My Device Died... And Resurrected!

[Darius Wey]

<i>'Twas a dark and stormy Friday night.</i> Okay, maybe not stormy, but it's all about setting the mood, you know. ;) My Phone Edition (E-TEN M600) was sitting in its cradle for a sync and charge. I had just updated an appointment in Outlook, so as you'd expect, the changes were being mirrored on my device via ActiveSync. However, unlike the other million synchronisations I had gone through in the past, this one didn't work out too well. Long story short, it froze midway, a white screen appeared, and so it was time for a soft-reset. Following the soft-reset, the device appeared to boot up as normal, except when I reached the Today screen, something had gone horribly wrong. Other than 'Owner Information' and 'Pocket MSN', all my Today plug-ins had vanished off the face of the earth. In addition, the 'Start' menu only displayed two entries: 'Today' and 'coldinit'. This was great. Really great. Because I had an arrangement that night, I had no other option other than to let it be and deal with it when I get back.<br /><br />I returned home a little after midnight on Saturday (which was just a few hours ago), and I thought I'd get the hard reset over and done with, just so I could have a working phone for the weekend. So I hard-reset the device (with SD card and SIM card removed), and was in the process of setting up my personal information, when all of a sudden, it froze again. Something clearly wasn't right here, and I was suspecting a little problem with the device's innards. It was time for a soft-reset, and this is where my device reached the point of no return. After soft-resetting, it simply did not want to get past the boot screen. I exhausted all other possibilities in trying to get it to work, from further soft-resets, hard-resets, and removing the battery, to strange dance rituals, and the waving of magic wands. None of them worked. My device had officially gone to the gadget graveyard up in the sky.<br /><br />At the moment, I'm using an old Nokia 6610i as a replacement. With a hint of sarcasm (obviously), I can tell you now that the experience is amazing. I have a 128 x 128, 4K-colour display with no Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and an infrared port capable of only one-way transfer. I'm a lost soul without my converged Windows Mobile-based device, and I sit here now pondering what to do next.<br /><br />Anyone else have similar tales to tell - happy ending or not?<br /><br /><b>Update:</b> So, there's always a bright side to a sad story, right? Well, apparently so. One word: <i>bootloader</i>. For those of you who aren't aware of what this is (and I'm going to keep it a little non-technical here), it's a special "program" built into the device that allows you to attempt a local read and re-flash of the ROM (via memory card) with the hope of a successful boot of the operating system. I had already tried this earlier in the day, and it yielded an unsuccessful result. Well, just a couple of hours ago, I sat back down, picked up my 6610i, and yawned all over <a href="http://europe.nokia.com/nokia/0,,28375,00.html">Bounce</a>. Somehow, that inspired me to try the bootloader again - not once, twice, or three times. Instead, an additional <b>twelve</b> times! I kid you not. After the twelfth attempt at flashing the ROM, my device started working. Up came the blue Windows Mobile screen, and down went a beer in celebration. Despite this feat, I don't place great faith in the integrity of the ROM. Twelve flash attempts just to get it working? That shouldn't be the case.

[Mike Temporale]

At the moment, I'm using an old Nokia 6610i as a replacement.

Say it ain't so! Intervention time! We can't let this go on any longer. It's just too tragic. :mecry:

[Pdaholic]

That stinks, Darius. I just got my HTC Uni back from the shop and spent a day reloading it. To prevent this from happening again, I bought a backup unit. It's really a sensible thing to do when you rely on these devices so much.

[johncruise]

Well, think of it this way... you have now full justification to buy a brand new toy... Uhmmm, I mean, device.

I'm wondering when my trustee ol i-mate sp3i and asus a730w will mysteriously freeze at the same time? Hmmmm...

[makic]

Have you tried smacking it on a hard surface? (no more than a dozen times though) :evil:

[Johnny Bravo RJ]

Happened to me by the end of march.
The hardware test mode said it was NANDflash ROM FAIL.
Went back to dealer, device replaced, now I have a brand new one.
Good luck!

[Darius Wey]

Went back to dealer, device replaced, now I have a brand new one.

I have contacted E-TEN. Hopefully, they can give me some good news when the working week starts.

[Raphael Salgado]

It's the worst when it happens right before a weekend.

