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Help Is my Desire goosed?

B

bobbyelliott

Lurker
I have had an HTC Desire via T-Mobile UK for a couple of months. It runs Android 2.1 with HTC's Sense interface. I have made no modifications to the phone. This evening the phone would not turn off so I removed the battery. Then it would not boot.

When I press the power button, the screen comes on, the phone vibrates (once) and I get the red ring -- and that's it. It sits with a blank screen apart from the red ring/disc.

I have tried removing the battery (that's the only way to switch it off), removing memory card and SIM. Still nothing. Then I tried a factory reset by clearing the memory, which appeared to work -- but no improvement. It remains stuck at the red disc.

Is my phone goosed? Is this a hardware fault?

The only thing I did before this problem was to try to install Swype using a APK file via my memory card and installing a third party app installer. The app installer did not find the APK file on my memory card so I couldn't install Swype - but I noticed a lot of forced closes before I tried to switch off. I presumed switching off the phone would resolve this. Then my problems began...
 
Turn the phone off

Hold the volume button down (keep it pressed the whole time) while you press power on - what happens
 
It's not the memory card since I have tried to start it without one and with a different one from the original. Still won't start.

I have tried to clear the memory using a factory reset, which works in the sense of actually clearing the phone's memory. The phone enters the Boot menu and I can "clear contents". Still won't start.

So, it looks like it is a hardware fault. I guess the factory reset completely clears any software that could be causing the problem?

OK, I guess it's time to phone the supplier and send the damn thing back and wait 4 weeks for it to be repaired. :mad:

One thing I noticed. A Google search for "HTC Desire start problems" produces virtually nothing so this problem is rare.
 
OK. I promised to report back when the problem was resolved.

I got the phone back yesterday, one month and three days after I sent it for repair. The company I sent it to (the one I had the warranty with) could not fix it so sent it to HTC.

The device has a new IMEI, which tells me that the motherboard was replaced. It was, therefore, a major hardware fault and not an OS/software fault.

I'm not sure if it was a coincidence that I was messing around with non-standard software (using a non-Market source) or whether this goosed my mobo but my mobo was most certainly goosed.

So, for posterity, the red ring of death on an HTC Desire (and possibly some other handsets) is, indeed, a ring of death. The phone is f*cked.
 
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