Hermes totally dead.

[shane11r]

Since I brought my jasjam it hasnt had a good life. It has been bashed around a bit too much and I only have myself to blame. This unfortunatly has cause the white screen of death getting worse and worse. Taking apart and reseating the ribbon cable to the board appeared to help but it would soon start getting worse again. The short term fix was a thump accros the palm of my hand. Unfortunatly today this back fired in me and now the phone is totally dead. I am fortunate enough to have another Jasjam that i was sorting out a few problems for a friend and this gave me the ability to swap out batteries chargers etc to try and get mine to fire up. No good.

I have taken it apart and checked all cables to no avail. pluggin in usb or charger have no affect. no lights no responce of anysort.
Any suggestions would be a great help
Thanks

Shane

[MikeChannon]

Since I brought my jasjam it hasnt had a good life. It has been bashed around a bit too much and I only have myself to blame. This unfortunatly has cause the white screen of death getting worse and worse. Taking apart and reseating the ribbon cable to the board appeared to help but it would soon start getting worse again. The short term fix was a thump accros the palm of my hand. Unfortunatly today this back fired in me and now the phone is totally dead. I am fortunate enough to have another Jasjam that i was sorting out a few problems for a friend and this gave me the ability to swap out batteries chargers etc to try and get mine to fire up. No good.

I have taken it apart and checked all cables to no avail. pluggin in usb or charger have no affect. no lights no responce of anysort.
Any suggestions would be a great help
Thanks

Shane

That's too much of a challenge to answer - could be any number of things. Without testing it with a multimeter I couldn't say.

What surprises me is that your friend lets you anywhere near his phone - and does he know you use his bits to test out your poor maltreated Hermes:D

I assume you have looked through the service manual to seek any clues?
Get it at the web link in my signature.

Mike

[shane11r]

Thanks f0r you reply Mike

Im sure what he doesnt know wont hurt him :) anyway its only battery and charger.

Had a look thriough the service manual nothing jumps up and pokes me in the eye. I guess its fairly safe to say the main board has had it.

I cant seem to find anywhere to buy a replacment board and more importantly how much they are so i can see if its viable.

any suggestions

Thanks

Shane

[ach2]

Thanks f0r you reply Mike

Im sure what he doesnt know wont hurt him :) anyway its only battery and charger.

Had a look thriough the service manual nothing jumps up and pokes me in the eye. I guess its fairly safe to say the main board has had it.

I cant seem to find anywhere to buy a replacment board and more importantly how much they are so i can see if its viable.

any suggestions

Thanks

Shane

From my experience, you can only get motherboards from HTC or their repair outlets - this will cost lot$. Maybe if you're shelling out $$$ why not wait for the Kaiser?

[shelay]

hi, this is to anyone who can help mainly prof and mikechannon. basically, i was trying to use my mates BRAND NEW hermes to repair my WLAN (Tmobile Hermes). it was working perfectly well until ran the RUU programme. i selected the 1.04SPL so that i could flash the hermes with the new NBH file i created. it flashed a 100% and it turned off and now its not coming back on. i plugged it into the charger, but no luck.i am afraid if i send it back to HTC, they might want to charge me for it. i love this phone badly, but sadly,i have given my mate mine. i dont mind sending this phone o anyone in the UK who can fix it. PLEASE HELP

[MikeChannon]

hi, this is to anyone who can help mainly prof and mikechannon. basically, i was trying to use my mates BRAND NEW hermes to repair my WLAN (Tmobile Hermes). it was working perfectly well until ran the RUU programme. i selected the 1.04SPL so that i could flash the hermes with the new NBH file i created. it flashed a 100% and it turned off and now its not coming back on. i plugged it into the charger, but no luck.i am afraid if i send it back to HTC, they might want to charge me for it. i love this phone badly, but sadly,i have given my mate mine. i dont mind sending this phone o anyone in the UK who can fix it. PLEASE HELP

I am not a flashing expert, so POF might be the first person to contact even if it's just to see if this is some recognised thing that can happen despite getting to 100%.

Can we assume the phone is completely dead? ie NO LEDs lit at all even when on charger?

