This is a message for those people who arrived here by a Google search as their Ipaq is not working any more. Maybe my story will be helpful for you?
On another morning my Ipaq hw6515 did not respond at all – the screen simply remained black. When putting it into the cradle (or attaching a power cord) it boots for 3 seconds and then boots over and over again. The HP website was not particular helpful; you need to fill out passport data; then you are called by a lady (from India?) who has never had such a device in her hands and is talking a language that you do not understand – an experience that I am sharing with others. She is even calling on another day asking the same questions as before (“did you do a soft reset?”, “did you do a hard reset?”). No, the device did not fall to the ground, yes, it is simply rebooting every 3 seconds, and no, I do not want to flash the EPROM as the software worked well for a long time …
After all I decided to buy a new 2500 mAh battery, as I feared that this could have been the problem. I found recently that using both slots (SD and mini SD) is draining the batteries very fast. Unfortunately the new oversized battery pack did not fit the slot as I could not close the cover. When reading more about this issue, I even found that HP acknowledges that there are 2 micoswitches that are being pressed down by two hooks of the back cover; look at the video that was not included at time of purchase. Even I could not use the new battery, I thought that I could trying to charge the exhausted old battery while having the battery cover removed.
This finally worked as the battery was charged while the PDA was being prohibited to reboot!
It remains only question is why there is any software that can completely discharge the Ipaq – as far as I see I have installed only two packages that reads SD cards: TomTom accesses the maps and TCMP the mp3s. TomTom at least can override other default settings.
Although sound has been disabled my Ipaq even suddenly woke up in the underground saying loudly “You have reached your destination”;-) There is largely a wrong translation into German by “Sie haben Ihren Bestimmungsort erreicht” – it should have been “Sie haben Ihren Ziel(ort) erreicht” as destination is not destiny…