[RosieCotton]

It's an X5. I really haven't used it much at all, but I want to! It occasionally won't shut off until I use the reset, and if I don't notice that it's in that state and expect it to shut off automatically when the power setting says it will...the battery dies. And I did that enough times that the backup battery went dead, apparently. Something along those lines. So if I didn't have it in the cradle over the weekend, it'd go completely dead and I'd lose all my data. Does that make any sense?

I bought a new backup battery and I'm hoping I'm right about the power issue being just that the battery was getting drained due to not powering off right. I dumb about this thing, seriesly!

[RosieCotton]

Yay! Caught up on wordcount! Strictly crap...but that's what the game's about...

I may yet finish this thing successfully!

[Rose in RoseBear]

Your Axim is always pulling power, even when the screen is off. That's because it has volatile memory. The memory refresh will pull down the main battery first, then start chewing on the backup battery. The backup battery is a simple watch battery (as you discovered), while the main battery will recharge when in the cradle. If you let the main battery run down, and the backup battery run down, then you lose all your data ... which doesn't matter so much if you have it all backed up on your computer.

I usually keep my Axim on its cradle overnight, which will keep the main batt charged. My Axim has stayed in my purse for up to 5 days with the screen powered off without pulling much from the backup battery.

As for your screen ... have you checked your brightness and power settings? What happens if you press and hold the power button?