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Broken rooted captivate and Insurance claim

So I sadly had my Captivate caught in my car door as i closed it. Screen cracked, just slivers of light coming out. Speaker probably broken.
I made an insurance claim on the phone and paid the 125 deductible (really? X10 is only 50). So tomorrow is the last day I can return it.
Now I rooted my phone and put Cognition mod 2.3b7 on the phone. Is there a way for ATT to determine this and thus charge more for the phone upon return? If there is, is there any way I can wipe it off when I cant even see the screen? Thanks guys!

You do not really need to see the screen when using one-click Odin since it just basically reflashes your phone to stock. So what you can do, assuming that the phone still works (not the screen or speaker but basic boot up and such), just reflash using one-click. There is no guarantee that the phone will flash correctly but it is better than doing nothing.
All you gotta do is assume it went to the download screen before you plugged in the USB cable. From there, Odin can tell you if it sees your device in download mode. Click on start and watch the status bar. If the status bar hits 100%, there's a very good chance that you have reflashed back to stock and that you are safe.
In the future, just report that the phone was lost or stolen and they would not ask you to return it....since you cant! You will have to pay the $125 deductible anyway so you might was well say its lost and not have to deal with shipping it back.

Bane99 said:
So I sadly had my Captivate caught in my car door as i closed it. Screen cracked, just slivers of light coming out. Speaker probably broken.
I made an insurance claim on the phone and paid the 125 deductible (really? X10 is only 50). So tomorrow is the last day I can return it.
Now I rooted my phone and put Cognition mod 2.3b7 on the phone. Is there a way for ATT to determine this and thus charge more for the phone upon return? If there is, is there any way I can wipe it off when I cant even see the screen? Thanks guys!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You might consider just bricking it so it won't be obvious if/when they replace the screen and power it up. *IF* you choose to do so, you can put the phone in Download mode, start an Odin flash and then pull the cable. I'd imagine that standard procedure is likely to just use a jig and reflash it and not even look at what is on it.
When I go to training sessions with a particular St. Louis-based company I used a laptop for the training. Then 2 weeks later I had something else with them and by chance got the exact same laptop and they did not so much as delete the user profile since I had my server addresses coming up in Remote Desktop and MRU data was still in Explorer from looking at data on servers over VPN sessions. I helped them make sure that it got reinstalled by removing a handful of key Windows components so the system would not boot. This is the reason that I would recommend doing the same with your phone.
The problem is that when you return you phone, as I did with mine, you are giving AT$T everything on your internal SD card. In my case that included SMS backups, Titanium Backup files (including WiFi passwords and Google account settings), and all of the rest of your sensitive data on that chip. My new policy is to put all sensitive data on the external SD and just media on the internal.
While I can't take any responsibility for what you choose to do, if you have any other questions regarding this, feel free to ask or PM me. Good luck!

Well, the phone isn't being recognized by the computer anymore
Is there another way to erase the memory? I feel it vibrate when it turns on though.

They Probably Don't Care
Yes and No, they can but probably will just refurbish it to stock the same way we do, FLASH They have new phones to sell, Money in the Bank Frank

gormander said:
In the future, just report that the phone was lost or stolen and they would not ask you to return it....since you cant! You will have to pay the $125 deductible anyway so you might was well say its lost and not have to deal with shipping it back.
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Click to collapse
If you report your phone as "lost or stolen" but really did not lose it or have it stolen from you, you are committing insurance fraud. Do not do this. Its probably not the best idea to suggest this, either.

So, flashing the custom ROM and bricking it is not covered by the insurance? $125 to pay that deductible? Wow, higher than $50 for my older phone that got damaged by water.

If your phone automatically goes into Debug mode with USB cable, couldn't you just use adb to wipe it? That's IF....of course....Using Odin one-click like previously mentioned is probably the best idea. Easy to get into D/L mode.

Why not just send it in? Will they not cover a phone which has been rooted? It is my understanding that insurance has no limitations (It's not a warranty issue).

fatbas202 said:
You (snip) My new policy is to put all sensitive data on the external SD and just media on the internal.
While I can't take any responsibility for what you choose to do, if you have any other questions regarding this, feel free to ask or PM me. Good luck!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How do you put account info and program settings, such as ctedit card app username/pwd on the external sd card?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App

ScottyNuttz said:
Why not just send it in? Will they not cover a phone which has been rooted? It is my understanding that insurance has no limitations (It's not a warranty issue).
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Click to collapse
Exactly. If it's insurance it doesn't matter how they get it in. I personally don't send them anything by saying it got lost during insurance claims. i'm paying a deductible and a monthly fee, why should you salvage what you can when I have already payed you for a phone. Warranty is a different beast, then you would have to odin
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App

[Q] Should I buy a captivate from ebay knowing shutdown problem

Hi guys,
I just bought a captivate from a authorized ATT dealer, it is a refurbished and I have always been lucky with refurbished products so I did not think twice about getting it. However I won't have a warranty on it, so I am starting to reconsider, thinking that if I have one that randomly shutdown, I will be stuck with a faulty phone and will lose my money since apparently nothing really fixes the problem completely.
So, I have the option to return the phone within 7 days, should I just forget about this phone and just send it right when I get it and just pick another phone. If I had a year to try it, I would keep it, but 7 days... I just don't know what to do, any advice?

