Database Users

Endless reboot...

Hey guys,
I've been lurking here ever since I got the incredible. Unfortunately, this is the first time I needed to post and it's bad news. My Incredible is rebooting more than 20 times a day, and I mean that not counting the reboot loop it gets stuck in. I have wiped the phone clean, started to go through the start up wizard, and it rebooted there, so I know it's not an bad app. It has rebooted randomly, though not as bad, before I rooted, so it's not that. I live in southern california and I get good service at home so I don't think it's the same problem as those incidents in south carolina. Does anyone have an idea what it could be? I'm running out of solutions and ready to just drop the phone, eat the ETF and go to sprint. Thanks in advance for the help.
Kiyoshi

I would flash it back to stock take it to verizon and show them what it is doing and have them send you another one, I brought mine back for the unresponsive screen issue and they said it was going to take three weeks for me to get another one but I received it 4 days later. so before switching to sprint and paying a big ETF I would try the above first. but if all else fails to ease the pain a little and not have to pay such a big ETF get a crappy verizon flip phone that you can activate on the line use it for a day or two then cancel your account. you will only pay a 175.00 ETF vs a 350.00 ETF. just a little round about way to "stick it" to the man.

Also, does downgrading and unrooting get rid of the wireless-n mod? Just downgraded and was in the wizard and right when I tried to connect to my network, it rebooted.

That's funny I just flashed it back to stock so I could do that. The problem is that I bought it from best buy in april and did not buy the extended warranty ( of course not, damn waste of money). IIRC, verizon does not honor warranties bought from a different store, correct?

twisted origin said:
Also, does downgrading and unrooting get rid of the wireless-n mod? Just downgraded and was in the wizard and right when I tried to connect to my network, it rebooted.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
if you reflash the stock ROM it wipes everything including root and wireless N, only reflash stock if you want to return it to the store otherwise you will have to go through the sd card root process again.
twisted origin said:
That's funny I just flashed it back to stock so I could do that. The problem is that I bought it from best buy in april and did not buy the extended warranty ( of course not, damn waste of money). IIRC, verizon does not honor warranties bought from a different store, correct?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am not sure if verizon won't exchange it, I think that there is a year warranty on the phone standard and extended warranty is only good for after the manufacturers warranty runs out. I would check with BB first and if they won't exchange it take it to verizon and see what they say, BB is an authorized verizon dealer so I would imagine that verizon will honor the warranty. but there is only one way to find out. Good Luck.

ok, so I took it to verizon today, and luckily for me it was rebooting away right after the CSR personally factory reset it. I actually was happy it did, too. She was so smug, telling me that I should have been using a task killer and that maybe I didn't factory reset it correctly. She starts it up and was giving me a "haha that's how you do it" look, when it rebooted on her. She battery pulled it, and then it went into a reboot loop on her. Her smug look was replaced by a look of defeat. It was worth the fact that I couldn't get it to stop rebooting for five minutes after that.
I then called 611 and they said they had a replacement for me and that it would be at my doorstep in two days. Evidently, they keep a separate stock for warranty issues. Well anyways, thanks for the help and I'll have an incredible back in my hands soon

Have u tried going into airplane mode and see if it does it? Just curious.
Sent from my ADR6300 using XDA App

Haha I just read Ur last post, I find it funny cuz I work for Verizon also and man u would not believe how many reps say u need a task killer, dumbasses.
Sent from my ADR6300 using XDA App

Yes, keeping it in airplane mode definitely helped. With that in mind, I might have an idea of what happened to my phone and potentially to other phones that have had this problem. I ordered the seidio 1750 batt. when I first got my phone, so I have been using it pretty much since the beginning. As you may know it can get unusually warm when in use. I would frequently use it when I'm at work to listen to podcasts and would keep it on the car charger while in use ( I work at a landfill doing gas monitoring, engineering, etc. so always in my work truck). That is first time I could recall a reboot occurring. I don't know how the internal layout is made up, but perhaps the radio or whatever else related received damage due to overheating. Oh well, already received my new incredible and I now have a battery charger so I will avoid charging and using at the same time. You guys are probably saying "Uh, yeah, of course that will happen, dumbass" but I've never had a problem with my other phones.

my experience trying to return my broken evo [long]

