bfuke

I bought an X3 on Ebay 2 months ago and it came with a Socket SD wireless card. I got that installed and installed a GPS using a 512mb Kingston SD card.

Everything worked great but I let it sit used for a few weeks and the battery ran down so when I turned it on to try a new 1GB SD card I bought, it wouldn't turn on. I plugged in the adapter and hooked up the USB cable and downloaded my GPS program. I then started to download maps onto the new 1GB PQI SD card (which it recognized) and about 10% into the process I got an error, a write error as I recall (should have been more careful and written it down). From that point on, it would not recognized the 1GB card, nor a 512mb Kingston card that I had used for weeks with no problem.

I tried a 8mb Sharp SD card which it recognizes every time and a Panasonic 8mb card that it will recognize occassionally (but mostly not. It now won't recognize my Socket 802.11b card anymore either.

I am running A00 ROM but and tried the patch that was supposed to address the SD card problem but it didn't help. I flashed the ROM to A02 and it still doesn't work.

I am desperate as I bought the unit for the GPS capabilities and I am leaving on a trip in a week and I can't use the GPS without a large SD card.

I really appreciate anyone's input or ideas on this one. I tried everything I could and have looked through this forum and others and can't find any thing.

Thanks so very much.

Desparate in Denver

Bob

scobols

My X3 just stopped recognizing my SD card as well. I called Dell support and they said my warranty expired 19 days ago! They don't have a shop to repair Axims so the only thing they can do is sell me a refurb for $199. I asked them where they get their refurbs since they don't have a shop to repair them - they said, "Well, they are actually just open box returns." Nice.

Anyway, I have searched everywhere and I can't find a solution. I have tried hard resets, soft resets, I have restored the original ROM to A00, added all patches and upgrades I could find, all the way up to A02. Nothing. I have even formatted the cards to FAT and FAT32. Nothing. I have five different cards (2 x Kingston 512, 2 x SanDisk 128, and 1 x Lexar 32) and only one works, occasionally, that is the Lexar 32.

All cards worked just fine up until about 2 weeks ago.

I am dissapointed in Dell and quite frustrated.

Does anyone have a solution???

Scott

Edit:
One more thing. The Lexar 32 card only works when the unit is in the cradle. Out of the cradle it will not detect any card. I place it in the cradle and it will recognize the Lexar 32 but no other card.

bfuke

Well, I called Dell tech support and they were nice enough to help me even though the unit is out of warranty and I wasn't the owner of record since I bought it on Ebay. But all they could tell me to do is to try a soft and hard reboot - which I had already tried and it didn't work. My 8 mb Sharp SD card always reads and my Panasonic 8mb is hit and miss. My other 2 still don't read.

Tech support said all I could do is call out of warranty exchange and buy a refurbished unit. So I did and they quoted me $160 delivered without a battery or cables and I would have to send my old unit back to them. I needed the unit this week because I am going out of town and they said they had no way to send it overnight or 2 day delivery. So I decided to check to see what my options might be.

I looked at Dell Outlet and they had an X3 basic for $150 + $10 for 2 day shipping. I know I get the charger/sync cable and assume that I get a battery too and I can keep my old unit. THE OUT OF WARRANTY EXCHANGE IS A RIP OFF!! After much mis-info on shipping from Dell, I should get my refurbished unit tomorrow so we'll see how it works. Dell Outlet inventory is hit and miss and is constantly changing. There were only a few X3 basics that appeared sporadically.

Seems like our old units should have some resale value for parts - the screens and the digitizers are fairly valuable and people seem to need the sync connectors too. My unit works fine otherwise so someone who needs a basic unit only for the Outlook functions would be able to use it.

I'm going to wait until after my trip to see if I can track down someone else with SD cards and see if they will work.

Good luck on your unit.

Bob