iPAQ 3800 Backlight Resolution

[Ed Hansberry]

<a href="http://www3.compaq.com/support/reference_library/viewdocument.asp?dt=3&source=MH020124_CW02.xml">http://www3.compaq.com/support/reference_library/viewdocument.asp?dt=3&source=MH020124_CW02.xml</a><br /><br />It seems HP is still working on clearing up the backlight issue on the 3800 series. The backlight on some units will fail to illuminate when powered on. If yours exhibits this problem, check out the link above for troubleshooting tips and further instructions, including the possible return to HP for repairs.

[Pony99CA]

First, don't try to run their serial number check in Mozilla. Your browser window will just keep "Loading". Use IE to visit that link.

Second, the serial number check told me that my 3870 wasn't affected, but I have occasionally gotten the failure to light. It hasn't happened for a while, but, for a period of a few days a while back, it did seem to happen more.

Given that it doesn't happen much, I wouldn't bother sending my iPAQ in for repair anyway, but the serial number check doesn't seem to work very well.

Steve

[Sanjay Srikonda]

how come I've never seen this fix anywhere else before about holding the power button down for 3 seconds if it fails to illuminate on power-up? Or was that published before.

my serial number comes back as "possibly affected" I'd like to return it, but i've had a 50% bad experiene with them, and i've heard horror stories about people getting back units that worked even worse than the ones they turned in.

[Janak Parekh]

how come I've never seen this fix anywhere else before about holding the power button down for 3 seconds if it fails to illuminate on power-up? Or was that published before.
Hmm? Affected units don't turn on that way -- you often need to do some combination of soft reset, hard reset, voodoo mumblings, and cursing at the unit. ;)

--janak

[Ed Hansberry]

how come I've never seen this fix anywhere else before about holding the power button down for 3 seconds if it fails to illuminate on power-up? Or was that published before.
Hmm? Affected units don't turn on that way -- you often need to do some combination of soft reset, hard reset, voodoo mumblings, and cursing at the unit. ;)
The backlight on my old 3800 would sometimes respond in this fashion when it failed to turn on. Often a soft reset didn't cut it.

Compaq has had that "workaround" on their site since last spring/winter when the first reports came in.

[felixdd]

Uhh...this is happening on my Jornada 568 -- cause for concern?

[Pony99CA]

how come I've never seen this fix anywhere else before about holding the power button down for 3 seconds if it fails to illuminate on power-up? Or was that published before.
Hmm? Affected units don't turn on that way -- you often need to do some combination of soft reset, hard reset, voodoo mumblings, and cursing at the unit. ;)

Another workaround was to turn the device off, cover the auto-brightness sensor, then turn the device on. Doing that or a soft reset always worked for me.

Steve

[Evee Ev]

this backlight problem happened to me the other day and the tech i spoke to said my warranty expired 8 days ago! perfect! he said i could send it to them to fix it for about $125 or do it myself for about $35. he mentioned some site i could buy the part from. the only catch is that i would have to solder the thing myself...not a good idea. but since the ipaq was free, a buck-twenty-five is a small price to pay.

[surur]

My loox has exactly the same problem, which is strange. I suspect that besides running on the same software there is also a great uniformity of hardware out there, with only the cases being different.

I wonder if there is a way to verify if both these platforms share the same faulty hardware. Eeve, what was that part that they asked you to replace? Could you identify it as exactly as possble.

Thx

Surur

[Evee Ev]

some sort of board on the ipaq. the exact name i couldn't remember. i'll try and find out though.

[Janak Parekh]

some sort of board on the ipaq. the exact name i couldn't remember. i'll try and find out though.
Probably the inverter board, would be my guess. While there's some possibility the iPaq and the Loox share components, I'd be really surprised -- I haven't heard that the Loox was manufactured by HTC. Does any other Looxer know?

--janak

[Evee Ev]

yeah, that's what the guy told me. my inverter board is shot.

[rubberdemon]

I sent mine (3835) off to Compaq in November to get the fix done and it came back and seemed to be fine, but lately the problem looks like it is coming back - backlight intermittently won't come on until I reset the thing. And now I'm past warranty coverage... I assume I can't sign up for the extended warranty once the 1 year is up?

[dochall]

I sent mine (3835) off to Compaq in November to get the fix done and it came back and seemed to be fine, but lately the problem looks like it is coming back - backlight intermittently won't come on until I reset the thing. And now I'm past warranty coverage... I assume I can't sign up for the extended warranty once the 1 year is up?

In the uk I would argue that this is a 'fit for purpose' scenario. In providing a pda with backlight they are providing something that could be used in lowlight. With the backlight only working intermittently I think it 'not fit for purpose' and they could shove their 'it's not under warranty' claim where the sun don't shine - but that's UK law you mileage may vary.

In my own case I don't think it is hardware related. I didn't experience any problems with ROM 2.15 but I did as soon as I upgraded to 2.2.

I know that there have been some hardware problems but my 3870 passes the serial number check.

I wonder if hp are getting confused by the mix of some hardware problems and some software problems.

[Warwick]

Serial number check says mine is not affected, but I saw this problem for the first time about 2 days ago. I just changed the brighness setting then turned it off and on again. I hope its not going to keep happening, its my oppinion that its not hardware, I could be wrong though.
I would rather burn in hell than send my unit to hp, the last time I had to get my 545 fixed it took them 3 tries and 3 months, I ended up videoing the problem with a cam corder and threatening legal action before I got it fixed.

I hope that doesnt happen again :crazyeyes:

[Ekkie Tepsupornchai]

In my own case I don't think it is hardware related. I didn't experience any problems with ROM 2.15 but I did as soon as I upgraded to 2.2.

I know that there have been some hardware problems but my 3870 passes the serial number check.

I had a 3835 which exhibited the backlight issue constantly. When HP botched up the repair several consecutive times, customer service stepped in and exchanged it for a 3870.

I upgraded mine to 2.20 and have been using it constantly for the past month and a half (I have to charge mine everyday).... haven't seen the issue once... this definitely seems to be hit-and-miss...

[NewKreation]

Waking up this morning to my Pocket PC alarm, I noticed my screen was off! Usually the backlight is on before the alarm even goes off. The first thing I did was whip out my stylus and soft reset my Pocket PC.

The Pocket PC booted up with the flashing alarm LED, but still no backlight! My second inclination was to hold the power button down, thinking maybe the backlight was turned off (it was dark in the room, BTW).

That fixed it!

This is the first time I've seen that happen :?

Less than 24 hours later, I see this article. Hmmm....

And I own an iPAQ 3955!

[Ekkie Tepsupornchai]

This is the first time I've seen that happen :?

Less than 24 hours later, I see this article. Hmmm....

And I own an iPAQ 3955!
That definitely should not be happening with a 39xx device!! If it happens a few more times, have HP repair it!!