Mike

[shelay]

yes it is totally dead. the LED only comes on RED when i take out the battery and stick in the charger.its not responding to anything. i have tried a HARD reset, no luck even a Soft reset too. i am now trying to use microsoft window CE 5 builder software, but i honestly dont think it will work. i really have to fix this phone. it a brand new phone.i tried ringing HTC europe but they are closed today. how can i check if its still under warranty. also, i bought it off some guy on ebay and just had it delivered this morning and now i have managed to brick it

[MikeChannon]

yes it is totally dead. the LED only comes on RED when i take out the battery and stick in the charger.its not responding to anything. i have tried a HARD reset, no luck even a Soft reset too. i am now trying to use microsoft window CE 5 builder software, but i honestly dont think it will work. i really have to fix this phone. it a brand new phone.i tried ringing HTC europe but they are closed today. how can i check if its still under warranty. also, i bought it off some guy on ebay and just had it delivered this morning and now i have managed to brick it


Well I think you need to get a reply here or speak to one of the ROM gurus to see if this is a kniwn result of a faulty flash (seems odd to be but I'm no expert)

The phone is not completely dead if the RED led lights when the battey is out. It is meant to do this. Normally if the battey is faulty the LED will also go red when the battery is inserted.

Are you saying that when you put the battery in the Red LED goes out and no LEDs then show?

Mike

[alkizmo]

I had the same problem as well.

Red LED w/o battery, and NOTHING else.

Battery IN + charger : no LED
Anything else : no LED



Phone wouldnt boot


So I bought from eBay a broken 8525 that was reported to power up, but the screen was broken and some buttons were malfunctioning before the screen broke.

Swapped the motherboards and now I got a functional 8525.

[shelay]

yes, mikechannon, thats excatly what i am saying. when the battery is out and the charger is in, the RED LED comes on. but when the battery and the charger is in, nothing happens

[MikeChannon]

yes, mikechannon, thats excatly what i am saying. when the battery is out and the charger is in, the RED LED comes on. but when the battery and the charger is in, nothing happens

I would have been tempted to say to check with another battery in case it was therefore a battery fault. BUT given what alkizmo says above it suggests the issue is as likely to be a blown component on the m/board. The Service Manual Hermes or Wizard ( I forget which) refers to a fuse. However nobody so far has identified a fuse as such. It may be another component (resistor perhaps) that is used to blow if current is exceeded. At present though we do not have sufficient info to either identify this component or bypass it.

Still think it's worth a casual inquiry to the ROM gurus to hear their view on whether this is hard or software related.

Mike

[SETOUF]

The Red Light Will Not Work If The Charge Is More Than 50 Per Cent
So Try To Shutdown Your Hermes And Put The Usb Charger Then Reboot Your Hermes
May Be It Will Work

[alkizmo]

Still think it's worth a casual inquiry to the ROM gurus to hear their view on whether this is hard or software related.

Mike

Having experienced blown motherboards on a laptop, a desktop and now a cellphone, I can attest to this : If NOTHING powers on at ALL, it is a hardware fault. Before you speak out for laptop/deskop, don't forget about the BIOS, if the BIOS is fried, the motherboard will still power up (fans spinning, lights turning on).

However, maybe that something in the software CAUSED the hardware issue. However, once the damage is done, no changes to the software (even if you could change the software without turning on the phone) would make a difference.


The Red Light Will Not Work If The Charge Is More Than 50 Per Cent
So Try To Shutdown Your Hermes And Put The Usb Charger Then Reboot Your Hermes
May Be It Will Work

The red light shows when there is no battery as well and the charger is plugged, if there is no battery and the red light doesnt show, you got a problem.

And, shutting down/rebooting is not an option here. The guy's phone won't even light up. It's fried.



Last suggestion of hope : remove the battery and leave the phone unplugged for a whole day. Then put back the battery and do a hard reset attempt.

If this doesnt work, then I got nothing else, as I said, I resulted in replacing the motherboard.

[steosavage]

if you cant get it working i will buy the back speaker off you

[shelay]

ok, i am an optimistic person so i will surely try your approach. one question though, as the phone is brand new, do you reckon if i send it back to HTC europe, can they fix it as it is still under warranty?

