Just upgraded my x50v to WM 5 OS -- my initial review - Page 3

11-01-05, 04:32 PM

Originally Posted by Riker

If I understand it correctly (please correct me if I am off track), pre WM5 OS would copy any programs on a memory card or BIS to RAM before it could run anyway, so there shouldn't be any difference in speed between WM5 and WM2003SE in this case ???

Any user installed application needs to be copied to ram in both wm2003se and wm5. So in theory, yes, it would be the same speed. In practice... I can't say. Would be nice to compare the launching speeds of x51v vs x50v and x51v vs x50v+wm5.

One thing to keep in mind is that with wm5, the os is now in rom as well. It does keep some os files like the registry in ram and periodically copies it back to rom. It is possible that this background os copying of itself to rom may slowdown the system. This is certainly something that wasn't done in wm2003se.

jediassassin · 11-01-05, 06:20 PM

It will be pretty much the same speed wise. I have gotten my x50v to have 51 or 52 MB allocated to Programs. Under WM5 the max you can have is 49.5 which is what you normally have with minimum RAM Storage. So theoretically the speed with programs should be the same.

hhookk · 11-01-05, 06:32 PM

Originally Posted by heybhouse

I don't mean to be redundant but has anyone had a positive experience in upgrading?

Actually ,Yes I have. I posted a few lines up and now I'm back to say the GPS test was successful. Worked flawlessly all day. The whole thing works much better and smoother now.

My upgread approach might be different than others who are having problems. I started with a hard reset and am slowly building a fresh install by adding 1 program at a time and making sure it runs correctly ,rather than trying to upgrade from a not so fresh install then trying to copy a backup file to keep all my stuff from the previous install. Did that make sense? :rolling:

plc1 · 11-01-05, 06:45 PM

I upgraded my X50v to WM5, yesterday. Everything went fine, including reinstallation of all applications. I observed that Acivesync would start itself with the X50v turned off, and I suspect this was shortening battery life with the X50v off.
Today, (24 hours later) I noticed that the Axim was very warm in my pocket, and it would not turn on. I soft reset, but it would not complete, so I attempted to hard reset and still no luck. When the battery is removed and is reinserted I get a message their is a memory failure, so the X50v is toast. Called Dell, and they are shipping a replacement, and I think I will wait awhile before reattempting the upgrade. :rolling:

fff · 11-01-05, 06:56 PM

Originally Posted by vinwal

I loaded the WM 5 upgrade to my x50v 2 days ago. The upgrade process was uneventful and went smoothly. Afterwards, I immediately saw a dramatic slow down in PDA performance. All programs open slowly (even with the processor at max) and videos that previously played flawlessly, are now clipped and out of sync. Calls to the Dell support staff about the performace slow down have not been helpful. If I can't find a work around or patch in the next couple of days, I'm going back to 2003 SE. Has anyone else had a similar experience?

videos seem fine, but overall the sluggishness is rather astounding. but the real kicker for me is that there are so far no ways to back things up successfully as there are with sprite for wm 2003.

i'll keep the wm5 disk, go back to 2003 and wait for upgrades and patches to kick in

four86 · 11-01-05, 07:38 PM

Originally Posted by plc1

I upgraded my X50v to WM5, yesterday. Everything went fine, including reinstallation of all applications. I observed that Acivesync would start itself with the X50v turned off, and I suspect this was shortening battery life with the X50v off.
Today, (24 hours later) I noticed that the Axim was very warm in my pocket, and it would not turn on. I soft reset, but it would not complete, so I attempted to hard reset and still no luck. When the battery is removed and is reinserted I get a message their is a memory failure, so the X50v is toast. Called Dell, and they are shipping a replacement, and I think I will wait awhile before reattempting the upgrade. :rolling:

Ouch!. Sorry about that.

jediassassin · 11-01-05, 09:09 PM

I just received and installed my copy of WM5. So far it seems to me faster than WM2003SE no programs loaded. I am having problems with Activesync, but I have come to the conclusion that it is my firewall. Whenever I have the firewall enabled, AS searches endlessly for my Axim. With the firewall disabled, my Axim syncs fine. I am going to work on loading programs soon...

