WSOD - Advice needed
 

Hi folks,

Q1. I'm pretty sure my 3 week old Nokia 770 has just suffered the dreaded White Screen of Death but could someone just verify it for me?

http://i15.tinypic.com/4pbs1fa.jpg

Q2. From reading previous topics/posts on the subject here I assume there is *nothing* I can do?

I thought the WSOD usually happens at some time during the first 5 - 10 reboots and assumed I'd safely passed that with my 15+ reboots. Alas it was not to be :( .

Q3. Since the 770 is an end-of-life product now do Nokia still repair them after a WSOD?

Q4. Again from reading topics/posts here on the WSOD it seems that units that suffer from one WSOD go on to suffer another and another at some stage afterwards. Am I better off just taking a refund (assuming I can get one)?

Thanks in advance.

Re: WSOD - Advice needed
 

Verified

http://i13.tinypic.com/6bwi1ky.jpg

Nope, unfortunately there is nothing you can do. Generally it happens within the first 10 reboots, but it doesn't mean that it won't happen after that. I've seen people get it after using the 770 for over a year.

Yes, they will repair it as long as it is still in warranty.

I don't believe that is true anymore. I think when Nokia was first fixing them, that was a problem, but have since figured out why the problem was happening and now I believe the repaired ones are fine after being fixed.

Re: WSOD - Advice needed
 

Thanks for the response bac522 :) .

If that's accurate then it's certainly encouraging.

Re: WSOD - Advice needed
 

I bought mine from Expansys and they've just got back to me saying they're going to refund me as they are unable to repair or replace it.

I'm not sure if that means that Nokia no longer repair them or whether expansys consider it less hassle to simple refund :confused:.

Re: WSOD - Advice needed
 

I think they (expansys) have cleared all their remaining stock of 770s

I think I got one of the last few too (3rdAUG)

nice device, I'm sorry to hear you had probs

Re: WSOD - Advice needed
 

My guess unable to replace it because expansys don't have any stock, and I doubt expansys would have repaired it themselves so that was never a likely option (probably just a stock response).

If you want to try getting Nokia to repair it, try submitting a request to this URL: http://www.nokia.co.uk/A4222232

Note that it's for the UK - not sure if you need to find an Ireland specific equivalent.

When my N800 had the touchscreen fault I submitted a request via that URL and had Nokia Helpline get in touch within a couple of days to arrange pick up and repair - I had it back after 5 weeks (which wasn't great, but better than nothing).

I would suggest you at least try and get your 770 repaired under warranty, as cheap 770's are becoming pretty scarce now. I think they're finally extinct. :(

Re: WSOD - Advice needed
 

Thanks for the suggestion Milhouse. I hadn't thought of that and I'd prefer to get the unit repaired if possible as I was quite enjoying using it.

I rang up Nokia Care here in Ireland and they referred me to my local repair centre. Unfortunately when they put the serial number into their system it showed up as "out of warranty" as the units were originally shipped to the US and presumably expansys bought the backlog of stock in bulk (which explains why it shipped with a power adaptor for Irish/UK mains).

Seemingly when the unit crosses international borders the warranty doesn't follow it. I didn't think to enquire how much it would cost to fix anyway but I assume that it would be prohibitively expensive.
Anyway I may keep an eye out for a unit on ebay but I'm in two minds about dipping my toes in the water again.

Re: WSOD - Advice needed
 

That's interesting, I wonder what your local trading standards would have to say as I don't think Expansys made it at all clear they were selling products without any warranty.

Also note that the WSOD is due to a *known Nokia design flaw* and to the best of my knowledge, design flaws are exempt from warranty time limits - ie. the manufacturer is always liable for remediation irrespective of time constraints.

