Hi all,
I thought I'd consult the brains trust to see if anyone thinks this is salvageable. Was using my A500 about 2 hours ago, suddenly the screen powered off. Thinking nothing of it, I held down the power button to restart it. When powering back on, nothing appears to happen except for the power button lighting up. No screen on, no vibe, nothing except the power light on.
Tried power cycling a few times to no avail. Tried the reset button. Tried the Vol+ Power and Rotation switch reset. Nothing.
Out of morbid curiousity, I plugged it into the PC and switched it on and I get an APX driver being installed. So, clearly something is happening here.
It has done this once before and came back to life of its own accord very shortly afterwards, this time it's been dead for quite some time.
Any suggestions? It's well out of warranty now, so I doubt Acer would be interested in it at all.
Dopius_Fishius said:
Hi all,
I thought I'd consult the brains trust to see if anyone thinks this is salvageable. Was using my A500 about 2 hours ago, suddenly the screen powered off. Thinking nothing of it, I held down the power button to restart it. When powering back on, nothing appears to happen except for the power button lighting up. No screen on, no vibe, nothing except the power light on.
Tried power cycling a few times to no avail. Tried the reset button. Tried the Vol+ Power and Rotation switch reset. Nothing.
Out of morbid curiousity, I plugged it into the PC and switched it on and I get an APX driver being installed. So, clearly something is happening here.
It has done this once before and came back to life of its own accord very shortly afterwards, this time it's been dead for quite some time.
Any suggestions? It's well out of warranty now, so I doubt Acer would be interested in it at all.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In the Dev threads, or possibly Q&A, there is a thread called "stuck in APX mode". In there I believe are some steps to see if you can recover.
But, if you're in APX mode, you could probably try NVFlashing the bootloader and recovery the old fashioned way manually.
But look up that APX thread first. Will probably have the answer. I'll see if I can find it in a little while, if you don't find it first.
MD
Moscow Desire said:
In the Dev threads, or possibly Q&A, there is a thread called "stuck in APX mode". In there I believe are some steps to see if you can recover.
But, if you're in APX mode, you could probably try NVFlashing the bootloader and recovery the old fashioned way manually.
But look up that APX thread first. Will probably have the answer. I'll see if I can find it in a little while, if you don't find it first.
MD
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks MD. I looked up the threads you suggested, and after a lot of screwing around I have installed the APX drivers and used blackthund3r's APX Flash Util 0.3 (The link is broken to the current version) to attempt a recovery of my tab.
Its now sitting at an Acer screen, "Entering Acer Download Mode" while the flash util is sitting at:
Nvflash started
[resume mode]
It's been there for about 10 minutes now, no progress to report. Is it worth just sitting it out, or now that the damn tab shows SOME signs of life, can I just restart it and reset to factory?
And then most bizarre of all. I declared no progress, rebooted it. It went back to APX mode.
Re-ran the blackthund3r tool, it didnt do much so I bailed that. Restarted tab and attempted to load recovery (vol + and power) and it booted normally.
What the hell...
Dopius_Fishius said:
And then most bizarre of all. I declared no progress, rebooted it. It went back to APX mode.
Re-ran the blackthund3r tool, it didnt do much so I bailed that. Restarted tab and attempted to load recovery (vol + and power) and it booted normally.
What the hell...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
erm for now i would make sure you have all backups of data, cpud etc,.. just incase. you can just sit em on your computer i always try to keep a nandroid of all 3 of my devices each month or so.:good:
edit: and of course keep the link for the thread MD recommended.
Gee. Sounds exactly like mine....
The only thing I haven't tried is an update .zip, but I don't hold out much hope.
Considering parting out at this point....
Yeah, I dont have high hopes that it will last a whole lot longer. Up to this point it has been running Acer OTA updates only, no custom ROMs and no root.
I restarted the tab a little while ago and it went back into APX mode again and stayed there. Some more furious button mashing and attempted restore-mode boots, and it booted normally.
I made the point of wiping it this time using the Vol+ & Power & Rotation Lock trick and its been ok so far.
