02-19-2005, 07:00 AM
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Swami
Join Date: Feb 2004
Posts: 4,303
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Dell Axim X50's Lethal Cradle?
There's a worrying report over at Aximsite that 15% of Dell Axim 50's sold to Aximsite users since October exhibit problems related to their cradles. The figure is taken from an Aximsite poll with just over 200 responses. The cradles are shorting and causing either spontaneous reboots or, in many cases, burned out USB controllers on the motherboards of the host computers. Apparently some folks have had 2 consecutive motherboards rendered non-functional as a result of the problem. It appears that connecting the cradle to a powered hub may provide protection to the motherboard. Dell has not as yet commented on the issue. Have you guys had any similar problems with your X50 cradles or is everything just ticking over as expected?
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02-19-2005, 01:21 PM
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Theorist
Join Date: Oct 2003
Posts: 258
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I remember my old h4150, when inserted into its cradle, would reboot my PC (EpoX 8RDA+ mobo) every once (maybe twice a month) in a while.
No permanent damages though.
Edit: It also causes the dreaded blue screen of death sometimes.
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02-19-2005, 04:13 PM
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Intellectual
Join Date: Feb 2003
Posts: 171
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Jonathanchoo, what you describe sounds like voltage feedback - a current on the mass or one of the datalines of the USB bus that's not supposed to be there. This can happen with poorly designed self-powered USB devices.
This should normally not cause damage to the mainboard though, just may lead to a crashing PC. What the Axim cradle must be doing to actually destroy mainboards is create an actual shortcut or really excessive power demand.
A decent powered USB hub may protect against it. A good hub will disable a port that demands over 500mA of current. But if it is an actual 100% shortcut, not a rising power demand, the hub may fry and take the host controller with it anyway - depends on the hub quality.
Neko
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02-19-2005, 04:37 PM
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Thinker
Join Date: Sep 2004
Posts: 454
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Since using the Dell Axim cradle supplied with an x50v, when I plug a USB 2.0 device into either of my high-speed ports, I get a message saying, "This device could work faster in a high-speed port" (or something like that).
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02-19-2005, 05:29 PM
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Intellectual
Join Date: Nov 2006
Posts: 223
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Questionable Dell build quality rears it's ugly head again.
Glad I stuck with HP!
Can you imagine the usual hassle with Dell Support trying to prove this one 8O
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02-19-2005, 05:50 PM
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Neophyte
Join Date: Feb 2005
Posts: 8
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I had those reboot problems also - whenever I tried to softreset the device while it was in the cradle it restarted my computer... I had my cradle connected to USB hub, I pluged it later striaght to PC USB connector and no more unexpected reboots for me. Also I did not sustain any damage to my computer.
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02-19-2005, 06:53 PM
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Pupil
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 15
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I use my cradle only for charging, so it's not connected to my PC (I sync via Bluetooth exclusively).
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02-19-2005, 07:40 PM
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Intellectual
Join Date: Jan 2004
Posts: 119
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Wow, hard to believe that awesome looking cradle has problems... I mean that thing is like the Deathstar of cradles!
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02-19-2005, 09:16 PM
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Intellectual
Join Date: May 2006
Posts: 157
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No noticeable problems so far with my x50v cradle - hope that continues... Plenty of problems with the x50v itself, though! The ROM upgrade helped, but still hasn't entirely solved network card/bluetooth driver problems... Wonder if iPAQ loyalists are experiencing fewer difficulties...
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02-19-2005, 11:13 PM
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Thinker
Join Date: Mar 2004
Posts: 352
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No problem to report.
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