notenufsleep · 11-01-05, 09:14 PM

initial thoughts on my WM5 on my pda after 1 day of use.
Installation had issues, but were solved when using a desktop instead of a laptop to install. Had issues restoring my PIM stuff so I had to enter all that it manually (not fun, but good practice i guess) After installing my most used applications, AOL's AIM, TCMP, and a program to input chinese (I just went with the trial of Monster Chinese, still haven't seen anything wrong with it so far, please tell me if there is something i should worry about) I also installed utilities like vbar and batmemtime<-- very funny cuz there is still a slider but it doesn't work =D
The battery life seems to be approximately the same, this is the usually usage i use for the pda, this mainly involves me using my pda as an mp3 player and approximately 1 hour of actually using wireless and what not.
The overall speed seems 15% slower when loading something doing a task, sometimes it seems like its frozen, but would eventually get finish the task. I also don't like the reset time as its really annoying, but i guess its still better than carring a laptop around.
Major issues that ticks me off about WM5, when dealing with wireless settings, the settings screeen freezes up on me which forces me to close it through settings and memory (vbar did not work for that) I also had issues with TCMP's toggle feature, but was essentially "fixed" by having nothing slow up when the device is turned on (ie. notes and identification information)
The overall appearance of the OS seems interesting. The menu on the bottoms are pretty handy, but i find it difficult to get use to. I find the today screen to be wierd with "contacts" and "calender" at the bottom, which i find really redundant...
Internet Explorer seems to be much better than WM2003's although still limited to 1 window, i find that i can actually load frame heavy sites. although i do have an issue with online translators from altavista and systrans, as i can't see the translated text, which wasn't the fact for WM2003.
For those who use free hotmail web-based email account, we can actually check out mail with outlook express after logining into msn pocket.

Ir0nman · 11-01-05, 09:25 PM

Quote:

I upgraded my X50v to WM5, yesterday. Everything went fine, including reinstallation of all applications. I observed that Acivesync would start itself with the X50v turned off, and I suspect this was shortening battery life with the X50v off.
Today, (24 hours later) I noticed that the Axim was very warm in my pocket, and it would not turn on. I soft reset, but it would not complete, so I attempted to hard reset and still no luck. When the battery is removed and is reinserted I get a message their is a memory failure, so the X50v is toast. Called Dell, and they are shipping a replacement, and I think I will wait awhile before reattempting the upgrade.

I had the exact same experiance. I upgraded last night, and loaded all my programs on. I thought that I must have gotten lucky because my dell wasn't having any problems, I could even bluetooth sync with my laptop. Then twice today I turned my axim on and active sync was running (I have magicbutton installed so I knoew instantly) Both times I tried to shut it down, it wouldn't shut down right and I had to end task. It ate almost 50 percent of my battery and I think it was on maybe 15 minutes throughout the day. Then about an hour ago, I turned it on and there was a message telling me about a memory error, and press contacts... which I did. After which it would do nothing. About 5 mionutes later I tried again and geot the same message so I tried pressing power and reset (the other solution it advised) this did not have any effect either. Right now it is sitting with the battery out. I'm trying to wait about an hour or so and see if clearing out the memory completely will help. If not I will be on the phone with dell soon. This is really annoying. How could things like this not havecome up at testing. I really want to demand an x51v with all this stuff going on... though I'll probably be nice and just accept a replacement x50. Of course I could just keep loading WM 5.0 and get problems until they snd me one to get rid of me??...lol
-Rich

darkdestroyer · 11-01-05, 09:27 PM

Wait......... Leaving out the battery ? That won't help at all with Windows Mobile 5! Its persistant storage, nothing affects the BIS! What BS!

Ir0nman · 11-01-05, 09:32 PM

no, but it was a memory error. The memory is powered by the battery so theoretically unless it is a hardware issue... never had a problem before WM 5 then draining the battery should clear the RAM and hopefully it will boot.
-Rich

Ir0nman · 11-01-05, 10:05 PM

Well no good.... I'm on the phone waiting for tech support. Got a message that handheld support is experianceing extremely high call volumes and my wait might take a while.... hum that is a supprise
-Rich

Ir0nman · 11-01-05, 11:23 PM

While I was on the phone waiting on the dell rep, I got it to work again, on a chance I popped in my second battery and it came up with the memory error again. This time though it tried to do a hard reset. It didn't work, but 3 attempts later it has done a hard reset and is working normally again. Somehow in the space of about 25 minutes The pocket pc drained 75% of my battery???? I don't understand it. For supposedly being a battery saver this new os seems to have some big problems. at least it is logged with dell support though. They are calling me tomorrow to find out if I get the memory error again. Anyone able to identify why active sync is coming up while the device is off? Do any of the x51 owners experiance this? I can't have this thing be completely dead battery by 8:00 everynight. With 2003SE I went 3 to 4 days usually.
Thanks,
-Rich

magnum54o2 · 11-02-05, 10:01 AM

I had the memory issue the first night. I removed the battery, put it back in and did a soft reset and it has been fine ever since. This is just too weird. I can't wait till A02 comes out.

Dennis

Yes Ironman I did notice that ActiveSync kept popping up when I would clear memory. I just figured there was a way to disable it, but I just hadn't looked into it yet. I figured since it was running in the background it was using a little more battery than normal. When I was listening to Media Player, I kept hearing a pop-up sound intermittently, I have deduced this to be ActiveStync. I guess this a "compatibility issue" because MS software doesn't have "bugs."

Ir0nman · 11-02-05, 01:50 PM

according to some of the x51 owners they are already on A03... that is bad news to me... something is very wrong with Microsoft's or Dell's implimentation of WM 5. magnum54o2 do you notice that activesync is always running and that you have a much higher battery drain than normal?
-Ir0nman