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Memory Problems (And Fixes) For Palm-OS Devices
Stonent writes: "Palm computing has just announced that a number of 8MB units produced between October 1999 and May 2000 may have some faulty memory. They are currently working on a patch for the IIIXe and have one for the Vx and IIIC. You can read about it on the Palm Computing site. I'm just wondering why they are supplying a software patch for a hardware issue. Intel tried this with the FDIV bug and look where it got them."
And those of us who went with The Other Company aren't off the hook either. An Anonymous Coward writes: "There's no mention of it on their main webpage, but apparently some Handspring Visors shipped with faulty DRAM. See if you're one of the unlucky ones, like me, by running the test program included here. I found out mine was faulty and called 'Customer Care' -- after a brief runaround I learned that the unit wouldn't be replaced, instead a patch would be out in *mid July*. Gee, thanks Handspring. Blinded by the allure of Springboard modules, I took DRAM over FlashRAM in the Palm IIIxe. With bad DRAM and substantive Springboards (wireless ethernet, bluetooth, 6-pack) looking more and more like vaporware, I'm regretting my decision."
My room mate got an 8 Meg pilot for her birthday and has had to cold reset it (Losing all her data) a couple of times. I've never had any problem with my 2MB Palm 5 and was giving her a hard time about whatever it was she was doing to screw things up. Now it turns out to probably be a memory bug. Gonna have to get her to check it out and see if the software patch fixes the problem for her.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
*All* floating point units have bugs. Floating point math isn't exactly easy to implement on silicon at high speeds. That's why there's such bragging rights on being able to do it quickly.
Usually these bugs are simply rounding errors, simple things to work around. Look in the code of any compiler, you'll see plenty of workarounds.
Intel's major error wasn't in having an FDIV bug in their chip. Intel's first error was in marketing their processor as though it were a consumer device.
Intel's second error was in initially pretending there was no bug. The appropriate response would have been to rush the workaround code to every compiler vendor in existance and make sure the engineering and mathematical communities that really needed it could get it.
Intel's third error was in treating every customer like a dumb consumer and telling them they weren't nearly cool enough to be affected by such an obscure little bug, and to go back to playing tetris and forget about it.
THAT's how you turn a minor logic error into a major recall.
This is just like television, only you can see much further.
Ok, so a month ago I got a Vx so I could travel and not have to lug around a notebook (modem, email client, telnet client, avantgo... it's all I need).
So anyways, now I'm running this stupid "detection utility" which is supposed to take 30min. Well right now it's beeping madly (you'd think they could do a silent check, but nooooo). Maybe they want people who have faulty Palm's to go insane and throw them out the window, that way they won't have to replace them.
I don't know, but I'm not 10min into the beeping and it's DRIVING ME NUTS!!!
Hammer of Truth
Talent should always come first but without the right packaging and marketing, it is wasted.
Palm is a good example of this; just look at their ads. A good-looking guy on one train sees a beautiful woman on the next train. They both have Palm Pilots. The woman beams the guy her phone number.
Suliminal message: The Palm Pilot will help you organize your life and get you laid.
Compare that to Microsoft's PocketPC ads. A smug looking guy or girl points at you and asks, "Can your Palm do this?"
Subliminal message: Neener, neener I've got this kewl new toy and you don't because you've got a Palm Pilot.
Not a big incentive to switch.
Does Psion even advertise in the United States?
Does this
From Palm's own FAQ:
Now, I realize that they're not saying that battery life will be affected. However, have you ever seen a "may happen" warning that didn't come true?
This product may cause drowsiness.
This product may cause nausea.
This product may cause lung cancer.
This product may cause shortened battery life.
Those usually tend to translate to: "The following will happen, or else we wouldn't be required by law to tell you about it."
Yes, I know that I'm using a bit of hyperbole. However, I'm just not terribly reassured by Palm's statement.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
I disagree. AC gave me the distinct impression that his customer tolerance has withered (hey, I understand, I used to work tech support) and that it was time for him to change to a less public-oriented job. I may be wrong, but I've seen it too often.
No, I absolutely do not believe that a customer support staffer should have to put up with verbal abuse. There was nothing that made me more sociopathic than being ranted at by some drunken luser who couldn't understand that the problem was on his end and not ours. However, for him to imply that people seeking hardware replacements for their defective equipment are whiny and undeserving of attention was out of hand, in my opinion.
As far as the severity of the problem: How badly will my (IIIxe-non-rechargable) batteries be affected by the new sleep state? If you can't answer that, and Palm themselves seem unable or unwilling to do so, then please don't say that I'm overreacting. While I may be barking at the moon, noone knows for sure right now. My purchased hardware is possibly defective, and the solution may end up causing me to spend more money on batteries.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Interestingly, it was TRG that found the bug, and told Palm and Handspring. These guys are really on top of their game. This is probably why the TRG fix is out first.