I'd check with your local trading standards to see where you stand on this, if there are others in Ireland/UK with the same fault (likely) you may be able to save everyone a lot of grief. :)

Re: WSOD - Advice needed
 

I find this hard to believe for a global organisation such as Nokia - let's say you lived in the US where you bought the 770, then recently emigrated to live in Ireland... would Nokia Ireland seriously refuse to repair their Nokia product bought in good faith and expect you to ship it all the way back to a Nokia US repair centre? That's just insane, and incredibly stupid on Nokias part - talk about an easy way to lose a customer.

And if Nokia don't like Expansys flogging off their old gear, then Nokia should punish Expansys and not the unwitting consumer.

Re: WSOD - Advice needed
 

Well Nokia were happy to sell a device with applications that crash quite regularly :p. (joke)

Anyway they offered a refund without any quibble so I guess most people will be happy with that and I imagine many of those who purchased it would be aware that it can suffer a WSOD.
AFAIK the trading standards demand that an item be of merchantable quality and is either repaired or replaced if an issue arises or else a full refund is offered.

Now I just have to sell off my 1GB RS-MMC card........

Re: WSOD - Advice needed
 

It is sad to see my fears confirmed :-(

Re: WSOD - Advice needed
 

So what about shipping it to someone in US who would let it repair for you and ship back? Quite complicated but maybe cheaper than out of warranty repair? Would be nice to know if the warranty is valid at least in US.

Re: WSOD - Advice needed
 

Yeah, the full-refund-no-questions-asked offered by Expansys could mean nobody is liable. :( I wonder if Expansys will still be offering full refunds in 6, 9 or 13 months time as we all know a WSOD can happen at any moment, old or "new". With Nokia not accepting responsibility for their own design flaw, it could leave consumers with a still fairly expensive paperweight through no fault of their own.

Re: WSOD - Advice needed
 

I guess no. At least they say you have only 21 days.
http://www.expansys.com/customerserv...x#returnfaulty

Re: WSOD - Advice needed
 

Is it any surprise you didn't get a reply? ;)

I had hoped the warranty issues were limited to buy.com but obviously the recent 770 deals are part of a well organised multi-national sell off leaving customers with no warranty support and few retailers have made customers aware of this prior to sale, which is probably breaking a few trading laws (at least in the UK).

I'll say again, for Nokia to deny warranty in Ireland/UK where the 770 is/was sold is ridiculous... I'd have sympathy for Nokia if someone was seeking repair in a country where the 770 is not sold but in this case Nokia are just being pig headed/asinine in the extreme.

Re: WSOD - Advice needed
 

I have a feeling this is going to be a recurring issue for many months to come. :(

Nokia: do the right thing, at least for WSOD repairs - honour the warranty.

Re: WSOD - Advice needed
 

The offer by expansys to refund my money depends me returning the product to their depot within seven days. Obviously I wouldn't have time to ship it to the US and see if they can or will fix it under warranty in that time.

Maybe I was "lucky" that it happened to me so soon (23 days). I'd be a bit worried if it happened six months down the line and expansys turned around and said "Tough luck" and Nokia also said - "Sorry, it's out of warranty".

Although I am a little worried about expansys's instructions for returning items that say that "Packaging must be in pristine condition or a fee of 25% may be deducted from your refund".
I was about to throw out the packaging so it's not quite "pristine". I can't imagine it matters as the unit is now junk but we'll see what happens.


I never even thought about the warranty when buying and I don't think there was any included in the documents that came with the unit.

Re: WSOD - Advice needed
 

Mine WSOD'ed today too :(

Annoying as my 2GB MMC arrived today too. Had it on my desk copying across the 2007HE to the MMC, which literally took hours. I kept tapping the screen even so often and it was still alive, but 6 hours later I'd had enough and powered it off.

Switched it back on, WSOD :(

Its only 4 days and about 40 reboots old, and its had 2007HE on and off a couple of times already, but its never had the initfs flash before today and it failed within 2 reboots of that, although I think it sitting on for 6 hours trying to copy to the MMC didn't help. It was copying fine, just very very slowly.

I've flashed it back to 2006 and I'm presuming that'll also remove the changed initfs (boot loader), hoping so.

