N9500 constantly self-resetting : phone & communicator! — Nokia 9300 and 9500

nuMInous 12 Jun 2006, 01:46

Hi folks,
I'm about to go searching for a service centre, but I thought I'd pass on what's been happening with my N9500.

I got my N9500 2nd hand from a pawn shop in the box with all the manuals, cable, charger & accessories. It still even had photos that the previous owner had!

Anyway, that was nearly 12 months ago & everything has been working fine, until now...

Apart from the fact that I run Win98SE (read: no Nokia PC Suite), I've been doing weekly contact backups to the MMC.

I can't be certain, but I installed some <cough!> archival software (anyone know ASA2005?) called camcorder. Upon install, the system told me that it wasn't 9500 compatable software & would I like to install anyway. So, I did...

Well, the software didn't seem to work (error: Could not find target), so I tried uninstalling it, but the uninstaller crashes. I figured, "Let's do a cold reboot". So I took out the battery, waited, then re-inserted it & slid the back cover back on.

Next thing the Communicator boots up with the Nokia screen & the hands. I close the lid & try to boot the phone. The front screen goes white (for a minute or so) & then switches off.
So I leave the phone on charge (the battery was low - I think it may be on the way out, as it only lasts a day when on 2-3 bars) & left the communicator open. It was then I noticed that the hands would disappear as-if doing a reboot. Sure enough, the Nokia screen would appear, then the two hands.

I had a similar problem with my previous N9210, but when that happened, it was only the communicator that wouldn't boot. The phone still worked, albeit at a reduced functionality.

Anyway, as I said I'm going to take it to a service centre (if one is open today - public holiday in Sydney.au) & I'll keep you informed of the outcome.

Has anyone experienced this? I've searched back on the list a few pages, but I can't find anything that describes this fault.

Cheers.

- Mi.

Arjen 12 Jun 2006, 07:36

Sound like you have a leftover file somewhere (some fonts can cause this to happen), that isn't swallowed by the OS and cause the communicator to reboot.

You might want to try a format of the internal drive. Take out the battery, wait 10 seconds, put it back in and open the Communicator. As soon as the blue Nokia logo disappears, you press Ctrl+Shift+F and you should get the option of reformatting the internal disk.

If reformatting doesn't help, then the only course of action left is the service center.

nuMInous 12 Jun 2006, 08:50

Arjen wrote:Sound like you have a leftover file somewhere (some fonts can cause this to happen), that isn't swallowed by the OS and cause the communicator to reboot.
You might want to try a format of the internal drive. Take out the battery, wait 10 seconds, put it back in and open the Communicator. As soon as the blue Nokia logo disappears, you press Ctrl+Shift+F and you should get the option of reformatting the internal disk.
If reformatting doesn't help, then the only course of action left is the service center.

Thanks Arjen. I thought I had tried the Ctrl+Shift+F, but I thought I'd give it one last shot - after all, I had no luck finding a service centre that was open, that knew anything about the N9500.
Bingo! Got the Format screen. I hesitantly pressed FORMAT, but figured that I had nothing to lose (apart from any files that were stored on the device).

Thing is that something very similar happened to my N9210, where they had to reinstall the firmware. This looked almost identical.

Thanks. Saved me some $$$. :icon14:

- Mi.

"Perception is 9/10ths of Reality" - Me.

http://www.mp3.com.au/nuMInous

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