At least my conclusion is that it is broken. If at any point one of you thinks I did something wrong or there is something I can do to fix the issue, feel free to let me know.
I bought my evo sometime last year, I believe around September. I did not purchase sprint's TEP, I was content with the standard warranty and $35 repair fee if the time came. It only took me about two weeks to decide I wanted to root my phone, which I did successfully with unrevoked3. I removed bloatware with titanium backup, used setcpu, etc. and the phone worked great for a long time. I discovered rom manager soon after and tried some roms, including fresh, caulkins, cm6. I stuck with cm612 for a while and I loved it. I always cleared data before a new rom, and once I got used to the clockworkmod interface I used the cache/dalvik clear tools, as well as return the phone to factory specs feature.
Now, for as long as I remember, the phone rebooted itself unexpectedly, although it was very infrequent at first. Until about the beginning of Jan., it rebooted itself only a handful of times. It has progressed to the point where now I can't use it for more than 5 minutes without it rebooting. It will power cycle loop on the evo 4g POST screen, before android even loads. Sometimes, it will do this and stop power cycling, and simply vibrate 5 times and be unresponsive. The only way to stop this loop or the unresponsive state is the take the battery out and re-insert.
I troubleshooted as much as I could, before deciding that the issue was probably hardware related. Using the how to unroot your phone guide <http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=780141> I unrooted the phone successfully (s-on), and loaded the original stock rom just fine. The phone still exhibited the same behavior with the stock software, so I took it to a store in Chicago a few days ago (I live in so. CA but was on vacation in Il). Anyway, I was foolish as I did not run the OTA updates to 3.7 and the tech lady told me it was happening because the phone wasn't updated. OK, my fault, even though that was a bs response.
I messed with it some more, it's still broken. So today I brought the phone to a sprint store here in CA, fully UNrooted, stock rom, updated all system updates. OTA 3.7xx, newest radios, pri, prl, profile. It is acting worse than it ever has before. I dropped the phone off and came back an hour later and the guy tells me that they reset the device and it should work now, and that I shouldn't root it as it voids my warranty. I said, how do you know it's been rooted? He replied with "our guys are really good."
So I took the phone to lunch right next door, fully stock again, and as I am logging into my google account to access the market it reboots itself again. And loops. I take it back to the sprint store and tell them look, its doing the same thing, you have completely reset it, it's not rooted, this is a problem.
Next they tell me they can't get me a replacement phone (for the $35 repair fee) because it has been rooted. I ask them to show me how they know it has been rooted, and he goes OK. He boots up my phone and one of their evos into recovery, and mine scans for the PC36IMG file and finds it. So ok, my bad again, but I say hold on a second. I took my SD card out and give the phone back. I ask them to prove to me that the phone is rooted, they try the same thing again and of course there is no difference between the phones in how they boot to recovery. Basically I press the issue further, the tech gives me some bull**** about how they can tell, if you root the phone EVER it leaves files on the phone forever. I can feel that they are lying to me, and they only know because I [foolishly] left my SD card in it as I dropped it off.
After spending about 30 minutes talking to their representatives and then about ten with the tech behind their repair center glass, he told me my only option is to talk to HTC to try and get a new phone. Mine has been red-flagged at sprint stores now for having been rooted, even though I NEVER GAVE THEM A ROOTED PHONE TO LOOK AT.
If you can't tell, i'm extremely frustrated, as my very expensive phone, on stock software and unrooted is completely useless.
Any opinions/ideas as to if 1) how I can get a replacement phone, or 2) what I have done wrong or what I can do to potentially remedy the phone?
Colin

Wow that sucks man. I know a lot of Sprint reps and almost all of them are rooted and running custom roms. I would delete the img file off of the sdcard and take it to a different Sprint store. It really depends on who you are dealing with, so try taking it to a different Sprint store if you can. If not, try to find a day where that guy isn't working lol. I'm sorry about your luck, but some people are just ridiculous.

Take to a different sprint store with a clean SD card and hope there aren't notes on the account?
Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk

I was told that my phone has been red flagged, and it will show up as having been rooted at other sprint stores.

cjh6386 said:
I was told that my phone has been red flagged, and it will show up as having been rooted at other sprint stores.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, but you don't know that to actually be the case or just a scare tactic. I still say go to another store and try.
If they start talking about it being flagged on your account for being rooted, your best bet is to play dumb.

cjh6386 said:
I was told that my phone has been red flagged, and it will show up as having been rooted at other sprint stores.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I really doubt that, I bet that is more of a scare tactic. Try what the others have said then take it to another store, you'll be fine.