Interestingly mine is an Amazon one with the GPS kit, so a proper UK product, just need to see who'll handle the replacement better, Amazon or Nokia.......

Re: WSOD - Advice needed
 

For what should be the last time (though I doubt it) falling victim to the WSoD has NOTHING to do with software. It doesn't matter what firmware you are running, what hacks you are using or the last item of software you just installed - it's not a software related issue.

The WSoD has everything to do with hardware and nothing to do with software, oh and bad luck during a reboot.

As for a replacement or repair:

1. As it's a new unit, Amazon will most likely replace it fairly quickly. The risk is that you get a replacement which also has the WSoD design flaw - early and late model 770s don't seem to suffer from the WSoD, so Amazon may have mid-production duffers in stock.

2. If you have Nokia repair it, it will take 4-5 weeks (if you're lucky) and in theory Nokia should ensure you receive back a unit which is free of the WSoD flaw. When I sent in my N800 for repair, Nokia picked it so it cost me £0.00, which was nice (it took 5 weeks though).

If I were you, and I could stand being without the 770 for up to 5 weeks, I'd get it shipped back to Nokia for repair, even though it is brand new. The last thing I would want is to have any concerns about another WSoD at some point in the future.

The High speed kernel update should help in future. :)

Re: WSOD - Advice needed
 

I'm sure it had nothing to do with the flash, just thought I'd be as descriptive about the events in case it helps somewhere along the lines.

I'm actually quite stunned the battery lasted so well, it was still showing as full (ok its only got 4(?) blocks) after a good 8 hours use, 6 of which were spent with the tar operation going. Something clearly wasn't right as it should't last that long.

Whilst I admit the high speed mmc kernel makes a difference, the issue I had today with slow copying must have been hardware related. Perhaps the new card (Datawrite 120x High Speed RSMMC) wasn't happy, I'll run some checks on it later. Perhaps I should have found some MMC Mobile instead (no idea of the difference tbh).

Re: WSOD - Advice needed
 

For the record. I filled in the Amazon paperwork online last night, today they've despatched a replacement. Can't complain at their customer service!

I decided that this time, I'd take the chance that a replacement will last, if it doesn't it'll go back to Nokia for repair.

Re: WSOD - Advice needed
 

I recently got a Nokia 770 from Expansys Ireland. On the very first day of use I encountered what appears to be the White Screen of Death. I phoned Nokia Ireland about it who took the details of the unit (serial no. etc) and said they would arrange to pick up the faulty unit from my home and have it repaired. They also told me that units sold in Ireland and the UK were covered by the EU warranty.

It appears from reading the above that I too may have been sold a unit Expansys sourced from the USA (it came with a 2 pin plug rather than 3 pin UK/Ireland plug). Nevertheless I'm expecting my statutory rights be upheld by Nokia and the warranty to be fully honoured - I bought this product from a distributor based in the EU and was not informed prior to purchase of any stock issue/implications. If Nokia have an issue with the origin of Expansys 770 units it is Expansys they ought to penalise, not the consumer.

Hopefully I won't have any difficulties with Nokia in having this repaired or replaced - as far as I'm concerned the product I was sold was not of a quality fit for sale - if I encounter any resistance from the manufacturer its to Ireland's National Consumer Agency I'll be going to for support.

Regards,

eorpach

Re: WSOD - Advice needed
 

Hey, just adding one more to the list of people that have a WSOD 770 from expansys.com, it had a US power adapter with a convertor.

The thing is, I ordered it from UK to Sweden, it got a WSOD after 3 days. The local Nokia repair centre told me that there was no coverage because it was from outside of Sweden. But I checked with Nokia central, they said by EU law they cover anything they sell from any EU country in any other EU country. So it doesn't matter where you get it from, if it's from somewhere in the EU then it's covered in the EU for 2 years.

I told the repair guys that, they took it and sent it to Nokia. Here's hoping for a quick repair.

