Database Users

60 Day old Orange M3100 DEAD

I bought my Orange M3100 about 60 days ago and it has been working well until today. Last night I plugged it in to get charged and this morning I noticed that my alarm didn't go off. When I looked at the phone I saw that the charge light on the phone was red; I had never seen it red befor. When I tried to turn on the phone....Nothing, I tried to do a soft reset, hard reset, remove the battery and the sim card put them all back in....still nothing.
I tried hooking it up to the computer, car charger, wall charger and still nothing. The only time i get anything is when i plug it into power and even then the only thing i get is a red LED light at the top of the phone.
Does anybody have any ideas as to how to fix it??
I really appreciate any help as I paid $575 for this phone 2 months ago.
Thanks,
David

bigtal said:
I bought my Orange M3100 about 60 days ago and it has been working well until today. Last night I plugged it in to get charged and this morning I noticed that my alarm didn't go off. When I looked at the phone I saw that the charge light on the phone was red; I had never seen it red befor. When I tried to turn on the phone....Nothing, I tried to do a soft reset, hard reset, remove the battery and the sim card put them all back in....still nothing.
I tried hooking it up to the computer, car charger, wall charger and still nothing. The only time i get anything is when i plug it into power and even then the only thing i get is a red LED light at the top of the phone.
Does anybody have any ideas as to how to fix it??
I really appreciate any help as I paid $575 for this phone 2 months ago.
Thanks,
David
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There have been other instances of this problem. I had it once and it eventually came back after lots of fiddling. The last thing I did was to leave the battery out for half an hour - whether it was this that corrected fault I don't know. The issue ssems to be around the battery or circuit that monitors battery. I've not heard a definitive solution other that time!!
Edit: Also not unique to Hermes - seen this on several other phones PDA or otherwise.
Mike

Thanks for responding. I will try that now and let you know if it worked.
**Keeping my fingures crossed**

This happened to a wizard. really frustrating. I just had to exchange. But my m3100 ha sissues charging. sometimes when I plug it in it will behave like it is not plugged in. I fiddle with the plug and wiggle it and nothihng. let it sit and then on comes the charge light...but then some times it goes out. really wonky and scary cause I too paide 650 for my hermes and can't ecahnge it with my provider

Well I waited only 30 min and that didn't work...I will try 2 hours and hope it fixes the problem....

bigtal said:
Well I waited only 30 min and that didn't work...I will try 2 hours and hope it fixes the problem....
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Darn!!
Curiously had this exact issue with a cheap office mobile a few weeks ago. Nothing would work. As it was chaep I took it apart- nothing loose or such like, put it back together and worked straight off. Not that I'm suggesting you try that!
I still think it will come good but what a frustrating wait. One post I saw was from someone whose TyTN never charged from the day he got it. How's your warranty/guarantee situation?
Mike

Well I am in the US and I bought it from a guy in the UK. I have sent him an email but didn't get a response. I am not sure if Orange in the UK will honor the warranty. As I said it is only 60 days old.
It is very weird. I think I will go to my local Cingular store and try a new battery, maybe that will help. I would rather it be a battery issue than something with the phone itself.

bigtal said:
Well I am in the US and I bought it from a guy in the UK. I have sent him an email but didn't get a response. I am not sure if Orange in the UK will honor the warranty. As I said it is only 60 days old.
It is very weird. I think I will go to my local Cingular store and try a new battery, maybe that will help. I would rather it be a battery issue than something with the phone itself.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sounds like a good idea. (guy in the UK - not a scotsman I hope!!)
Check this link. I know he's talking about car charger but the bit about having charger plugged in whilst soft re-setting might be interesting. Second last post page one:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=277742&highlight=reset
EDIT Just tried having mine plugged into charger and removed battery. Light instantly goes red. Suggests your problem most likely battery and not device. Might be worth trying also taking battery in and out whilst connected to charger.
Mike

Mike - Thank you for your help in this issue and the suggestions....looks like we are getting closer to a solution.
I don't have my wall charger here at work but i connected it to the PC USB cable while the battery was OUT, then I poped the battery in and the red light changed to Amber to indicate it is charging. The phone powered up after a soft reset. The battery shows 0% charge even though it was plugged in all of last night. It now seems to be charging, I will wait to see if the battery holds the charge or not.
Now I don't know if the problem is with the battery, charger, or phone
I guess I will be able to narrow it down in a few hours and see if the battery holds a charge.

