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Help Random rebooting

I had today what may have been a random reboot but it's possible that while putting it in my pocket the power button was held too long and the power down reset screen came up and I tapped it.
 
I had my 4G shut off for several days and got no random reboots or lockups. Then I turned on 4G 2 days ago. Today I parked my car briefly in a place with terrible signal: either get a 0-1 bar Sprint signal or 0-1 bar roam signal and no usable 4G signal (although it's possible that the phone might pick up "wisps" of 4G signal here, it's unlikely since the same towers here have 4G and 3G antennas and 4G has much less range than 3G). The phone was sitting in the cupholder, doing nothing. When I got back in my car, 30 seconds later, the phone had just rebooted.

The symptom I still notice most often is the top half of the phone's back is really warm. I also notice that I have problems with any signal, even wifi, if my hand is on the top half of the phone. So I am starting to believe that the reboots have something to do with data usage in areas with moderate to weak-ish signal or if I am doing something that prevents the phone from getting good reception (e.g., my hand is over the top half of the phone's back).

A while back, in this thread I posted that shutting off ActiveSync had a positive effect for a few days. I suspect it's because switching to IMAP for corporate email my data usage.
 
Maybe a pretty good idea to manually control 4G on/off via the notification bar (at the top) drop-down (second tab) if you're in a fringy kind of 4G area.

That's probably making the 4G radio a little nuts and confusing who knows what from there.

PS - Probably you know where the 4G radio switch was already and that the notification bar is a drop down, but we get newcomers and lurkers every day, so I just tossed that in to avoid confusion.
 
EarlyMon said:
Maybe a pretty good idea to manually control 4G on/off via the notification bar (at the top) drop-down (second tab) if you're in a fringy kind of 4G area.

That's probably making the 4G radio a little nuts and confusing who knows what from there.

PS - Probably you know where the 4G radio switch was already and that the notification bar is a drop down, but we get newcomers and lurkers every day, so I just tossed that in to avoid confusion.
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I understand. It would be nice if people could report if the top half of their phone's back is warm when these reboots or lockups occur.
 
I had only several reboots and maybe only 1 lockup with my Evo 3g over a year, but with only about a month on my 3D, I've had several restarts and a lockup already. Not a good sign. Missing my 3G now!
 
Escy said:
I had only several reboots and maybe only 1 lockup with my Evo 3g over a year, but with only about a month on my 3D, I've had several restarts and a lockup already. Not a good sign. Missing my 3G now!
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Welcome to the forums!

Check this thread out for any info, and please try the various things to start: ensure you're up to date on updates, ensure you're backing up to Google, and as needed after consideration, consider a factory data reset - always known to cure, oh!, so many ills.

(PS - Evo 4G ;))


novasource said:
I understand. It would be nice if people could report if the top half of their phone's back is warm when these reboots or lockups occur.
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Unlike the Evo with a full size motherboard, the 3vo's electronics are indeed largely at the top of the phone. Higher heat there indicates either main processor or phone radios (or both) drawing higher power.
 
Another reason why I think this problem is related to antenna "effort": when I first got the phone, I kept it in my pants pocket.

I've noticed that signal degrades considerably if I grip the top half of the phone. This even happens with wifi.

So if the phone is in my pants pocket and against my skin all the time, of course it's going to have trouble transmitting data.

Shortly after getting the phone, I got a belt clip for it. The phone has seemed more reliable since being on the clip.
 
Just wanted to give a few weeks' more time to confirm my suspicions, but the problem indeed appears to be related to overheating. Every time my phone goes wonky (random reboot, lockup, etc.), the top half of the phone's rear is hot.

I wonder if I should get a replacement phone?
 
novasource said:
Just wanted to give a few weeks' more time to confirm my suspicions, but the problem indeed appears to be related to overheating. Every time my phone goes wonky (random reboot, lockup, etc.), the top half of the phone's rear is hot.

I wonder if I should get a replacement phone?
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Honestly I don't know why u wouldn't want a replacement phone, I was in that same boat I had a phone that would had the dreadful reboots at the worst time thinking it would correct itself. The more time I kept pushing it the more I regret my decision on not returning it.
 