My Qtek 9000's mini-USB port started to feel a little loose only a month into it, until one day, it simply broke when I went to charge the battery. The mini-USB port simply fell into the chassis, and I was stuck on remaining battery power. Had to have the device sent in for warranty repair. Going from playing a variety of full-color QVGA/VGA games to barely tolerating Snake II, Space Impact, Bumper, and Nokia Sugar Bowl on my Nokia 6590 (http://www.nokiausa.com/phones/6590/0,2803,feat:1,00.html). 8O It was hell.

[signothefish]

:( http://home.nc.rr.com/signothefish/images/Darius_Sad.jpg :(

[Patrick Y.]

Happened to me by the end of march.
The hardware test mode said it was NANDflash ROM FAIL.
Went back to dealer, device replaced, now I have a brand new one.
Good luck!

This seems to be a common problem with WM5 device for some reason. TONS of x51v and WM5 x50v owners encountered the same problem and replacing the unit was the only solution.

Anyway, I hope everything will be good in the end for you, Darius.

[Cybrid]

Somewhat similar story:
My Casio's backlight suddenly died...I opened it for a quick look see and it went dead completely. My longest running PPC. I was ready to cry.

Luckily being a packrat....
The house inventory consists of:
UTStarcom 6700
Dell X50v
Dell X5
Ipaq 3630
Ipaq 3870
Casio EG-800.

Oh and I did get a new..ish E-125 from eBay.
As Ripper014 likes to joke, "there's redundancy built into the system".

[MitchellO]

That really sucks. I never had a device die on me before until yesterday. I have a Jornada 928 Pocket PC Phone that is all of a sudden having trouble reading my Optus SIM card. The PPC works fine, but its not really worthwhile unless the phone works. Hard reset, soft reset, nothing works.

I would be very annoyed if it happened on my day-to-day device though, being both my phone and PDA. Good luck with Eten though. Hopefully they will get you fixed up quick. They would be wise to considering the "publicity" they will get if they don't from this site :()

[ctmagnus]

That sux. At least you had the common sense to keep a backup device, even if it is several generations old.

[Hagow]

That is awful i feel really bad for you Darius...now i am worried too cuz i owned a M600 as well. Is it from wear and tear is if the construction of the ETEN M600 crap or PPCPE in gerneral are crap?

[MitchellO]

I have had two PPCPE devices, one WM2003SE and one WM5 and they were both fantastic. That is why I am planning a return to PPCPE when the HP hw6915 comes out.

[Darius Wey]

now i am worried too cuz i owned a M600 as well. Is it from wear and tear is if the construction of the ETEN M600 crap or PPCPE in gerneral are crap?

No, neither the M600, or Phone Edition devices in general are "crap". I just happened to have the rotten one of the crop. :(

[isajoo]

i am not sure if this would help your case but i had this happen to my ppc but it is running wm2003... i could not get it to do anything... i did everything u did but it would not get pass the white screen... i decided to leave it on the charger over night and the next day i hard reset it right after i took it off the charger and it was back to normal... almost like a bad dream... a freind the day before told me i got a lemon but turned out the battery was the sort of lemon... from some reason the os did not have the right volts to start up... hope it works... be patient and wait as long before removing from the charger. or time for a upgrade :lol:

[MitchellO]

Yes, give what the above poster said a try. I know that whenever my Axim X50v has a very low battery it will act really strange, have problems starting, or be very unstable. Does the M600 have a battery charge slot on the cradle? I would try charging the battery in that and see how you go. Can't hurt to try?

[Darius Wey]

Does the M600 have a battery charge slot on the cradle? I would try charging the battery in that and see how you go. Can't hurt to try?

Yes, I put the battery in the cradle before I went to bed. While that was charging, I let the device sit overnight battery-less (a common test that has been performed over the past few years). This morning, I put the battery back in, and still a no-go. I seriously suspect some sort of ROM corruption, and there really is no way around that from an end-user perspective.

[Silver5]

One other option for you is to try and reload the ROM, if that is even possible. I don't know if Eten has released any ROM updates for it, but if they have, see if that works for you.

