Hi,
I got my Orange SPV M3100 on Friday and already i've noticed what i think is a hardware fault. Not a big fault and i totally love the phone (Skype over wifi an encrypted connection works perfectly), but i'm worried as the phone is only a day old.
The first few times i opened the slide out keyboard I thought i noticed a nice blue keybourd backlight come on. I say thought as i can't find any reference to it in the manual. However whatever i now do, i can't get it to come back on. I've installed a few applications, but i doubt they would have caused it to stop working.
I don't suppose anyone else out there could tell me under what situations the backlight should come on (or if one exists), so that i can test it, and if it doesn't come on, i can phone up and get a replacement sent out. Its not a big problem and i can still use the phone, but you don't expect hardware to die after only a day.
Thanks in advance for any help you can give me.
Neil
there's a small hole in the top right of the keyboard. This is a light sensor. So, if light's on your keyboar led will be off, and if it's dark your keyboar led will be on.
you have to press a button too before it comes on iv found.
there is a setting for it as well somewhere to turn it on
Thanks for the advice guys, but the keyboard still doesn't light up if i open an application that asks for text to be entered and then slide out the keyboard in the dark and then press a key. Looks like my light sensor has died. I've just phoned Orange and they are sending me a replacement for between 6 and 10pm today (what fantastic service!).
Same issue over here
Hello I am experiencing the same problem over here.
It worked for the person who sold it to me and now it does not anymore.
Do you know if this is an HW or SW issue ?
Any other cases around?
TX
seems I have the same problem. i'm on orange and the light was working now it doesn't.
EDIT: no i dont have a problem. I went into a dark dark room and then typed something and it worked. if i cover over the "light sensor" with my finger and press a button, it doesnt work.
Indeed
Indeed I had a wrong interpretation of the function of the sensor:
The sensor works in the following way:
If it is dark AND there's a key pressed AND the setting in "Settings" is set to enable sensor THEN keyboard backlight is turned on if no light in evironment.
If the setting in "Settings" is set to enable sensor THEN keyboard backlight is turned on AS SOONS AS you press a key.
A little dumb from my point of view: if I slide the keyboard in the dark, is it to look at it in the obscurity? The simple sliding should turn it on by night.
luke.a.jones said:
you have to press a button too before it comes on iv found.
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Click to collapse
I've noticed that the backlight on mine (Vario 2, it's a red backlight... urgh) doesn't come on all the time if it's dark or dusk-level, which is really annoying. Sometimes hitting the tab key brings it into life, but sometimes it just doesn't come on at all.
One of those 'temperamental', 'great idea in theory' designs methinks.
I also found out that if the turning screen backlight off on inactivity is disabled, then every time I slide out the keyboard, its backlight is turned on.
Related
Hi,
When i first setup my Exec using personal mode, the answer and hangup buttons on the hinge woudl illuminate when a call came in (when the unit is closed like a laptop). Now i am using it in corporate mode, the LED's don't illuminate. They only illuminate when the screen is rotated into PDA mode.
I am assuming this is a reg hack. Does anybody know what it is? or has anybody else got this problem?
Cheers
Paul
They don't illuminate when the device is closed, only when you have the screen open or facing outwards.
hollinshead said:
They don't illuminate when the device is closed, only when you have the screen open or facing outwards.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And very annoying it is too - especially when both buttons look so similar when not illuminated. This must be hackable?
This has got to be one of the most annoying features of the exec.
Also i have found that if the device is closed, MSVC does not recognise anything you say when activated via BT.
I have never really played with the device in personal mode as the GUI is bollox so cannot comment on if the buttons light up or not when the device is closed. But what i do know is that when it is closed the screen is switched off as if the device is in standby mode, maybe this has something to do with it.
I try to memorize the position of the green button in relation to how I always hold the phone and feel for it like a Braille board. So far I get it 75% of the time.
is anybody using the 'Personal' install on their exec? can they confirm if the LED's are illuminated or not when the phone rings when it is closed?
Cheers
Paul
Someone who's actually opened the Universal may be able to confirm this, but I suspect that the answer/hang up buttons on the hinge don't actually have LED's. I believe that they simply use the light from the screen's backlight to illuminate. As near as I can tell, they're only on when the screen backlight is on.
