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Palm ate my Dell PC

Lawsuit claims HotSyncing too hot for PC mobos

Palm has been hit with a lawsuit alleging that its HotSync synchronisation system fries certain PC motherboards.

The suit itself claims the HotSync process "damages or destroys the motherboards on certain PC brands", a statement the legal firm behind the action, the San Francisco-based Pinnacle Law Group, refined to include Dell.

Pinnacle filed the suit on behalf of two people, Melissa Connelly and Laurence Stanton, which suggests to us that their Dell PC has been fritzed somehow and they're blaming Palm. Pinnacle is seeking Class Action status for the case, so the company is obviously hoping others will come forward and potentially validate what looks to us like a pretty ropy claim.

After all, might the fault not lie with their Dell PC? It's not hard to imagine the background to the case. A PC fries and tech-support claims its not the manufacturer's fault but the Palm that's recently been connected to the system.

It's hard to see how serial or USB Palm devices could toast a mobo. Mind you, it's hard to see how Dell - or anyone else for that matter - could ship a mobo so easily zapped by the voltages on a serial or USB line.

Pinnacle claims the problem exists in a number of Palm devices and "it's more than an isolated problem". It's certainly not something we've come across before. Similar motherboard trouble has usually been traced to the board or the chipset its based on.

Palm has yet to respond to the case, and we await the company's comment with interest. ®

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