(P.S., no idea what happens if you order it from Ebay in the US to Europe.)

Re: WSOD - Advice needed
 

Hi guys,

I'd be grateful if you keep us updated with your repair experiences. I'm thinking of going the ebay route for a replacement 770 and it would be very useful to know if Nokia will repair the units if a WSOD occurs :).

Thanks.

Re: WSOD - Advice needed
 

Nokia should do free repair/replacement for all 770 with hardware problems. I had a canon camera ixus 300 which had a hardware fault, canon eventually offer free repair and even replacement of a better camera at a later point. Nokia should be doing the same since its their manufacturing fault!!! argh!

Re: WSOD - Advice needed
 

Hello, guys. It is obvious that I joined you because the screen flaw.
Mine worked well for about two months. I received the mmc card of 1 gb today and then the screen "whited" itself and I had no chance to check the new card. Hoho.

I found that the nokia policy is really troublesome. I even cannot register the product because it is not a "real" cell phone (thus no phone number). By the way, i bought it from buy.com.

Is it a common issue for these products sold by buy.com?

Re: WSOD - Advice needed
 

Try using your WiFi MAC address as the IMEI number when registering.

Re: WSOD - Advice needed
 

The register process needs a mobile phone number and a service provider. It is ridiculous. Now I think I have to send it to the service center to get a repair. It is so inconvenient and I have to get familiar with USA mailing system now.

Is it the only way now?

Re: WSOD - Advice needed
 

cant fix the wsod by reflashing?
how can i tell you the number of my 770 for see if is probable to get a wsod?
i follow the tip of never turn off (but sometimes is needed to reboot)

thanks and sorry my english

Re: WSOD - Advice needed
 

No, definitely not. It's a hardware issue so reflashing is going to have no effect.

Go to Tools->Control Panel->Device and in the About Device section it displays the WLAN code that doubles as a serial number.

You could also remove the battery and find the code there but then you'd have to reboot - probably inadvisable ;).

Does anyone have any idea just how prevalent the WSOD is? Is it something like 10% or 15% or 20% of devices that experience it?

I guess it will be impossible to find out as Nokia are unlikely to have released that sort of information but just going by posts on various forums it does seem to be common enough to indicate something in the 10-20% range.

Re: WSOD - Advice needed
 

Not sure how you came to such number. Pure wild guess based just on your feelings? See also this
http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...1600#post71600

Re: WSOD - Advice needed
 

More of an educated guess rather than a completely wild one.
I've read a few forums that discuss the 770 and the wsod gets mentioned so often that is must be more prevalent than just isolated rare cases.

If I just took the Woot example you mention obviously not all of the 8000 woot buyers are going to bother posting on that forum that they got a wsod so the 40 that did are just a fraction of the numbers that actually did get the wsod. Just what fraction they represent is open to conjecture.
Also not everyone who gets a wsod knows that it's a design flaw - they might think it happened because they dropped the device or installed some software or whatever so they're also unlikely to report it on a forum. Furthermore any interest a user may have in a 770 forum or 770 thread would probably die with their 770 so again they may be unlikely to return and report a wsod.

Like I said I'm just making an educated guess based on how often the wsod gets mentioned where the 770 is being discussed. Even from that woot example I'd say it's safe to say it's more common than just one in every 200 units although my guess of up to 20% is probably way too high. It may transpire that closer to 10% of units is a fairer guess but in the absence of any verifiable data then it can be argued any way one wants depending on the position one wants to take.

Re: WSOD - Advice needed
 

Hmm, somehow I think Woot buyers are special and most of them would post problems to the Woot forum. But this is just a wild guess based on how I think Woot works.

Re: WSOD - Advice needed
 

IMO one cannot make educated guess based on that. You see only those with the problem (and some of them even don't have real WSOD) but you have absolutely no data about the (silent) majority who doesn't have the problem.

Re: WSOD - Advice needed
 

Well, good news from me anyway.

