The Syncing Apple An Exploration of Technology and Devices

Treo Super Secret Hard Reset

I had problems with the Treo650 rebooting all the time- and it's not a secret why it was doing it. There were two issues. First, accessing the data connection when the phone has low signal strength just reboots it. There doesn't seem to be anything to do for this, short of some firmware from Palm addressing this issue. But that isn't so bad. The other aspect is alarms and Email. I use Chatter mail to keep a constant data connection to my email server (via IMAP) so that I have instant email on the Treo. For whatever reason, alarms conflict and confuse Chatter - at least, alarms from 3rd party date managers.
I had Agendus Pro (and later datebook 5) installed since I've owned the Treo. For whatever reason, alarms from 3rd party apps make the Treo reboot. When I finally had enough of the reboots I hard-reset the Treo and built it back from scratch (rather than just syncing back all the data and apps). I only installed the apps I absolutely need: Splash ID & Photo, Chatter and TomTom navigator. Since then, my reboots only occur when the signal strenth is very low. Since Chatter starts up automatically, I hardly ever notice the reboots.

Now, regarding resets. As anyone that owns a Palm knows there are two resets: soft and hard. Soft is something you can do for fun. Hard wipes the Palm clean as if you just purchased it. However, the Treo 650 actually has three resets. Since it has NVRAM, the traditional Hard reset doesn't go all the way. There is the Super Hard Reset, which I wasn't aware of and neglected to use the first months of my Treoship. If you are interested, here is the link to the PalmOne support page explaining how to access it.

Note: the Power Button on the Treo650 is the RED button (Hangup). I know this is obvious, but I thought it was the GREEN button for some reason, and this won't work unless you use the RED button.