failure to resume x50v running WM5

Ris · 11-28-05, 05:36 PM

I recently upgraded my Axim x50v to WM5, and I have had a problem resuming it from suspend ever since. It will not turn on.

When the unit is suspended and I press the power button to turn the unit back on again, it does not come on. In order to use the Axim at this point, I must remove the battery and then return the battery, THEN, and only then, it responds to the power button again. At this point, it always says "a memory error has occured, press [icon of button 2] to reset the unit" (error message paraphrased) After pressing the button, it shows a progress meter which I assume represents restoring the RAM from ROM.

If I press the power button to suspend the unit, and then press it again to turn the unit back on within a minute or so, it seems to work fine every time. It seems the unit must remain suspended in the cradle overnight for this problem to occur, and it has happened to me 3 out of 3 times that I have left the unit suspended in the cradle overnight. Is this a known issue? Is there something I can do to avoid this?

Replacing the battery seems to be a suitable workaround, but its a bit annoying...

adambravo · 11-29-05, 10:14 AM

Originally Posted by Ris

I recently upgraded my Axim x50v to WM5, and I have had a problem resuming it from suspend ever since. It will not turn on.

When the unit is suspended and I press the power button to turn the unit back on again, it does not come on. In order to use the Axim at this point, I must remove the battery and then return the battery, THEN, and only then, it responds to the power button again. At this point, it always says "a memory error has occured, press [icon of button 2] to reset the unit" (error message paraphrased) After pressing the button, it shows a progress meter which I assume represents restoring the RAM from ROM.

If I press the power button to suspend the unit, and then press it again to turn the unit back on within a minute or so, it seems to work fine every time. It seems the unit must remain suspended in the cradle overnight for this problem to occur, and it has happened to me 3 out of 3 times that I have left the unit suspended in the cradle overnight. Is this a known issue? Is there something I can do to avoid this?

Replacing the battery seems to be a suitable workaround, but its a bit annoying...

I had a similar error--but worse. My progress bar stopped at about 80%, and the unit would not even respond to a hard reset request. A new unit is en route from Dell...

Ris · 11-29-05, 01:33 PM

Update: I was able to turn the unit on today after it was suspended in the cradle overnight, but it would not sync with ActiveSync. I am now rebooting everything to see if I can get it to sync again. The rebooted Dell Axim paused at aroun 80% on the progress meter but did continue after that, and now appears to be stuck showing a reminder from my calendar over the splash screen, blinking the power light about once per second, and not responding to the touch screen... OK, I waited over 5 minutes, so I'm pretty sure it is not going to finish booting, lets try a soft reset again... well I'm back to the reminder again, but this time there is a non-animating wait cursor in the middle of the screen... maybe another soft reset will do it, after all, third time's the charm... nope, this time it stopped at a full progress meter. Time to pop the battery out. Same memory error as before... and I'm stuck looking at a calendar reminder again with no way to dismiss it (touch screen is not responding) and it doesn't seem to be booting past that.

This is weak. I expect better than this from Dell.

Ris · 11-29-05, 02:02 PM

After a hard reset and several subsequent soft resets, I found that the total failure to boot was caused by inserting an unreadable 256MB SD card. Once booted, inserting this card caused the entire system to freeze. Other SD cards are readable in the Axim, and the failing one is not readable in my older iPaq. For comparison though, my 3 year old iPaq does not crash when I insert an unreadable card, it simply does not show it in the file explorer.

I will stick with the upgrade for the rest of the week and continue reporting my results in hopes that Dell developers and/or support people are listening. If I don't get any positive feedback with workarounds or solutions to avoid these problems booting the device, then, sadly, I'll have to downgrade back to WM2003SE. I would very much like to make WM5 work though, as I'm a software developer and appreciate having a non-phone WM5 device for development testing and support purposes.

kungfuafrican · 12-05-05, 12:58 PM

god, you guys are dumb.. wm5 is not that hard to use.. all you have to do is keep the cpu set at 624mhz, don't use battery meters, uninstall any useful software you have, avoid games and peripherals, hard reset at 1/2 hour intervals, don't use the axim on "t" days (tuesday or thursday, and mondays in october), lightly grasp the axim between your pinky and index finger ONLY (no thumbs, birds, or ringies), refrain from looking directly at the screen (just stick with side-glances, or "peek-a-boos"), and don't take it off the cradle (unless its already off the cradle, then don't put it on). with just a few minor concessions you can have your axim running just like it was with 2003se. you guys are just being lazy.