%
I am positive this is what is causing my battery to die so fast.
Hi
I've got a similar problem with my FSC Pocket Loox N560.
I got a RAM extension which additionally needs an upgrade to WM6.1 (at least that's what i got).
When i reset the Loox, everything is fine.
But as soon as the device is switched off to suspend mode and then on again, shell32.exe takes up between 30 and 70% of CPU power. And there is another process, filesys.exe, which uses another 20 to 30%. So in the worst case, the CPU is at about full load and - of course - the processor mode is constantly at turbo mode. The system's reaction is pretty poor then. One can see the sector-colored-circle-thing appearing every 2 seconds on today screen and some other applications.
Haven't found a reason for this. I would be quite happy for now if i only needed to reset the device once per day, but in fact i have to reset it everytime i switch it on.
Does anybody know a reason for this yet?
Greetings, Martin
sipple said:
Hi
I've got a similar problem with my FSC Pocket Loox N560.
I got a RAM extension which additionally needs an upgrade to WM6.1 (at least that's what i got).
When i reset the Loox, everything is fine.
But as soon as the device is switched off to suspend mode and then on again, shell32.exe takes up between 30 and 70% of CPU power. And there is another process, filesys.exe, which uses another 20 to 30%. So in the worst case, the CPU is at about full load and - of course - the processor mode is constantly at turbo mode. The system's reaction is pretty poor then. One can see the sector-colored-circle-thing appearing every 2 seconds on today screen and some other applications.
Haven't found a reason for this. I would be quite happy for now if i only needed to reset the device once per day, but in fact i have to reset it everytime i switch it on.
Does anybody know a reason for this yet?
Greetings, Martin
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have the exact problem on same device (FSC LOOX n560). Upraded it to WM6.1 about two weeks ago. Everything was running ok until yesterday, when I installed and then uninstalled latest version of Pocket Informant from WebIS and MyMobiler remote desktop (which I uninstalled right after this problem started, because I thought it is, what's causing it).
My guess is that it has to do with some filesystem errors on storage card (after all it's FAT system, which fragments it's data). I'll try to format my storage card later today, to see if it helps
EDIT: Okay, it seems it was caused by misbehaviour of SPB Pocket Plus v4 program. I uninstalled it and turned my PDA on and off several times and shell32.exe process was still on 0-1%
EDIT2: Well, I made a hard reset and installed everything again, including SPB PP and everything is running ok
Jupiman said:
EDIT: Okay, it seems it was caused by misbehaviour of SPB Pocket Plus v4 program. I uninstalled it and turned my PDA on and off several times and shell32.exe process was still on 0-1%
EDIT2: Well, I made a hard reset and installed everything again, including SPB PP and everything is running ok
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It was any particular installation order?
1.SPB Pocket Plus v4
2.other software
yep, I installed SPB PP as a first application, then the rest
hey every1
even i am havin d same prob on my htc diamond..but on a minor scale.. I have installed few softwares recently and have noticed dat shell32.exe is taking arnd 0.37 % continously..but i compltly remember that b4 installing and even in all the roms(i have tried many roms) it used to be only at 0% in idle state.. but this is continously taking abt 0-1% which is also affecting me as i wud like to know the reason.so have anyone found the reason and a way to resolve widout a hard reset. bcoz i know once i hard reset its gonaa be normal. but i install many softwares and putting them back is a pain...
hi guys. I have the same problem when I use the usb cable to connect as a masive disk and I finish using or not "extract securely" in my PC.
sorry my english!!
I have this problem too!
when my phone is turning on: shell32.exe=> Ram usage about 2MB, CPU usage 0% or 1%!
after receive several sms, shell32.exe=> Ram usage about 10MB , CPU usage about 40% to 60%!!
I installed "BestTaskMan" and found shell32.exe in processes list, i select it and in menu button i click "Windows list"..
in "Windows list", I found a invisible windows with "Clock Window" name!!
i checked it, each time I receive sms, a "Clock Window" was added tu "Windows list"!!
I think, its the main problem!
My Questions: whats "Clock Window"?
why is it invisble?
why will greate a "Clock Window" when I receive a new sms?!!
How to close it?!
Hi All,
I installed WM6 (with Boom logo) sorry was a long time ago, and cant remember the Official ROM title.
Been working great for ages, but over the past few days its been crashing (freezing, followed a few seconds later by screen fading out with various coloured vertical lines) and the only way to reboot is remove battery and start again.
There does not seem to be any pattern to when it crashes - sometimes minutes, but ran all weekend without a hiccup.
I have tried Axios CloseApps 1.40 to get rid of everything running that i dont need and this hasnt helped (crashed immediately the confirm screen came up once). Also run Reg Cleaner to see if that helps, cured a couple of issues but still crashing. Did have overclock at 240, but turned this back to 192 and still falls over.
No new programs installed recently... hadn't been sync'd in 80 days. Tried syncing aswell....nada
Anyone with any ideas??