Dopius_Fishius said:
Yeah, I dont have high hopes that it will last a whole lot longer. Up to this point it has been running Acer OTA updates only, no custom ROMs and no root.
I restarted the tab a little while ago and it went back into APX mode again and stayed there. Some more furious button mashing and attempted restore-mode boots, and it booted normally.
I made the point of wiping it this time using the Vol+ & Power & Rotation Lock trick and its been ok so far.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have a cousin in Jamaica. She might possibly help (chicken foot and some frogs blood...voodoo you know)
Here's What I think.
You got some corrupt data or a partially bad devblock. This might explain the strange behavior on boot.
Like the tab really doesn't know how to boot.
Personally I would do 1 of 2 things at this point. Either;
1. Root that thing, and try running Timmy Deans root back to 3.2. This should reset your partitions back to normal. Then work your way back to an ICS rooted, Bootloader, and custom rom.
2. Leave it alone, and don;t turn the tab off. Clearly some partitions are messed up at this point. The toggle of the lock usually wipes user data. But the core issue is still there.
If it were me, I would pull out the nuclear missile and go for it all.
MD
Moscow Desire said:
I have a cousin in Jamaica. She might possibly help (chicken foot and some frogs blood...voodoo you know)
Here's What I think.
You got some corrupt data or a partially bad devblock. This might explain the strange behavior on boot.
Like the tab really doesn't know how to boot.
Personally I would do 1 of 2 things at this point. Either;
1. Root that thing, and try running Timmy Deans root back to 3.2. This should reset your partitions back to normal. Then work your way back to an ICS rooted, Bootloader, and custom rom.
2. Leave it alone, and don;t turn the tab off. Clearly some partitions are messed up at this point. The toggle of the lock usually wipes user data. But the core issue is still there.
If it were me, I would pull out the nuclear missile and go for it all.
MD
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Tried the update.zip - nada
Tried timmiedean yesterday, went into Acer Download mode OK, failed....
If dolps is like mien, the first time he tries to go into recovery, it will crash again...
It's baaaack!
Tried blackthunder flash again, failed.
Went to turn off to get out of APX, and it booted!
Now boots, boots to recovery and boots to primary.
I have no explanation.
We will see.
I am suspicious....
tennessee_titan said:
It's baaaack!
Tried blackthunder flash again, failed.
Went to turn off to get out of APX, and it booted!
Now boots, boots to recovery and boots to primary.
I have no explanation.
We will see.
I am suspicious....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I told you maaaannnn, go see me cousin in Jamaica maaaannnnn. She do some good things you see
Glad it's running again.
MD
First, is this a SOD?
I can kill it by booting into recovery and get it back by using Blackthunder flash tool to go into APX and letting it sit for 20 minutes or so. Close the program, unplug, reboot and it is back. I would like to use timmiedean (td) and go back to square 1, but it fails at the image detect ( displays ICS 4.0.3 Civato as the current image, a red X for the new image). Has td been proven to work reverting from ICS? Will a boot recovery reflash and a new ROM flash solve this? Is there another way to get out of ICS back to HC?
Any suggestions/comments welcome!
EDIT: I flashed FLEXxx V4. Shut it off, problem still there....
Really frustrated. Trying to use the timmiedean tool, but it requires that the unit be shut off in the middle of the process, which kills it. Does anyone know the whereabouts of the blackthund3r revert tool, or the .apx package for his flash tool. I can't find it...
I'm done with this one. On Ebay for parts.... GONE!!!
Have an A100 now, rooted, unlocked,. on Relix
1 more A500 coming next week
First of all appologies if I started another thread on this topic. I am very green with Android and am now unable to get past my latest screwup! I had CMod 10 on my device but it kept freezing in the browser. I also had Skrillax recovery on it. I wanted to revert back to OTA stock Rom so got the following ROM from this Forum Post:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1816560
Acer_A500_0.000.00_041.121.01_COM_GEN1: ftp://94.23.233.147/Tablets/A500/Ace...5_78277167.zip
I decrypted it, extracted the update.zip and applied it to my tablet as instructed in the post. Upon completion it restarts and goes into this loop at the Silver android screen! I tried to go into Recovery and get the dead Android with the red Exclamation mark. I can reapply the same update.zip file and it seems to go through things again but every time I get the same end result looping silver android loop. HELP! please! If I try to use another stock update file it only get me to the dead android guy with red exclamation mark. I have tried to put this into APX mode but it does not want to go there at all.
