Dell Axim X50V & WM5 -- mine became a brick...but kudos to Dell Canada Service!

[Don Tolson]

Well, it's been about 2 weeks since I upgraded by Axim X50v to WM5. Yes, it was slow, and about every other day it would display 'Memory Error encountered, press <the contact key> to recover, ...'. It seemed to fix itself OK, so I kept soldiering on. And yes, the battery life seemed quite a bit shorter too.

Well, tonight, it came up with a memory error and wouldn't recover -- nothing, nada, nicht. Not even a hard reset brought it back to life. It had basically turned into a brick.

So, I called Dell Canada Service. Got a nice guy named 'Cole', who, as soon as I said I'd upgraded my Axim to WM5, said "Oh yea..." in that voice you KNOW means they know what's coming next. He was genuinely surprised that mine had turned into a brick, but he did mention that Microsoft is aware of problems wiht WM5 and were working on an update. No ETA, though.

Anyway, kudos to them, we went though a couple of scenarios, decided there was no hope, and a new Axim X50v is on it's way, due to be here in Victoria on Friday (two days, not bad!).:way to go:

Cole did suggest though, NOT to upgrade the unit if it showed up with WM2003SE, but to wait for the update from MS.

Just thought I'd pass this along.... :lurking:

[Canuck]

I have been through so many hard resets and errors, and this is my second device (due to the same memory error. They sent me a refurb). Now I find that if a reminder is not attended to the device freezes. Once you get it running everytime you turn it on windows media thinks new cards have been installed. It is nice to hear that it is being looked at. My Dell has become so unstable I've dusted off the Moleskine paper and pen and just left the PPC behind. I wish I just stuck to my ipaq 2215 until a 2nd generation of devices came out with the new OS.

- Derek
Toronto

[Don Tolson]

Derek... did your Axim come with WM5, or did you install it afterward? If the latter, you may want to call Dell Canada Service and ask them to walk you through taking it back to WM 2003SE. Apparently, the Axim is MUCH more stable in the older O/S.

Until I upgraded to WM5, my Axim was reliable and rock solid -- never had any problems with it.

[Canuck]

The memory error brick issue came about with 2003SE, which I returned. I only upgraded the new model. I found it a little better using the extended battery.

The odd success story of wm 2005 has kept me going, but I think you are right, I should dial it back to the old OS. At this point it has become such a time consuming device that I hate it.

[Don Tolson]

Sorry to hear that. I found the AXIM X50v to be a welcome relief (running WM2003SE) after all my hassles with the HP2215 after a couple of years.

I have been VERY impressed with the support Dell Canada has been giving me. Much better than what I was getting from HP.

[Canuck]

Thanks for the encouragement Don. I am going to hard reset again this weekend to give it a another shot. I'll post the results.

Have any had success with the new OS on the x50v?

- Derek
Toronto

[PetiteFlower]

Yup. I've had a great experience and despite the few bugs I've had, I wouldn't want to go back to 2003 EVER. It was so much slower before! My X50v responds so much faster now 99% of the time. Occasionally I see slowdowns, but they're not that frequent and they usually resolve on their own. At most I've had to give it a soft reset. But there were programs I could barely use before due to slow response and now they work fine. I think it's by far an overall improvement.

[Canuck]

Do you use the default software or have you added a new calendar/contacts application etc? I will say that when it works, the battery life seems better with the new OS.

[PetiteFlower]

I have about 20 programs installed. No new PIM apps but I do have Pocket Plus and Calendar + installed.

[Canuck]

Well, after a re-do on the weekend, I've had at least one stable day. Like PetiteFlower I like the new OS, it was just unstable for me. This time I did a hard reset and set up the sync with no options to sync i.e. it would connect but not share any contact, appointment etc data. Then I loaded it up with software (I have the WM versions of PhatPad, Cash Orgainizer, Pocket Informant, ISilo, along with another 10 or so... I then added the contacts, appointments etc features on Activesync, one at a time.

I also think that one of the issues for my memory crash issues that prompt the hard reset was the case I was using. It would touch the screen, keeping it active enough to drain the battery. When the unit would not respond I changed to my extra battery and it would wake up fine with a soft reset. Then the battery had to be charged but for some reason in the spare compartment of the cradle, not in the unit.

The case by the way was the Belkin Mini-Portfolio sold on the Dell site.

Anyway, so far so good....

[Mitch D]

Derek... did your Axim come with WM5, or did you install it afterward? If the latter, you may want to call Dell Canada Service and ask them to walk you through taking it back to WM 2003SE. Apparently, the Axim is MUCH more stable in the older O/S.

Until I upgraded to WM5, my Axim was reliable and rock solid -- never had any problems with it.

I would have to agree with this, my X50v came with 2003SE and ran with no problems. About a week and a half ago I upgraded to WM5 and have noticed the slowdown issues that some others have been talking about. The first time I noticed the issue was when turning my Axim on, I have basic security enabled and it takes a few seconds for all the numbers to register when I input them. This I was prepared to live with for now till I noticed that when playing solitare it can take as long as 3 secs to flip over a card... 8O

I am going to restore it back to SE on the weekend and wait till a patch is created to deal with the "lag". Other than the speed issues I really do like the look and feel of WM5

[PetiteFlower]

Please check out the tweaks that have been posted several times here before rolling back. They should take care of 95% of slowdown issues, unless yours are being caused by some 3rd party program. Making sure Activesync is not constantly running in the background makes a big difference too.

[Mitch D]

Please check out the tweaks that have been posted several times here before rolling back. They should take care of 95% of slowdown issues, unless yours are being caused by some 3rd party program. Making sure Activesync is not constantly running in the background makes a big difference too.

I am slowly working through the various tweaks as I find them... I have found they are making a hugh difference in the speed of my Ax.

[PetiteFlower]

Told ya :) There are still some that I haven't tried, but I stopped after I was getting good performance. The processor still gets stuck at 624 sometimes but there doesn't appear to be a good fix for that yet, and it doesn't affect performance that much.