Tuesday, March 3, 2015

Broken 808? What I did to fix... What I found out...

 

 INFO to everybody,

 so, after days, months and years of excessive use of my 808, ...flashing, modding, extreme usage, etc.etc. etc. ...I have been getting really bad problems for over a week now...



Problems :
- random reboots
- constant SIM connection problems
- software and app problems
- offline mode
- battery backcover was broken and battery keeps falling out, making random reboots even worse and more frequent

I can't recall any more right now, but it was so bad I thought of buying a new phone....of course a new Nokia 808.
It was even so bad, I was really thinking about buying a different phone with a different OS - that's how bad it was.
Because if you know me, then that is the last option I would do

this is how I tried to fix:


Luckily for me I had a fresh backup not even two weeks old and of course am running Delight, so I  reset my system, Delight booted and reinstalled exactly as it should. I restored my backup and thought it should be it.
Problems still occuring...

Is it the Sd card?
I couldn't connect to my sd card over phone, so I saved all my data and formatted my sdcard. Only to copy my private data back. No system files or such. Reinserted my sdcard.

...still having problems

Is it the SIM card?
Connection to my Sim card kept on screwing up. Random requests for my PIN, reboots, random turning from provider connection to offline mode and back
so I cleaned my SIM card and the connectors (which were clean)
then I thought, oh well, what the hell... took my 808 completly apart and cleaned it totally
- still had problems, so I ordered a new SIM (for 20€) from my provider (which was a waste of money, but my old SIM was homemade cut from normal SIM to micro SIM size and never really fit correctly)

on the left is my new 128gb microsd card; lovin' it
on the right is my homemade cut micro sim

Is it the mass storage?
Then had a really weird bootloop on my phone, having my Whatsapp installed to E:/ - as soon as it connected the phone restarted. So I hurried up and formatted E:/ right after it booted... took me a couple times to finally achieved it.
Luckily again I have Delight installed, I ran the Delight App and used the language changer to re-evaluate the copies of system and app files to C:/ & E:/

It was slightly better, but...

I was still have random reboots, my backcover keeps falling off, every other time my SIM doesn't connect, etc., etc., etc.

While all this was happing I had a different "problem"
A friend of mine covered my backcover with carbon foil, which looks really good. 
But he bent and broke most of the cover connectors by heating the other side for the carbon foil, simply forgetting that they might melt, or that they are even there.

The Mugen Power Battery cover for the bigger 3000Mah battery isn't solely available and I went ahead and bought a new Mugen Power Nokia 808 3000Mah battery with cover. This time I went for red. If I don't like it I will cover it with carbon foil again, but this time without breaking it



Today the battery arrived and after unboxing I saw the cover had a crack. I was very disappointed, but
I contacted my seller and got a Email within the hour telling me they would send me 2 new covers free of charge. (not sure if that was because my reseller was a big trademark called by the name of a south american rainforest with remarkably high customer terms and conditions that are on the edge of bringing small businesses to collapse --- wrong topic here, sorry).
Anyway, I am happy with the results.

 



Heres what I figured out later:
I wanted to put on the better backcover and noticed it didn't fit either. By comparing old and new battery, I saw that the old battery was bloated.  All my problems probably caused by power surges or not fully connected power connectors from battery to phone, because it can't fit anymore. All this resulting in problems with all kinds of software, starting from sdcard, mass storage, SIM connection, Antenne / GSM connection, and whatever else I can not recall now since I have been having these problems in a 5 min frequency for over a week. ...I'll let you do the math
 
on the right is the new battery, as you can see; the left one is clearly bloated

SO, my Mugen 3000Mah battery died after:

- 811 days of use
- 811 reloads
- 811 days of excessive use
  --> 8 - 17 hours of pure power consumption a day
  --> listening to overpowered headphone jacks and loudspeakers
  --> connecting multiple hours a day to FMTX
  --> connecting to mobile Internet about 1000mb per month and countless multiple times that amount to Wlan & Wifi connections
  --> downloading & sharing & uploading files and files of uncountless data

.... all in all, I wonder that my unlock button on the phone still even works, because I hardly ever used the onscreen unlock. Using a middle rate of unlocking my phone, let's say 200x a day, which is probably under-estimated results in at least 200.000 times of unlocking my 1000 day old phone.