So because your phone had a PC36IMG on your storage card that automatically means its been rooted? That's BS. I would call Sprint and talk to them. I would tell Sprint that you only had the file on your SD card because the phone wouldn't boot and you were trying to fix it since the store wouldn't help (the first store). When calling sprint its all in who you talk to and I always start off as nice as possible.
Sent from my HTC EVO 4G!

zone23 said:
So because your phone had a PC36IMG on your storage card that automatically means its been rooted? That's BS. I would call Sprint and talk to them. I would tell Sprint that you only had the file on your SD card because the phone wouldn't boot and you were trying to fix it since the store wouldn't help (the first store). When calling sprint its all in who you talk to and I always start off as nice as possible.
Sent from my HTC EVO 4G!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Agreed, I never had a problem with Sprint CS as long as you are calm, nice and reasonable.....

zone23 said:
So because your phone had a PC36IMG on your storage card that automatically means its been rooted? That's BS. I would call Sprint and talk to them. I would tell Sprint that you only had the file on your SD card because the phone wouldn't boot and you were trying to fix it since the store wouldn't help (the first store). When calling sprint its all in who you talk to and I always start off as nice as possible.
Sent from my HTC EVO 4G!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes. Like I said, I then removed my SD card and gave the phone back and asked him to show me that it has been rooted. He didnt even try, he just told me that "they know now" and that once you root "there are always files left behind" and they can always tell. I knew it was BS but they weren't giving me an inch. I was indeed very polite the whole time, while also pressing the issue.
I am pretty livid and I am almost to the point where I'd rather cancel my account then give them any more money for service.

cjh6386 said:
Yes. Like I said, I then removed my SD card and gave the phone back and asked him to show me that it has been rooted. He didnt even try, he just told me that "they know now" and that once you root "there are always files left behind" and they can always tell. I knew it was BS but they weren't giving me an inch. I was indeed very polite the whole time, while also pressing the issue.
I am pretty livid and I am almost to the point where I'd rather cancel my account then give them any more money for service.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well I have told the computer when I first call and its asks why I'm calling I say cancel account. That will get you to someone who can actually do something. No TEP is a real downer in this case. Got another store around?
Sent from my HTC EVO 4G!

@zone
yes, there are several other stores around me with repair centers. They aren't uncommon in orange county.
Another thing I forgot to mention, at the very end of the debate with the repair tech, after he told me "there are always files left behind that we can check" after it has been rooted, I asked him to explain these files to me and if he could show me, he told me no and that "he's not allowed to tell customers that."
LOL. I don't like how the sprint representatives think they can screw with their customers like that.

To expand a little more and how different stores are. I called the store and asked what their policy was on rooted phones. They said as long as it wasn't software they didn't care. So after they couldn't fix the phone (bad ear piece) they ordered another one and told me they could only give me the replacement if I brought mine back in the original unrooted state. So that's what I did. Some of these stores just seem to have some real asses working.
Sent from my HTC EVO 4G!

Of course with all that said I can somewhat understand where the stores are coming from. With all these SBC kernels and overclocking they probably think you damaged the processor. I'm not taking their side I'm just saying there are all kinds of people. The problem with rooting is you could absolutely damage the phone. Again I'm not saying this is the case just looking at it from another prospective that may help you negotiate a replacement phone.
Sent from my HTC EVO 4G!

Not sure if this will work but try rerooting then flash caulkins "format all" then reload a rom then flash new kernel and new radios, without 1.90 pri and nv see if that helps the reboot issue. i'd recommend Azreals stock turbo 3.70 rom. Had a friend with the axact same problem, this fixed it. I also reformatted his sd card while i was at it.

these techs know when a phone has been rooted. and yes they will flag your account for a rooted phone. my advice is to pay the fee they are asking.

Sorry to hear about your visit to the Sprint store...
1. It isn't illegal to root your phone any more. They passed a law not to long ago:
http://www.knowyourcell.com/news/548133/new_law_makes_jailbreaking_and_unlocking_legal.html
2. There is no way to tell if a phone was rooted. They are assuming that because you left the PC36IMG on your SD card. If the technician paid attention and seen you had it set in the off position, but that doesn't prove anything either.
3. Sounds like you got a guy that gets off being a jerk. Not the customer service type of person that Sprint needs working for them. Common sense says if you have the stock firmware back on the phone and it still is acting up, that the phone is defective. Not to endorse fraud, but if you nuked your phone or ran over it with your car and brought the pieces in, you would have been better off then being honest.
4. Your phone should still be under manufacturers warranty since the phone came out June 4th, so no way that have owned an EVO for a year yet.
5. I have found E-mailing to [email protected] seems to get results. Corporate wants to make things right, and they have the power to get things done.
Wish you the best of luck!

