How do I make a hard reset on my Palm Zire 31 PDA?

Do a HARD RESET on your PALM ZIRE 31.
A hard reset will erase everything on your device. All your data will be removed, and formats, preferences and other settings are restored to their factory default settings.

1. Press and hold the Power (on/off) button on the front panel of your device.
2. While holding Power, use an unfolded paper clip, or the reset tool at the tip of your stylus. Gently press and release the RESET button inside the hole on the back panel of your device (where's the reset hole?).
3. If you see a progress bar (see below), keep holding the Power button.
4. Next, the Palm Powered screen will appear. Release the Power button when you see it.
5. You'll see a screen that asks: Erase all data? YES = "up" button NO = any other button. Press UP on your 5-way navigator to complete the hard reset.

1. Step 1 Straighten a paper clip into a single line.
   
2. Step 2 Locate the "Reset" button by spotting a small hole on the backside of the Palm Zire 31.
   
3. Step 3 Push the power button on the Palm Zire 31 with your finger and hold it down steadily.
   
4. Step 4 Push the paper clip into the "Reset" button's hole while holding down the power button.
   
5. Step 5 Release the power button once the screen displays the "Palm Powered" logo.
   
6. Step 6 Push the navigational key in the "Up" direction to complete the Palm Zire 31 hard reset.
   

did a hard reset. booted up ok. did activesync with my other PDA onto computer and then sync'ed with 1950.

ideas:
Restart your computer,
Try a different data cable,
And last resort:
Give up on it.

(If you do give up, send it to me i need a new screen.)

Have you tried a reset? You might have to open up the case (carefuly, i broke the cables by accident on mine doing that)and wiggle the cables around, As they could have shaken lose over time. if all that fails, you might have to do a hard reset or re-instal the software.

There is a reset pin hole on the back of the unit; Hold the power button and push the reset button in the hole with a paperclip. All memory should now be erased.

I have the same problem, after I did the hard reset and installed no programs, this power problem disappeared. But once i installed any programs, PDA battery life became no longer than 2 days, which is strange.

You can do a hard reset by doing the following...

01) Press and hold down the "Calendar" and "iPAQ Wireless" buttons.
02) While holding down these buttons, use the stylus to lightly press the "Reset" button/hole on the back of the iPAQ until the screen goes blank.
03) Release the "Calendar" and "iPAQ Wireless" buttons.
04) Press the "Reset" button/hole again (so that it resets/powers on.)

First of all, you must dissasemble the pda if you have some experience with that. There are some possible problems, one regarding the display connector to the motherboard and the other to the motherboard itself.Probably the display connector isn't atached firmly to the motherboard. There is a worse scenario where you may accidentaly burned some dc convertors on the mainboard when attemting to power on after the pda was dropped. If you can, dissasemble the pda, check the connectors, remove and reconect the back-up battery, and then, just to be shure, perform a hard reset.