Like some people have already mentioned, this seems like a Sense/UI issue (not a hardware issue). There's probably something causing it to crash all the the time resulting in reboots, black screens, frozen screens, etc. Do you all actively use task killers? Maybe it's a memory issue or has something to do with widgets getting stuck.
 
facetoface said:
Like some people have already mentioned, this seems like a Sense/UI issue (not a hardware issue). There's probably something causing it to crash all the the time resulting in reboots, black screens, frozen screens, etc. Do you all actively use task killers? Maybe it's a memory issue or has something to do with widgets getting stuck.
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I agree that it's sometimes Sense. Now I use Launcher Pro+ and I don't have any issues other than when I'm outside in 100+ degree heat.
 
My 3vo is starting to restart itself as you guys are explaining. It's also getting worst and worst, I've had it restart, and get stuck in a boot-loop, where it just keeping rebooting before it actually loads sense.. I've had to factory reset it twice to get it back to working... I'll be heading to the sprint store asap.

One thing I did notice though, when your factory reset, all installed apps and desktop backgrounds are stored through your gmail account. After I factory reset, it automatically installed all the apps i had on their previously, and put my desktop background back.

Pretty Cool.
 
Tyler Perez said:
My 3vo is starting to restart itself as you guys are explaining. It's also getting worst and worst, I've had it restart, and get stuck in a boot-loop, where it just keeping rebooting before it actually loads sense.. I've had to factory reset it twice to get it back to working... I'll be heading to the sprint store asap.
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Is the top half of the back hot when it restarts or gets stuck?
 
Tyler Perez said:
My 3vo is starting to restart itself as you guys are explaining. It's also getting worst and worst, I've had it restart, and get stuck in a boot-loop, where it just keeping rebooting before it actually loads sense.. I've had to factory reset it twice to get it back to working... I'll be heading to the sprint store asap.
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My Evo 4G started doing this after I started using the Sprint 2600mAh Extended battery. It got worse and worse over time and would overheat and boot loop extremely easily. It was after a few weeks/months of medium to heavy use with the extended battery. You have been using an extended battery consistently based on your reviews. I wonder if there is some sort of mid/long term problem with using extended batteries that isn't apparent right away. Heat deteriorates the inner hardware or the compounds that hold the chips to the circuit boards? Something like that? I know I'm out on a limb, but who knows.
 
My wife & I both got E3D at the same time, about a week 1/2 ago. I set the configurations to be the same (wifi on, 4g off, etc).

Mine has been flawless.

Hers would run the battery down by noon. It would reboot 3-4 times per day. Last night, it was sitting on the counter (plugged in, charging) when it started vibrating. Continuously. I pulled the battery (leaving it out for a full 5 minutes) - put the battery back in and it continued the vibrating.

She is taking it back to the Sprint store at lunch today to get it replaced.
 
I'm back to having issues with random reboots, and it's pretty frustrating. The phone will be in my pocket with the screen off and it happens, it'll be sitting on the table and it happens, I'll be trying to play on facebook or tumblr and it'll happen. I use Launcher Pro+ now and it seemed to be better for awhile, but it has come back. I've already done two hard resets, so doing another one is a last resort, cause that gets pretty annoying. Any suggestions?
 
Mine seems to keep rebooting randomly too. I even replaced it once & it's still doing it.
Maybe it's cause it is overheating, I don't know...
What should the battery temperature be around? What is too hot for it? Maybe that is what's doing it. The back of my phone feels a lil warm when this happens, but not too hot.
It's never done it while charging. The only consistency I can come across is that my battery is around the 50% mark or lower. I even have 2 batteries & it happens on both.
Any other ideas?
 
I have two EVO 3Ds. They have identical software and settings. Mine has worked perfectly since Day 1. My son's keeps rebooting on its own, getting very hot, freezing completely, excessive battery drain, etc. - all of the problems reported above. I even tried a factory reset on his phone and not allowing any software to reinstall - same problem. So I don't think it's a software issue. I'm getting a replacement soon for his EVO, will report if it has the same problem.
 
Tried to post good information and expirence but it kept blocking my reply since i am new. Now to prevent trolls and spam i have to spam another thread to get past this, what a bunch of BS.
 
Bought my phone on saturday and had a dozen or so random re boots. This happened at home with the air rave and out in town with various signal levels. Only a few very stable applications installed. I don't subscribe to the software issue theory since I have had an evo for quite some time with zero issues with the same applications.

I went to the store today and had them switch it for another one and this one is working with zero re boots. Same set of applications installed just a different phone. I would say that if your phone is giving you trouble just have it replaced immediately.
 
Still have to deal with this every month or so. It'll happen multiple times over a couple days and then go away. It's frustrating.
 
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