Also, TRG released yesterday their AutoCF enhancement, that lets many applications and databases reside on the compact flash. What this effectively means is that you can now have a palm with hundreds of megabytes of effective memory. They did an outstanding job on it.
As for other comments on the lack of flashable roms on the handspring (and some palms like the IIIe), the only real disadvantage is that patches must be layered back on in the event of a total system rebuild, and take up just a little more memory. Neither of these things is even remotely a big deal in real world use.
Palmstation has a lot more information on the topic, complete with some appearences from at least one of the TRG folks to answer questions.
The actual bug had to do with one of the ways you can instruct the DRAM to self refresh in sleep mode... the hardware was buggy. There was about a 1/8000 chance that it would corrupt some random memory location, and it got executed once a minute. This translates to something being nuked once a week, which may or may not be used memory, and may or may not cause a problem.
The patch was simply to use a different self refresh mode, that is almost as good, and has the added advantage of not being broken.:)
Hats off to TRG... these people continue to amaze me, from the days of custom modifying their 8MB upgrade cards to boot linux to the current crop of TRG-Pro compact flash enabled Palm units.
Bill
Mathematically impossible requirements are technically not against policy.
I asked this same question to one of the TRG guys (the company that found the bug in the first place, and had the first patch out).
According to them, this won't make a significant difference in battery life. They still use a power saving mode, just a different one then the one that causes the problem.
So don't panic yet.
Bill
Mathematically impossible requirements are technically not against policy.
Apples and oranges.
Palm costs $150-$400, isn't suitable as an mp3 player, gets 60+ hours of battery life, and is very readable day and night, in any light situations.
Cassiopea costs $500+, can play mp3s, lasts six to eight hours on a charge, and can only be read in deep shade or at night.
These are different devices with different abilities in different price ranges.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Actually, it makes OS upgrading and patching EASIER, because you just toss the files in ram. The downside is that it eats up memory you could otherwise use to store other programs. The whole point to the handspring not having flash is to save you money, and the OS patches are usually quite small.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Check out these details about the memory problem from the TRGpro website, a maker of another Palm-OS PDA. They have a FAQ explaining in pretty good detail what the problem is and how they plan to go about fixing it.
Sure, it sounds like it would waste your memory a bit, but I can't imagine it would be a huge chunk. I'm sure Palm users would rather lose a few kb of RAM than have to cross-ship their Palm and re-load all of their software.
Incidentally, my Handspring Visor (which are also subject to the problem) was found to be not affected. Whew!
Well, mine was one of the Vx's that the diagnostic utility flagged as being defective (Serial 50GK14G....., assembled in malaysia if anyones interestd). Patch applied and things seem to be working fine (although I hadn't noticed any problems anyway). My take on the problem is that there was a batch of 8MB memory chips which couldn't hold their state for the usual memory refresh time. The patch causes the memory to be refreshed more often (thus shortening battery life), and may possibly blank out sections of memory from being used (I seem to have lost 60K of memory even though the RefreshFix was only 19K). Anyone feel that Palm should be offering to replace affected Vx's? This is a manufacturing defect after all.
The Register is also carrying the story (actually it started carrying it yesterday) and it gives some information about how the software patches the hardware.
Richy C.
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Well, luckily my IIIc isn't one of the affected ones :-) But even if it were, I would still be happy with it. They have a patch which fixes the issue, and they have a GREAT OS. The overhead is soooooo much less than that of M$FT's CE, the OS is faster (true, hardware is slower, but I dont need to be able to watch MPEGs on my Palm, I need to store addresses etc.) and the Grafitti is great. I love my Palm, and would buy another one any day... well, maybe after I get one of those Compaq iPAQ H3600... handheld with 206mhz Intel StrongARM processor, 32mb of ram, the thig is soooo sexy... but oh well :-)
-Agelmar
I don't know about everyone else, but I find it a little annoying that it took them this long to find the problem/solution. These memory units started shipping in October '99, it's now July 2000: it took them 9 months to find this problem? It's understandable that a problem like this occurs, but I don't find it understandable it should take 9 months to find it.
They're fixing it in software because it can be fixed in software. FDIV was a hardware problem that was practically impossible to work around in software without a huge performance hit.
This problem is entirely different. The DRAM chip is going into a power saving mode that doesn't quite work and loses information. All the software patch does is prevent the device from using that particular mode.
