SUDS on M515 and lack of Palm support

[mblumenson]

Anybody have a clue why Palm will not fess up on the SUDS problem on the M515? I administer PDAs for a big medical school and we standardized on the M515 last summer. While only about 5% have shown up with the problem, its a major pain in the butt to support. It would be so helpful if Palm would document and address the issue. The cradle swap is definitely not the answer as all these units have the "E" cradle.

Also...does anyone know if other types of PDAs (505 excluded) also suffer from this problem? I need to recommend another device next summer and I'm really starting to sour on Palm.

Thanks...

[PDASROCK]

I personally prefer clie, the high resolution is excellent for documents and databases because you see 4x as much, and they are also good for games and pictures(medical games, ahem).
I would wait to see what palm comes out with as its next color yet affordable device though, because memory sticks can be a pain in the butt, well, lets just say I prefer sd. I think that sony is the fastest growing pda seller(although palm still out-sells).
What exactly are you looking for though? What sort of specs? And how in the world are you gonna get rid of all those leftover m505s??;)

[DrMud]

Palm's efforts and explanations regarding the SUDS problem have been fairly well publicized by the Palm organization. They posted on their site what they believed to be the issue and the solution almost a year ago.
I do agree with you that 500 series units with the newer cradles can experience the same problem especially if the grounding of the cradle is not complete.
A friend with a SONY experienced a similar PDA Death when removing his SONY from his deep lab coat pocket and placing it on a metal file cabinet.
Given the internal dimensions of these PDAs high frequency static charges are going to be a problem. A capacitor is stable until you alter the current flow.
I personally believe the 515 is a good unit for your use. SONY changes products too frequently and has failed to find a way to support all of the various models they have sold.
DrMud

[djmangen]

I agree with DrMud. Sometimes we as users must accept some responsibility for hygiene with regard to our behavior with these tools, and control of static discharge is one area where we can influence product performance. And no, I am in no way affiliated with Palm or any other supplier in the industry.

Even though virtually all of my household electronics items are Sony, I also echo the concern about proliferation of Sony pdas and their less than stellar warranty policies and customer support.

[mblumenson]

Thanks to all that replied. Dr. Mud: You mention the importance of proper grounding of the cradle. Can you elaborate on that? Thanks.

[DrMud]

The cradle is ground in two ways: The AC/DC power transformer and the PC. Both of these units are in most cases grounded by virtue of there dependence on the near by wall outlet. If the outlet is not properly ground neither the PC nor the AC/DC adapter will have a good ground. At this point let me give an example from my own office. We had a PC and Printer working off an APC. When the APC battery went dead we quickly replaced the entire unit with a newer model that "tested" the ground and much to our surprise, the outlet was not showing any grounding.

But here is where I have difficulty with Palms conclusions regarding static and the "E" and "H" cradles. Palm describes the E & H as "Buffering" the static. When talking to one of there supervisors regarding the E & H cradles she assured me that in order for the buffering to work the cradle needed to be connected to an outlet (by the means listed above) that was grounded. I'm not an electrical engineer but that is a strange idea in my book.
Doc

[JohnKes]

Sounds like in the E and H cradles, Palm put in an MOV (metal oxide varistor) to shunt excess voltage to ground. No ground = no shunting.

Here is some interesting reading. MOV's degrade as they shunt current to ground:
http://www.svconline.com/ar/avinstall_surge_suppressor_work/

[PDASROCK]

Yes, it all depends what your looking for. If you're looking for a more high performance or more stable pda. I personally prefer sony for their high end status, but palm is more stable and has better support. It is true that sony comes out with new units very quickly, this is both good and bad, good: As soon as a technology is available, it can be implemented and tested faster, and you have a greater variety to chose from, the bad: WE do the testing in some newer things and they don't even support their handhelds nearly as well. Got to go, I'll try to post more later, cheers

[DrMud]

Thanks John. THe info and the redirect were excellent. I love it when you talk lumberjack talk.
Doc

[JohnKes]

... I sleep all night and I (should) work all day ... ;)

[jim098]

My M515 experienced SUDS and I never noticed any static discharge. Palm replaced the cradle but of course that made no difference. And if you have ever tried IR syncing it is hopelessly slow. Palm refused to send out a replacement unit while mine went for warranty service, so I bought a Tungsten. Two weeks later I'm still waiting for the M515 to come back. A bit disappointing, but I love the TT. No problems with it so far.

