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View Full Version : Power Button only works if dash is plugged into charger.. Otherwise phone is perfect


jorossian
11th April 2009, 11:48 PM
Weird, huh? I thought this was an interesting issue and that maybe some of you more experienced pda tweakers with some electronics background might have an idea what's going on.

I recently got a "backup" Excalibur on ebay from a girl who said it was "broken". Nonetheless, I figured it was a good deal for parts considering I won it for only $10.50.

When the phone arrived I was surprised to see it looked to be in fairly pristine condition all around (better cosmetically than my own anyway). So I popped in a freshly charged battery and pushed the power button. Nothing. I pushed and prodded for different lengths of time for a while and it actually did manage to power up one time to my surprise (the battery power did show as being fully charged). Thinking this was odd I turned it off again and tried to repeat it again with no luck. After a while I gave up and decided to try with the charging cable attached.

Viola! Started right up no problems. After unplugging from the charger the phone worked flawlessly and it holds a charge just as long as my main phone (I usually have about half to 2/3rds charge left on my OEM battery at the end of the day). The phone charges with no problems as well.

Anyway, I've gone ahead and wiped out the T-Mobile ROM and installed the HTC English-Spanish 6.0 ROM just like my other phone (love this ROM - it's a later build and slimmed down compared to the last T-Mobile .8 Rom plus it's faster, supports HCSD, Voice tags, advanced JOGGR etc.. ) and it works beautifully with this strange exception.... I always need to plug it in if I need to turn it on after a complete shutdown. If the device "soft-resets" via a program such as spb backup it will start up fine without needing to plug it in, however if for whatever reason you power it off via Quick list or long press of the power button, you will need to plug it in to get it to restart. I've had it for about a week and it's a real gem and workhorse aside from that one issue.

Does anyone have any idea what could be the cause of this? I can't complain since I bought the phone for just $10.51 (with free shipping! :) but it's driving me nuts just thinking about what could be the cause. I've scoured the web looking for similar cases but I haven't found anything similar to this.

Is it possible that the phone is supposed to hold a "power up reserve charge" in a capacitor/diode to give it the "umph" to turn on and maybe my diode is bad or damaged? <--- please keep in mind that that sentence came from a guy who knows nothing about electronics but remembers his dad telling him not to touch that broken TV set on his work bench because "it holds a mean charge even though it's been unplugged for a couple hours"... so be kind ;)

Any thoughts or ideas would be greatly appreciated! Thanks guys

jorossian
14th April 2009, 05:53 AM
Interesting development...

I've managed a workaround for the problem so I can do a cold start.

1. Remove the Battery
2. Hold in the power button
3. Snap in the battery while holding the power button
4. Release the power button 2 seconds after the battery is popped in.

Works every time.

Still, I'd love to hear some advice from someone who's a bit more electrically inclined.

Now onto my new problem...........

jorossian
14th April 2009, 06:04 AM
I've suddenly lost the ability to active sync on this phone and it all started right after I entered the network SIM UNLOCK CODE.

I've done several total resets and even put in old spb backups and a backup from my other Dash running the same rom which activesyncs with no issues. I've uninstalled and reinstalled ActiveSync. Still, this phone no longer connects, while the other does. The one variable I have is that the issue began right after I got my unlock code and SIM unolocked the phone.

I'm fearing that the issue is this...

My other phone was network unlocked while running the T-Mobile stock ROM. I then upgraded to the HTC ROM later with no negative affects. THIS phone was network unlocked AFTER I'd run the HTCunlock program to install the HTC branded Spanish-English 6.0 ROM. I'm wondering if the process of network unlocking doesn't play nice with a ROM designed for a different device ID?

Anyone have any clues what could be going on and whether there's anything I can do to get Activesync back to working on this dash? I really enjoyed using this phone to test out new ROMS and apps before putting them on my everyday phone.

Thanks