@zone
I can see where they are coming from as well. For morality's sake though, I can truthfully say I have never experimented with voltage modifying kernels or SBC kernels, etc. Only a few popular roms.
@ifly
If tomorrow I am still unsuccessful I will try more software options, although I am 95% positive it is a hardware issue. This is coming from a network engineer who is very familiar with hardware systems.
@fixxer
I was perfectly happy to pay them the $35 repair fee in order to get my replacement. I never said that I wouldn't. In fact at one point a sprint representative offered to do that, I said good, that is exactly what I came in for. She came back and said nevermind, I can't because it is rooted.
@weidnerj
Thanks for the link, and it sounds like we are on exactly the same page. Thanks for the contact, I will see what I can do with Dan.
I plan on trying another sprint store tomorrow to see if the phone is actually flagged.

Even if it is flagged I would tell them the phone wasn't rooted and hell I don't even know what that means. I have no idea were the other store even got that idea. Little white lie.
Sent from my HTC EVO 4G!

weidnerj said:
Sorry to hear about your visit to the Sprint store...
1. It isn't illegal to root your phone any more. They passed a law not to long ago:
http://www.knowyourcell.com/news/548133/new_law_makes_jailbreaking_and_unlocking_legal.html
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
rooting still voids your sprint warranty & contract. that law only applies to unlocking phones to work on various gsm networks. jailbreaking isn't technically legal either on iphones.

fixxxer2008 said:
rooting still voids your sprint warranty & contract. that law only applies to unlocking phones to work on various gsm networks. jailbreaking isn't technically legal either on iphones.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
We are adults we know rooting technically void the warranty. It's generally posted at the top of every ROM thread.
Sent from my HTC EVO 4G!

Anyone taken a rooted phone into sprint?

has anyone taken a evo in to sprint that was rooted for repair?

With a ton of stores this is a your mile may vary. I have taken my phones into 2 different stores with no problems.

Not suggested unless you want to pay those $100 deductible. Unroot its not that hard.

No, but if its rooted, they won't service your phone, or make you pay the 100$ fee.

erik077 said:
Not suggested unless you want to pay those $100 deductible. Unroot its not that hard.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yes way back since my windows mobile days never once have they realized the phone was rooted

I just did today. The tech noticed that my phone was rooted. She said she wouldn't work on my phone because it was rooted. She was nice enough to let me bring my phone home to unroot it, then she swapped the blown out speaker
Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk

I have, i flashed a stock looking rom before i took it in. I did leave it rooted though.

fr0st420 said:
I just did today. The tech noticed that my phone was rooted. She said she wouldn't work on my phone because it was rooted. She was nice enough to let me bring my phone home to unroot it, then she swapped the blown out speaker
Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
how did the tech notice ? i have talked to people and compared phones for 20 mins and never once was i asked " are you rooted "

I took mine in for a screen replacement while running CM6. It was off when I took it in and on when I picked it up, so you know they saw the boot animation.

In my expierience (I work at a Sprint store) the techs don't care unless you are a jerk then they'll just use it as a reason not to help you. Hell, I've helped people myself who were trying to root their phones.

tke0834 said:
In my expierience (I work at a Sprint store) the techs don't care unless you are a jerk then they'll just use it as a reason not to help you. Hell, I've helped people myself who were trying to root their phones.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
that be my guess too with my hero i had all kinds of trouble and was running fresh rom with the dancing droid lol tech said Oh **** thats cool what rom is that lol

I took mine they didn't say nothing about it but it was he charger port mess up I was running myns rom and the dude didn't say anything, I got a replacement brand new tho, I put it back to stock before I sent it but I left my name on the notification banner that was 2 months ago no one call me lol
Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk

tke0834 said:
In my expierience (I work at a Sprint store) the techs don't care unless you are a jerk then they'll just use it as a reason not to help you. Hell, I've helped people myself who were trying to root their phones.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nice I have mine rooted with konie's elite 2 i am new to sprint 6months into the contract and hit over the 5 gig limit on the data plan and got throttled down to insane slug speed called tech support and they wernt to helpful on me asking if they were throttling me down. My interent sucks slow as can be same with my wifes rumor phone tho my buddy next door uses the same rom and evo and has excellent 3g speed. 4g is not in my area yet sucks...

fr0st420 said:
I just did today. The tech noticed that my phone was rooted. She said she wouldn't work on my phone because it was rooted. She was nice enough to let me bring my phone home to unroot it, then she swapped the blown out speaker
Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well its a pain for me to unroot cause i updated my h boot to the latest and i cant flash any thing to the orignal stock rom cause its outdated everything i have tried hangs at the hboot screen lol i have turned S back on still using amon on it. I hope my sprint store isnt gonna be a pain in the butt if i have to get it reparied.