Is there anybody out there that can take a little pity on a fool like me to get this thing back up again?
I don't care about the data at this point and which version I get back to. I also do not have my CPUID and can't seem to get to it. Thanks in advance to anyone who could point me in the right direction or better yet walk me through this.
Dead android guy is what I get after root the tab and try to get to stock recovery WITHOUT unlocking the bootloader
DId you try the manual way to go APX, push the reset button with a paper clip and hold power button? If you can get to APX you can use A500 manager tool from this
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=25891744&postcount=44
you can try unlocking the bootloader which then result in bootable recovery
or check out this guy
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1874345
similar problem trying to get stock ROM back
pinmemo said:
Dead android guy is what I get after root the tab and try to get to stock recovery WITHOUT unlocking the bootloader
DId you try the manual way to go APX, push the reset button with a paper clip and hold power button? If you can get to APX you can use A500 manager tool from this
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=25891744&postcount=44
you can try unlocking the bootloader which then result in bootable recovery
or check out this guy
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1874345
similar problem trying to get stock ROM back
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok so now can get in APX mode but it says debugging is not on, I can't get in to turn it on? Is there a way to get the bootloader back to the Skrillax version via update.zip file? I will keep reading these posts but still can't seem to get APX mode right.
mdlevesque said:
Ok so now can get in APX mode but it says debugging is not on, I can't get in to turn it on? Is there a way to get the bootloader back to the Skrillax version via update.zip file? I will keep reading these posts but still can't seem to get APX mode right.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
First of all a million thanks to Happy who pointed me in the right direction! I appreciate the help buddy! I was finally able to get my device working by following the first post by manually installing Thors v1.7.3 bootloader. Once I got the bootloader back I just reinstalled one of the custom ROMS and voila! back in operation. Most appreciative...
The link again is the following and you do not have to have debug mode on to do the manual flash.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=25891744&postcount=44
Mike:victory:
mdlevesque said:
First of all a million thanks to Happy who pointed me in the right direction! I appreciate the help buddy! I was finally able to get my device working by following the first post by manually installing Thors v1.7.3 bootloader. Once I got the bootloader back I just reinstalled one of the custom ROMS and voila! back in operation. Most appreciative...
The link again is the following and you do not have to have debug mode on to do the manual flash.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=25891744&postcount=44
Mike:victory:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Congratulations! you successfully resurrected a dead droid!
Was using tablet and just playing a game -- tablet reset, robot with ! showed up.
After that, reboots bring me only to the Acer screen.
I can do the VOLUME UP + POWER -- vibrates, powers up, toggle the switch, let go of power button and it does:
ERASING USERDATA...
ERASING CACHE...
Then it reboots back to the ACER logo, and just sits there. I have downloaded one of the ROMs and done the VOLUME with POWER BUTTON start up and it doesn't do anything. Just stays at ACER logo.
I've looked at quite a few things here on the forums and it hasn't done me any good -- nothing seems to want to work with the tablet unless it's in debug mode (which means it has to be a working tab). When connected to a PC it does detect as an MTP USB DEVICE and says "THIS DEVICE IS WORKING PROPERLY." But I can't get much of anything. The only thing I've used that remotely works is USBDEVIEW which gives me the device info including a serial #, which I understand is NOT the cpuid. I do have the box, so I guess that would have the CPUID? Any help appreciate. More than willing to just blast this thing with a one touch factory reset from the PC, if it will just connect.
If you had it at the dead android guy, it means you probably didn't have the decrypted "update.zip" on your Ext SD card. If you had stock ICS running before, you can try downloading those 4 update.zips I posted a few threads ago. Will have to try each one, and hopefully one of them works.
Here's the post...
http://forum.xda-developers.com/show...54&postcount=2
This would be the first thing I try.