bigtal said:
Mike - Thank you for your help in this issue and the suggestions....looks like we are getting closer to a solution.
I don't have my wall charger here at work but i connected it to the PC USB cable while the battery was OUT, then I poped the battery in and the red light changed to Amber to indicate it is charging. The phone powered up after a soft reset. The battery shows 0% charge even though it was plugged in all of last night. It now seems to be charging, I will wait to see if the battery holds the charge or not.
Now I don't know if the problem is with the battery, charger, or phone
I guess I will be able to narrow it down in a few hours and see if the battery holds a charge.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Brilliant!!!
Sounds good. so the secret here maybe, taking battery out and in whilst connected to charger or usb?
I'm confident it will hold charge and things will be fine as mine is.
Like I said earlier it takes time and in the end it works fine again, BUT what precisely caused it to work again so we can help others? Because like me you've tried quite a few things.
Mike

I just hope that this will not be a regular issue.
What finally worked was:
1) Remove battery
2) Connect phone to charger or USB (USB in my case)
3) Insert the battery while phone is connected to charger
4) Red light should turn Amber
5) Soft Reset
In the 20 minutes or so that it has been charging the battery went from 0% to 10%

bigtal said:
I just hope that this will not be a regular issue.
What finally worked was:
1) Remove battery
2) Connect phone to charger or USB (USB in my case)
3) Insert the battery while phone is connected to charger
4) Red light should turn Amber
5) Soft Reset
In the 20 minutes or so that it has been charging the battery went from 0% to 10%
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That sounds positive. Well if my experience is anything to go by I've only had it once in 4-5 months.
With your permission I think this may be worth a spot on the Wiki. I'd be happy to use your points above and also Cieplowski's points which appear similar but have a couple of other observations, and put these up as potential answers to this not uncommon issue.
I would not do this until over the weekend just to see how you get on, though I have every confidence.
Mike

I think putting it on the wiki would be an excellent idea.
Right now it is at 70% charge so things are looking good....
I will post back on Monday and let you know how the weekend went
Thanks again,
Dave

Oh noes. I think i have a paperweight :(

Hi guys.
Well, a month or two back i updated my imate kjam to WM6 and absolutely love it. Haven't had a single problem up until now.
Last week i did a soft reset on the phone (after installing phonealarm) and it stuck on the wm6 logo boot screen. tried a number of resets, removing the battery etc. finally had to do a hard reset and reinstall everything.
last night a similar thing happened. the phone had turned itself off in my pocket. so i tried a soft reset and got no luck. tried to do a hard reset, got to the screen where you confirm the reset but decided i'd try a few more things before committing to losing everything again.
now i can't do a thing with it. can't even get to the hard reset menu.
i've tried leaving the battery out overnight, tried resetting whilst it's plugged into the charger, everything i can think of. isn't recognised when plugged into the usb port either.
i'm at a total loss. any help / tips would be greatly appreciated, i'd hate to lose everything on my pda, as i used this thing constantly
one weird thing is that when plugged into the charger, i don't see a LED light up to say it's charging??

mkerr said:
Hi guys.
Well, a month or two back i updated my imate kjam to WM6 and absolutely love it. Haven't had a single problem up until now.
Last week i did a soft reset on the phone (after installing phonealarm) and it stuck on the wm6 logo boot screen. tried a number of resets, removing the battery etc. finally had to do a hard reset and reinstall everything.
last night a similar thing happened. the phone had turned itself off in my pocket. so i tried a soft reset and got no luck. tried to do a hard reset, got to the screen where you confirm the reset but decided i'd try a few more things before committing to losing everything again.
now i can't do a thing with it. can't even get to the hard reset menu.
i've tried leaving the battery out overnight, tried resetting whilst it's plugged into the charger, everything i can think of. isn't recognised when plugged into the usb port either.
i'm at a total loss. any help / tips would be greatly appreciated, i'd hate to lose everything on my pda, as i used this thing constantly
one weird thing is that when plugged into the charger, i don't see a LED light up to say it's charging??
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is it possible that your battery may be flat?
Can you get into bootloader mode?

can't get into bootloader.
if my battery was flat, would the charging LED light up when it was plugged in?
thanks for the reply.

afer doing some more reading, it looks like it might just well be a dead battery.
apparently, wizard / kjam batteries are notorious for requiring the wall charger to get them going again once they're flat. something about needing 1000ma.
i just checked my charger that came with the unit (ebay), and noticed it only put out 850ma. going to grab my brother's jasjam charger and hope to hell it's 5v 1000ma.
fingers crossed.