[shelay]

thanks a lot for your reply. i am an Optimist so i will surely give your method a try. one question though: do you reckon if i send it back to HTC europe, will they fix it as the phone is brand new and still under warranty.although, i bought the phone on ebay brand new from a seller for my mate.its a vodafone branded HTC. cheers

[tsunami982]

thanks a lot for your reply. i am an Optimist so i will surely give your method a try. one question though: do you reckon if i send it back to HTC europe, will they fix it as the phone is brand new and still under warranty.although, i bought the phone on ebay brand new from a seller for my mate.its a vodafone branded HTC. cheers

Usually, most companies only warranty items from authorized dealers. If the seller was an authorized dealer you are ok. If not, they "might" fix it. Call to make sure before sending it in.

[Jazo]

My VPA Compact III v1605 seems to have the same type of problem - it only shows red lite when it is plugged in and battery is off, but... but I can also (hardly) recognise 4-colour bootloader-type screen, which blinks once and reappears every time I reset the device.
It doesn't communicate with computer, MTTY says "USB port can not open"...
The difference between usual bootloader screen and this one is that I can't recognise any characters (like IPL/SPL), or maybe because it's hardly seen, I can not see characters?..
Is there any chance to have this device repaired?

[MikeChannon]

Ok, not sure I can help here, but first can we clarify something -

You say the red LED shows with the batter "off". Do you mean with the battery out of the phone?

Mike

[scholbert]

Hi there,

i messed around a lot with the hermes hardware the last few weeks.
There's a lot of stuff in those mobile that could go wrong:p

@shane11r

I have taken it apart and checked all cables to no avail. pluggin in usb or charger have no affect. no lights no responce of anysort.
Any suggestions would be a great help

Seems like there's some part messed up in hardware.
If you dropped it some times, maybe some component got damaged.
Please check the voltages on board firmly after pressing the power on button with battery inserted. Just like mikeshannon suggested
There have to 3.15V, 1.8v, and ~1.2V around the board.
I will take a picture from the mainboard with testpoints if you like.
Anyway you need some electric skills :rolleyes:
Otherwise give to a service center or buy a new mainboard.

@shelay

hi, this is to anyone who can help mainly prof and mikechannon. basically, i was trying to use my mates BRAND NEW hermes to repair my WLAN (Tmobile Hermes). it was working perfectly well until ran the RUU programme. i selected the 1.04SPL so that i could flash the hermes with the new NBH file i created. it flashed a 100% and it turned off and now its not coming back on. i plugged it into the charger, but no luck.


This is very similar to what happened to my device. After downgrading from olipro's hard-spl something went wrong. After flashing succeeded with 100% the device got restarted and there it was... nothing!!

What i found out in the meantime is that the IPL was not flashed correctly.
While trying to reflash the device with JTAG debugger, i examined that the NAND write protect signal sticks to GND right after reset.
Maybe this also a hardware issue. I'll find out soon
The bricked IPL-bootloader could also be the cause.

At least if the red light turns on, the DC-DC converter on the hermes is doing well. This means the unit is partially working but not booting.

....nearly forgot to say, that there is also a fuse on the hermes mainboard.
should do some pix :o

Cheers,

scholbert

[Jazo]

Ok, not sure I can help here, but first can we clarify something -

You say the red LED shows with the batter "off". Do you mean with the battery out of the phone?

Mike

Yes, exactly. Sorry for my English... red led shows only when I have connected device to USB or charger and battery is out of the phone...

[MikeChannon]

Yes, exactly. Sorry for my English... red led shows only when I have connected device to USB or charger and battery is out of the phone...

OK. That is normal all Hermes show red LED with the battery out. Your device will not boot up with the battery out even if the USB or charger is connected.

Try connecting a mains charger with the battery out and with the charger on and connected insert the battery. Repeat this a few times leaving the battery in for a minute each time. If you can get the LED to turn orange that will be good. If it turns orange leave it alone to charge up even if it is not fully booted.