I had my screen replaced when they were doing it. No questions asked. It is just a chance ur taking. It just depends on the tech. If its a younger guy usually he won't care these old bastards are the jerk-offs usually.
Sent from my rooted HTC EVO using the xda app!

I straight up asked them on the phone. And as long as you have purchased insurance, it doesn't matter one way or the other cause you are paying for the insurance. As long as it isnt a software issue like a borked sms then you should be fine. It only voids warranty not your insurance.

I have no insurance and have brought three of them up there with problems. The biggest issue I had was some tard rep asking about the superuser app lol. It's almost like the actual techs have a respectful understanding of those with the higher knowledge of Android. I did flash a Sprint lovers stock Rom though and this was at a big corporate store.

Just flash a stock rom, it worked for me. I wouldn't unroot. Hope that helps.

I have numerous times. I have, however, befriended the best tech in the store. Seriously, the last time I took my Evo in, I was having trouble with missed calls. He went above and beyond to help me try to figure out whether it was my Evo, or the tower near my house. He finally said, "Let's just swap out your phone and see if it gets better." He actually asked me which hardware rev I wanted. He also hung onto my Launch Day Evo, which I hated to give up, until I was sure the refurbed 003 was doing better. Good thing, as I had missed backing up my SMS. I went back in and got a back up of them off my old phone. I think I was running Fresh 3.5.0.1 when I took mine in. I rooted the refurb and put CM6 on it. The assistant manager showed me his Evo running Miui. I stop in now and then and show them what's new on my phone. All in all, they're a cool bunch of guys.
I forgot to say that I offered to unroot it, but he told me not to worry.

***** blacklisted my phone saying it was physically damaged. Was going to go in and get them to fix it, as they can see it had no physical damage, but then couple of weeks ago i dropped it for real, has a scratch on the corner. I bet if i try now, they wont do ****

HTC G2 TM Question Lost Phone

Hello I have a HTC G2 and i lost it a few days ago so i reported it to tmobile and they sent me a new one
Now after receiving the new one My friend cleaning out his car found the phone and called me letting me know
My question is can i use this phone still even though i have a new one
is there a way to mod the phone so that TM will not know its the one i reported lost.
Please let me know as i will like to give this to my daughter thanks.

I'm guessing they would have the ESN/IMEI of the phone marked as bad so it cannot be used or activated anymore by a thief if it was stolen. There may be a way to get it work, but it would probably be illegal =/

what will be the procedure as if its a sim card how would they now what phone it is

Well, the most honest thing to do would be to call TMobile and ask which one they want back.
A less honest thing to do would be to call 611 from the old phone, which will probably work, say you found this phone and would like to know where to send it. At least you get to keep the newer phone.
Or, you could keep both and see if the old one is usable using a different SIM. But what kind of example does that set for your daughter?
Sent from my T-Mobile G2 using Tapatalk

Well I understand sending the phone back will be good but as i spent 150 dollars to get the replacement. I was told it will not be refunded so whats the point of sending it back.
I figure since i have a few tm phones and at times i switch phones it will not be a problem.
Well if putting custom software will that hide the phone as they say rooting the phone is not exceptable and you can void your warrenty. And when putting custom roms they never now also apps that are downloaded.

storres6981 said:
what will be the procedure as if its a sim card how would they now what phone it is
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The ESN/IMEI are hard coded in a very deep level of the phone software somehow I think, so it doesn't matter what SIM you have in it; the network knows its being used. I'm sure there are [illegal] ways to change the ESN
For example if you look at phone people sell on Ebay, they are always labeled as "Clean ESN" or "Bad ESN". The bad ones are phones reported as stolen, etc and won't be able to be activated no matter what.