If that is the case, then there probably won't be a way to get them to illuminate when the case is closed, unless someone can figure out how to get the backlight to stay on when the case is closed (which would also be a big battery waster)
Brett
Yup, i can confirm this. I've just removed the cover on the top of the hinge. There is one wrapped cable coming out of the base at the right hand side. This then splits off, the main part goes up into the pivot hole, and a thinner wrapped wire brakes away from this and attaches to a small pcb which has the buttons and the LED's mounted on it.
Yes, the buttons are only illuminated when the backlight is on, but the brightness of the buttons remains constant even when the backlight brightness is turned down.
Cheers
Paul
As far as I see it, even if the backlight has to come on that wouldn't be a problem - after all, the phone is waking up in order to ring. I also often open up the screen slightly to see who's calling, then close it and press the answer button - therefore switching on the backlight initially would actually save time!
Maybe somebody knows of a "wake-on-ring" hack :lol:
I've just noticed it with my new Qtek 9000 and I was very worried, because I thought my device is broken.
But now I know this is "normal", but it's very annoying :?
I wish I had this problem! .. since yesterday my JJ seems to have those lights permanently on even when I switch the device off
Guys, I've made a program that will keep the hinge leds on all the time.
Actually this is an accidental discovery for a program I'm working on for this thread:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/viewtopic.php?t=37201&highlight=
Those guys want to be able to use the keys and phone functions with the lid closed.
I'll post more in that thread, but basically closing the lid puts the hardware keys in a special state such that they are not responsive at all until the device is woken internally (eg by an incoming phone call). Actually, can someone confirm that the hinge keys work when a call comes in but the lid is closed. I presume they must, since they don't do anything else!
So, the hinge lights are on when the screen is on. But the screen is switched off when the lid reaches about 10 degrees to closing. But the hinge lights can be kept on nevertheless
Grem: are you using TCPMP or a similar program to play music etc in the background? Anything that tries to keep the phone "on" when the lid is closed will keep the hinge lights on.
V
Hi vijay555
I've actually just done a complete cold re-boot and reflashed to the original i-mate factory ROM to see if that would help, then came here in search of anyone having a similar issue.
It started yesterday, i suspect I've had an internal meltdown somewhere, plugged it into sync, noticed a few minutes later it had randomly done a warm reset and appeared stuck on the blue i-mate screen, picked it up and the sucker was hotter than an AMD without a heatsink! I suspect it's warranty time for this unit
Grem, that's worrying. What were you doing at the time? What brand/operator etc is the phone? It might be worth posting batch numbers or whatever for people that have this kind of problem so we can identify if some are worse then others.
V
It's an i-mate straight from the wholesaler no particular operator. Had it a couple of months, have seen other reports on the forum here which sound perhaps similar in that they've overheated.
This is really srtange. I thought that when improving a device engineers are supposed to take the good and add more features rather than remove essential features. I had a Cingular 8125 which was replaced by 8535. The Softkeys on hte 8125 are Backlit so itis easy to see in the dark, while on the 8525 the Softkeys no longer have any backlighting. The only keys that are Backlit on the 8525 are the Phone On(Green) and Off(Red) keys. Called Cingular Data Devices Support and they said that the keys are supposed to be backlit. But when I called HTC they said that the keys are painted. It is nice to know that Cingular is on top of this. Even their Technical people don't know!!! WOW amazing. While on the subject of Backlighting, the keyboard on the 8125 has better lighting as the numbers were lit in Red and the letter were lit in White. On 8525 everything is Blue, really hard to figure out. Maybe someone out there has an explanation for all this.
The keyboard definitely has a backlight on all the keys. What you may be experiencing is that the device comes defaulted with the keyboard only kicking on the backlight based on a 'light sensor'. I've disabled this sensor in the 'settings...buttons...backlight...(uncheck the box) on "enable keyboard backlight auto sensor". I found that even in dark settings the backlight sensor would not kick on the keyboard backlight properly so now the keyboard automatically lights up by just touching a key on the keyboard. Hope that helps!
The Softkeys don't have any Backlight!!!
My main issue is that why does the 8525 not have any backlight on the Softkeys (on the front of the phone, around the D-pad)???
