[MDA II, XDA II, 2060 Windows Mobile 2005 Upgrading] kj:
Activesync 4.1 USB Issue (more info but still _not_ solved.)

Thanks for the suggestions and comments. I refrained from responding before I performed a thorough (re)investigation. I have the following updates: I just received a boxwave minisync retractable USB cable for my imate/XDAII/Himalaya to test out the theory whether the cause of the problem was a cradle problem (i.e. applied process of elimination on hardware). Unfortunately, the problem still persists. I can now safely eliminate the possibility that it was the cradle from my previous investigations. Therefore, I decided (having done all the investigation above) that it must be either of the following culprits:

A.	Himalaya hardware

B.	Himalaya software

I tackled the hardware issue (A) first: I checked the functioning of the USB hardware: My logic dictates that if I can connect the Himalaya to a PC using USB and conduct functions through that connection, then the USB hardware should be OK (except for perhaps any hardware switches or pin grounding the flat connector on the other end of the USB cable makes that activate the Himalaya onboard activesync program, as discussed below). So, I performed the following tests (some are repeats of what I already tried and wrote, just for good measure):

1.	Connected Himalaya to my laptop (call that “PC1”, since recall that I tested on two separate PCs) via USB cable. It detects it fine and goes through the hardware detection and driver install process, creates a network adapter and connection and provides an IP address for the USB connection (169.254.0.1 for Himalaya and 169.254.0.2 for PC1). At this time, I can ping the Himalaya. ActiveSync (AS) on PC1 detects the Himalaya and the AS icon on the PC's toolbar turns green and starts to rotate, as before, but no reaction from Himalaya.

2.	Every now and then, a popup window says "Unable to Obtain a servier assigned IP address....", even though I made sure that the Remot-NDIS Host network adapter uses "Server assigned IP" addresses (and it shows 169.254.2.1) and pings fine. Actually, this message popped up all the time when syncing through USB back when it was working with no problems, so not sure if this is an issue (it wasn’t before).

3.	On the Himalaya, I made sure that the Remot-NDIS Host network adapter uses "Server assigned IP" addresses (and it shows 169.254.2.1). I pinged the Himalaya from PC1 and PC1 from Himalaya, and the responses are fine both ways. This tells me that USB connection hardware must be working, otherwise, I would not have been able to pass ping packets back and forth.

4.	I went one step further (just to be sure) and downloaded and installed Softik’s Card Export II v2.10 (yes, this version supports WM5, a nice piece of software). In “Card Export mode”, I connected Himalaya to PC1,which detected it as a USB Mass Storage Device, as it should. It installed the drivers and it worked just fine! I wanted to make sure that I am getting USB speeds, so I benchmarked the connection and got over 3Mb/s transfers from PC to SD card, steady. This tells me that at least USB, as a connection, is OK.

5.	So, only thing left is to eliminate any possibility of a hardware issue, I looked into the Himalays flat connector pinout diagram. To simplify, the following are the pins relating to USB (excluding any grounds):

13 USB_VDD

14 (or 15) UDC+

15 (0r 14) UDC-

For those who are not familiar with the Himalaya flat connector, “UDC+” and “UDC-“ are USB data pins. “USB_VDD” is the USB power pin. USB_VDD when powered wakes up Himalaya and activates onboard activesync. I thought perhaps if this pin were defective, Activesync on the Himalaya would not activate. I assume that this pin is where the Himilaya gets its battery charge current when connected via USB, as pins 20-22 are “V_ADP”, which are used for charging only when connecting to a wall or car charger (please let me know if this is an invalid assumption). Hence, I wanted to check to see if the battery indeed charges through USB. I saw that when Himalaya was connected via USB, the battery charged just fine (light goes solid amber, battery monitor says “Charging”) and it charges the battery fully as expected.

With the foregoing, I can conclude that the problem is very unlikely hardware related (as in A, above). Since I already eliminated a PC problem (I checked on another PC with different hardware/software, as described in my first post), the only thing left to investigate is a software problem on the Himalaya itself. This is where I look for the developers in the forum to provide expertise: My analysis tells that when the Himalaya is connected via USB and the PC Activesync shows “Connecting”, while the Himalaya shows nothing, that the Himalaya is behaving as if it were not connected to USB, or is ignoring the USB connection, i.e. in Himalaya Activesync, under “Menu””Connections …”, as if the box next to “Sychronize all PCs using this connection:” is not ticked or the drop down list is not set to “USB”. I checked and unchecked this box and chose other connections (such as various serial speeds), just to see if this would change some persistent setting and set it back, with soft resets in between, but to no avail. Is there a registry setting that I can check to see if this setting is doing the correct thing? If so, where is it? It is here where my investigation trail runs thin and is where I am looking for insight in the matter. Appreciate your input….