Like I said, the woman in the Nokia repair centre expressed concern that the 770 was from another country. I told her Nokia have an EU wide warranty, she sent it in with what I had said mentioned on the repair sheet, and yesterday I got a text telling me to pick it up.

Totally repaired, she said they'd replaced the screen. I only hope they know what the problem was and that it won't happen again. I just installed the 2007 HE OS on it and it's great!

and Scumm VM is so perfect on this, I can't believe how fun it is to play Monkey Island on a tiny little handheld with so much battery life!

Re: WSOD - Advice needed
 

Update:

After 4 weeks, several unproductive calls to Nokia Ireland Customer Care (based in Scotland), and still no Nokia Ireland representative calling to my home to collect my defective Nokia 770 (as continually promised), I got very very mad. I Every time I rang it was like I was reporting my 770's screen problem to them anew. have never come across such a disfunctional customer care department! At one point I made an official complaint (10 days later and Nokia's complaints Dept have not gotten back to me).

Finally, after extracting a promise from a customer care agent that a Manger would would personally resolve the problem, Nokia's service agents in Dublin phoned me the following day. The day after that they arrived at my front door and swapped my defective 770 for a new 770 - which is mine to keep.

I guess good things do come to those who wait, and wait, and wait, and wait.....

eorpach

Re: WSOD - Advice needed
 

just got WSOD on my 4 months old 770. have to give a call to nokia canada (usa?) to figure out whats my option :(

Wsod #2
 

Well - I'm a woot buyer - got the wsod on my original unit. Dug through the nokia website and sent it it. Got my replacement about 4 weeks ago - after about 5 weeks without it. Last night the replacement white screened! :eek:

REALLY like the unit but I most definitely wont trust another. I'm going to wait for the 810 to hit the streets. Or maybe Apple will finally bring out the long rumored tablet.

Holding my breath...

Re: WSOD - Advice needed
 

Mine failed after only a couple of weeks. If you can get your hands on a replacement screen, they are quite easy to replace. Maybe you can get one someplace. It's definitely the screen itself in most cases.

Re: WSOD - Advice needed
 

Here's my experience with a WSOD 770. I bought mine in July from Expansys Finland and it WSODed at the end of September. I contacted Nokia Support through their web form and they replied that I should find the nearest Nokia service. They gave me an address from were to find a service. Since there aren't any Nokia Service Points in my town, I picked one Nokia dealer which I knew has sold ITs (I bought another from them in August). At first they were a little reluctant to take it since they hadn't sold it, but by politly asking, they took it and sent it to their service.

After about three and a half weeks later they phoned me that the device had been returned unrepaired. The service claimed that they can't repair it, since it "has been manufactured outside of EU and it has different parts as those manufactured in EU". This wasn't true since the device was made in Estonia.

I contacted again Nokia that I would like them to repair it, since according to Finnish consumer legislation, the consumer may choose to make claims to parties earlier in the product supply chain (meaning either the importer or the manufacturer). This time Nokia replied that the device is not covered under warranty. I replied to them that, according to the consumer legislation, warranty hasn't got anything to do with their responsibility as a manufacturer. They kept on e-mail after e-mail. Finally they seemed to understand and told that I should take the device to their service. The service would then decide if they repair it at their cost.

I had also contacted Expansys but I got their answer only after arguing with Nokia. Expansys replied that I should send the device to their Swedish address and they would send it to UK to warranty repair. The only problem was that I would have to pay the postage myself (which again according to Finnish consumer legislation I should not).

I chose to send the device to Expansys since they clearly promised to repair it. I sent it in the beginning of October and got it back 7th of December. Well, actually I didn't get the same device back since the WLAN ID has changed. So they didn't repair it, but replaced it.

Now everything is going well, except that I fear that the new device may be one of the possibly defective ones also (made in Estonia, WLAN ID quite near to that of the original one). So I now try not to power it off at all. I already installed OS2007HE, which makes the device almost as good as N800.