My Sprint PPC6700 occasionally has a problem with the backlight not coming on when on battery power. I haven't found a pattern of use or environmental conditions that cause this. It is not preceded by any warning signs. The backlight goes off completely; if I plug the device in to either an AC adapter or the car adapter, it comes back on, but only while plugged in. In adequate lighting, I am still able to see the characters on the screen by holding it at an angle so the light hits it from the side rather than straight on.

A soft reset, with or without an external power supply attached, does not fix the problem; a hard reset does. But that, obviously, is a bit of pain if you have to do it regularly.

Any idea what would cause this condition?

you do know there are settings for the backlight when plugged in and when running on battery? have you checked them?

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d6l9p
Peace Within

I am aware of these settings; this is not the issue. This is a malfunction. After hours of appropriate behavior, the device suddenly just doesn't light up; and after a soft reset, it still doesn't light up. If it were the setting, then following the soft reset it should default to something like 7 or 10 seconds.

This used to happen to me (prior to AKU 3.3/3.5), so I put a Backlight icon on my Today screen in an obvious location on the screen. I happen to use the O2Plus application for Today Screen icons. When it would happen, I selected the Backlight icon and clicked off and on the check box next to "Turn off Backlight if device is not used for". This would restore the backlight even when a soft reset wouldn't.

This doesn't stop the problem from happening, but at least you can quickly get back to using the device.

Thanks. I'll see if I can do the same with SpB's Today add-ins.

You refer to AKU 3.3/3.5, and I've seen other references to this. What is "AKU" an acronym for? What is it, and do I need it?

AKU stands for Adaptation Kit Update. It is essentially an operating system update for Windows Mobile. The latest one for the 6700 running Windows Mobile 5 is AKU 3.5. Some are hoping to get Windows Mobile 6 running on the 6700. These usually are not official updates from the mobile phone providers, although there has been talk of an official 3.x update being released from Verizon and Sprint.

Search the forums and you'll find a considerable amount of information about these updates.

fwiw, i have this problem occasionally even with colonel's 3.3. i am currently suspecting memmaid, so i uninstalled it and we'll see what happens. getting bsod's again, too, but it was relatively stable until memmdia was installed.

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ppc6700 (R.I.P. 6600)
Sprint

I'm running Waitin's AKU 3.3 with no additional programs added except Voice Command, and still occasionally have this problem.

The problem is that you're holding the power button down too long. To verify this, with the screen up and back light on, press and hold the power button for 3 or 4 seconds. This will turn out the back light. You should still be able to see the screen. Now soft reset a couple of times, the back light will still stay out. Press and hold the power button for a couple more seconds, the back light will turn back on.

Well, I don't know that I had experienced the problem when turning the unit on or off; but I will say you're right--holding the Power button for just 2 or 3 seconds causes the backlight to turn off; and also back on. Thanks.

Well what tends to happen is that we don't pay attention to how we're holding the phone and we hit and hold the power button till the backlight goes off. (and if the back light is turned off like that when on battery, it will turn back on when place on charge, and vice versa)

There is a documented issue with the backlight spontaneously going off on battery power regardless of how the power button is handled. Search this board and you'll find it.

I'm not saying that the cause of the OP or anyone else's difficulty isn't their handling of the power button, but the issue can exist independently of this. After it happens, when you open the backlight settings screen the brightness adjustment slider for battery power has moved completely to the left (no backlight). The power button can't do that.

I have had this "problem" myself a half dozen times since installing Colonel's 3.3.3 a few days ago - but not much that I remember during a month running with the stock Verizon 2.2. (Then it was the constant DSOD, solved by ejecting and reinserting the SD card.) Rlith has me almost convinced that the power button is the culprit here (for mine); it's in a pretty exposed spot, and I've been handling the phone alot (and doing alot of resets) trying to figure out the effects of these plugin's that Colonel put in this ROM. I used to use this feature (the power button hold) all the time to toggle the backlight on my old monochrome Ipaq but had pretty much forgotten about it since moving to a color screen with the Axim.

BTW, JPSmith, holding the power button can and does shift the backlight slider all the way to the left. (Pressing and holding again restores it to the original setpoint.) That was exactly the intended functionality as far back as the original Ipaqs in 1999.

If/When I experience another "spontaneous" backlight shutdown, I'll be checking to see if I can restore with the pwr button hold. That beats finding a strong-enough light to navigate to the backlight screen and turning it back on with the stylus - as I have been doing.

Tmb, upgrade to sadinours 3.5 rom... Most of your probs will be solved.

Rlith - I'll stick with Colonel's 3.3.3 for now - too much time invested - but may upgrade to Colonel's 3.5 when it's stable.

Spontaneous backlight turn-off (w/ lockup) happened again last night - not related to power button at all - still only solution is a soft reset, then navigation to the backlight settings screen to turn it back on. Apparently, something is making the phone forget the backlight setting completely. I'm suspecting something in the extended rom freeware rather than the OS - maybe the O2+ today plugins.

You're right, holding down the power button while on battery does dim the backlight, so I was wrong to say "the power button can't do this." But I'm quite sure I've had spontaneous backlight outages without going anywhere near the power button. I've never tried restoring the backlight after this happens by holding down the power button, so I'll give that a try next time.