c00ller said:
The ESN/IMEI are hard coded in a very deep level of the phone software somehow I think, so it doesn't matter what SIM you have in it; the network knows its being used. I'm sure there are [illegal] ways to change the ESN
For example if you look at phone people sell on Ebay, they are always labeled as "Clean ESN" or "Bad ESN". The bad ones are phones reported as stolen, etc and won't be able to be activated no matter what.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is correct. If you've reported the phone lost/stolen, or the phone is associated to a delinquent or unpaid account, the provider (T-mo) will mark the phone as such, and the phone will not work with any other SIM card. So its only worth what it could be sold for for parts...
You spoke of rooting the phone, this won't clear the ESN, and this really isn't something we talk about at XDA (or most other reputable forums, for that matter) because it is highly illegal/frowned upon/etc.. Really no need for this thread to go in that direction...
Now the right thing to do would to call T-mo and ask which one they wanted back... maybe you can work something out with them even though they cant do a full refund. It would also mean that your account wouldnt be docked the cost or mark of having been given a phone under warranty, because most plans only allow a certain number of claims per time period.

Not true...you could change the esn and imei on blackberry. I did it because I was in the same situation. I just wanted to give mine to my bro. I'm sure if you could on blackberry you can with android. Android is more open I would think
Sent from my T-Mobile G2 using Tapatalk

popimp315 said:
Not true...you could change the esn and imei on blackberry. I did it because I was in the same situation. I just wanted to give mine to my bro. I'm sure if you could on blackberry you can with android. Android is more open I would think
Sent from my T-Mobile G2 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Never said you can't, just said its something we don't talk about here.

It should still work on networks outside of the USA (or which ever country it is you're in). So I suppose you can unlock and debrand it and sell it to someone abroad.

Have you tried putting your replacement sim on the old phone? You really should call tmobile to see what can be done.
Sent from my T-Mobile G2 using Tapatalk

It will work just fine. I did the same thing and I asked the lady that worked for the phone's insurance before I ordered my replacement what would happen if I found it and she said you have 7 days to send back the replacement for a refund. She said if I find it after the 7 days it would work and be 100% usable but I wouldn't be able to send in the replacement for the refund... it is currently being used with no issues right now actually.
Sent from my T-Mobile G2 using XDA App

water damage question

I accidentally went swimming with my phone yesterday. Pulled the battery and put it in rice overnight. When I went to put the battery back, it automatically started up, but the touchscreen wasn't working/working very sporadically. The battery then ran out of power, but now that it is plugged in, it's not starting up again. Should I take it into Verizon? i have insurance, so should it be covered, right? I'm worried that I'll take it in and they'll see that it is rooted/had the pbj kernel installed and they wouldn't give me a new one.
also, I was planning on going to verizon and trying to demand a different phone b/c of the lack of 2.2. i am eligible for an upgrade, should I try and use lack of 2.2 as leverage to get a better price/reduced price on an upgrade? to the HTC thunderbolt maybe? or should i take the insurance replacement and wait until the Motorola bionic comes out around the end of the month then try to argue for a reduced upgrade price?

I would flash stock on the phone, just to be safe! Lol.. Installing stock kernel wouldn't hurt either xP
Sent from my SCH-I400 using XDA Premium App

If you take it in and they see the water indicators have changed, they won't even look at it further and they'll tell you to call Asurion. As far as I know, Asurion won't care what you had on your phone, but you should do your best to flash it back to stock before returning it.

ok cool, i was mostly worried about them seeing the pbj scrambled start up screen, so i flashed the clean kernel. now i'm kind of looking at my next step:
1. get a replacement continuum, and hold off on getting an upgrade until i get back from being abroad in January
2. try and use my line's contract being over as leverage for a cheaper upgrade to maybe an HTC thunderbolt (or is there a better alternative?). also i would mention the fact that I still don't have 2.2. Only problem with that is i'm part of a family plan
do you think there is anyway to get them to maybe charge me the replacement price, but upgrade me to a better/different phone?

You can contact Asurion, they may not have an Continuum's to replace yours with and may offer a different device. It will be hit/miss though on that one.

IT LIVES!! After about a day, my phone has been completely revived. Now, the only problem appears to be connecting to Wi-Fi. I'm using the d17 kernal from adrylane, and when i put in my password for the wi-fi network, it says com.android.settings has stopped unexpectedly. I tried restarting, but to no avail. I'm really glad to have been able to skip the verizon store, and i'm amazing the phone is working so well, but i'd really like to get the wi-fi working again...

That's weird... i would reflash the DL17 clean rom if i was you....
I am glad your phone is working good now though