The bottom line is that ...

even though I know my phone like the back of my hand, there will always be new surprises to me. All the problems I had were because of a faulty battery. And don't get me wrong, I am very happy with the results of the Mugen power battery. Although I would have like to have two just in case, now I know I have to ditch the old one. Of course I would have been more happy if the battery would have lasted 5 years instead of 2,5, but I guess I overdid it in many, many ways in the past.

I hope you can use this small tutorial if ever you should try to fix a software issue. Even though it was a battery problem it can still help you out.
Search for the problem, for example: whatsapp is installed on E, Whatsapp is breaking up, maybe mass storage OR my music is stored on my sdcard, and the music player keeps restarting the phone: maybe a sdcard problem. Maybe other problems... search for the beginning of the problem and start from there.

anyway...
thanks to Mugen Support Team for exchanging my faulty cover in my last order and making my phone battery last more than one day.

It's a shame that all the phone productions are based on more cpu processing, more graphics, more ppm, more connections to all sorts of apps and their servers whenever and all the time...
...power consumption is growing and growing and growing...
...phones are getting thinner and thinner and thinner...
...and the batteries have NO evolution what-so-ever
It would be nice if somebody in the cell phone industry would explain to me how this is going to end in the future.

sincerly

Eric Dempsey a.k.a. freaxs_r_us

15 comments:

  1. I'd have linked this on AAS out of interest, but there are no images. Shout if you ever put pics in! 8-)

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  2. sounds good, I'll see what I can do

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  3. The non-removable batteries is one method to have consumers constantly buying new phones when they start to fail. It is definitely a consumable product like the memory card and being able to replace them or even augment them (Mugen and bigger microsd card) is a real plus for the Nokia 808

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  4. Amazing finding Eric! Glad also you still true to the 808! Maybe one day
    you can share what apps are you using to cope with the times...
    Cheers

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  5. Definitely a great read. 808 is such a great phone.

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  6. you write:

    "Problems :
    - random reboots
    - constant SIM connection problems
    - software and app problems
    - offline mode
    - battery backcover was broken and battery keeps falling out, making random reboots even worse and more frequent"

    and your last idea is, that it could something to do with the power supply? you are very poor in analyzing problems

    the battery keeps falling out and this guy thinks, it is a software problem and restores a backup, laugh

    you use also a 128gb microsd card, that is not tested and approved for your phone,
    you use also a SIM, homemade cut from normal SIM to micro SIM size and never really fit correctly, wow you are a real IT professional

    and this bungler really thinks, he knows something of smartphones

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  7. his friend is also a hero:

    "While all this was happing I had a different "problem"

    A friend of mine covered my backcover with carbon foil, which looks really good.
    But he bent and broke most of the cover connectors by heating the other side for the carbon foil, simply forgetting that they might melt, or that they are even there."

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  8. hey, look at AAS, there censorship doesn't work

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  9. I have problem with the phone when HSPA is enabled. It doesn't respond and only way to get back working is to remove battery and insert again. I have read the issue is due to 3G network. But when i download the 3G compatibility fix it's version older than currently installed! This happened when i switched to Delight v1.5 on 808. And when i switched back to v1.4 same problem. Only way to prevent frequent freezing of phone i have to either stay in 2G mode or disable HSPA which then gives slow download speeds. Please help.

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  10. Hi Utkarsh,


    the problem of the offical "fix" is, that it's region dependent and related to your product code.
    But while flashing a 808 it gets the product code of the related frimware, so your phone wants the frensh fix.

    The best way would be to download the fix of your version from a forum and drop it into ROFS1 (CORE.fpsx via Nokia Cooker) or manually dropping it into drive C:\.

    Regards,
    Fabian

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  11. Ok. So the problem is that when I change the conversation background then I cannot read my sms messages. I see only headings and when i try to open the message i can only see two broken mini images.

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  12. Can you revert the original Belle skin or default Delight skin via SMSThemer?

    Regards

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  13. yes. I can change the image to the default. the girl. i am wondering how many people have had the same problem. besides. i dont think that the image with this girl is a good idea. I have a wife and when she saw my phone and the default theme she asked : what the hell, who is it ?!

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  14. Nobody else has this issue, maybe you used any SMS theme mods?
    SMSThemer is made for Delight and has no issues at all on vanilla N8 and 808 Delight.

    The Delight logo is old and was there before I was part of the Delight theme, it's not really offensive but I made SMSThemer if you don't like it use another background.

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