Since I got my 770 back from repairs for WSOD (waiting for an eBay battery to be shipped though... grrr), I was wondering whether there is any way of checking whether Nokia have finally come to their senses as regards this problem and have started replacing the LCD controllers themselves.
Any ideas? I'm really (REALLY!) tempted to try flashing it into USB host mode again, since this is one of the main reasons I bought the 770. Unfortunately, I do not want to go through the entire drama again--never mind the fact that I have only managed to use the 770 for about 40% of the time since I bought it

Nokia may repair your 770 IT again but they have already made the 770 IT an EoL product. They will no longer support it or even upgrade the present OS on it. Nokia's absolutely and totally asinine management, decided that (about) 18 months after the introduction of the product it is obsolete. If you read the latest financial news about Nokia you will see that they are losing money now. Intel is about ready to kick Nokia's behind with their new MID.

There should be NO reason why flashing host mode should cause a WSOD. If you're concerned, just wait a week or two. I thought the WSOD happened in the first 10-20 boots, though it's been a while since I've read that thread.

There are some warnings on the Wiki that flashing to host mode may cause a WSOD, plus I got a WSOD while flashing to host mode... HOWEVER, you may be right (at least in my case) in saying that, because from my post-mortem analysis I can tentatively conclude that the following sequence of events occurred:
(I was using Flasher 2.0 on vmWare Workstation 5.0 running Ubuntu, in turn running on Windows XP SP2)
- 770 is connected to USB port
- vmWare passes control of USB port to Ubuntu, which passes it to Flasher, which recognises the 770
- Flasher attempts to write to the devices
- XP crashes irrecoverably (blue screen of death) causing the output of Flasher to terminate abruptly
- This confuses the 770 and its LCD controller sufficently to restart and break the screen (the WSOD happens when the LCD controller fails to start properly)

And to be quite honest, OS2007 hacker edition was extremely unstable on the repaired unit, causing a restart every couple of minutes while surfing the net. Add to that a number of other restarts due to me debugging a script... and I'm sure I have rebooted much more than 20 times over the past week.

In summary, I am pretty sure that what led to my WSOD was not the usual factory fault but the software combination listed above (i.e.: avoid it!).

Yep, it's going to get real interesting when those MID devices start shipping. Nokia had better have a plan brewing and be quick to respond to the recent moves by Intel. From what I gather from the MID info, they're making pretty good progress with some software that should have made it to the Internet Tablets by now. I sure hope Nokia doesn't just stand by and let their lunch get eaten by a competitor so early in the game.

I can live with a few software warts here and there, but equipment that commits hardware suicide I cannot live with. I'm shipping my 770 out for repair this week due to WSOD after about 5 months of use. I would even be happy with knowing a power-up and/or charging proceedure that eliminates the possibility of hardware dammage.

It would not take Nokia much to turn the board (i.e. fix the hardware) and swap in a new board once the unit is received at a repair facility. This would go a long way towards fixing their service record. The poor service folks are the ones taking a bashing and I'll bet they are not given the proper resources (read good hardware supply and instructions) to handle an otherwise totally fixable problem.

If your going to be innovative and put a new piece of gear on the market, support the heck out of it and you will earn and keep customers for repeat business in the future. Forums like this can support a company through good press. I would rather read and write glowing reports rather than complain.

I absolutely love the 770 and want to keep it around as it does exactly what I bought it for. But now can I rely on it or the company that makes it as I enter the repair cycle? I would like to be able to yes to this question...