Killed T|T3? Any advice?

[skeezix]

I was just testing out a n app on my device (I'm doign some development here on the weekend).. then the T3 suddenly goes dim.. like the backlight is off. No response form the device anymore... weird.

Try hitting reset.. nothing. Power button, reset, all of it.. no go. The screen over about 5 minutes slowly fades out to nothing.

Its as if theres no power at all into the device.. its just dead.

I wonder.. is it just "crashed" really hard (beyond anythign I've seen before), where a reset wont' even work? I'll let it sit.. if its "on" then it'll run through its batteries after a few hours maybe and then work again. Or is it just dead I wonder?

(theres no power light on.. it turned off too. No noises, no reset.. nothing. Just sits. I don't want to crack it open to volt meter it either ;)

I guess if its still dead tomorrow I'll try and get a new unit swap since its onyl a month old :/

jeff

[JwY]

hmm
how charged was it when it did that?
does it still recharge or turn on in the cradle?
i suppose hard reset doesn't work either
u might want to try charging it for an hour or so to see if u can get it up and running
but if u can maybe an exchange would be better

[skeezix]

Originally posted by JwY
hmm
how charged was it when it did that?
does it still recharge or turn on in the cradle?
i suppose hard reset doesn't work either
u might want to try charging it for an hour or so to see if u can get it up and running
but if u can maybe an exchange would be better

It was fully charged :/

It doens't charge in cradle.. pop it in, the PC notes that an unknown USB device is present, and the green light doesn't come on. So it woudl appear its not even making contact. (Which is interesting...)

Can't do a hard reset, since the reset button isn't doing anythign at all :/

I'm going to let it sit for afew hours.. perhaps its "on" but in some dead state.. so letting it sit may run its batteries down.

Then maybe tonght I'll let it charge all night and see if that helps.

By tomorrow morning.. time to return it :/

jeff

[JwY]

yeah u really should return it
u wouldn't want this to happen again

[n2ifp]

The actual power on/off switching is controlled by the microprocessor. You could open it and disconnect the battery, if it's possible, and let it sit that way for an hour. A hard reset doesn't completey reset everything.

[Pescado]

Jeff, I would recommend taking it back. You shouldn't have to be tinkering with a one month old unit to make it work.

[skeezix]

It was dead all night.. tried every few hours to see if a resetwould do anythign at all (poke poke poke nada). Went to bed. This morning, I popped it into the cradle and the charge light did come on. So somethign is alive in there. I wonder if its possible for software to kill the device nearly on this one.. hit a register I shouldn't, etc.. ansd whammo, like dead but not...

I'll let it charge a few minutes and see if it can come on.. (ie: If it was stuck in some dead, but churnign the processor, loop..then it woudl eventually rn out of power and diee and lose the memory and then perhaps work again.. so perhaps now that its charging (it didnt' before?), maybe it'll come back to life.) (Regardless, its very interesting that the charge light depends on the processor to work, etc....)

Hmm.. 5 mins of charge and nothing; still dead. No "plink" noise when it hooks up, either. But at least I have a $600 device that shows me a green LED :P

If its not fully functional in an hour, its going back (ie: I head out to work, stop by Staples and exchange it on the way..)

Thanks everyone!

Amazing how annoyed you get whern your PDA dies; instant hate and annoyance, knowing you need to restore frombackups and all sorts of work, and the worry over losing so much cash :/

jeff

[skeezix]

Well, after charging an hour, its just come back fully hard reset but good. Card Backup had backed it up the day before.. restore seems to be working, though the new T3 PIMs are screwing themselves up.. the non-new-PIMs restore okay..

We'll see if it lasts the day..

jeff

[n0m0n]

If I may ask, what type of app were you trying to test on you T3???
What is is supposed to do???
I would be now wondering these questions so that if there is a link between your testing the app', it draining your device, or whatever, you don't repeat this problem yet again.

[skeezix]

Originally posted by n0m0n
If I may ask, what type of app were you trying to test on you T3???
What is is supposed to do???
I would be now wondering these questions so that if there is a link between your testing the app', it draining your device, or whatever, you don't repeat this problem yet again.

Its one of my many applications; this one is Castaway, an Atari ST emu for Palm; its all ARM code (99%, only a little GUI flash on top of it is traditional palm code); It's being hacked away at for weeks/months, and no problems; when I restored the device just now and sent up the application again (with some fear ;), it runs no problem as normal. So I doubt it was the app that did it.

I must assume right now it was some freak of nature.. static in my hands perhaps that killed it? I dunno. Can't come up with any explanation that makes sense for the symptoms... I'll just have to see if it happens again.. if it happens again I'll call it a faulty device. For now I'll just say its sunspots, and save myself the hastle of swapping devices (thoguh mayeb Ishould anyway..)

To my knowledge an application cannot disable the reset button; its as if the battery was completely drained to the point the device could nolonger operate (ie: disconnected?), including the charge light. But why woudlnt' the light come on when put into cradle? If the battery is "too low" the charge light can't come on perhaps?

So it would seam that we must guess the charge light (which is software controlled, for alarms, etc, as we know) cannot in fact operate while the battery is totally dead.. so how does a device which has sat in cradle all day, suddenly go dead? SUDS?

What does SUDS look like.. it wrecks the serial port on the device. But I can now sync.. so I don't think thats the case here.

*scratches head*

Regardless, the worst an application cando is crash or cause a reset.. though it seems sometimes apps can cause a hard reset; but I've bnever seen nor heard of an app kill a device like this, and it hardly seems reven possible. So it must be some flukey hardware thing.. so if true, I shoudl exchange it. But I'll let it go a few days and see....

(I was wokring too hard, so perhaps it was the Fates trying to say "take it easy" ;)

jeff

[Steller]

I don´t know what happens to your device.
Sounds like another strange computer phenomena if there isn´t a hardware fault. But you´re right that the LED remains OFF when the battery´s fully drained.
Steller

[skeezix]

Originally posted by Steller
I don´t know what happens to your device.
Sounds like another strange computer phenomena if there isn´t a hardware fault. But you´re right that the LED remains OFF when the battery´s fully drained.
Steller

Really; so while charging, from fully drained, the light stays off for a minute until at some point it comes on eh?

So it would seem to suggest my device just fully discharged instantly, in my hand. Weird.

jeff

[Pescado]

Does sound like a magnet personality thing or solar flares <g>.

[jledesma]

That has to be the weirdest story I have ever heard. Perhaps you should carry one of those "static bracelets" used when opening static sensitive devices :p