Obviously Dell IS NOT going to release a statement on a Saturday or a Sunday. And would they release a statement saying, 'there is a problem with the Ax and 2k3 but we don't know what it is yet, we're working on it.' THEN you would get all the complainers going on and on about 'no kidding', 'duh... we coulda told you that...'. Obviously Dell will release a statement WHEN they know what the problem is and when they expect it to be fixed. Otherwise a statement with no facts or new information would be a waste of time.
I ordered my Axim on June 25th, the estimated ship date is July 14th with arrival at my doorstep by the 17th. It will have 2k3 on it and is the 300mhz. I had a Handspring Prism previously which took a dive in the parking lot. After a lot of research and reading on these boards and others I made an EDUCATED decision to buy the Axim. If I get it on Thursday and it is unusable then you bet I will be on the phone. If programs that I install slow it down, then who's fault is it? Well, mine. If the Axim they send me works fine with nothing on it, then they kept their end of the bargain. However, I will still call and complain that I can't add programs to it and will ask when they expect this problem to be solved.
I also ordered a 256mb SD card, we'll see how that goes... :crooked: But I made the decision on a ton of information and I still believe that the Axim is the PDA for me, and if there are problems I will PATIENTLY await a patch or fix from Dell or Microsoft.
Just chill out people... obviously Dell knows this is a problem, and they will fix it. It just takes more then 72 hours to do so. They need to determine the problem (if there is one) then they'll make a statement, then they will work on a fix, then apply/distribute that fix. It ain't going to happen overnight.
Just my .02, coming from a totally different side of the retail industry.
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Please read my original post here - it addressed the CD upgrade issue for those of us who currently have PPC 2002, and not those who have new Axims that came with PPC 2003.
I have read all the threads, and unless I'm reading wrong most problems are described as severe slowdowns. Yours sounds like it really isn't usable. In your shoes, I'd be hopping mad! And I would request an Advance Exchange, and do so repeatedly until I got a working Axim. I don't know that I'd get satisfaction, but I'd hope that Dell would tire of sending out replacements and offer some sort of compensatory relief, such as a year's warranty extension or a voucher for some free accessories. (I received just that when my first Dell desktop's monitor failed and the first two support techs responded poorly. Granted, this was three years ago, and didn't involve a PDA, but while you can't use your Axim now, it's worth a shot).
As to where my confidence is coming from, it's based on my history with Dell through three destop systems, two notebooks, and assorted printers and scanners. Patches, drivers, and other upgrades have always come through fairly quick. The fact that you have to keep checking their website to find out about them is another matter entirely. But they haven't let issues like this go without a fix very long in the nearly seven years I've been dealing with them. Compaq and Toshiba, on the other hand to this day never dealt with some serious hardware and software issues I had(both notebook related - never had PDAs from either), and after 90 days Compaq was nice enough to charge me ~$30 each time I called!
Tom, I'm really not trying to minimize your problem. My issue is with the CD upgrade. And Dell hasn't "stranded" me yet, although they have certainly needed a push at times.
Originally posted by tchatt Obviously Dell will release a statement WHEN they know what the problem is and when they expect it to be fixed.
Just chill out people... obviously Dell knows this is a problem, and they will fix it. It just takes more then 72 hours to do so.
1. no, they won't say ####. they'll just quietly stick a patch onto their dowloads page and pretend nothing ever happened. that's Dell. they WILL, hopefully, tell their techs to relay info on WM2003's slowness in the Axim to irritated customers, and give a guesstimate as to the fix date.
2. this issue was first reported at least a week ago.
Someone commented on the upgrade to ROM Rev. A03 previously in the posts. On the download page, I can only find updates to A00 and A01. I currently have Rev. A02. Does anyone know where A03 is?
On the download page, it says "The previous version of the ROM was A00 or A02. The version for this update is A03" but after downloading, the program says it is version A01. I don't want to mess up my PDA so can anyone give me a little help here?
Originally posted by magglass1 Someone commented on the upgrade to ROM Rev. A03 previously in the posts. On the download page, I can only find updates to A00 and A01. I currently have Rev. A02. Does anyone know where A03 is?
On the download page, it says "The previous version of the ROM was A00 or A02. The version for this update is A03" but after downloading, the program says it is version A01. I don't want to mess up my PDA so can anyone give me a little help here?
