Perhaps that sounds a little bizarre, but in fact, my Palm Tungsten E2 was automatically turning itself on. I would turn it off, and it would automatically start right up again after about 10 seconds. I thought this bizarre behavior was the result of a bug, so I did a hard reset. After syncing the Palm again, the behavior returned.
I investigated the issue on the Brighthand Forums, which is an very valuable resource for Palm users. According to this thread, it was an issue with a birthday setting this week. My sister-in-law’s birthday is January 7, so that was causing an alarm for 2006 (The default reminder for birthdays is 7 days). Since it is no longer 2006, apparently the alarm does not display, but the device still turns itself on. I changed the reminder for her birthday to 3 days, and all is now well. Beats the heck out of calling Palm tech support, since my warranty expired some time ago. In summary, if you have any event within the first week of January, you should set the reminder between January 1 and the day of the event, not December.
Yep — I have the E2, and that has happened to me.
So glad you posted this explanation. I bought a used Tungsten E2 and have enjoyed it. When I found it dead this morning I thought that was the end of my good fortune. Turns out that the unit had been turning itself on as you described. I corrected by alarm and the problem was solved. Thanks so much for your help!
THANK YOU. I was going nuts thinking I somehow got a virus. So glad it’s an easy fix!
Oh great… people… I found my Palm Tungsten (dear old thing, my best gadget ever!) dead this morning and it kept turning itself on. I vaguely remembered the feeling that this gave me… as if I had experienced this before. And I had! THank heaven I found this article which reminded me of the cause. And yes, I had added another birthday with a reminder going back to 2008. Silly me. Thank you and happy new year!
Glad you all have found this useful. I have since moved on to a Palm Treo, but I’m pleased this blog post from two years ago has helped so many people. Thank you all for stopping by.
Thank you so much for this very useful information!
I was going nuts thinking I had a problem with my palm and that I would need to spend money buying a new one and all that.
I saw your message and I checked my palm. I had a birthday on the 04th of January with a 7 days reminder. I have now changed it and it is working just fine.
You saved my wallet 😉
Thanksâ?? a lot!
Thanks for this Thread. I have the same problem. However, I can’t find a birthday with alarm set.
Is there anyway to turn off all alarms? OR any way to find all records with the alarm set? I don’t usually use alarms so I am not sure if I have any alarms set but I could have one set from ages ago. I did a hard reset recently so might have picked up an alarm from years ago.
Thanks for any help.
Bruce
Thanks so much for the info! I bought my Tungsten E2 three years ago and it started turning itself on last week. I thought it was dying but this fixed the problem. Keep up the good work!
Happened to me too in 2010! Thanks for posting this thread, I fixed it by canceling the birthday alarm I had set to go off 7 days prior to Jan. 5 2010.
whew! I was starting to panic….E2 was turning itself on and I also had the alarm issue for a January 6th birthday! Problem solved 🙂