x3i will not power on without soft reset!

dalekg · 10-16-04, 11:24 PM

I've had this x3i for about half a year (bought used off ebay) and I've given it lots of love...
Today the battery told me it was dead. Okay, my old ipaq 3635 sometimes didn't charge on the cradle, so I make sure it's properly connected after work. After a full battery charge it refuses to power up unless I soft reset, and even then the soft reset seems to lock up 20% of the time (forcing me to pop out the battery then soft reset again.) I did a complete backup then a hard reset & complete restore, and it's doing the same thing, won't power up unless I soft reset. What's happening, I need my little friend and I can't afford a third pocket pc!?

dalekg · 10-17-04, 01:34 AM

And now the wifi refuses to work. Press the button, absolutely nothing happens.

GREENEGUY · 10-17-04, 09:12 AM

what rom ver are you using?
and did you try calling dell and see if you can get them to fix it for free? thay might honer the warrteny

dalekg · 10-17-04, 01:04 PM

Originally Posted by GREENEGUY

what rom ver are you using?
and did you try calling dell and see if you can get them to fix it for free? thay might honer the warrteny

Until this morning I was unaware that there was still a warranty on this, since I bought it off Ebay. I still have 101 days, so thats a plus. I sent email to Dell support...although I dont trust their "skills" (They wanted me to pay $1000 to have a p3 laptop fixed, and all I had to do was unplug & replug the cmos battery.

)
I took the battery out and left it unplugged overnight, now I have both batteries almost fully recharged and it seems to be working again. Im keeping my fingers crossed

wooch · 10-17-04, 01:05 PM

Great, sometimes removing the battery for a while does the trick on issues such as these. Hope everything works out for you

dalekg · 10-17-04, 08:12 PM

Okay its still acting flakey, but at least I got the power button to work 6 times before it acted up again. It still works, I can get it back on by soft reseting, it just sucks because I use the timer alarm a lot, and I dont think the alarm will work if the unit is dead until I do a soft reset. grrr

I got a response from Dell, and it looks like the unit itself is defective. Since I bought this from Ebay, I had to transfer ownership & the warranty (linked to the service tag I guess) to my name to take advantage of the 101 days that are left on the unit, which I succesfully (I hope) did just now at dell.com.

Am I opening Pandora's box by sending the unit to them for replacement? I've seen all these horror stories of being sent junk refurb units that work less reliably than the original "faulty" unit. I don't want to start playing mail tag with Dell and have Axim's flying all over the USPS.

FallN · 10-17-04, 09:10 PM

Don't worry too much. If, for whatever reason, you don't like the replacement unit, you can send it back to Dell for another replacement unit (all of them will be refurbished).

I'm sure you'll be ok. Best of luck.

justinnike83 · 10-17-04, 09:56 PM

they ship you a unit first btw. im doing that now and am having issues. theyre making a deal of transferring the service tags. the replacement i was sent was more screwy than my original, so im shipping back the replacement and getting another.

dalekg · 10-20-04, 04:07 PM

Welp Dell is shipping me a "new" x3i

. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that its not doa.

dalekg · 10-22-04, 10:15 PM

I discovered something interesting...when I take the sd card (which I've been using since I got the Axim with no previous problems) out, it works perfectly.
Bum sd interface?

wooch · 10-23-04, 10:00 AM

Or, it could be the SD card putting pressure on a critical part of the Axim's system board. I've seen this before now that you mention this. Does it do this when you have the SD "Dummy" card inserted?

dalekg · 10-23-04, 09:42 PM

Originally Posted by wooch

Or, it could be the SD card putting pressure on a critical part of the Axim's system board. I've seen this before now that you mention this. Does it do this when you have the SD "Dummy" card inserted?

Nope, works fine with the dummy. I did some experiments...I managed to get the Axim on with the card in by soft-reseting, then cleared out the contents, in case something on the card was corrupt. Still wouldnt start up. I got my replacement Axim today so Im going to see if the card works in the new(ish) unit. If not maybe the card went kablooey.

kerunt · 10-27-04, 12:26 AM

Hi, I am having the same problem. I installed some stuff, reset (soft) a few times, then during active sync I disconnected the cable, and am having EXACTLY the same problem. Wont turn on without a soft reset. Wont turn off without using a program to do it. I am currently backing up all my data to SD after which I will try removing it and seeing if that helps, maybe removing the last program I installed (Plant Tycoon). This is very strange and I am scared

.
If nothing works I am going to be contacting dell. Warranty was a year right? I got it last January (approx)....I hope I can fix this...

kerunt · 10-27-04, 07:58 PM

I tried removing the SD card and using the buttons (any hardware buttons), no dice. All buttons dead. Yet a strange thing, to do a hard reset one must hold down the power button and then the reset button for 2 seconds. I tried doing this without holding down the power button and I was not able to get a hard reset going, then I DID hold down the power button and it worked. Strange. So the button responds to some functions but not others?

I did a hard reset, buttons worked perfectly. I did a backup restore from just before the hard-reset, my problem came back. I tried uninstalling loads of stuff, cleaned the registry a bit, still no luck. Buttons like dead. Im going to be doing a hard-reset and installing all my stuff again now :S.

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