Many thanks for any pointers
Nod
Just remembered - TNT Rom
Sorry - brain fade tonight!
Nod
Sounds suspiciously like a memory issue. It's possible you've somehow gotten your Extended ROM corrupted, but that's not very likely. The more likely issue is you're simply out of memory from loading too much on your phone, or (and still more likely) you don't clean out your phone periodically as you should.
D/L this and run it on your machine: ClearTemp. This will clear out temporary files, and remove dead links, etc. from your phone that are taking up space and helping nobody.
Hopefully you have DotFred's Task manager. Run it, go to notification manager, and delete all duplicate notifications. (See his feature list for explanation.)
Another suggestion: Use Advanced Configuration Tool to change the default locations of pictures, video, and documents to your SD card. If you're not using an SD card...get one.
If you already do these things, I apologize for preaching to the converted, but these seem like the most likely fixes.
Another slightly more painful solution would be to back up your PIM data and your personal files, and do a Hard Reset. This would strip away all your customizations, and remove all programs you've added, but it would also put your registry back in pristine condition, and scrub your memory of any buggy material.
Hi Myrddin,
Thanks for the advise...
I have used Clear Temp and looked at the TaskMgr, but did not know exactly what I could clear out or not... clearing duplicates and Scripts reduced the notifications down to 83 from 367!
Runs quicker if nothing else
I haven't a great deal of files on it, running a 2GB card which has TomTom on (program runs from card) with Euro and UK maps, and plenty of room for pictures etc which I save on the card anyway. Oxios states that i have 15ish MB free, so didn't think capacity was an issue. Have moved what little I had left over to the card.
Will try a Hard Reset as last resort, but noticed two things today - had a small piece of plastic under the SIM card (which is now removed) - may have been disturbing contacts with SIM.
This got me thinking... it seems more often that not when I put the Wizard into my Car Cradle (handsfree speaker/charger) it crashes. Could this be a battery/power connector issue? (no problems when I connect to PC via USB).
Many thanks
Noddy
PS Dont worry about preaching to the converted - even the converted need help occasionally!!
NoddyF1 said:
... it seems more often that not when I put the Wizard into my Car Cradle (handsfree speaker/charger) it crashes. Could this be a battery/power connector issue? (no problems when I connect to PC via USB).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That sounds bad. Yes, I think it is possible you have a connector issue. I doubt you have a battery/power issue, otherwise. Do you have problems syncing the phone to a computer? If so, that would be the clincher for a connector problem. Otherwise, it may just be a less than stellar cradle connector.
Your SIM card debris issue doesn't sound related to this, but may have been related to your other problems (though I think this is unlikely).
Think it might be slowly dying :-(
Hi Myrddin
I think I have come to the same conclusion unfortunately.
Performed Hard Reset in the end which I thought may have fixed the problems, as no crashes for a few days, but then it happend again. DOH.
There are no problems when I connect via USB, and the Cradle is an official TomTom version and seems in pretty good shape. My wife's Wizard does not have this problem so I'm assuming it's my Phone and not the cradle unfortunately.
I think I am left with three courses of action
- flash an upgraded OS (6.5) to see if that improves stability (however the TNT build's I understand are pretty rock solid anyway)
- or take it apart and see if "anything wobbles" probably screen connector seems most appropriate as when placing in the car unit the only real way of pushing it in is by the front half of the top otherwise the SD card pops out or I hit the power button (my fingers aren't the smallest!)
- or purchase a new phone (I know I will probably get flamed for this, but the Glofiish X800 looks OK for circa £200)
Ho Hum. Thanks for all your help
Nod.
Does the HTC Raphael have any kind of Safe Mode that you can boot into which would disable any auto-run programs and allow you to use the device in a "plain vanilla" mode?
My specific problem is that I've managed to install a program which apparently sets itself up to auto-run at startup, and which has effectively bricked my phone. The device isn't completely unresponsive. Using keyboard shortcuts I can run certain programs such as Opera or the mail client. Unfortunately, I can't get into the Remove Programs settings applet.
I also can't get it to sync with my PC, which would be another way to remove a program. When I plug the USB cable in, I get the "Choose a connection type" dialog, but the PC doesn't recognize that the device is plugged in. So that's a dead end.
I've done multiple soft resets, to no good effect. The phone hangs at the same place each time, which is before the Today screen appears BTW. I'm viewing a hard reset as a last resort, since I really don't want to spend the rest of the day reinstalling and reconfiguring applications and system settings.
Any ideas would be appreciated. I've been searching the forums and wiki for about an hour, but haven't found anything relevant except for something for a different HTC device. I've spent several hours trying different things that I've thought of with varying results, but the basic problem remains. And finally, while I'm new to this forum, I'm definitely not a noob. I've been a serious PocketPC user back to the days of the Casio E-100, and a mobile device user starting with the original Newton.
Thanks in advance.