Mike

[scholbert]

Yes mike is right the red light is normal behaviour if you do it like that.
In this case the DCDC is working fine.
If there's no light at all you're hardware really got damaged.
Maybe the device got wet or somthing like that.
In this case it is possible that the fuse on hermes mainboard had prevented the rest of the components from sudden death.

So this means the fuse is now broken.

So here's a pic of the fuse on htc-hermes mainboard.
Sorry for the size, but if i reduced it's not so nice to see :o
I will add some testpoints to check the DC-DC converter soon.

Regards,

scholbert

[Jazo]

OK. That is normal all Hermes show red LED with the battery out. Your device will not boot up with the battery out even if the USB or charger is connected.

Try connecting a mains charger with the battery out and with the charger on and connected insert the battery. Repeat this a few times leaving the battery in for a minute each time. If you can get the LED to turn orange that will be good. If it turns orange leave it alone to charge up even if it is not fully booted.

Mike

But it actually charges the battery I guess, just becaue it warms up when I have it connected...

[Jazo]

Yes mike is right the red light is normal behaviour if you do it like that.
In this case the DCDC is working fine.
If there's no light at all you're hardware really got damaged.
Maybe the device got wet or somthing like that.
In this case it is possible that the fuse on hermes mainboard had prevented the rest of the components from sudden death.

So this means the fuse is now broken.

So here's a pic of the fuse on htc-hermes mainboard.
Sorry for the size, but if i reduced it's not so nice to see :o
I will add some testpoints to check the DC-DC converter soon.

Regards,

scholbert

Thanks a lot for pic!
One more concern: how can I explain that when charger/USB is connected to the device with battery in, it shows 4-colur (I guess red-green-blue-white) bootloader-type screen (it's much less brighter as usually it was in bootloader mode, but I still can recognize coloured horizontal stripes)? And as soon as I remove battery, it fades away...
If fuse cut circuit, so how can this screen appear?

[scholbert]

Jazo,

did you pointed it out already :confused:
Thanks a lot for pic!
One more concern: how can I explain that when charger/USB is connected to the device with battery in, it shows 4-colur (I guess red-green-blue-white) bootloader-type screen (it's much less brighter as usually it was in bootloader mode, but I still can recognize coloured horizontal stripes)?

So this means you're bootloader is working properly.

And as soon as I remove battery, it fades away...

This is normal behaviour!

Try to access the devices using mtty and follow the threads in this forum or read the wiki to recover your hermes.

If fuse cut circuit, so how can this screen appear?
I'm sorry for confusing you. The fuse is O.K. on your device :p

scholbert

aaaarrrghhh i just saw you already tried to use mtty.

[Jazo]

I used to see my hermes in a list of devices connected to USB port, but now I don't, neither with "Allow USB connections" in my ActiveSync checked nor unchecked.. :(

It also doesn't address to MicroSD with any NBH image on it..

[ultramag69]

Just to check, did you format the sd card fat32 before putting the .nbh file on? I had a friend who SWORE black & blue they had but afte I pressed them to try formatting again it finally recognized and flashed their hermes.
Just a thought, Good Luck
:D

[Jazo]

Just to check, did you format the sd card fat32 before putting the .nbh file on? I had a friend who SWORE black & blue they had but afte I pressed them to try formatting again it finally recognized and flashed their hermes.
Just a thought, Good Luck
:D

Thanks for advise, it really sounds reasonable, bit.. this MicroSD I have was formatted FAT32 and only used once to flash HardSPL onto it.
The worst thing is a aknowledge, that device doesn't even try to address to MicroSD...

[ultramag69]

I know this will probably sound stupid, BUT, did you put the Hermes into bootloader (tri-colour screen) after inserting?(Hold down power, ok button above flywheel and hold reset with stylus until tricolour screen appears.)
I can't say I've EVER had trouble using the sd card method. The only time was when my friend used an 8gig card to try to flash. The hermes os can be sdhc compliant but bootloader isn't (only up to 2 or 4 gig, not really sure though 2 gig works well).
Cheers...:D

[raju-007]

Can't turn on phone while charging , attached to usb. Battery is charged 100 % but no use. Tried to get in Bootloader mode but nothing happen.
Only Red LED when device is attached to USB or charger without battery!
When battery is inserted in device no light , nothing happen, no display , no LED.

