I just finished a looong chat with Dell in which they promised to send a new X50v with WM5 all working properly with no issues whatsoever.

He promised that Dell engineers would ensure that it was very well tested and working properly.

I was thinking, OK, they'll do all the patches from Aximsite, but what happens when I do a hard reset? I asked him if all fixes would be restored in the event of a hard reset and he said yes. Wouldn't this require a patched ROM?

I don't get it?

Anyone?

My warranty ends 3/24, are they just stalling me until it runs out?

Regards,
mma3d

They've been promising that since the WM5 upgrade disk came out... and they've said 'next week' for the past... how many months has it been again? The patch has yet to come - someone said it'd be out in February... and no sign of it's shown up since, and it's been a month side that 'definite' release date was given.

The hard reset should, if you've flashed your ROM correctly, restore you to the previous 'clean' state of that patch, IIRC. The consensus seems to be that the WM5 upgrade's not worth the money you pay for it, and that Dell's... well, they've said "next week" for more weeks than I've got fingers and thumbs.

 

Typically (as I understand the process), firmare is stored in flash or EEPROM memory from which the system boots. But PPCs stay on all the time, you aren't booting every time you turn it on, just waking it from a suspended state. When you load a ROM, you are rewriting the firmware in the flash/EEPROM memory, then the formare is copied from to battery-backed RAM and the system is rebooted. The system software, registry, etc. live in battery backed RAM full time, so a soft reset just reboots from the image in battery backed RAM. Hard resets on the other hand, re-copy system image from firmware to batter-backed RAM again, thereby overwriting any registry tweaks or other fixes.

Which is why I asked if the system would still run in the idyllic state he described afger a hard reset.

BTW, if my take above is flawed, please correct me (or better yet, point me to a real wiki/faq or whatever).

Regards,
mma3d

Basically, the EEPROM which your system uses to store the firmware can be reflashed with a new ROM image... which is contained on the WM5 upgrade CD. If you flash your x50v, and then do a hard reset, it should restore to the WM5 image which you've got in the EEPROM that holds the firmware. If you've been doing fixes like registry changes and the like the hard reset clears them out. If you mean 'fixes' like whatever was included in the ROM image, then those are restored.

 

Right, so if the "properly functioning" X50v w/WM5 that they promised to send had the various flaws corrected by registry tweaks and assorted fixes as detailed here, then a hard reset would wipe them out!

There's no way Dell is doing all that for you. You're gonna have to do that yourself.

By properly working, they probably mean that it turns on and can be properly rolled back to WM2003.

Microsoft Windows
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I read about this. I believe many device manufacturers including Dell will be providing upgrade CDs for a fee (so warranty or not, it will still cost money). I have the X51v and the only difference is 128MB more ROM. As the X51v is very stable with WM5 (maybe a few glitches-->blame Microsoft), the upgrade should be seemless.

actually, dont blame microsoft, blame dell's supplier for the X51v, its mostly hardware/driver related problems with WM5 and the X5Xv series...wm5 works fine on other devices

    

Well actually it's both Ms and dell's fault -- I hear that many hx4700 users are having compaction errors too...

NVM, Wm5 for me is quite fine...

If you get your machine back, mma3d, do share details!

Yep it was an early April fools joke!

yeah and the used car I bought was only driven by a little old lady to go to church!