Paul.
to the fellow who was sorry he chose Handspring over Palm because he was stuck with a faulty DRAM: The IIIxe has DRAM too. You're right in saying that the Handspring units have no Flash, but thats an unrelated issue. Both have DRAM for the system memory/storage. The Palm units (most) have Flash memory where the OS is stored. This allows for OS upgrades and such. The handspring units don't have this, which makes OS upgrading a bit harder.
As for the bug and why it was corrected with a software patch, you can get all teh details (including the technical version) here. The technical faq is near the bottom of the page. They just changed the mode that the DRAM is in during refresh, since one of the refresh modes did A Bad Thing[tm].
-Hal
-Hal
This is bullshit. I paid good money for a working computer, and I expect it to work.
The path effectively removes one of the power-saving features of the Palm hardware, which readily fixes the bug, but causes increased power consumption when the unit is powered down (although you can't truly turn one off).
No thanks. I have no intention of sacrificing my batteries to Shub-Hardware. I've signed up to receive the memory test and patch for my IIIxe when it's available. If my memory tests bad, then I'm RMAing the unit, just as I would any other defective unit.
This is similar to Intel's FDIV fiasco. Palm is using a performance-damaging software workaround to cover faults in their hardware. I will not go along with this.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Oh, I don't blame them; no matter how good their processing plant is, they're still at the mercy of their vendors' quality control. Nonetheless, I still hold them responsible, much as I would a computer manufacturer who shipped units with faulty CD-ROMs, for example.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
I've heard that the HotSync feature of 'spiral notebooks' is notoriously slow. That said, the stylus interface is far more effective than Palm's implementation.
Yes, but the character recognition of 'spiral notebooks' sucks -- especially if the user is in medical school.
Does this
If you're being truthful, and really do work in one of the affected companies' support department, then it's time for you to move on to a different career.
You're no longer in touch with your job description, and have forgotten exactly what it is that you're supposed to be doing for your company and your public.
Is it my fault that your company may have shipped me a faulty unit, and that I find your performance-decreasing "fix" unacceptable?
No.
I simply ponied up my money to buy one of your products, in the good faith that it would work as it should.
I understand that the problem may not have been directly caused by your company. Get over it. I bought the product from you, and you now have my money. Had I dealt directly with your suppliers for the components of my unit, then I would address them. However, I didn't; because of that, the ball is back in your court.
I don't think that I'm being unreasonable. I am only asking to receive what I paid for in the first place - a fully working, fully performing product. To claim that I'm being narrowminded and petty is disingenuous at best. The unit's fault is not mine. It shipped this way, and no mishandling or maltreatment on my part contributed to it.
So move on, AC. You've lost your perspective on your relationship with your customer base. I assure you that your management and the people you deal with on a daily basis can sense it.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Some of the /. posts complain about it being a Software patch to fix the Handspring problem. This is no surprise why?
Palm has announced a fix for their affected units which requires flashing the Palm. This is a software upgrade. They aren't replacing units.
Handspring has no flash memory. Instead, the OS is loaded into DRAM like everything else. Why? So that they can easily issue software patches to people that don't require flashing! Software patching to fix something like this is not only what Palm is doing, but also, one of the reasons why Handspring went with their design in the first place.
There's absolutely no reason to complain that Handspring sucks because you have to software patch for this problem, and the patch will be coming out in July (July starts tomorrow people.)
As for the Spriongboard modules some posters complained about, ya it sucks that relatively few have come out yet, but that was mostly because of the hardware partners overcommiting themselves. Handspring was left out to dry. Not to fear; for those of us paying attention to PC Expo, we know that a whole slew of modules were shown, and are slated for release Real Soon Now (TM).
So, don't worry, Handspring owners. This software patch to fix a bug is BY DESIGN how Handspring intended this to work.
I just meticulously checked the memory in my PDA... it's still all there, it's still college-ruled. The nice thing is that it's persistent, and though WORM technology and limited to 90 pages, once that runs out you just buy another spiral notebook...
If you're not wasted, the day is.
I had one of those PDAs, and the memory on it was the worst I've ever seen. It was completely write-once! Once you used that section of memory, you could never use it again! No thanks.
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For us using TRGpro, the update is already available. It also contains the ability to run directly from Flash as well as OS 3.5.1.
I've got to say that this is getting a little bit ridiculous. This is not very well-known, but some of the current Palm III XE units in stores are shipping with defective (improperly wired) cradles. That is, if you plug them into a Windows 95/98 machine, they will do all sorts of bad things, even lock up the computer. (No, this is probably not part of a Pro-Linux conspiracy on the part of Palm.) But the real kicker is that they have not issued a recall for these units, instead relying on the individual customers to call them up complaining of a non-functional cradle (in which case they send you a new one (one of the older grey ones)). Combine this with the RAM problems and it looks like Palm has some serious quality control problems on its hands.
This is really not the way to build loyalty in their userbase.