Omnia freezes randomly - ROM independent

[Guest ElimGarak]

Hey folks,

I bought a Samsung Omnia from eBay, that has been tagged being defective.

And soon I start believing in it, although I don't get, what exactly might be wrong.

The problem is, that the device randomly refuses to work: Either it freezes in Windows Mobile, or it even does while booting, then you just get as far as the animated Samsung logo and not further at all. After a soft- or hard reset or after plugging it into the wall, it might load fully again - just to freeze sooner or later in Windows Mobile. Sometimes it even appears, as if just moving the phone might cause the loading-process to continue again. I'm really very confused.

I thought this might have been a problem related to the ROM, but I now I'm beginning to have doubts about it: I already tried two different ROMs (actually official ones), two different phone-parts and not with too great success. What I don't get: Why does it sometimes work just flawlessly (even browsed some Websites), just to crash without a reason? And how could I flash the phone without a problem, if there's actually something wrong with the hardware?

Have you ever seen such a weird behaviour? Do you know, what might be the problem? Mainboard defect maybe?

Thanks in advance

Jens

EDIT: Oh and unless installing Flash Lite 3.1 shouldn't cause a sudden restart, you can add random resets to the oddities ;)

EDIT2: Apparently getting the phone to work is also a question of luck. After the last reset it wouldn't work anymore.

Edited December 10, 2009 by ElimGarak

[Guest necosino]

"Official Roms"

There's your problem ;) Custom ROMS all the way

[Guest ElimGarak]

"Official Roms"

There's your problem ;) Custom ROMS all the way

Wow - are they really that bad? How could these pass internal quality assurance? I mean - if the behaviour of my Omnia is standard for official ROMs, I'd never buy it for the retail price anywhere...

[Guest ElimGarak]

Well, I tried a custom ROM (ryrzy, Build 28002 - normal), but still didn't really get rid of this problem. Sometimes it only freezes for about 15 seconds, but sometimes it freezes fully. It's especially likely to happen if you unplug from the wall charger - but the device will react again, when you plug it back in.

I cannot believe, that this is normal behaviour, because otherwise people most likely wouldn't use this phone in their daily life. So again: Any ideas on what may be wrong?

Edited December 13, 2009 by ElimGarak

[Guest necosino]

I would format My Storage (Via Mass Storage mode connected to a PC) and then do a hard reset. DON'T INSTALL ANYTHING!

Test for at least a day.

If the problems happen, then yeah, your phone might be deffective.

If it doesn't happen, then it's being caused by a certain program.

Install HALF of the programs you normally install and test. If the problem happens, you know its in this set, if not, it's the other half.

Keep repeating this until you find the program (or programs) that are causing the problem.

All programs

------------------------------ \ ------------------------------

Problem ^^^

--------------- \ ---------------

^^

----- \ -----

^^

-- \ --

^

- \ -

^

[Guest garbageguts]

A number of us experience the 'freeze' on some ROM versions. It is due to the phone going into 'sleep' mode and not coming out. Some ROMs deal with coming out of sleep better than others with the i910. Typical quick fix - remove battery - reinsert and reboot. You might want to get a different battery - or maybe set up the WiFi connection differently (a noted culprit). It most likely is a installed program that is trying to do something - but not completing - some call it a program 'leak' (taken from Web Server world that tackles multiple parallel processes). Others say - reformat everything and install only the basics. Unfortunately official and un-offical ROMs have never been tested with your unique set of programs, EVDO connection and WiFi connectivity - all which affect how your device comes out of 'sleep' mode. ROMs with a page pool size of 12 seem to work best with my i910 device.