MD
Moscow Desire said:
If you had it at the dead android guy, it means you probably didn't have the decrypted "update.zip" on your Ext SD card. If you had stock ICS running before, you can try downloading those 4 update.zips I posted a few threads ago. Will have to try each one, and hopefully one of them works.
Here's the post...
http://forum.xda-developers.com/show...54&postcount=2
This would be the first thing I try.
MD
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It went to the Dead Android guy when it rebooted after a crash. I haven't seen it since. Just got to the Acer logo screen and stops.
Your linked post is going to what it actually shows instead of the real link.
Fastboot
Sent from my Kindle Fire using xda app-developers app
Vintage144 said:
Fastboot
Sent from my Kindle Fire using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Don't think he has V8 bootloader Mate.
Moscow Desire said:
If you had it at the dead android guy, it means you probably didn't have the decrypted "update.zip" on your Ext SD card. If you had stock ICS running before, you can try downloading those 4 update.zips I posted a few threads ago. Will have to try each one, and hopefully one of them works.
Here's the post...
http://forum.xda-developers.com/show...54&postcount=2
This would be the first thing I try.
MD
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm also stuck at the ACER logo. I d/l'd all four of the zips from your link. All four appear to install correctly but when the flash finishes and the tablet reboots, it's still stuck at the logo.
Also, when I just tried the link again, it is no longer working.
where were you coming from when you tried this ? what BL? gb?JB? what recovery , theres a alot of reading to be done with this device Acer didnt make it easy , but if you read and take it slow there are/were some great devs that left the door open for us all to use these ? Explain where your started from and how you got to where you are now? (Moscow is a sharp dude he can help)!
Vintage144 said:
where were you coming from when you tried this ? what BL? gb?JB? what recovery , theres a alot of reading to be done with this device Acer didnt make it easy , but if you read and take it slow there are/were some great devs that left the door open for us all to use these ? Explain where your started from and how you got to where you are now? (Moscow is a sharp dude he can help)!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I bought the tablet used and it would loop on the green "ANDROID" screen. So I don't know what version it was on. I tried the volume +, rotation left and power on to clear the cache and user data. After that it hangs at the ACER screen. I'm assuming it had HC because it has standard recovery. IOW, if I hold the volume - when powering on, it goes to the green Android logo and if an "update.zip" file is present, it will flash it. I've tried just about every "full" ROM I can find and most of them flash but none of them get past "ACER".
I've tried pushing the reset button while powering on while connected to both a Linux box running Mint 15 and a Win7 box. The Win7 box see the tab but won't load the driver. Even though I d/l'd the USB driver from the Acer site. Mint 15 sees the tab but comes up with the error box saying it can't be mounted.
First off ive read almost every thread on the a500 in the past few days, ive downloaded the tools,came across alot of dead links, tried to follow them and i just cant get it to come back to life...my head is spinning trying to understand all this... ill explain what i know and all i have done so far...any help would be greatly appreciated
this is my dads a500 i did update it ota to the latest version of android stock for it a few months ago. he uses it every day
he was using it playing a game, it froze up, he tried a reboot...now it wont go past acer screen
in recovery i get the dead android guy with red exclamation point over him, if i dont switch the screen lock it will try fast boot 00.03.12 ics bootloader from usb...with no result
tried to boot to recovery with the update.zip on a newly formatted fat32 1gig micro sd card....and nothing was i using the right zip?
"Acer_A500_7.014.01_041.203.01_COM_GEN1_1333444043393_2fe1ad59_decrypted"
in apx mode...apx flash tool will recognize it...but i never get anything on the tab screen confirming it is in apx mode...no boot loader or messages at all
Ive tried to install a bundle with apx flash from blackthunder...it went through the whole install process...but no result, i dont know if it was connected properly and everything the same.
my though is my bootloader is messed up... so i guess my question is how can i fix it if i cant connect correctly through apx mode or recovery mode... did i do something wrong? not install something i should have?
i downloaded a500 manager and apx flash, ics root, sbcalc, babsector,
any help with be greatly appreciated
thanks Jim