i had a similar problem, and following a solution on ere somewhere i fixed it, this is done at ur own risk, im nt responsible. unplug the charger from the wall, still plugged into fone(this is to empty charger of any charge thats there) thn unplug fone and dip the end of the lead in water(yes sounds weird i no...) then make sure theres nt an excess on the end and plug into wizard adn thn the wall, should be red light and then after a few mins orange - charging hope it works

hehe
just letting everyone know it's now working again
didn't need to do any water dipping.
just plugged in brother's 5v 1000ma charger and it's now charging

OMG !! Good Goooooooshhhh
evilkern said:
i had a similar problem, and following a solution on ere somewhere i fixed it, this is done at ur own risk, im nt responsible. unplug the charger from the wall, still plugged into fone(this is to empty charger of any charge thats there) thn unplug fone and dip the end of the lead in water(yes sounds weird i no...) then make sure theres nt an excess on the end and plug into wizard adn thn the wall, should be red light and then after a few mins orange - charging hope it works
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hi
hope ur serious about ur method,well sry to say....... never heard of such a method before, I'm not making any fun of u or plz don't take me wrong , I don't mean any harm.
I just can't believe it cud happen like that,after all water dip will certainly short circuit and burn it.
well, just for my knowledge, have u ever tried this urself ?

zabardast_1 said:
hi
hope ur serious about ur method,well sry to say....... never heard of such a method before, I'm not making any fun of u or plz don't take me wrong , I don't mean any harm.
I just can't believe it cud happen like that,after all water dip will certainly short circuit and burn it.
well, just for my knowledge, have u ever tried this urself ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I thought exactly the same when i read it first, but since my phone wasnt turning on, gave it a go and it worked! As i say sounds odd but apparently its somthing to do with the circuits controlling the charge, if theres not enough power then obviously they wont work, so this way does...sounds odd but works! I just had a quick search and cant find the original thread, it was an alternative to the 9 volt battery solution

evilkern said:
I thought exactly the same when i read it first, but since my phone wasnt turning on, gave it a go and it worked! As i say sounds odd but apparently its something to do with the circuits controlling the charge, if theres not enough power then obviously they wont work, so this way does...sounds odd but works! I just had a quick search and cant find the original thread, it was an alternative to the 9 volt battery solution
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
well than I must say u got a brave heart,If had that choice ,i wud have thought 10 times and still said No
As u said that u had gone for it and did and were successful,do believe u now. In that case its very valuable information thanks

So your saying to dip the end of the charger plug into water?? It sounds like really all you would be doing is cleaning off the terminals of dust or debris that could be impeding a connection of some sort.

C500 not starting

i've got my c500 from a friend.
the problem is that it doesn't start at all.
i tried the hard reset method, i tried pressing the camera button and then inserting the usb cable and nothing.
this is my first spv phone so i really dont know the deal with them...
can this phone charge from usb? or do i need a wall socket charger? (i dont have one).
my first real problem is how to start the darn thing the phone worked great a couple of months ago, i dont know what he did to it in this time, but i really want it to work again, so, if anybody has any ideas, i'll be glad to try them out.
thank you for reading.

Is jump starting the battery an option ??
If the Typhoon is anything like the wizard ( 8125 )- sounds like the battery is dead. Unfortunately - dead to the point where it is not strong enough to even start the phone.
There are a few "jump start" options - which I can direct you to, but someone with more knowledge on the typhoon battery will need to respond first.
I am not comfortable giving advise on a model I have little knowledge of. We have an audiovox smt 5600 - but have not really done anything with it, other than update the rom.
If someone can confirm that the procedure is safe - I can copy the post so you can give it a shot.

Yep, sounds like a dead battery to me too. Usually that only means that the phone has to be charged a few hours extra before it wakes up (during the first few hours of charging the phone may not even light up, just leave it plugged in anyway). The phone charges fine over USB, no wall charger required but it takes a little longer.
You can get new batteries off ebay for £5 if it is completely dead.

i dont really know what that means...
this is what i did...
i measured the Volts of the battery with a volt-meter and it showed me that it was dead.
i took a moto e398 and wire-connected the battery to the phone and i left it to charge. it did...i now have some volts in my battery...the problem is that it doesnt start at all!
not even the little led blinks...
i really have no ideas...my friend said that the left soft key doesn't work so good so i'm thinking that the 'right& left soft keys + start button' tehnique wont work so good...
i'll give you all the details you need.. i just need to know if anything can be done to make this baby work again...

