vB Easy Archive - Dopod S300 Won't Turn On

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Dopod S300 Won't Turn On
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Posted by: jk120585

Hi guys.

I thought I'd ask you all to see if you can help me. I bought a used Dopod S300 off of eBay from these guys . I got it, popped in my Cingular SIM, was good to go. It worked fine for about 3 weeks.

Today, I notice at work that the phone is off. I try to turn it on, and it starts turning on. I then flip it closed and pop it back in my pocket, thinking it would have completed the boot up.

Later, I find out that the phone turned off again. I try to turn it on and no go. So I take out the batt, pop it back in, and try to turn it on. It starts booting, and goes through the Dopod screen, the HTC screen, and gets to the Windows Mobile screen, and then turns off. Trying to turn it on again after that usually yields no results.

The phone will not start the boot up process whenever I hold the on/off button. It seems to be random. I have taken out and put the battery in many times to try to "reset" any charge in the phone.

I am not averse to doing a hard reset, but I can't even get that far.

Other possible clues that I'm throwing out there:
- I did get a microSD card by Transcend that I was using just fine for about a week and a half.
- I also got a silicon case that I only used the top half of after finding out that putting both on wouldn't allow the phone to close properly.
- My Cingular SIM says 64K smartchip
- I have only charged via the USB cable on my computer
- I sync with ActiveSync 4.1.0 and Outlook 2003

As far as I know, the phone was fine in the morning and turned off sometime while it was in my pocket.

Any suggestions/ideas would be greatly appreciated. This has been the best phone I've ever had so far, I really enjoyed using it. I'd like to continue using it.

Posted by: RonAnnArbor

First off, the company you bought from is reputable. What is their warranty policy? Can you return and exchange?

Second, there have been transcend problems with ALL cell phones - try removing that, then reinsert the battery and reboot. If it works, switch to a Sandisk microSD.

Is your phone charged up fully? Did you add any software recently to your phone? SOme software does not work in the phones and that causes odd problems like the one you are experiencing.

The only other thing I can think of is contacting HTC to see if there is a way to do a complete reset of the phone even though you can't reboot.

One final idea -- have you tried to reboot WHILE your phone remains connected to your PC via the synch cable?

Posted by: jk120585

Hey RonAnnArbor, thanks for your quick reply. Let me see if I can respond to your points.

The terms of the ebay sale were as-is, but I'll contact them to see if they can help me out.

I have removed the transcend SD card, and I still cannot turn the phone on.

The phone should be charged up fully. Unfortunately I have no way of knowing. Initially I thought it could be a battery issue, but I'm fairly sure it isn't now. The only software I added was TCPMP.

I sent an email to Dopod support. I will see about contacting HTC.

I have tried to turn on the phone while connected to the computer. It started the boot process and turned off like the other times. Random success at getting that like the other times too. In order words, not much of a difference... unfortunately.

Posted by: jk120585

Some new info. I tried booting up without the SIM card and the sync cable plugged in, and to my surprise it booted.

Naturally after successfully booting without the SIM card, I put in the SIM to check to see if the SIM was broken or not, and the phone still booted!

So now the only bit that I have not put back in is the SD card. I'm kind of afraid to. Lol.

I guess it could still be the silicon case... yea...

Posted by: jk120585

Ok yet another update.

I bit the bullet and tried putting the SD card back in. Lo and behold! It works!

So now I just play the waiting game and hope that the phone continues to work.
In the meantime, I'm looking into a Sandisk SD card... just in case.

Posted by: RonAnnArbor

It sounds like you might have had somekind of conflict that hopefully was resolved -- at least you know next time just take out the SIM card and replace it. I used to have an old Nokia phone that locked up once every three or four months and that is how that problem was solved, take out the sim and the battery, then put them both back in. Maybe that was the whole problem.

By the way, if it happens a lot, your sim card might be damaged even if it "looks" ok. The CIngular 2125 and the Cingular 8125, for example, ate up SIM cards like crazy until they realized that new SIM cards were necessary, and that a rom update fixed some of those problems.

Posted by: jk120585

Well it seems that my problem has cropped up again. The phone will start booting (if it decides to), and will shut off before it gets to the "home" screen.

I have tried removing the SIM, and the SD card, and turning it on, but no such luck. In fact, it seems worse than before.

I did change the SIM from last time, in case it was the SIM, so I have a newer SIM card now, that I was using successfully for a few weeks.

I am at a huge loss here. I might just live phoneless for a while to see what the eBay prices stabilize at for the Cingular 3125.

At least I didn't pay $500... it was more like $300 since it was used and "as-is".

Anyway, any further suggestions would be appreciated. Since more people are getting the phone (or at least similar model), maybe someone else has experienced the issue.

Posted by: TruBlu01

Always stay away from anything electronic that is "as is"! If it's "as is" there is a reason.

Posted by: Ishimaru

no kidding....

Posted by: jk120585

Well it worked fine for about three weeks after I got it...

Posted by: Omega2008

Well this problem can either be a hardware problem or a software problem, so you will have to rule one of them out. The easiest to rule out is the software problem, reflash your phone with the same ROM you have or try a different one or even the Cingular ROM. If this problem persists after flashing the ROM then you can pretty much bet there is something wrong with the phones hardware.

Posted by: jk120585

Ok I have reflashed the ROM. I will update if the problem occurs again.