Back in the middle of February my Qtek 9100's speaker for handset mode just stopped working. Apparently this is a common problem with the 9100/Wizard devices. Anyways, it ended up taking a month to get back from service and I bought and sold numerous devices in that time trying to make myself happy (Blackberry 7105t, MDA III, Treo 650, and XDA IIs) none of which really worked for me. I must say that out of all of those I missed the Blackberry 7105t the most when I gave it up.

I now have a T-Mobile MDA as a backup phone so I won't have to go through all of that again if there is another problem.

[Darius Wey]

One other option for you is to try and reload the ROM, if that is even possible. I don't know if Eten has released any ROM updates for it, but if they have, see if that works for you.

I attempted this earlier in the day and it didn't help. I had to resort to a local ROM re-flash via SD card, since the device can no longer connect to a computer. Long story short, it failed. But, thanks for the suggestion.

[MitchellO]

Does the M600 have a battery charge slot on the cradle? I would try charging the battery in that and see how you go. Can't hurt to try?

Yes, I put the battery in the cradle before I went to bed. While that was charging, I let the device sit overnight battery-less (a common test that has been performed over the past few years). This morning, I put the battery back in, and still a no-go. I seriously suspect some sort of ROM corruption, and there really is no way around that from an end-user perspective.

I can certainly see how ROM corruption could happen. Considering how WM5 stores everything in ROM some access error or something could have screwed up the OS portion. Can you get to the bootloader or anything? A ROM update/reflash certainly sounds like a good idea. Can't hurt?

[Darius Wey]

Can you get to the bootloader or anything? A ROM update/reflash certainly sounds like a good idea. Can't hurt?

Already tried and failed, as mentioned in the post above. Isaac Asimov (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Laws_of_Robotics) needs to rethink his Three Laws of Robotics, because they're clearly not being put into application here (read: in particular, Law 2). ;)

[MitchellO]

Can you get to the bootloader or anything? A ROM update/reflash certainly sounds like a good idea. Can't hurt?

Already tried and failed, as mentioned in the post above. Isaac Asimov (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Laws_of_Robotics) needs to rethink his Three Laws of Robotics, because they're clearly not being put into application here (read: in particular, Law 2). ;)

1. Are you going to hurt yourself out of frustration, therefore your phone has broken the 1st law?

2. The phone refuses to boot or even reload so it has broken the 2nd law.

3. Its allowed itself to become corrupted, therefore broken the 3rd law.

[bystander]

Your experience with yoour converged device is precisely why I am quite reluctant to buy and use a PPC/Phone converged system.

While converged devices allow fewer gadgets to be carried and managed, it places much more pressure on the user when either functionality on the single device fails to perform properly.

This is especially relevant now that the rumor is gaining weight that the non-conferged PPC is going the way of the dinosaur.

Best wishes to you on your painful experience. May it be short lived....

[Dent]

Over the last few days the screen input on my Eten M600 has been deteriorating to the point where today it is now unusable. When I press down on the screen the input actually appears far to the left, meaning that some options / buttons / confim dialogs are not reachable now. Soft and hard resets don’t fix the issue.

This is incredibly frustrating as you can imagine, and I have contacted Xpansys to see what options I have, and whether I have to deal directly with Eten (I hope not).

I wonder now if I was relying a little too much on the device – today in the street I needed to retrieve passwords to some accounts I rarely use, and of course couldn’t because my converged pda is now basically a brick, and I was really stuck as to what I was going to do. If I had been out of town or out of the country on business I really could have been in trouble.

[Darius Wey]

Over the last few days the screen input on my Eten M600 has been deteriorating to the point where today it is now unusable. When I press down on the screen the input actually appears far to the left, meaning that some options / buttons / confim dialogs are not reachable now. Soft and hard resets don’t fix the issue. This is incredibly frustrating as you can imagine, and I have contacted Xpansys to see what options I have, and whether I have to deal directly with Eten (I hope not).

This issue relates to a malfunctioning digitizer that affected a small batch of M600s. My particular device had it too, though I never got around to getting it fixed (and I guess it's a moot point now, anyway). From what I've heard, E-TEN or your distributor will replace it under warranty.

