Tom Stoneham's Palm Blog

Monday, June 14, 2004

Speaker trouble

I am having a problem with the sound on my Tungsten E, or to be more precise, the speaker. Occasionally the sound just cuts out: no system clicks, no music etc. But everything works fine though the headphones. A sharp tap or two to the back of the casing restores everything to normal.

Obviously I have a loose connection, and probably at the speaker itself. But what to do? Assuming I could persuade PalmOne tech support that it is a warranty repair, there are several problems:

From past experience it takes a minimum of 48 hours telephone and e-mail contact to persuade Palm(One) to accept a warranty return.
It then takes at least a week and often more to get a replacement unit.
So I have to configure my 'back-up' device to do what I want it to do, which takes several precious hours.
And when the replacement arrives it is almost always a factory refurb with problems of its own ranging from cosmetic damage to major hardware problems, which requires one to restart the cycle.

Time is tight this week and I am away at a conference next week, which inclines me to weather it out for a bit. I have turned up the system sound level so that I notice when the speaker has gone and can tap it back to life, but this is clearly a compromise and something will have to be done soon.

Should I take the back off myself and see if a drop of solder will solve the problem?

UPDATE: Jeff Kirvin of Writing on your Palm fame also has a problem with his T|E speaker. Maybe there is a design fault which is just beginning to show up after 9 months.

posted by Tom at 7:22 PM

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