[Guest ElimGarak]

A number of us experience the 'freeze' on some ROM versions. It is due to the phone going into 'sleep' mode and not coming out. Some ROMs deal with coming out of sleep better than others with the i910. Typical quick fix - remove battery - reinsert and reboot. You might want to get a different battery - or maybe set up the WiFi connection differently (a noted culprit). It most likely is a installed program that is trying to do something - but not completing - some call it a program 'leak' (taken from Web Server world that tackles multiple parallel processes). Others say - reformat everything and install only the basics. Unfortunately official and un-offical ROMs have never been tested with your unique set of programs, EVDO connection and WiFi connectivity - all which affect how your device comes out of 'sleep' mode. ROMs with a page pool size of 12 seem to work best with my i910 device.

Hum, I wonder if your description of other's experiences matches mine, because I don't just have problems with the phone not coming out of sleep-mode.

- Sometimes the phone simply won't boot and hangs for minutes in the loading process. Sometimes plugging it into the wall seems to help, sometimes not. On the next reset or even hard-reset it might load normally again.

- It might even hang, if phone and Wifi is turned off. Sometimes it only hangs for 15 to 30 seconds and after that, processes all the clicks on the touchscreen I made (like the normal computers sometimes)

- Sometimes I cannot turn on the phone at all or it'll say, I don't have a connection, although reception with my other phones and same provider is just fine

- The problems also occur, if I haven't installed anything yet and just the files in ROM are present (trying the format of My Storage anyway right now, because there are some files from earlier ROMs on it)

As for the battery - is it possible that the described behaviour can be caused by a faulty battery? I ask, because as you might imagine, I'm not interested in investing any more money on a device that may be bricked.

Anyway - thanks to you two for the suggestions so far. And if you have a particular ROM in mind, that is supposed to run very smoothly without any additional software, I'm all ears ;)

Best regards

Edited December 13, 2009 by ElimGarak

[Guest ElimGarak]

I would format My Storage (Via Mass Storage mode connected to a PC) and then do a hard reset. DON'T INSTALL ANYTHING!

Didn't change anything. The first problems just occured about half a minute of usage after the hard reset.

What I definetely can say is, that shaking the device sometimes seems to help getting it out of being stuck (which is rather bad, I suppose). Also plugging and unplugging the device does help if it's stuck. I sometimes feel like Al Calavicci of Quantum Leap, beating Ziggy - if you know what I mean *g*

Edited December 13, 2009 by ElimGarak

[Guest ElimGarak]

Well, just ordered a new, cheap akku. That's my last try regarding this phone, although I don't have too much hope, because even if fully charged it doesn't work well.

A new error I noticed is, that when the phone crashes during startup, it sometimes won't notice, if it's still plugged into the wall charger (showing the red light all the time, although it has been plugged off). And resetting by removing the battery (if it hangs) leads to the date being reset to the default time - maybe that's also not supposed to be.

Will also try a fourth ROM on my phone in the evening, but I guess we already know the results.

So, let's say the phone's mainboard is defective. What would it be worth - including all accessoires and manuals?

Best regards!

Edited December 15, 2009 by ElimGarak

[Guest ElimGarak]

The seller just told me, that the phone behaves like that, since it fell down once. Any chance, this might easily be repaired?

Best regards

[Guest Root-dir]

try unchecking "power saving mode" in your power settings the wifi power saving mode offten seems to prevent me from connecting to networks and i think the general one may cause problems too especily if you have the registry tweaked to use specific windows mobile powersaving for certain devices or services

[Guest Root-dir]

The seller just told me, that the phone behaves like that, since it fell down once. Any chance, this might easily be repaired?

Best regards

that would depend on what broke if it was just a solder joint poping loose then maybe it may be reacting to heat conditions (unleaded solder has this problem) do you notice it locking up after using it long enough for the back to get warm? hear anything loose inside when you shake the device?

[Guest ElimGarak]

that would depend on what broke if it was just a solder joint poping loose then maybe it may be reacting to heat conditions (unleaded solder has this problem) do you notice it locking up after using it long enough for the back to get warm? hear anything loose inside when you shake the device?

Actually it often locks up just while starting. But the back seems to be getting warm quite fast anyway.

But no, I don't hear anything loose inside, when I shake the device.