Additional Insight into Random Shutdowns

[edog45]

Just want to add my experience , The only time mine shuts itself off is after fully charging and it alerting complete and not immediately unplugging it, when i do un-plung it is when the mystery begins. It will shut itself off 2 or 3 times (seems like after the battery drains a bit) then works fine until i have to charge again. If i charge and take it off before it completes i never get unexpected power offs and I never get power downs anytime else. Mine came out of the box with 2.1 JH7 and only thing i have done is Rooted it.

E

 

[fldude99]

^^^That is why I think that having an extra battery with an external charger may actually avoid this problem. I seldom plug my phone into the charger directly..just swap batteries when needed

 

[sob33316]

From a poster at XDA:

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I work at an AT&T device support center and we deal with nothing but warranty issues with all AT&T phones. I have noticed a trend with the captivates and I wanted to pass some info along to all of you. 80% of the captivates we get into our Device support center are unavoidable (more on that in a minute) power down issues, 15% are advance task killer related which is fixed by educating and uninstalling, and the remaining 5% are speaker related which is sometimes easily fixed.

I did some research and made some calls to samsung and some internal AT&T contacts as well as some other fellow Device support center associates and I have found the issue with the power down. It is a flaw in the power savings display settings and screen time out. My sources state that eclair on the captivate is causing this issue and that it will be addressed with an upcoming OTA push coming late december. I have also heard that this OTA may come bundled with Froyo which is a very likely scenario. Hold on, a fix is coming.

DO NOT RUN Advance Task Killer period. It does nothing but cause problems for the phone on eclair. Google recognized this and added a task managment solution built into froyo that works much better and won't cause random BS. If you think you know how to run ATK then you probably don't so read up on exactly what it does. Just remember people, when you boot up the phone, it starts most of these services because they are essential to the phone operating properly... imagine that. Don't try to be smarter than the phone. You are not going to save battery by removing processes out of memory. Period. Let them run. If you wanna save alot of battery, turn your display off automatic and run at a lower brightness level and turn your 3G radio off when not using data. Its that simple.

BTW... Just to qualify myself a bit. I am samsung certified and I am running a Captivate on the Leaked froyo, rooted, sideloaded, overclocked to 1.2ghz, verizon market fingerprint build.prop mod, LCD density mod = 210, startup sound mod, battery percentage in task bar.

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Thanks for the info...i am running cog and just started getting shutdowns this week. After reading this last night i took off launcherpro and advanced task killer. I will post an update in a couple of days on the results.

 

[Tcherstanley]

I purchased a new Samsung Captivate on Nov. 22. I purchased the phone from Costco. It ran great for 3 days, now I have random shutoff problems. I read over all of your post last night and here is what I tried. I first turned off the Wifi. That did not work it still shut off. Before going to bed I turned the Wifi back on to always on, changed the powersetting to 30min. and installed Keep alive. So far the phone has not shut down. I will keep you posted. The good news is if I need to get a new phone Costco has a 90day return policy to get a new one!

 

[kmatos]

From a poster at XDA:

=====

I work at an AT&T device support center and we deal with nothing but warranty issues with all AT&T phones. I have noticed a trend with the captivates and I wanted to pass some info along to all of you. 80% of the captivates we get into our Device support center are unavoidable (more on that in a minute) power down issues, 15% are advance task killer related which is fixed by educating and uninstalling, and the remaining 5% are speaker related which is sometimes easily fixed.

I did some research and made some calls to samsung and some internal AT&T contacts as well as some other fellow Device support center associates and I have found the issue with the power down. It is a flaw in the power savings display settings and screen time out. My sources state that eclair on the captivate is causing this issue and that it will be addressed with an upcoming OTA push coming late december. I have also heard that this OTA may come bundled with Froyo which is a very likely scenario. Hold on, a fix is coming.

DO NOT RUN Advance Task Killer period. It does nothing but cause problems for the phone on eclair. Google recognized this and added a task managment solution built into froyo that works much better and won't cause random BS. If you think you know how to run ATK then you probably don't so read up on exactly what it does. Just remember people, when you boot up the phone, it starts most of these services because they are essential to the phone operating properly... imagine that. Don't try to be smarter than the phone. You are not going to save battery by removing processes out of memory. Period. Let them run. If you wanna save alot of battery, turn your display off automatic and run at a lower brightness level and turn your 3G radio off when not using data. Its that simple.

BTW... Just to qualify myself a bit. I am samsung certified and I am running a Captivate on the Leaked froyo, rooted, sideloaded, overclocked to 1.2ghz, verizon market fingerprint build.prop mod, LCD density mod = 210, startup sound mod, battery percentage in task bar.

=====

Jack45---Thanks for your reply regarding my Captivate randowm shutdowns, as you suggested I already have the screen timeout to 30 minutes and never let the phone sleep on its own as well as I've turned off power saving mode , but still I'm getting these randowm shutdowns. I do notice that the higher the battery charge the more it happens.

exchanging the phone as Ive read in MULTIPLE thread isnt fixing the problem and although Keep Alive does work it eats my battery like crazy!

Samsung/At&T need to provide a solution or before long they're gonna start seeing lawsuits..

 

[Jack45]

...exchanging the phone as Ive read in MULTIPLE thread isnt fixing the problem and although Keep Alive does work it eats my battery like crazy!

First, welcome!

Assumptions:

1. CKA is set to 80% on the slider. If yes, try 85% and continue to experiment accordingly to see where your particular tipping point is.

2. You're phone's environment does not contain any exotic apps that are overclocking your device.

3. You're not using LauncherPro. [Lurkers, don't jump on this. If you've read my other posts you'll remember that this anomaly is device-specific and not universal.]

3. You're beyond your initial 30 day trial period. If the upcoming, official Froyo doesn't address the problem, exchange the phone again until you're symptom-free. Don't settle.

4. You're nowhere near a roof with a distance from the ground sufficient to cause meaningful damage to your physical being should you leap.

Keep in touch.

 

[edog45]

I agree keep exchanging until you get one that works.... I have come to the conclusion it is a hardware issue because mine was shutting down and nothing would fix it, even keep alive. I finally exchanged it and have no problems with this new one. I did a titanium backup of old phone and restored all settings and apps including Launcher pro then removed keep alive to new phone, and this new one has yet to shut off.

It has went from 100% to single digits before recharging every time, and no shut downs.

This new one is version 1010 old phone was 1009. I know 4 people who have since purchased this phone all have 1010 and none shut down.

I have seen people post that they have 1010 and the problem is still there, but all the people i know got there phones from the same best buy i got mine and none of them have problems. Maybe same batch I dont know but they work.

 

[jcollake]

Thank you to the OP. Interesting that a fix is in the works. Perhaps that is what is holding up the ATT Froyo release. I would like to be interested to know *what* component is being fixed though. It is likely he, or perhaps nobody, knows for certain yet and they are still hoping for a SW fix. Well, let's be more optimistic than that .

As for the arguments; the OP is correct and I believe the returns are due to improperly used applications. Just as power user utilities for the PC can cripple a PC when misused, so can applications for an embedded device such as this. Users who are not properly educated must be protected from themselves sometimes. When crazes start amongst Power Users, the Average Joe gets in and manages to bungle things up. It really isn't hard to envision and doesn't involve damnation of a particular application. Just my two cents.