schmieg

Originally Posted by Shrink

Quite a few people have voiced concerns upon getting new Axim X50's that their cradles would exhibit the kind of nastiness seen in a few cases and documented on this board (e.g. spontaneous reboots of computer upon inserting the X50 in the cradle which may have led to blown usb controllers). To determine whether or not a bad batch of cradles was released which has now been rectified, or whether the problem is onging, I am creating this poll. The poll is simple: in what month did you receive your Axim X50; and did plugging your Axim into it either cause your computer to reboot spontaneously more than once or actually result in your usb port no longer being functional? Please make sure that you are answering this question based on experience with the cradle alone. The synch cable has not yet appeared to be associated with this problem (and is therefore the safest solution if you are unsure about your cradle) I would really appreciate it if everyone responded to this. Thanks! I'd also appreciate it if this post could get a temporary sticky. Thanks again!

I received my X50v and cradle in July, 2005, and have had absolutely no problems as described.

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- Mike

mrfrostyman

crap,, i just read this post now. A couple months ago i was using ubuntu, and i tried to sync with my pda, then all of a sudden my comp froze and i had to reboot. Then my HDD's were corrupted, Bios had to be redone and i had to install xp and ubuntu again, and rescan my HDD's for more corrupt sectors.

Now my usb's were fried, and i thought it was my problem, so i had to buy a pci usb card and so far no other problems, but i do not sync it that much.

Spenman

I have had cradle failure. I got my X50V August, 2004. Have replaced cradle. Now issue seems to be the PDA bottom connector.

jeditdv

Well I used it for about 4 years now. Only connected every few months. Connected 2 weeks ago after having to do a hard reset to restore from my backup and now my laptop is dead - no power lights at all. A00 cradle. A02 rom. $575 laptop repair bill. :-(

So it worked fine for years before I, apparently, hit the wrong combination - whatever that combination was.

pcasey535

My cradle for my X50v has not worked correctly from the day i received it new, just never took the time to return it, it was sketchy to charge, played havoc with Activesync... so i always used the dongle plug w USB and power leads. Recently I decided "Why Not" and opened her up(the cradle) I was disappointed with the poor design, the problem which was quite obvious, the tiny, tiny soldering points attaching the PCB to the connector had broken free, or were never attached at all. This repair solved all the cradle issues I was experiencing. It took longer to heat the soldering iron than it did to simply touch the four mount points melting the solder and therefore making the slot connector actually sturdy enough to fully contact all those tiny pins properly, I am posting this due to the fact i had issues with the cradle, and it was such a easy repair to something that i would have never thought to look for. Making some of the connections complete and others close enough to arc the signal or power leads can cause a USB controller to blow or disable itself depending on the USB controller.

My Two Cents!!
PC

privard22

I sell Axim X50Vs and X51Vs set up as Japanese dictionaries, so a lot of Axims and cradles go through my hands (some used, mostly refurbed, whatever that means for cradles). I've tried at least 20 different cradles over the last few years, without any reboots of the computer or USB problems as a result, and I've sold well over 250 systems, and haven't a single complaint from my customers about such issues.

I did get one batch of refurbs in which the male connector in the cradle where the Axim sits would come loose from the PC board in the cradle, of course making it not work (the problem pcasey535 ran into). But after finding a few like that, I began putting a good dollop of non-conductive epoxy inside the cradle to keep that connector from being knocked loose--that's been 100% effective in preventing the problem if done before it happens (it's been about 40% effective in fixing it after it happened--just press the connector into place on the PC board, carefully apply some epoxy to keep it down without interfering with the wires, and hope for the best--I don't think those wires were originally soldered, just held against the contacts as long as the connector's solder tabs hold). It was only in that one batch of about 60 refurbs--the other 200+, from different suppliers or coming in with used Axims, didn't have any problem. I do recommend that anyone who picks up a working cradle apply the epoxy prophylaxis; if you've had a cradle for years and it's been working perfectly, though, you've probably got one that's not vulnerable to the loose connector problem and don't need to epoxy it--the ones from my bad batch broke pretty quickly.

So, whoever's keeping score, if you want to, you can add 250 to the "no reboot/USB problem" column, 60 to the "loose connector" column (only about 10 had the problem before I started using the epoxy, but that was 10 out of 10 I tested, so all 60 from that batch were probably going to break without the fix), and 200 to the "no loose connector" column.