iPod photo - battery running down in dock

[lnoelstorr]

Hi,

I thought that leaving my new iPod photo in the dock over night would recharge the battery - instead, it actually seems to drain the battery.

I've left it like this to charge twice, and it's drained the battery each time - is this normal?

It is connected, using firewire, to an iMac G5 which is in sleep mode at the time.

 

[Arden]

When your computer goes to sleep, it powers down all the I/O buses, like Firewire, USB, and Ethernet. Suffice it to say, there is no power going to your Dock... you have to leave the computer on to charge the iPod, or plug it into the wall.

 

[lnoelstorr]

OK, I understand it that the busses power down, and that would stop it charging - but why does the battery drain down.

Also, it sucks that it does that, the dock needs a separate mains connection in that case - it's a pain switching cables for when I want to charge it, and when I want to transfer tracks. Has anyone made an adapter or something that allows this?



Also, do the USB ports also power down? I'm sure my optical mouse still had power when my laptop was switched off, and I guess it could only have been getting this from the USB port. Maybe I'll try the USB cable instead (only it's at work at the moment).

 

[Arden]

Yes, the USB ports power down. I have a bus-powered 250 MB Zip drive that makes a loud whirring sound whenever I start the computer (and it gets power), and it does this every time the computer wakes from sleep. (It's not connected anymore because I have little use for it...)

I imagine the battery drains because the iPod's still on for some reason. You might have left it on, or it might turn on when it detects the dock so it can charge (and fail at that task, thus draining the battery...). Some devices turn on when they are plugged in and don't turn off unless you tell them to, which will drain the battery.

Is there a reason you can't leave your computer awake? You can set the monitor to go dark and hard drive to spin down when not in use, which saves more power than leaving them on all night. (My iMac (G3) is in my room, so I usually try to avoid listening to the hard drive spin all night when I go to bed, so I can understand if you're reluctant to leave it on.)