On your Axim, go to Start>Settings>System>System Information. If "ROM Version" says A02 (03050300EN), then you want to download the ROM patch titled R59756 along with the installation instructions R56758. For reasons unknown to me, they call the A03 ROM update "A01" after you download it. Don't worry, it's the correct update. I did call Dell tech support to ask about this, but with non-English speaking techs supporting Axim, I wasn't able to make heads or tails of whatever the heck they were saying!
For more info, do a search on "A03 ROM" in the forums here and you'll find pages of posts back from late April onward. Some of those posters seem to have a lot better knowledge of the technical details.
The differences are so minor between the A02 and A03 ROM patches, I'm running on A02. I had some problems updating to A03, and have since discovered that the main difference is improving some performance issues in Pocket Internet Explorer. Since I don't access the web from my Axim there's really no difference to me.
Thanks for the reply. I just finished running a few benchmark tests on my Axim. I will run them again after installing the update to ROM version A03 and see if there is any difference. I will post anything significant.
Hello i'm new to this forum;
I ordered my dell on June 28, 2003 received it on July 3 and been trying to see if there is any slow down and i really don't notice. When i press on the start button it opens up in about less then a second....what i have found is that it does start to slow down after i use if for awhile because the programs don't shut down when i push the x in the top right corner of the screen and that i have to manually shut them down in the memory portion of the screen. This is what i was expecting since i had to do the same thing with my old casio be-300...(By the way hi sracer cool your now on this site and for those we didn't own the be-300 sracer is someone you want on this message board, he has contributed quite a bit on the be-300 message boards =) )...I have just installed SNES and my gosh!!! its blazing fast even with sound (though the sound is patchy). Age of empires the demo also works quite well as well as the snails demo....Can't say anything about windows media player 9, as i havn't listend to an mp3 yet... i could test out any of the other programs that came with it for you guys if you want just let me know which one =)
Originally posted by juin21 what i have found is that it does start to slow down after i use if for awhile because the programs don't shut down when i push the x in the top right corner of the screen and that i have to manually shut them down in the memory portion of the screen.
You can go to Start>Settings>System>Switcher Bar and then use the Switcher Bar icon which will now be on your title bar to fully close any or all programs. Also, you can download free apps such as Wisbar Advanced or Icbar to have programs truly close with the X instead of just minimizing.
I'll wait for PPC 2004...maybe, between Dell and MS, they'll get it right!
Anyone furious with the inferior performance of a "upgraded" product should be furious! You buy upgrades, new and inproved, etc. etc. as you expaect them to be better.
The fleecing of the consumer, dicated by the greed of corporations!
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AXIM X5 PXA250 MS Mobile 2003, Dell foldable keyboard, Lexar 128 SD, SD, Memorex 128 CF, Socket WLAN CF and the the mighty Space Pen Stylus!
My take on the problem is, let's see how Dell handles it. OS software is complicated and interactions between different software components can be complicated and hard to test.
Dell, of course, doesn't produce the software themselves, so they have some company that's doing it for them under contract. They were probably trying to walk a fine line between getting an update out the door and making sure it works ok. You'd have to be in their shoes to know exactly how they got into this predicament.
Also, I'm sure the bad PR and cost of handling complaints is something they would avoid if they could.
So my advice, is to sit back, chill, and give them a chance to make it right. It's only a PDA, after all, not a heart-lung machine!
I've never owned a PocketPC before last Thursday, but I just got a new Axim X5, 400Mhz. I thought it was a little unstable and slow, just like the problems some others are experiencing. I downloaded AximXscaleControl (www.wibble-wobble.com) and figured I had nothing to lose. Here's what I find interesting: according to the AximXscaleControl user's guide (page 7), "When the applet starts it reads back the Xscale processors [sic] current settings and moves the slider to the right position".
Well. Even though I've set the speed of the Axim to 400Mhz at all times (instead of "Auto"), whenever I start AximXscaleControl, it reports the "processors current settings" as 100Mhz. Every time! When I slide it over to 400Mhz (NOT overclocking), suddenly, things start working as I would expect. Pocket Internet Explorer went from maddeningly slow (I'm using an Ambicom CF 802.11b card) to not only usable, but actually pretty cool. Diamond Mine went from barely playable to very playable. I haven't downloaded any benchmarking stuff yet, but will test it both WITH and WITHOUT the AximXscaleControl program. If you're frustrated with your Axim X5 running Microsoft Mobile 2003, just download this app and give it a try. You might be surprised.
And is it actually possible that Dell is shipping Axims that are running at 100Mhz instead of 400 (even though the OS "allegedly" allows you to change it)? That should be a pretty easy fix...
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