[obo]

What is a SUDS? What does it do to the 515?

[swithin]

[This is in response to obo, that asked what SUDS was. This happened to me this past summer. Here are my notes that explain the problem. Palm finally acknowledged the problem and sent out a free replacement cradle to address the problem. All of the info below is "old news."]

If you're new to the (SUDS)Suddenly USB Doesn't Sync problem, here's a compilation of what I've found in this forum and elsewhere.

Description of Problem: HotSync, using the USB cradle, worked fine then stopped working. You can't figure out why because you haven't changed anything. The Palm seems to work fine otherwise. You may even be able to sync using a parallel connection.

You're Not Alone: CNet Article from 11/11/2001:
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-275681.html


USBNews.net Article from February 2002 (estimated): http://www.usbnews.net/news/palm_m50x_suddenly_usb_doesn.htm


Official Channels: Palm Support by Phone ($25 fee after 90 day warranty) at https://store.palm.com/poc/default.asp [847-262-PALM (7256)]


Roll Your Own Solution (and Pray): [Aliens 2 "Take off and nuke the entire site from orbit" Solution] http://www.palmgear.com/software/showsoftware.cfm?sid=55384620020117083547&prodID=39652

[Registry Hack Solution Thread] http://www.palmblvd.com/boards/Palm-m505/messages/14010.html

[BillStreet]

This is really helpful information. I was so baffled -- I spent probabaly $20 in calls with palm support. Luckily, my palm is still under warranty.

I was w/out palm for about 2 months - received 1) a cradle 2) a backup card 3) an ac adapter 4) a refurbished palm

I am now back up and running but this worries me that this can happen so suddenly. I had my palm in April 2002 and it was dead in Jan 2003.

One thing I did not see was my ac adapter starting smoking -- I quickly unplugged it but this happened twice. I have no idea what caused this but that is why I received the adapter. After that went my old palm would never come back on again -- so that is when I got the refurbished one.

Good Luck to any who are in similar boats -- but at least you know some time frames here. It is so good to have my friend the palm back and working -- I also bought an extended warranty plan on the m515 which maybe a good idea for this problem.

[irked]

Originally posted by djmangen
I agree with DrMud. Sometimes we as users must accept some responsibility for hygiene with regard to our behavior with these tools, and control of static discharge is one area where we can influence product performance. And no, I am in no way affiliated with Palm or any other supplier in the industry.

Even though virtually all of my household electronics items are Sony, I also echo the concern about proliferation of Sony pdas and their less than stellar warranty policies and customer support.


Sorry, DJ, but that dog won't hunt. First off, the Palm 100 series doesn't have this problem, nor does the palm V or earlier models. It's only the 500 series. Are we to believe that 500 series users have higher wool content than users of earlier pdas?

I live in the Northeast, so it's cold and dry for a good chunk of the year. There is no way to avoid a certain level of static buildup, especially when you're wearing a sweater. Now, I'm an electrical engineer, so I could theoretically wear a grounding strap all the time, but should I really have to be tethered to a workbench just to use a PDA?

Here's a true story for those of you who think a lifestyle issue is the cure to a defective design; The last time I had SUDS (third time in a month, second time in a week) the only thing I had done with my m515 was to remove it from my pocket to check my calendar. The power light was on, but the screen was dark (kind of like what it looks like when it's charging). When I soft-reset the 515 it had SUDS again.

I had not used it since the last time I fixed the SUDS problem earlier that week. The palm was, I thought, safely tucked in it's hard-back case in my pocket. I even bought the Palm case and not the plain aluminum case from Rhino Skins, so it's not like the 515 was in direct contact with metal. So sitting in a case, in my pocket built up enough of a charge to disable the pda. How could I have been more careful? If I have to leave the pda on a grounding mat all day, I might as well buy a laptop.

Oh, and did I mention that the 515 will only be a year old on monday?

