My SG3's main board died and apparently it's my fault?

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BDFL - Memuneh
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#713909 8-Nov-2012 06:59

Was this Samsung bought from Telecom or parallel?

If it was from Telecom, I suggest you contact someone from their team here on Geekzone, point to this thread. I think plambrechtsen is your best option.

But you have to absolutely, 100% sure you have not tried anything stupid on this handset. Once you have established this is not a fault of your own, talk to someone about your case.

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dickytim

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#713919 8-Nov-2012 07:42

gregmcc:

Give them reasonable time to repair or replace (don't accecpt a refirburshed replacement, only a new) about 2-3 weeks tops other than that advise them that you will file a claim with the disputes tribunal and claim costs such as the filing fee, costs for your time.

sometimes you've just got to play hardball and this sounds like one of these times.

Do they need to replace a 3 month old phone with a brand new one?

I would imagine they would just conduct the $120 repair regardless???

jonherries

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#713952 8-Nov-2012 09:27

31/10/2012 3:50:28 p.m.Fault verified -- Phone stuck in Samsung boot logo. Checked internal condition, sent to s/w reflash to fix s/w related faults.2/11/2012 9:12:13 a.m.SW REFLASH failed.2/11/2012 11:46:10 a.m.The device is rooted. Requires to quote for main board replacement.

Am I the only one that thinks the word "rooted" might have a different meaning in this sentence. Ie. It could read "The device is stuffed". I have used that word in that sense reasonably recently...

If another tech then read the result, he might reasonably assume, like all of us so far, that you had "rooted" the phones software, not that the phone itself is stuffed.

Then all the conversation about custom roms becomes moot, because the phone itself is broken, and "finding" the answer has been a waste of time?

Jon

TimOB

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#713974 8-Nov-2012 09:43

freitasm: Was this Samsung bought from Telecom or parallel?

If it was from Telecom, I suggest you contact someone from their team here on Geekzone, point to this thread. I think plambrechtsen is your best option.

But you have to absolutely, 100% sure you have not tried anything stupid on this handset. Once you have established this is not a fault of your own, talk to someone about your case.

Purchased directly from Telecom.

I am 100% sure I did not try anything stupid with this phone. I lack the technical know-how and interest to bother - the SG3 on the Telecom network was running perfectly without fiddling with customisation.

I'll follow up with the Telecom team.

mattwnz

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#714153 8-Nov-2012 13:50

jonherries: 31/10/2012 3:50:28 p.m.Fault verified -- Phone stuck in Samsung boot logo. Checked internal condition, sent to s/w reflash to fix s/w related faults.2/11/2012 9:12:13 a.m.SW REFLASH failed.2/11/2012 11:46:10 a.m.The device is rooted.

That is what I thought to. Rooted to someone non technical means that it is broken/stuffed etc.

robjg63

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#714159 8-Nov-2012 14:00

mattwnz:
jonherries: 31/10/2012 3:50:28 p.m.Fault verified -- Phone stuck in Samsung boot logo. Checked internal condition, sent to s/w reflash to fix s/w related faults.2/11/2012 9:12:13 a.m.SW REFLASH failed.2/11/2012 11:46:10 a.m.The device is rooted.

That is what I thought to. Rooted to someone non technical means that it is broken/stuffed etc.

Rooted has a fairly precise definition in regard to mobile phones/appliances/operating systems.
It would be very stupid to use it if they meant it was broken.

Some people would also find that usage of the word offensive as well - so at the very least it would be pretty unprofessional to use that word to mean broken.

Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself - A. H. Weiler

dan

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#714169 8-Nov-2012 14:16

even if it was rooted and the rom was corrupt, theres really no good reason why they couldnt put it back into download mode and reflash it via ODIN which would fix any software issues.

It may very well be a hardware fault since they cant reflash it in ODIN or the guy doesn't know what hes doing

its very hard to brick (aka you cant fix it) these phones unless someone flashed the wrong device firmware onto it

this is a rubbish explanation to anyone who plays with custom roms etc
"REFLASH failed.2/11/2012 11:46:10 a.m.The device is rooted."

I think the guy probably flashed it incorrectly causing the model number to be missing and the status to change, or it does actually have a hardware issue which caused all of the above

theres really nothing you can get from the play store that can do this to your phone without root/superuser.

mattwnz

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#714171 8-Nov-2012 14:26

robjg63: Some people would also find that usage of the word offensive as well - so at the very least it would be pretty unprofessional to use that word to mean broken.

To be honest, nothing would surprise me.

nzgeek

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#714175 8-Nov-2012 14:30

31/10/2012 3:50:28 p.m. Fault verified -- Phone stuck in Samsung boot logo. Checked internal condition, sent to s/w reflash to fix s/w related faults.
2/11/2012 9:12:13 a.m. SW REFLASH failed.
2/11/2012 11:46:10 a.m. The device is rooted. Requires to quote for main board replacement.

(I've added some extra line breaks and spaces to make this easier to read.)

Looking at this trail, the "custom" status is almost certainly caused by the service centre's actions.