[Q] [HELP] Motorola Battery Question Mark Workaround/ Hack?

I need help. I messed up my Droid 2 restoring a backup and the battery died during SBF. So I did the Macgiver trick where you connect an old stripped usb wire to the battery so that the phone can be tricked into booting up and being flashed. Since then I've had a question mark in my battery icon. It wont read that battery or the battery that I've just purchased and I get the "Invalid Battery" message and the battery wont charge in the phone. Both batteries are official Motorola. I can't send the phone back as its not under warranty. So I have a few questions.
Is the some sort of workaround/ fix for this? Motorola put software on the Droid 2 since Froyo that reads whether or not a battery is official Motorola product. Can the battery software be hacked/ deleted so that I can use my battery as normal?

Wow, we have this same exact situation like a month ago, and since then my fiancee still uses her broken phone . We did the Macgyver trick also and we got the battery with the question mark. We even bought a new battery and it still shows it, tried reflashing with a fully charged battery and nothing changed. We also tried clearing battery stats none of it is working. If anyone knows anything about this problem please let us know. If you get an answer that cures your phone please please please let us know about it. I actually posted your question on Yahoo! Answers since it was the same exact problem that we had and if anyone answers we will post the reply on here.
Thanks a lot and good luck!

I've got the exact same problem. All I did was purchase one of those external chargers so that one battery is always charged. It is annoying, yes, but its not too bad. I'm also looking forward to see if there is a solution, but I doubt it. We probably all fried the contacts on the phone, but we'll see.
Sent from my DROID2 using XDA App

hey, yeah we did the same thing, we bought the second battery yesterday but i have a question, did you try flashing it again with the new battery in? I was wondering if it would work but i want to see if it will before clearing one more time my fiancee's cellphone since theres a fish game that may be lost if we do that.
Thanks a lot.
Brandon

I've SBF'd multiple times since then, and the question mark is still there. I don't think theres a way around it, unfortunately. Personally, it's not really a big deal, but it may be for you.

I just really hate it because I have no clue when my battery dies.

Never had the issue, but one thing comes to mind..why not root, install clockwork recovery and then clear the battery cache?

jediman said:
Never had the issue, but one thing comes to mind..why not root, install clockwork recovery and then clear the battery cache?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
They said they already tried that.
What exactly is this Macgiver trick? If you have a link, or some info on how it's I might be able to shed some light on this for you guys

The D2 battery is 3.7 volts; USB is 5. You probably blew out the A/D channel used to measure battery level.

Smartzkid said:
The D2 battery is 3.7 volts; USB is 5. You probably blew out the A/D channel used to measure battery level.
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Click to collapse
Ah, I see so they're hooking up the USB straight to the phone...found it after a little searching...
But i'm curious, wouldn't that only happen if the wires ended up touching the other two terminals, and not just the outer (+) and (-) ones?

Will getting a new oem battery work?

No, replacing the battery will not work if you messed up when connecting the spliced USB charger + and - to the wrong terminals in the phone.

I have exactly same problem. I sliced the usb cable to revive my Droid X when the battery died during sbfing. Now my phone survived but Im stuck with question mark on battery icon. I flashed reflahsed and flashed again but no luck. wiped batt stat but no luck. Tried new OEM battery, no luck.. Put the batt in the freezer for 10min but no luck. I ran out of all the possible solution.
Now I just got the external stand along batt charger from ebay with 2 extra batts. I just carry extra battery since I dont know when the phone will go dead..
I would love to find out if someone can fix this issue. I still got 6 mo to go before I can upgrade.

I HAVE A SOLUTION (worked for me):
When doing the "Macgyver Hack", I jammed the USB wires into the battery. This pushed the metal spring terminals out. After that, the battery terminal springs don't all touch the connectors in the phone.
Take a needle, and carefully pull the battery's metal springs toward each other.
This worked for me.
Also, try this:
Remove battery and unplug phone. Plug phone in (without battery), then turn on (some phones will turn on without a battery). After the logo comes up, insert the battery. This made my phone recognize the battery and get into the OS.
Once the battery is recognized and you can boot to the OS, root the phone and get the battery calibration app (and use it).
I have a Motorola Defy, and used the Macgyver hack, then had the question mark problem for days before figuring this out.

