a780 randomly shutting off?

[cbcharlie]

i read on other forums that the a780 will just shut off on some people with the battery charged. I wanted to confirm if this is true or not, and if its true to a certain firmware, or all, or just some a780s, if this has not happened to you, please repond telling me so, any info will help, thanks.

[Ravindran]

i read on other forums that the a780 will just shut off on some people with the battery charged. I wanted to confirm if this is true or not, and if its true to a certain firmware, or all, or just some a780s, if this has not happened to you, please repond telling me so, any info will help, thanks.

Hi .. I got my A780 15 days back.. It freezes randomly ..only when the data cable is connected..so far 10 times...


I'm still checking when it happens...

Will keep you all posted!

Rgds,
Ravi

[sitaramc]

I got mine about a month ago, and this started happening in the last few days. Some days it happens very often (like upto 10 times, depending on how often I check I suppose!), sometimes only once/twice, then the rest of the day is fine.

I regard this as the *most serious* complaint one can have against ANY phone. Leave alone something I bought *because* it runs Linux

My observations so far (not tested rigorously):

1. it is something to do with charging. Even plugging into USB counts as "charging" for this.

2. right from the beginning I have observed that the battery only reports 4 levels (100%, 50%, 20%, and 5%). This was merely a nuisance till now, but I now suspect that this inability to figure out how much juice the battery has, or the inability of the battery and the machine to talk to each other nicely, is actually causing this problem under certain conditions (like when coming out of a charge).

3. I'd love to see the eqvt of the syslog output for the last few minutes before it dies. No idea how. I did not find any syslog type program on the system.

4. most freezes are when the lid is closed and you're not using it at all. But 2-3 times it froze while I was actually doing something: once while copying a large MP3 from desktop to phone, the "cp" command came back with "I/O error", and I found that the phone had died. Power on didnt work -- had to remove and reinsert the battery!

5. setting a loooong playlist and putting it in mute seems to keep it from hanging (but of course that eats up CPU and hence the battery for the mp3 decoding, even if it is in mute) This is not a "solution"

6. I wrote a program that essentially looks like this:

#!/bin/bash
while [ : ]
do
cat /proc/uptime > /diska/a.txt
ls -al /diska/a.txt >> /diska/a.txt
sleep 60
done

and it seemed to keep it awake all day nicely. Dont know how many write cycles the flash RAM on the box can take, so I wouldn't regard this as a solution either. And I cant definitively say it DOES work -- maybe by chance it worked...?

I ask anyone who's had this to please report all your findings on this thread. To me this is the biggest fault on the phone, and before I go getting it reflashed or something it's useful to compare notes with others.

I also intend, for the next few days/week, to switch off, remove and reinsert the battery, and switch on after every charge. If there are no random hangs under these conditions we know at least what the problem looks like.

[BTW: how do I check what version of firmware I have?]

Thanks all,

Sitaram

[Yongyut]

I can confirm 1,2 and 4 but haven't done any rigorous testing either, so can't say if there's any pattern in this behaviour.
You can check the firmware with "www008w"(without the quotes).
I've got firmware R52_G_0D.50.AEP
The guy at the Motorola service centre said this to be the latest (official) firmware but have a look at the other thread discussing the different firmware versions.

[Ravindran]

Hiiii...


Quote "You can check the firmware with "www008w"(without the quotes)."


THe Question is where should I type? Sorry for being such a Dumbo !!

Regs.
Ravindran

[maxx_730]

faqs

[Yongyut]

Another way to display the firmware version is:
1. Open the Opera browser
2. Then choose File->About Opera->More
Besides that there is other useful info like the Linux version etc.

[Ravindran]

Another way to display the firmware version is:
1. Open the Opera browser
2. Then choose File->About Opera->More
Besides that there is other useful info like the Linux version etc.

Thanks Yongyut.. I had seen but couldnt recollect ..Now i know... My firmware is R52_G_0D.50.AEP[u:54b6942fe0]

Regs
Ravi

[ThePhantom]

Hi guys,

Can also confirm this behaviour but mine seems to be a slight variation....

Last few weeks the phone has started switching itself off but does actually reboot rather than stay shut off. This would be fine except that once it has reboot, the phone is incapable of picking up the sim card correctly. It shows no antenna level and no network name (mine is orange). Most importantly, when in this state if someone tries to call they get a long conitnuous dial tone rather than even going through to voice mail.

Tends to perform this behaviour once or twice per day.
Does not have to be connected to the USB or power charger to happen.

Once I have noticed that it has occurred then tuning the phone off and back on again will rectify the problem.

Any further thoughts or things to try, let me know.

Regards

ThePhantom

[sitaramc]

I dont know what's up with my phone, and I'm crossing my fingers for luck as I write this, but things have improved somewhat. And for no apparent reason, too!

The random switch offs are now almost always restricted to times when I am connected via USB and am down/uploading a large file or large number of small files between PC and phone.

I *think* that even this doesnt happen so often when the fliptop is open (definitely happens when fliptop is closed). But I have to check a few more times with the flip open and report back if it is consistent.

[I'm a programmer, so I *do* know that when things "improve" without any known reason, this is not in general a good thing. But beggars cant be choosers, so I'm accepting this cheerfully while it lasts!]