[sting0r]

I feel for you! My Wizard (T-Mobile MDA) died on me late Thursday night. One minute I was speaking to someone, then I hung up and 5 minutes later pulled the phone out of my pocket to check email and it was dead. Of course I thought "It must be the battery", but it was showing fully charged just a few minutes before. I get into my buddies car and try to charge it and no lights come on. Pulled out the battery, put it back in, tried it again, still nothing. Even let it charge over night and not even a light came on.

Thank god for T-Mobile, called them on Friday morning and they are sending me a new one (even though I bought it from someone used apparently) and I just had to pay $15 for overnight shipping. UPS tracking says I will have my new phone on Monday.

I am personally using a nokia 9300 w/ Blackberry Connect as a back-up phone right now. It's a little slow, but definitely has a beautiful 640x200 screen that I miss from time to time when browsing.

Hope the new MDA works doesn't give me any problems...

[isajoo]

knowing microsoft they might have just made wm2005 so that everyone has to buy a new device... dont see the selling point of everything in rom.... what would u put? doc, notes, contacts, i have a wm2003 and i do have anything on the main rom, i put all important files on the extra rom storage or sd/cf cards. then if i have a battery die on me which i never do, i just reload the backup files takes any where from 1-3 mins .... the way i see it... if wm2005 were to be on a device and the battery dies then u data is safe, right? BUT u still have a dead unit with no battery life... or u get a corrupted rom file bacuse of always writing to the rom, over and over again. no advantage that i can see. dont even start about the whole one hand crap... why would i use i hand on a ppc, unless i was ******* off, hehe.

[yawanag]

[quote="isajoo"]i am not sure if this would help your case but i had this happen to my ppc but it is running wm2003... i could not get it to do anything... i did everything u did but it would not get pass the white screen... i decided to leave it on the charger over night and the next day i hard reset it right after i took it off the charger and it was back to normal... almost like a bad dream...

I had experiences like those you've mentioned too many times to count with my Imate PPC. Now I know why they stopped selling it right after I received mine. I find it interesting that my HP 540 can still be counted on when I'm in a pinch. It had no phone so I keep my T-Mobile 2000 for a backup phone when I must be out on the road and get spooked if I can't call a Tow Truck if I needed one.

It gave me the push to move up to a new MDA IV although I can't say I'm in love with WM5 yet. Only had it 3 weeks. So many of well-loved apps aren't compatible. I'm really PO'd that the toolbar does not show the time and date and I don't see why I have to go browsing for tools to make it work. Isn't that Mr. Gates job?

[Darius Wey]

Ah, a happy and bizarre ending to my ordeal. I've updated the original post for those of you who are interested. 8)

[Patrick Y.]

Ah, a happy and bizarre ending to my ordeal. I've updated the original post for those of you who are interested. 8)

Hurray!!!! :mrgreen: :beer:

[Hagow]

Glad to hear what happened? How did you fix it?

[Darius Wey]

Glad to hear what happened? How did you fix it?

Check out the updated note in my original post. (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=399891#399891) Even now that it's working, I still suspect ROM corruption, so there's no guarantee that it won't die on me in the future. A local ROM flash should work once, not after the twelfth time, so there's something iffy going on inside the device. :?

[Patrick Y.]

Glad to hear what happened? How did you fix it?

Check out the updated note in my original post. (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=399891#399891) Even now that it's working, I still suspect ROM corruption, so there's no guarantee that it won't die on me in the future. A local ROM flash should work once, not after the twelfth time, so there's something iffy going on inside the device. :?

Can't you replace it? After all, isn't the warranty still in effect?

[Darius Wey]

Can't you replace it? After all, isn't the warranty still in effect?

Yes, I've already contacted E-TEN to inform them about the whole ordeal. In addition, and as mentioned before, my digitizer has been acting a little funky for a while, so hopefully they can do something about it. However, there's still that latency period between now and when they can do something about it. Hopefully, my device doesn't die on me during that time frame - or it'll be more mind-blowing 6610i action. :worried:

[MitchellO]

Yeah its that waiting period thats the pain. At least they are fixing it without a hassle.

[Steve Jordan]

I was curious about the "coldinit" entry on your Today screen... that sounds like you might have picked up a virus ("Cold... isn't it?"). Or is that standard PPC for "cold initialization required"? If it is, it seems strange that it would display that on your Today screen.