jodaboda, Thank you a ton for that. I've been searching and trying out things to fix this and this is the closest I've come.
Although the Droid 2 doesn't boot up without a battery, I've had to the Macgyver Hack to get it to boot. The battery calibration app reads 100% charged when I am using the Macgyver Hack and is showing that the battery is charging. I'll tell you if it works once my battery is charged and I calibrate.
I wasn't able to get it to work. I think there is potential but my phone eventually died and it wasn't able to fix it. That app can measure the volts correctly tho, which means we should be able to get the battery working again somehow.

jodaboda said:
I HAVE A SOLUTION (worked for me):
When doing the "Macgyver Hack", I jammed the USB wires into the battery. This pushed the metal spring terminals out. After that, the battery terminal springs don't all touch the connectors in the phone.
Take a needle, and carefully pull the battery's metal springs toward each other.
This worked for me.
Also, try this:
Remove battery and unplug phone. Plug phone in (without battery), then turn on (some phones will turn on without a battery). After the logo comes up, insert the battery. This made my phone recognize the battery and get into the OS.
Once the battery is recognized and you can boot to the OS, root the phone and get the battery calibration app (and use it).
I have a Motorola Defy, and used the Macgyver hack, then had the question mark problem for days before figuring this out.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't have a nan back up from recovery but have read on another thread that you can also fix this by doing a restore of a back up through the recovery from a time before you have had the battery ? issue.. several people have also mentioned that it worked for them.. in my case I don't have a back up before this issue so I cannot confirm.

my phone died noooo

bumping in case anyone has a solution?
please. pretty please.
tried methods above, phone wont boot unless plugged in... i don't care i can't tell what % its at, but i do care it wont boot off battery power.

Tried 2 Ways with no Luck.
1. Power button + volume button down Long press less than a min. ?
2. Plug in for a day or more. ?
Gotto try jadaboda's tip.

Theheroitsme said:
Tried 2 Ways with no Luck.
1. Power button + volume button down Long press less than a min. ?
2. Plug in for a day or more. ?
Gotto try jadaboda's tip.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
try a fastboot cable or a spare battery charger
sd_shadow's [Collection] of Links for:
Droid 2 (a955)
Sent from my XT1254 using XDA Labs

[Q] No sign of life at all

I have HD2, had an android installed, everything was working perfectly until I've bought a cheap chinese recharger, at first android started to lag, tried to restart the phone and it cound't get past HTC logo after MALGR screen, I couldn't even get into multicolor screen to do a hard reset, simply VOL DOWN and POWER buttons didn't do nothing(in MALGR vol DOWN AND UP were working perfectly) and now it doesn't even boot at all...have no sign of life.
Does it mean my phone is bricked or maybe there is a chance it's a battery.

I'd start all over, HardSPL, rooting, reflashing, EVERYTHING (Maybe Task29? Never tried it before but its supposed to help) - I'm not a dev myself, but thats the first thing i would try to do - sorry I cant tell you what exactly is going wrong - maybe start by charging via USB afterwards

Could be a duff charger. Do you have a usb lead? You could try charging of the PC to see if you can get some line in it!

is the charger just a mains battery charger or usb ?,
only ask as i had to get just a battery charger from ebay as my usb on my phone has broke so i couldnt charge it via usb lead, so i bought 2 mains battery chargers and 2 extra batterys ,
it sounds like its just a dead battery, buy a new one from ebay as they are cheap enough, and hopefully that should work .

First thanxx for responding, guys!
I was "bending" and "torturing" the phone and the battery for a whole day and a half night, and realized that all I have is a bad luck - literally.
But at least it's not bricked, but it's pretty normal, because I did nothing to trigger that.
It's definitely a battery that was completely dead, so I just cut some old charger and charged it with my fingers holding wires against that little metal rectangles..
but that wasn't the end of my troubles..
now the pc just doesn't recognize the phone most of the times in the HSPL bootloader(sometimes it does, but still it won't flash or do anything), I have this active sync installed..
later I'll try at my friends place..
It's almost two years I have my HD2, so probably its life sources are just finished, but I won't give up until I'll try everything..
I'll let you know the results

Finally after a lot of efforts it's reanimated!
Gotta drink some bourbon for that! Cheers everyone!

imauser said:
Finally after a lot of efforts it's reanimated!
Gotta drink some bourbon for that! Cheers everyone!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
May want to change your sig then