50v Dead, Alive, Dead again???

[pkcarlton]

I've got a 50v that is thoroughly intriguing me.

Took it flying and exposed it to about 15K cabin altitude. Got back, worked fine.

Died that night and wouldn't come back. Charging light would register when in the cradle, but no response on the screen. Tried Soft, Hard resets, removing the main battery for 24 hours - nothing.

Left it alone for a week, randomly put the main battery back in and it worked. For 4 days.

It quit again last night.

I can only think that the back-up battery somehow got corrupted. When it gets completely drained, it allowed the system to fire up. When completely charged, it works fine. Doesn't quite make sense with the PDA working for 4 days, but the best I can come up with.

Anyone else seen something like this and find a solution? It's out of warranty so it's not going back to Dell for free. Possibly paid if I can figure out a reasonable price with them.

[JakeRich]

I'm not sure the backup battery is the culprit here. Sounds like either the main battery isn't making contact firmly, or the switch on the battery cover isn't making solid contact. The only component that might be affected by the altitude is the main battery, which might have small bubble of gas in it somehere that expanded in the higher cabin altitude. If the main battery case got distended, it may have pulled something internal to the battery out of contact with the external battery contacts.

[pkcarlton]

Jake

I tried multiple batteries on it - about 3 or 4 by now, all Dell manufacture so not "low quality".

I'm not sure it's the battery either, but I'm grasping at straws now... I already got a replacement so it's not critical, just interesting and would like it to work for a family member now.

[axzilla]

if the bub is shorted then it will drain your main battery very quickly because they are connected together

Taking it flying may be a coincidence. It could be almost anything, I thought I had a bad USB port connector due to a charging problem, sent it off and it turned out to be the circuit board. Got it fixed for $45.00 . If you want a free estimite I sent mine to PDASmart.com I think they did a good job, but havent gotten it back yet.

[pkcarlton]

Thanks dinghani - preciate the idea.

Agreed that flying was just a coincidence but seemed to be the precipitating event.

I got my device back a few hours after posting the reply. It seems to work great, I am in the process of reinstalling all the apps. PDASMART.COM did a great job.

[psuwinz]

I too have a similar issue. Sorry, but I don't have any answer yet either as to the exact cause or solution.

My x50v seems to go into some type of battery draining mode. Unfortunately, when it locks up has been inconsistent to actually prove the cause. The steps I've followed:

1. The screen freezes while displaying some piece of information. No buttons work afterr the freeze.
2. Try a soft reset. Screen turns off, but nothing else happens.
3. Try to turn the device on - nothing.
4. If I leave the device sit for a while, the back starts to warm up. Putting it in to charge shows that it needs a charge, even if I had just had a full charge.
5. After removing from charging cradle, device continues in the 'battery draining' mode.
6. Try to do a hard reset. This sometimes snaps it out of the screen freeze, but often I must go a step further.
7. After all else fails, take the main battery out for a couple hours.
8. Put battery back in device and it boots up fine. Of course, it needs a charge and all my data is lost.
9. Restore lost data and install lost programs.

This can last a few days or weeks and then I'm performing the same steps again.

During this rebuild (I'm doing that today), I'm not going to install any other programs and see how long it will last. Of course, this process if very time consuming and rather annoying if I want to use the Axim for anything more than what comes standard.

I wish you the best. Maybe, my notes will strike a cord.

X50v: WM 2003SE 4.2.1.1088, ROM A05, Async 3.8.0