Scott Trotter
i know the older versions of spb mobile shell had a safe mode, i havent use spb since my nike tho so i dont know if its still included
obviously as you cant install programs in your current state i suggest u try a hard reset
it was wkTask or ILauncher that had it. Check it out
What did you install? And how does it run at startup? Is it just a link in the windows/startup folder, or a reg entry? If you can launch a file explorer, reg editor, or sk tools, you should be able to disable it.
I'm not 100% sure, but I believe that the culprit is SPB Wireless Monitor. I had a discount coupon for SPB software that expired last night at midnight, so I installed a couple of trial version programs to check them out. Everything worked fine until I tried Wireless Monitor, which apparently bricked the phone. I say "apparently" because its possible that the problem is caused by some type of interaction between Wireless Monitor and something else. In any event, I'm not able to run anything on the phone that will help me diagnose or fix the problem...whatever it is.
I'll probably wait until tomorrow to see if anyone comes up with a reset-saving solution, then throw in the towel and do a hard reset. Probably take the opportunity to try a different ROM while I'm at it.
SPB Pocket plus brings a safe mode to every windows mobile device; it deactivates all autostart proggies & has helped me a lot of times. i have one more cab to install safe mode, but i dont know where its from, and i remember that it does not work so good as SPB Pocket plus does ...
hope it helps
Boris
In my own situation, I ended up having to hard reset and start from scratch. Oh well, such is life.
To wrap up, based on the responses above or the lack thereof, it appears that the following is true:
1) There is no "safe mode" capability in the Raphael, neither as a hardware feature, nor as an operating system feature.
2) There are some third-party software alternatives which offer this capability, but you need to have the foresight to have them installed so that they are available in an emergency situation.
Thanks for everyone's help.
Very much bolting the stable door etc etc but
Get a decent backup client and schedule it to backup every day (week, hour, month - depending on how often you change the data on the phone).
If you envisage more than a few hard reboots in a year (changing / testing roms, trying software you might decide you hate, or just a geek etc etc) spend a little time creating a UC setup (there are a few different versions / ways now so i wont prejudice by linking to any one).
I know its not a fix, and requires a little preperation, but for a few $$ and a handful of hours, its can save a whole load of grief later on.
borisku said:
SPB Pocket plus brings a safe mode to every windows mobile device; it deactivates all autostart proggies & has helped me a lot of times. i have one more cab to install safe mode, but i dont know where its from, and i remember that it does not work so good as SPB Pocket plus does ...
hope it helps
Boris
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yeeah spb pocket plus not mobile shell thats what i ment lol
Beeble said:
Very much bolting the stable door etc etc but
Get a decent backup client and schedule it to backup every day (week, hour, month - depending on how often you change the data on the phone).
If you envisage more than a few hard reboots in a year (changing / testing roms, trying software you might decide you hate, or just a geek etc etc) spend a little time creating a UC setup (there are a few different versions / ways now so i wont prejudice by linking to any one).
I know its not a fix, and requires a little preperation, but for a few $$ and a handful of hours, its can save a whole load of grief later on.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've given that lecture many, many times myself. Its embarrassing to be on the receiving end.
I'm surprised that the Safe Mode feature isn't in SPB Mobile Shell. After having it in Pocket Plus, and it being so useful, why take it out?
After flashing the official Sprint Windows Mobile 6.5 ROM I seem to be having an issue with text messaging. After I exit a message thread to return to the message list, it freezes up for a moment. Nearly crippling, but I'm not the type to complain. What is a major annoyance, and the actual reason I'm here, is that if my screen shuts off during this performance stutter the power button/phone becomes unresponsive and I have to take the battery out before I can use it again.
Any help would be appreciated.
tmail.exe is crashing quite frequently along with these problems. Causes a feedback "loop", only way to get out of it is to press the Windows hardware key and use task manager to kill it.
I was having similar issues after flashing, I would suggest a Hard Reset and see if that helps. I have found many times in the past that a hard reset after a flash can cure a lot of issues.
KD8FRE
A lot of times old install and ROM information can get stuck on your memory, causing issues like this. Always reset your device a couple times, even remove the battery for 30 seconds and then clear your memory. It all helps to ensure your latest ROM flash is as efficient as possible.
I think the issues may be in this version of Sense UI.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=654168
sprint 6.5 roms issues
check you task manager and use cleanram frequently..you can set up clean ram to run periodically...
Sense UI issue with large contact directory
I use the RAM Cleaner and task bar frequently. I found that my device Locks up when I try to use anyone of the people in the contact tab. I synch with an exchange server and have over 1000 contacts in my contact list. When the phone freezes it needs a battery removal to get out of that state.
So I tried a few things.
1- I disabled the people tab and am using speed dial.
2- Installed SPB MB 3.5.3 ( phone is very stable and fast with this app, but I am used to the SENSE UI and would prefer it to work the way it should.)
My instincts tell me something is wrong wiht this ROMs Manilla files when it comes to the contacts tab. I am interested to see if others using exchange Server are experiencing the same issue.
PS: This is my second device. Sprint replaced my original TP2 and the problem still persists.