The software that they use to flash firmware is called Odin, and it's the same software that is often used to install a custom kernel to root Samsung phones. I've used it myself several times, so have a good idea how it works. There are only 2 possible failure conditions: the software couldn't see the phone, or the flash fails part-way through.

I doubt that the software would have any problem seeing the phone. This is almost always an Odin setup issue, such as missing drivers. This should all be taken care of, as they've no doubt had to work on other SGS3s. This tends to indicate that the reflash failed part-way through the flashing process.

Because of the way that the flashing happens, if there's some error part-way through then the phone doesn't go back to a pre-flash state. It stays at whatever state it was in when the flash failed. This isn't a file copy operation, it's a partition clone, so if only half of it has been written then you've got a corrupt (i.e. unreadable) partition on the phone.

I'm not sure how the service centre checks the firmware status of the phone, but it probably involves a digital signature check somewhere. This requires that the firmware is byte-for-byte identical to when it was compiled by Samsung. If there are any differences (e.g. caused by the flash failing part-way through) then it'll fail the test. Also, if any part of the process checks files on the phone to pull out device information, then this will fail too because of partition corruption.

So, going back to the repair history, the service centre try to reflash the firmware and that fails. They then check to see if the firmware is Samsung stock. Given that the flashing process has almost certainly corrupted the firmware, it should be no surprise that it's not showing as stock.

I would simply say to the repair centre that you've asked advice from people who know the phone, and who say that the failed flash will have put the phone into the "non-genuine" state. If they try to say that they checked before they did the flash, ask why they did the flash if they knew any such work wasn't covered under warranty.

And to be completely honest, I doubt they need to replace the mainboard anyway. It's quite possible that the flash was a transient error, and another attempt will work just fine. It's very difficult to get a Galaxy phone into a state where you can't use Odin on it. If it does keep failing, then it's a hardware issue that no amount of custom software could cause.

mattwnz

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#714178 8-Nov-2012 14:34

Just a question to the OP. Did you do a phone firmware update through the samsung Kies software at any stage? If so could that have caused the problem? I did a firmware upgrade to mine through the kies software, and the kies software crashed midway through the upgrade. Teh firmware appears to have been applied fine, but since then, I can't connect to Kies to do future updates.

TimOB

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#714179 8-Nov-2012 14:36

mattwnz: Just a question to the OP. Did you do a phone firmware update through the samsung Kies software at any stage? If so could that have caused the problem? I did a firmware upgrade to mine through the kies software, and the kies software crashed midway through the upgrade. Teh firmware appears to have been applied fine, but since then, I can't connect to Kies to do future updates.

Hi Matt,

Nope, I haven't done any firmware updates through Kies.

Cheers
Tim

monkey300

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#714184 8-Nov-2012 14:56

Theres a bit of misinformation in this thread, I can verify the following:

Reflashing with an official firmware doesn't cause the 'custom' status - it doesn't increase the flash counter either, which is used to check if a phone has previously been flashed with a custom ROM.

Custom is normally only caused by flashing a custom ROM or flashing something like ClockworkRecoveryMod over a standard ROM to give you root access (hence the word rooted).

I say *normally* because I think in your case, the community is right in suggesting that a NAND or motherboard failure has caused it to be seen as custom/rooted when it wasn't.

Hope this helps :)

TimOB

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#714204 8-Nov-2012 15:43

Latest reply from Telegistics:

Hi Tim,

The explanation that I have given you in the previous email came directly from my technical manager, and states the manufacturer’s warranty acceptance criteria. He has advised that the quote stands, therefore it is up to you to either decline or accept the quote. Beyond that, I can give you Samsung’s number -0800 726 786- and you are more than welcome to take this up with them, as they are the people who enforce the warranty.

Regards,

Talk about obstructive and unhelpful. I've contacted Peter from Telecom via this forum so hopefully I can make some progress via that channel.

mattwnz

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#714226 8-Nov-2012 16:11

TimOB: Latest reply from Telegistics:

Hi Tim,

The explanation that I have given you in the previous email came directly from my technical manager, and states the manufacturer’s warranty acceptance criteria. He has advised that the quote stands, therefore it is up to you to either decline or accept the quote. Beyond that, I can give you Samsung’s number -0800 726 786- and you are more than welcome to take this up with them, as they are the people who enforce the warranty.

Regards,

Talk about obstructive and unhelpful. I've contacted Peter from Telecom via this forum so hopefully I can make some progress via that channel.

You need to write them a stiff letter and get them to escalate the case. I wonder if you could also take it to the TDR, as it sounds like they have reached a deadlock at their end? Also they shouldn't be telling you to go to the manufacturer, as the CGA is between you and the retailer, and it is up tot he retailer to resolve the issue.

numfarr

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#714243 8-Nov-2012 16:35

nzgeek: I'm not sure how the service centre checks the firmware status of the phone

The text that they're talking about (Product name, Custom Binary Download, etc.) appears at the top of the download mode screen on the S3, before a new OS is downloaded:

This is the phone's bootloader just reading the product name and flash status out of NAND. Wherever this info is stored is either corrupted or inaccessible. They are just following the support script of what to do when it says "Custom" without putting much thought into it I think.

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