Sync and Power cable troubles. Help is VERY appreciated.

[YahoKa]

I bought a power and sync cable for my Axim X5. Now, when i plug it into the USB ports and look at the battery power it says that it is charging - but it goes down to 0%, then when i unplug it it goes back to where it was. I read some other posts here and turned off my Axim but left the charge & sync cable plugged in for about an hour hoping it would charge up ... it didn't! It is not charging!

Please help i am very sad :( BTW, it is on a USB 1 port that provides 500mA of current)

[Axim5]

Originally posted by YahoKa
I bought a power and sync cable for my Axim X5. Now, when i plug it into the USB ports and look at the battery power it says that it is charging - but it goes down to 0%, then when i unplug it it goes back to where it was. I read some other posts here and turned off my Axim but left the charge & sync cable plugged in for about an hour hoping it would charge up ... it didn't! It is not charging!

Please help i am very sad :( BTW, it is on a USB 1 port that provides 500mA of current)

Let me ask you the following to better understand the situation and please do not be annoyed by the questions:
1) The syn and power cable, that you bought, are they from Dell?
If they are from Dell, then did you followed the instructions to charge the Axim before actually using it?
2) If the syn and power cable are from another vendor then Dell, then did you check the specifications, as to the current and voltage, with the info provided in the Axim user's guide?

If you did bought the syn and power cable from Dell, then you have to charge the Axim for, atleast, straight 4 hours. And make sure that you are not using the Axim cradle for the initial charging. The only hardware that should be used for initial charging is the power cable. One more thing, just make sure that the battery is properly sitting in its place.

Hope this will help.

[commoved]

I hope some people will post their experience on this topic. Several vendors have come up with USB synch/charge cables, sometimes combined with adaptors for cars, etc. And of course the vendors all swear their units work. But to my knowledge, Dell has not come out with such a product. I'm still wondering why Dell has a 5.4 V charger -- USB is 5.0 V (at best).

To answer Axim5, one possibility is that the 500 mA is not enough current. Since you state the current limitation, it sounds like you already suspect this could be a problem. USB ports often shut down if the device tries to pull too much current, to protect themselves from short circuits. The really good ones notify the user through a screen message.

Are you using a hub? If so, is it a self-powered hub? If your hub does not use a power supply, it really can't deliver much current to the USB device.