Sorry...I too do not have backlights on those keys but hadn't really missed it since I mostly access those by feel.
dwcliff703 said:
the device comes defaulted with the keyboard only kicking on the backlight based on a 'light sensor'. I've disabled this sensor in the 'settings...buttons...backlight...(uncheck the box) on "enable keyboard backlight auto sensor".
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No fair...the 8525 doesn't give this option.
It's the 8525 that does give these options. The 8125 doesn't.
dwcliff703 said:
It's the 8525 that does give these options. The 8125 doesn't.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry, looked in the wrong spot. I found it! As for the 8125, it doesn't even have the light sensor, let alone the option to enable one.
dwcliff703 said:
The keyboard definitely has a backlight on all the keys. What you may be experiencing is that the device comes defaulted with the keyboard only kicking on the backlight based on a 'light sensor'. I've disabled this sensor in the 'settings...buttons...backlight...(uncheck the box) on "enable keyboard backlight auto sensor". I found that even in dark settings the backlight sensor would not kick on the keyboard backlight properly so now the keyboard automatically lights up by just touching a key on the keyboard. Hope that helps!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the tip... I was read to throw it out untill I read this
Thanks
Thanks dwcliff703 for your post, even though it was a while ago! I thought my keyboard button detector thingy was messed up or something and didn't know why it worked some of the time!
Got my Sprint Mogul a couple of days ago and having a tough time with the keyboard backlight not working.
I've done my searching and found that some people got their keyboard backlight to work by unchecking the option in Settings->Buttons->Backlight.
This didn't work for me.
Some people recommended just hitting a few keys and the backlight should work.
This didn't work for me either.
I'm looking at what just may be bad hardware and will have to replace the phone. That keyboard is damn hard to see in even the best low-light conditions. Forget about typing in the dark.
Does anyone know of methods that will force the keyboard to turn on so that I can test it?
unchecking the auto sensor option like you did should force it to come on whenever the keyboard is out, if it doesnt come on within a few seconds of sliding out id say get a replacement phone
I agree with defaultdotxbe...if unchecking the autosensor box isn't forcing it to be always on, I'd be worried.
I've left the autosensor activated, and my keyboard light works, but I must admit that it sometimes doesn't go on when I think it should. The sensor seems to be calibrated so that it has got to be pretty dark for the silly thing to decide to light up!
Having said that, someone on one of these forums came up with a pretty neat trick. If know I want to force the keyboard to be lit, I just slide it out about a quarter of an inch. The sensor is still hidden under the body of the phone at this point, and it thinks it's completely in the dark. The keyboard always lights up at that point. Once it's lit, then I slide the keyboard out the rest of the way. Brilliant, huh? You might wanna try that just to see if it makes any difference.
Good luck!
Thanks, peeps. I had the same problem with the keyboard light and was getting extremely frustrated. I tried the sensor trick (opening the keyboard 1/4) and, viola, it worked!
Walrus44
I also had the problem and after lots of searching I found out it was because I had the screen backlight turned all the way down. I moved it up to the first notch and now it works just fine even with the sensor.
Walrus44 said:
Thanks, peeps. I had the same problem with the keyboard light and was getting extremely frustrated. I tried the sensor trick (opening the keyboard 1/4) and, viola, it worked!
Walrus44
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This trick also fixes the orientation issues when turning on and it is in landscape rather than portrait.
I have a new Sprint Mogul with the latest rom update. Every time that i slide to access the keyboard, there is a 1-2 second delay before the backlight illuminates. I unchecked the backlight sensor and no resolve. What happens is that the phone rotates the screen first and once that is completed, then the backlight turns on. This can be proven by pressing the screen rotate button on the htc home icon. If the phone is already in landscape mode, then the backlight has no delay. Is there a way that this can be modified to decrease the delay. Maybe have the light turn on first, then have the screen rotate to landscape?
now this would be nice...i feel like i switch to landscape and then wait to type anything. i looked around and couldnt find anything myself but hopefully someone can find something
Good question.....I'm interested too as that delay annoys the crap out of me, especially at night.
If you flip open your 6800 keyboard and take a look at the top of the keyboard between the Function LED and the right soft key you'll see a white circle. That's a light sensor. That's whats responsible for deciding if the keybpard backlight comes on or not. It takes one second to engage though. There may be some kind of registry edit but otherwise I don't know of anyway to adjust the delay.
