Root [Verizon] What's this 'flash counter' thing i've read about?

[nickdalzell]

I'm a bit concerned, as i've read this and that on XDA about people wanting to reset their 'flash counter' for some reason. what is this thing? does it fry the phone's chips after X number of custom ROMs thus turning it into a literal brick? seems important enough if so many ask about resetting it?

 

[Rukbat]

No, it just voids the warranty if it's greater than 0. (Not counting that writing to the ROM in the phone a few hundred thousand times MIGHT "fry the phone" and "turn it into a" brick. But within reason (how many ROMs are you going to flash before the Note 3 is so old fashioned that no one would bother picking one up off the street), flashing a ROM won't do any physical damage.

 

[tensazan]

It's just something that keeps count of how many times you flash an unofficial rom. The reason why people want to reset it is so they can flash back to stock and get a warranty repair if need be (at least, that's the only reason I've seen so far)

 

[nickdalzell]

cool. i was getting a bit worried as i've flashed the fire out of this phone since i got it. i've heard of Dell laptop batteries 'frying themselves' after a set number of charge cycles (the CP-series, and D610 had this setup, a chip that counts a full charge cycle and blows the charging circuit after it reaches the 300th cycle, apparently Dell's way of forcing you to buy a new battery every two years, either that or a lawsuit was forcing laptop makers to do this after the laptop fire incidents) so i was concerned if a similar approach was done by Samsung to 'protect' their devices against unauthorized modification (changing things like APNs, rooting, or unlocking devices to use on other networks)