[Darius Wey]

I was curious about the "coldinit" entry on your Today screen... that sounds like you might have picked up a virus ("Cold... isn't it?"). Or is that standard PPC for "cold initialization required"? If it is, it seems strange that it would display that on your Today screen.

It's not a virus. I don't know specifics, and its purpose has never really been documented publicly, but looking at registry entries and its default location in the Pocket PC directory structure, it's a file that dictates the initialisation (boot) sequence of the device. Now why it (or, at least, a shortcut to coldinit.exe) made its way into the Start menu is perplexing. Result of a shot ROM, perhaps?

[milo]

I've had a terrible time with my M600. One day, after trying unsuccessfully to make a call it went to the white screen. I pulled the battery and put it back in. Still a white screen. After a few more minutes I found that I had not put the battery lock on. Put this on, turned her on and voila, up she fired. Only to say the battery was empty... From then on you could only charge to 75% full. If you turned it off then on again it could be anywhere from 0% and 70%. I had to keep it constantly on charge to keep it useable.

It took two weeks just to get the return authority number. Now the Aussie distributer has had it for four weeks and I still haven't seen a replacement. I called them last week and they said it was going to be replaced but it hadn't been processed yet. Hopefully this week (crosses fingers).

[Darius Wey]

It took two weeks just to get the return authority number. Now the Aussie distributer has had it for four weeks and I still haven't seen a replacement. I called them last week and they said it was going to be replaced but it hadn't been processed yet. Hopefully this week (crosses fingers).

When you get it back, check to see if you're running the latest ROM (currently, 0215). If not, it's worth upgrading to, as it solves a lot of the white screen and battery issues that existed when the M600 was first released.

[Patrick Y.]

It took two weeks just to get the return authority number. Now the Aussie distributer has had it for four weeks and I still haven't seen a replacement. I called them last week and they said it was going to be replaced but it hadn't been processed yet. Hopefully this week (crosses fingers).

Lucky me.. Dell replaced my unit three times all within 2-3 days in US. :P Anyway, good luck!

[milo]

Now my 2215 has been stolen. I'm, not sure I am supposed to have a PPC. Sigh.

[phreaker18]

Now my 2215 has been stolen. I'm, not sure I am supposed to have a PPC. Sigh.

im sorry to hear that Milo..... i think u definitely shud get another PPC

[tasi]

Hey Darius,

You're a guy "in the know", so I was wondering if you could find out when ETEN will release a ROM with AKU2 (MSFP Exchange Push E-Mail)?

I'm on ROM 213, they're up to 216 now, but don't want go through the hassel of reinstalling everything until I can get AKU2.

Thanks for any help,
Tariq.

[phreaker18]

makes complete sense....

[Darius Wey]

You're a guy "in the know", so I was wondering if you could find out when ETEN will release a ROM with AKU2 (MSFP Exchange Push E-Mail)?

Unfortunately, I'm in the dark about this as much as you are. I asked them about the availability of the MSFP back in February, and all they could tell me was that it was unconfirmed.

[Darius Wey]

I'm on ROM 213, they're up to 216 now, but don't want go through the hassel of reinstalling everything until I can get AKU2.

By the way, from experience, I've found ROM 0216 to be a lot faster than previous versions, though the lower phone volume (as reported by many) remains a real problem. :roll:

[tasi]

Thanks for trying Darius! :)

[Kadegboye]

Hey Darius,
That's an unpleasant experience which nobody wants to go through!! I start to get worried about my old XDA II which has been working fine since 2003 until recently when I messed up with the calender system. However, it is still working well but from reading what you went through, I am going to prepare to get a back-up device because I depend very much on it in my clinical work.
I wish you get this taken care of soon. Good luck.
Kay.

[milo]

im sorry to hear that Milo..... i think u definitely shud get another PPC

Well, I still own an M600. It just happens to be in the limbo of corporate bureaucracy. I called Bluechip (the Australian distributer) and they said the replacement has been dispatched. I asked what address, they told me it had been dispatched to the place where I bought it! Call them, sorry but no it hasn't come in. Aarrgg!

I looked up the date when I originally applied for the return authority, 22nd of February! It has been over two months! At least HP was only three weeks.