-Adam
k3an said:
If you flip open your 6800 keyboard and take a look at the top of the keyboard between the Function LED and the right soft key you'll see a white circle. That's a light sensor. That's whats responsible for deciding if the keybpard backlight comes on or not. It takes one second to engage though. There may be some kind of registry edit but otherwise I don't know of anyway to adjust the delay.
-Adam
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have that sensor turned off, because that makes the delay even longer sometimes.
the sensor doesn't work, it's well documented in these forums.
I'm sure many people here agree that it's very annoying when you're speaking on the phone and your ear accidentally opens up windows and programs or even worse - ends the call!
Surely one of you very clever chaps can make an app that uses the light sensor so that the Diamond knows you are speaking and therefore locks the screen.
It would help so much,
S.
The clever people already did it but because we, normal people, are too lazy to search through, can´t see it
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=425650
...and this is just one example
I'm aware of this software but how does it work within phonecalls? I'm not talking about when the phone rings, I mean post-unlock during the phonecall...
read the post man, it`s not very large and you will find it like I did
The program doesn't do what I describe above, although the idea is brought up a few times in the thread. It can switch off the screen but i'm talking about the light sensor doing this automatically...
The Diamond already turns off the screen when you hold it to your ear (by using the light sensor)...
I thought the diamond shut off the screen on speaking/connecting the call? Plus, it doesn't turn back on without pressing the power button...
the light sensor is not sensitive enough for this use.
:-( Damn! That's a shame.
Blazeitup123 said:
the light sensor is not sensitive enough for this use.
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Click to collapse
Interesting, the light sensor of my phone can do this. Initially, the screen turned off whenever I picked up a call. I found it annoying because many a times, I need to use the screen to key in some numbers (pin, a/c numbers, whatever). Then, I used Adv. Conf. to turn this feature off. And I found it even more annoying as I actually hanged up twice by my ear accidentally touching "end call" button. Now, I turned this back on again.... still annoying but less....
I think your light sensor should be able to do this. Maybe you can check this feature on Adv. Conf. to see if it's turned off by accident.
The only things that were turned off in adv.config were 'sleep during call' and 'fast sleep'. I have switched these on and the screen does switch off but is this due to the light sensor? I now use S2U2's feature to switch the screen off as it's faster (screen switches off on connection)...
But, with all these options, I also find it annoying when I have to key in my pin etc. That's why utilising the light sensor so when you take the phone away from your face it switches back on, would be great.
this is really funny! some ppl want this thing off and some ppl want this thing on.
for the record:
the diamond is by default switching off the screen after a few seconds. when i said the diamond i meant the light sensor.
now, from the history:
long, long time ago (about 3-4 months ) the devs here were trying to switch off this feature because if you have to dial one more number or want to switch yr speaker you'll face a black screen (just touch the middle/enter button and you are back in business). some said it is the light sensor, some said it is a timer.....mostly they tried by registry tweaks, don't even remember who was the first to succeed but it was a great victory ...hahahaha
today we have a few options. one of them (the most popular one i think) is schap's advanced configuration. another was is the famous twaek 3.2 (today is 5?).
on the last month we have a few ROMs that already had this tweak built in. i think our friend here has one of those ROMs of them (because he ha sit tweaked already).
m8 i think you can switch this option back to default (switch off the screen) with the advanced config tool.
this one is an example (i think this one was the first):
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=2278799&postcount=1-tweak no 8.
you can also look at this thread:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=406151&highlight=screen+call
or this one:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=406094&highlight=screen+call
one more:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=415356&highlight=screen+call
and so on ....everything a search away (i used "screen+call")
Thanks for the post, my issue wasn't how to get the screen off during a call. It was what causes it to go off and if it is the light sensor, could an app be made so that when the phone is taken away from your face, the screen switches on again.
I agree. I would love it to switch off as default, but also TURN ON when I pull the phone away from my face... I can't understand why this is not the default behaviour. I have some time later on this month I will look at this more carefully and possibly program the solution.
Sprint Diamond
I agree that would be great. My screen on my Sprint Diamond has never turned off during a phone call. I didn't even know that was a feature on some diamonds until this thread. I have tried making a call and then covering the light sensor but nothing happens. So, here is my vote for the ability to get a screen that turns on and off as you put it to your ear and take it away.
just work exactly the same as iphone and the problem will be solved.......