[ultramag69]

Sounds like battery problem... If you can change the battery and see if that fixes it... You may need a new battery...
Cheers...:D

[gd420mj]

Even though these posts are quite old, I though I'd add my findings. I abused my 8525 a bit too much.

The white screen was just too fustrating. It would happen offen and to remedy it, in lieu of taking it apart, I would turn off, (standby), press hard on the front of the phone between the bottom of screen and d-pad area and then power on. It usually worked. Well, one day it didn't and phone didn't suffer well.

As i picked up the pieces, I thought it was over. The phone would not power on at all. So I took it all apart down to the LCD area, reset a bunch of connectors and put it all back together. Maybe there were 2 iterations of this, idk, then I plugged in the charge and hmmm, a red light. I was estatic. I thought A red light meant, it had to work. But i still couldn't turn it on. With or with out battery in. I knew the battery was good since it had just been charged all night, and was a new battery.

Here was the trick. I took off the back cover.casing to expose just the main board. I pressed the battery firm against the contacts, and pressed firm against the battery connector (thinking that I may have loosened the battery connector). Well alas..the phone turned on. YAY!!!!!!!! of course there was the whote screen, darn, but A few tries and I had a screen just a bit off center. I had almost full function of the phone. I could make calls, use blue tooth, get sms/mms. I saved all contacts to by sim.

I decided to take it apart again, reseat the LCD connectors to try to fix the off center issue, well, that just made things worse. Now no matter where I press, I cannot even get a red light, or power up. Ahhh, I am almost sure that the main board will still power up.

I just recently found the service manual, and noticed that within the trouble shooting section, if phone doesn't power up, check all connections including all in the LCD area.

So I hoping to buy a broken 8525 on ebay to try to get my mother board working so I can, at the least, get all my data. Notes and the like.

My usb data connection stopped working a long time ago. It charges usb, but no computer will see it. I figured I broke that contact on the connector. The sd slot worked though.

Just thought I'd add what I found for future surfers.
and I am sure as heck not keeping this dam !phone. I want my windows mobile back. !phone is sure a lot of fun, but it is not serious enough for me.

~~SW

[ultramag69]

If you replace the mainboard then you can't get back anything as all info is stored in the flash ram of the mainboard.

[gd420mj]

Yes, but I think all the problems are in the LCD area and all those flex strips.

I also found another fuse. In an earlier post, someone posted a pic of a fuse near the DC-DC convertor. I found another near the USB connector. I measure mine and it read 0 ohms. I also get about 4.2 VDC at the battery connector when plugged in, so power is coming in. I need better flex strips to replace mine.

I'll try to get a pic of this fuse posted.

I measured the fuse near the DC-DC convertor and it read something like 270K. possible other circutry.

[josefcrist]

so if the fuse is blown what do i do to replace it?

[gd420mj]

Attached is a photo of the fuse near the USB. I am only assuming this a fuse beacuse it looks the same as the one in the previous post, (near DC convertor).
To replace, well, first you need to see if it is blown. probably not. ANd if it is blown, well, what blew it? over current? short?

Plug in usb and measure the VDC at the batter connector. The 2 end pins are pos. and neg. Look at the battery. If you have above 3.5 VDC there, you don't have a blown fuse.

Measure the resistance across the fuse. 0 ohms is good fuse. Open Circuit is blown.

Replacing, well, if you good as SMT soldering, and have the right tools, you'll need to get an smt fuse, probably a couple of amps, maybe 2 amps. or less. charging current is probably under an amp. (.5A dc maybe). You can take a big risk and jumper it with solid wire. Risk though.

[naturalhealthinc]

result do to improper flashing!

how to recover? any suggestions?:cool::mad::(

[baseybeav84]

Yeah, I was trying to fix this old thing that I thought I broke a year ago. Got it running again but got 'No GSM' all the time. Tried Hard SPL v7 and then it my pc said it had finished but the Hermes turned off and now it's not doing anything.... at all. I think I screwed up big time.... :(