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I sell Axim X50Vs and X51Vs set up as Japanese dictionaries, so a lot of Axims and cradles go through my hands (some used, mostly refurbed, whatever that means for cradles). I've tried at least 20 different cradles over the last few years, without any reboots of the computer or USB problems as a result, and I've sold well over 250 systems, and haven't a single complaint from my customers about such issues.
I did get one batch of refurbs in which the male connector in the cradle where the Axim sits would come loose from the PC board in the cradle, of course making it not work (the problem pcasey535 ran into). But after finding a few like that, I began putting a good dollop of non-conductive epoxy inside the cradle to keep that connector from being knocked loose--that's been 100% effective in preventing the problem if done before it happens (it's been about 40% effective in fixing it after it happened--just press the connector into place on the PC board, carefully apply some epoxy to keep it down without interfering with the wires, and hope for the best--I don't think those wires were originally soldered, just held against the contacts as long as the connector's solder tabs hold). It was only in that one batch of about 60 refurbs--the other 200+, from different suppliers or coming in with used Axims, didn't have any problem. I do recommend that anyone who picks up a working cradle apply the epoxy prophylaxis; if you've had a cradle for years and it's been working perfectly, though, you've probably got one that's not vulnerable to the loose connector problem and don't need to epoxy it--the ones from my bad batch broke pretty quickly.
So, whoever's keeping score, if you want to, you can add 250 to the "no reboot/USB problem" column, 60 to the "loose connector" column (only about 10 had the problem before I started using the epoxy, but that was 10 out of 10 I tested, so all 60 from that batch were probably going to break without the fix), and 200 to the "no loose connector" column.
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