pyrophilus

Hello,

My X50v that was a week old (cradle A02) fried my USB hub. I found that there is a lethal cradle thread on the X50 forum.

Dell was nice enough to take back the X50v and refund me everything including orignal shipping (also paid for return ship).

Other than the fried USB, I really liked my X50v for the 1 week that I've had it. I am wondering if I should get the X51V?

Does X51v have cradle problems? I don't understand how X51 forums do not have leathal cradle problems when it seems that the X50 and the X51's have same cradles...

Anyway, just wondering if anyone knows about lethal cradles on X51v's.

Also, I've read about bluetooth having problems.
I did get a Holux bluetooth GPS unit that was working really well with the X50v.

Will I have problems connecting my Holux GPSlim 236 to the X51v?

I am waiting my $$$ refunded right now (told me I'd get it by tomorrow), and I was going to get the X51v, but the bluetooth GPS would be a big reason why I want the PDA.

Thank you for any inputs,

-Sage

Frenchy

I haven't heard about it yet but anything is possible.

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Frenchy

da_17

With the hardware being 90% the same on the X50v and the X51v, the X51v might have the same problem. Anyway, you should take into account that the lethal cradle issue only happens to some people (hasn't happened to me). Maybe you don't find many cases of lethal cradles with the X51, but that may be due to the fact that it was released recently, while the X50 has been more time on the market, with more people trying it.

Choirguy

And the other question is WHEN you had the "lethal" USB hub. A search on Aximsite will show that it was mainly a very early problem with the X50...and that there haven't been many cases of this for some time. By chance, did you buy a used unit off Ebay? I know it doesn't help you out very much since you had the problem...but nonetheless, it is just some simple fact finding that will help clarify the issue for others (rather than scare them away...i.e...."Oh no...an Axim will kill my computer.") There are hundreds of thousands of these devices on the market...and if they were systematically frying all USB connections, we'd hear about it.

dpicts

Palm had this problem a couple of years ago with the 505... I fried the USB ports on 3 computers before realizing what was happening... it turned out that palm had not properly grounded the cradle (until they reallized the problem, then the fixed them) so if you had some static charge on you (this was winter in Wisconsin, so I always had a large charge on my body) and you went to grab your palm off the cradle, you would discard that high voltage charge right into your usb ports (the last port I killed, I saw the spark jump >2 inchs from my finger to the palm, then windows started fussing that I had "unsafely" disconnected my USB drives...) Probably the same problem found its way into early x50 cradles, until dell figured out what was going on and fixed it.

Daniel

pyrophilus

If you read the thread, the statistics is high enough to make X50v owners nervous, but not high enough that Dell should make a public move to recall the units.

The consensus on the X50 forum is that it probably is cheaper for Dell to replace individual units rather than doing a recall.

I heard that if it is a dell computer/laptop that gets fried, some nice techs have even offered to replace/fix out of warranty computers.

Fortunately I only fried a $25 hub. I did own a Palm m505. I did not have the USB killing problem, but mine (and wife's m505) died and would not turn on. It turns out, the ferrule ring on the cradle cable was not allowing built-up static to drain off the palm. the built-up static would complete render the palm's USB useless. This was fixed by opening up the unit, disconnecting the battery for few minutes, and then it would drain the build-up.

Palm's answer was to replace the original cradles with the ferrule with a new one that did not have one. Only problem was that now if yo uhave excess static, you can actually fry the USB port on the computer/hub.

Going back to the lethal cradle, it seems that it happens mostly with X50's (some purchased as late as this October) when user goes to plug it in/out of the cradle. Consensus on the thread was that perhaps a charge pin on the cradle is shorting across the pins on the PDA (or visa versa), sending the voltage down data line of the USB...

Fix to this is to leave cradle unplugged, plug in the PDA to the cradle, and then plug in tghe cradle to the USB port. Reverse for removal.

I have been following this with my PDA, and after few days, also thought that maybe it's with early model X50's. I plugged it in/out with cradle attached to hub. It not only fried my hub (few days later), the Logitech wireless keyboard/mouse that was also plugged into the cradle now sporatically loses the mouse (have had this keyboard/mouse for 2+ years).

My device is new from Dell. So I am thinking that maybe there was a hardware redesign of the port or something like that (if there indeed is complete lack of any users having lethal cradle with the X51's)...

Anyway, thanks for all the replies...