Can't sync using certain mini-USB cables

[oofangus]

Howdy,

Due to the proliferation of helpful gadgets that I now carry with me on the road, my brief case has swelled to the point where I'm undertaking some spring-cleaning to consolidate the miles of cabling tucked away in various compartments. At the top of the list are USB cables - regular full-sized USB, mini-USB, two-headed mini-USB for powering hard drives, micro-USB, proprietary chargers with USB on one end... You've been there.

So far, I've been able to accommodate most of my devices with a single mini-USB cable and mini-to-micro adapter - with one exception: my HTC Touch. The good news is that I can charge my Touch using any mini-USB cable. I cannot, however, sync the Touch using some cables.

Therefore, the purpose of this post is to determine why my HTC Touch doesn't sync with some seemingly-normal USB-to-mini cables.

Before itemizing the cables and their behavior, I'll mention that I've tried the same tests on 2 different HTC Touch MP6900 (from U.S. Cellular) on 2 different computers (XP Pro). My wife and I each have the same model phone, and each sync with our own laptops.

In testing various cables, I find:

Cable                           Charge Sync
------------------------------- ------ ----
Came with HTC Touch             yes    yes
Came with Touch cradle          yes    yes
Came with Canon camera          yes    yes
Came with external HDD #1       yes    yes
Came with external HDD #2       yes    no
Brand new 3rd party cable       yes    no
Random cable in my drawer       yes    no

All of these cables work with other mini-USB devices (cameras, hard drives). The behavior only differs when syncing with my Touch.

Per suggestions on other threads, I've tried checking and un-checking the 'Enabled advanced network functionality' setting on the phone. This has no effect on the problematic cables.

This problem also persists:

o After soft reset
o After hard reset
o After OS upgrade (WM 6.0 > 6.1)

From all of this I conclude that the problem is with the cables, not the phone (tried it on two phones), the computer (tried it on two computers), or the WM USB connection settings (tried it both ways). Considering that all of these cables work fine with my other devices, my question is:

QUESTION: Why can I not sync my HTC Touch with Windows XP / ActiveSync 4.5 using certain, otherwise normal USB-to-mini cables?

Thank you, in advance, for your time.

-Michael