My Palm Hurts
October 27, 2005 1:47 AM Subscribe
I bought an old Palm m125 from ebay to use as an electric book reader, and instead of the magical world of convenience and less support of tree killing, the friggin' thing won't hotsync at all, and I'm instead in a world of futile frustration. Teach me how to be less of a retard with this gadget.
From what I can tell there's nothing wrong with it. Whenever I plug it into a computer that doesn't have the Palm Hotsyncing software installed, the computer dings in the low-high tone that says it recognizes this thing, and then the little bubble pops up in the task tray that says yes indeed, it's a Palm handheld device. The problem occurs when I actually install the Hotsync software from the Palm website (and I'm using the version for Palm m100 series). Instead of the low-high thing that says something is plugged in and understood, I get three low, quick dings. I've never heard that before and I have no idea what it means. After awhile, the m125 beeps and says there is a problem with the connection, and at the same time Windows does the high-low alert that says something is unplugged.
So I'm clueless. I've browsed around the web, but google hasn't turned up anything particularly helpful, and most of my friends wouldn't know where the USB plug goes, let alone how to handle English software (I live in Beijing). Any ideas?
From what I can tell there's nothing wrong with it. Whenever I plug it into a computer that doesn't have the Palm Hotsyncing software installed, the computer dings in the low-high tone that says it recognizes this thing, and then the little bubble pops up in the task tray that says yes indeed, it's a Palm handheld device. The problem occurs when I actually install the Hotsync software from the Palm website (and I'm using the version for Palm m100 series). Instead of the low-high thing that says something is plugged in and understood, I get three low, quick dings. I've never heard that before and I have no idea what it means. After awhile, the m125 beeps and says there is a problem with the connection, and at the same time Windows does the high-low alert that says something is unplugged.
So I'm clueless. I've browsed around the web, but google hasn't turned up anything particularly helpful, and most of my friends wouldn't know where the USB plug goes, let alone how to handle English software (I live in Beijing). Any ideas?
All versions of the hotsync software released after your device was made will support it, and I would suggest using the latest version on Palm's site as it may iron out any bugs.
I have rarely had problems with USB hotsyncing (serial was a different story), but occasionally had issues with the device sitting correctly in the cradle.
One device even required a slight downward pressure during the hotsync sometimes to maintain connection.
Can you confirm the hotsync icon is visible in the system tray (a blue/red circle around two arrows), if not, you may need to select start the hoptsync manager on start-up or manually start it.
So, my suggestion is check the physical connection, and check everything is running, which I guess is a bit lame. The only other thing I could suggest is do a hard reset on the device. This requires a paperclip in the hole in the back while holding the "up" key down. Release it after 5 seconds and the device will ask you to confirm the hard reset.
posted by bystander at 3:39 AM on October 27, 2005
I have rarely had problems with USB hotsyncing (serial was a different story), but occasionally had issues with the device sitting correctly in the cradle.
One device even required a slight downward pressure during the hotsync sometimes to maintain connection.
Can you confirm the hotsync icon is visible in the system tray (a blue/red circle around two arrows), if not, you may need to select start the hoptsync manager on start-up or manually start it.
So, my suggestion is check the physical connection, and check everything is running, which I guess is a bit lame. The only other thing I could suggest is do a hard reset on the device. This requires a paperclip in the hole in the back while holding the "up" key down. Release it after 5 seconds and the device will ask you to confirm the hard reset.
posted by bystander at 3:39 AM on October 27, 2005
You say it dings properly on a computer that doesn't have the Palm software installed, but doesn't work when you install the Palm software, implying that you're doing that on *your* computer. Could it be that the computer without the Palm software that you tried it on was *not* your machine?
Reason I ask is that I recently spent nearly a month trying everything I could possibly thing of to get an Apple iPod Shuffle working on a friend's machine. The damn thing worked everywhere *except* that machine, and I could see no reason at all for it to misbehave as it did. Sometimes it worked for up to half a minute at a time; sometimes it connected and disconnected itself over and over and over; sometimes Windows acted like it never saw the thing.
Turned out to be caused by a marginal power supply: the 5V rail was only putting out 4.65 to 4.75V, and the Shuffle didn't like it. It worked just fine when connected via one of those USB hubs that has its own plugpack for power.
posted by flabdablet at 10:16 AM on October 27, 2005
Reason I ask is that I recently spent nearly a month trying everything I could possibly thing of to get an Apple iPod Shuffle working on a friend's machine. The damn thing worked everywhere *except* that machine, and I could see no reason at all for it to misbehave as it did. Sometimes it worked for up to half a minute at a time; sometimes it connected and disconnected itself over and over and over; sometimes Windows acted like it never saw the thing.
Turned out to be caused by a marginal power supply: the 5V rail was only putting out 4.65 to 4.75V, and the Shuffle didn't like it. It worked just fine when connected via one of those USB hubs that has its own plugpack for power.
posted by flabdablet at 10:16 AM on October 27, 2005
I have a 2nd hand Sony Palm I got from eBay for the identical reason.
You might have to dock the PDA, turn it on, and access the synching (if hotsynching doesn't work, you can try an import program - it's called MS import on my Clie, under Utilities) and you can then copy over your converted text files.
Makedoc is really primitive, but I've found it the most reliable for turning txt into prc so your palm can read it. I like the idea of Plucker but have horrible problems getting it to play nice with the memorystick so I use k-reader instead.
Good luck.
posted by PurplePorpoise at 12:02 PM on October 27, 2005
You might have to dock the PDA, turn it on, and access the synching (if hotsynching doesn't work, you can try an import program - it's called MS import on my Clie, under Utilities) and you can then copy over your converted text files.
Makedoc is really primitive, but I've found it the most reliable for turning txt into prc so your palm can read it. I like the idea of Plucker but have horrible problems getting it to play nice with the memorystick so I use k-reader instead.
Good luck.
posted by PurplePorpoise at 12:02 PM on October 27, 2005
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The three low dings is Windows XP's way of saying "this screwed up". I've only had it happen when something hardware-wise has failed. Perhaps try a different version of the hotsync software, or some third party software (there's open source software out there, but I think it was linux only).
Try a different computer, as well.
posted by angry modem at 1:51 AM on October 27, 2005