Palm's support for this obvious design flaw is abyssmal. If you report the problem (provided you act before the warrantee expires) Palm will replace your broken palm with a Refurbished palm, not even a new one. This wouldn't be so objectionable, except the refurb does not address the static issue-- so they're just shipping the same old garbage to the user.

Sorry, I can accept a certain level of care regarding not dropping the palm, or keeping it dry and clean, or using a surge suppressor (which everyone should do with any electronic device that costs more than $100, in my opinion). But static sensitivity such as the m500 series exhibits should be reserved for motherboards, not functioning computers. Somebody dropped the ball on this one, and Palm is refusing to pick it up.

I will not buy another high-end Palm product. My next color PDA will be a Sony Clie, even if I do have to buy third party software to sync with a Mac. Sony's support may be lousy, but the research I've done indicates that the clies tend to be free of such glaring design flaws as the 500 series.

[AZO]

I'm afraid I have to agree with Irked. The posts on the Palm website knew the problem existed over a year ago and it's still exists. I bought an M505 in August 2002 and by September it was shutting down twice a week. I read about the EDS problem on the website and thought it was my fault, so I paid the price to upgrade to an M515 in December 2002 and installed a grounded circuit for the PDA and my laptop at that time. This week the M515 won't hotsync. I went back to OfficeMax where I bought both PDA's and they swapped cradles with me. No help. I contacted Customer Service and a real nice person sent me seven pages of instructions on how to uninstall and reinstall the Palm software. No help. I wrote back to him and he told me to call a 1-877 number which I did. The CS person told me to Right click on My Computer, left click on Properties - Device Manager, press hotsync button on cradle and tell him what happened. When I told him nothing happened he said my 515 was bad (EDS) and needed to be replaced, which for $39.99 they would FedEx a refurbished model to me. I asked if the refurbished model would eliminate the EDS problem and he said "I don't think it will happen again, but I can't guarantee it."

Several people on different websites have mentioned being offered a card that would back up data and discharge the handheld so the USB would work again. Others have been offered serial cradles, some serial cords. Where in the world is the consistency?

I just tried using the IR process to sync between my PDA and my laptop and when I tried to beam the Address database to my laptop I got the message that database was locked and couldn't be beamed. I checked the Date Book, Memo and others and they are locked also. The CS person told me that I would need to transfer information from the old 515 to the new one by beaming the data. How can I do that if the databases are locked? What in the world do I do now? This is becoming a nightmare.

[jim098]

Does anyone know whether airport xray machines cause SUDS? Both times I experienced SUDS on two different Palms (M515 and now my old M500) were after travelling and going through airport security several times. The PC and cradles were left at home. Do the airport computer trays protect our sensitive Palms?

[JohnKes]

More likely, the plastic trays caused SUDS - plastic is notorius for accumulating static. The dry, air conditioned environment doesn't help either. Seems they use cheap plastic trays from Target at the last few airports I went thru. At my company, we use expensive anti-static plastic trays for our electronics.

Are you sure you got SUDS at the X-ray machine and not on the plane? It is even drier and more staticy(sp?) during flight.

[DrMud]

AZO,
It sounds as if you are trying to beam the APP which is locked and not the data base which is not locked. Example: The Address book app is "ADDRESS" the data is in "AddressDB."
You will need a third party file manager such as McFile, Filez or myWorkBench to locate and beam the AddressDB, the built in Palm "BEAM" app will not find AddressDB.
Doc

[AZO]

Doc, that makes perfect sense. I'm new to this forum and could use some help finding the 3rd party apps you're describing. Sorry for the rambling previous message. I was frustrated beyond belief. Pete (AZO)

[DrMud]

A really great all purpose file manager is "myWorkBench" check it out at toysoft.ca. It is a very complete app with great ability to back up and restore the information in your Palm's RAM to the SD card. It dates each file automatically.

McFile, can be found on Handango.com and is another good all purpose file manager.

Let us know what sorts of things you are most interested in and you will find this board will have many answers.

Doc

PS: I almost forgot to mention that myWB can be set to do a Backup automatically at midnite or some other time when you are not using your Palm.