Did you already try using setCPU to up the minimum frequency to 200Mhz? Worked for me and many others!

wuddersup said:
Did you already try using setCPU to up the minimum frequency to 200Mhz? Worked for me and many others!
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Click to collapse
No, I am supposed to receive the phone on Tuesday, but I am asking in advance because I only have 7 days to return it and for what I read on the board the problem might not show up right away. If there was a fix that unanimously worked I had no issue keeping the phone but it seems like a lot of fixes only work for a minority. Am I wrong and I missed the fix that is believed to work for most?

Why would you accept a faulty phone when you know for the same price, you could have gotten a phone w/o fault.

Refurbs are warranted for 90 days.

wuddersup said:
Did you already try using setCPU to up the minimum frequency to 200Mhz? Worked for me and many others!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Confused on how changing the cpu frequency could prevent showdowns since the problem is faulty ram
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App

Like miami said. U should have 90 day warranty on a refurb.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App

I just recieved a refurb on warranty because my "New" Captivated had the dreaded shutdown issue. I tried SetCPU on it but to no avail. Funny thing is it didn't start happening until after the Froyo upgrade... darn closet gremlins. The refurb is an older build date than the one I purchased new and so far so good. I'd imagine that since it is a factory refurb it is up to par in specs since they recognized and addressed the shutdown issue. I wouldn't sweat it.

Well, it is a ebay purchase so the return policy is just what the seller is saying. So how would I get 90 days warranty?
Is it now sure it is a faulty ram? Would newer phone not have the problem then?

im not sure, you are going to have to look it up,
but the shut down issue only affects the older build numbers i believe.
i think... never had the issue so havent specifically read up on it.. just what i think i remember in reading though thousands of posts....
not sure what the build number was....

My build number and imei is in the range of the shutdown issue. It is a refurb from a insurance claim, so maybe that's why I don't have a shutdown problem.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App

Just my opinion!
I wouldn't even think or touching a refurb captivate from an ebay reseller unless the cost was so low that the risk was worth taking, for a couple of reasons.
I once bought a treo refurb on ebay. The first one would not receive phone calls so it had to go back. The second one worked fine initially, but the phone failed down the line several months later. I wound up using it as a pda and having another phone. Had no recourse because I got it cheap.
My Captivate, purchased from AT&T in August, developed the random shutdown problem. The first random shutdown was sometime in late November. Fortunately, since it was under AT&T Warranty, I got a replacement earlier this year that has been solid so far. But given the history of the Captivate, not only with random shutdowns, but GPS, etc., I wouldn't put any serious money into one without a warranty.
Edit: here's the info about imei numbers - http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=10037509&postcount=24

oh crap... i think this happened to me last night while i was on the phone....
rebooted straight to rom loading screen, no i896 or kernel boot screen...
is that how it behaves? or is that something new?

creepyncrawly said:
Just my opinion!
I wouldn't even think or touching a refurb captivate from an ebay reseller unless the cost was so low that the risk was worth taking, for a couple of reasons.
I once bought a treo refurb on ebay. The first one would not receive phone calls so it had to go back. The second one worked fine initially, but the phone failed down the line several months later. I wound up using it as a pda and having another phone. Had no recourse because I got it cheap.
My Captivate, purchased from AT&T in August, developed the random shutdown problem. The first random shutdown was sometime in late November. Fortunately, since it was under AT&T Warranty, I got a replacement earlier this year that has been solid so far. But given the history of the Captivate, not only with random shutdowns, but GPS, etc., I wouldn't put any serious money into one without a warranty.
Edit: here's the info about imei numbers - http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=10037509&postcount=24
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have had refurbished products that worked great in the past, so this is not what really concerns me. But I guess overall people seem to be satisfied with the captivate that I was willing to give it a try, even with the gps problem. At first I thought it was on the first batch of captivates so I though I was fine, but I keep hearing people having a phone bought in Jan 2011 with the problem, so I am a bit anxious.
I paid $240. It is supposed to be manufactured refurbished, so I though it was a good deal considering even used captivates were going way over 300 on ebay. But maybe I just return it without opening it after all.
That too bad because the captivate is the phone that fitted most my needs with a decent price range.

TRusselo said:
oh crap... i think this happened to me last night while i was on the phone....
rebooted straight to rom loading screen, no i896 or kernel boot screen...
is that how it behaves? or is that something new?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not sure. Did your phone come directly from Rodgers? Are they known to have the random shutdown issue? I guess you need to find that out first.
My first phone only shut down when it was on idle, never when I was using it, and only once when it was on the charger. As far as rebooting after the shutdown, it behaved differently on different occassions, but it didn't reboot spontaneously. I would pick it up to use it, and it would be off. I would have to long press the start button to reboot.

caribbean_spur said:
I have had refurbished products that worked great in the past, so this is not what really concerns me. But I guess overall people seem to be satisfied with the captivate that I was willing to give it a try, even with the gps problem. At first I thought it was on the first batch of captivates so I though I was fine, but I keep hearing people having a phone bought in Jan 2011 with the problem, so I am a bit anxious.
I paid $240. It is supposed to be manufactured refurbished, so I though it was a good deal considering even used captivates were going way over 300 on ebay. But maybe I just return it without opening it after all.
That too bad because the captivate is the phone that fitted most my needs with a decent price range.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm guessing you don't plan to use the phone on AT&T, and maybe are not in USA? You might look into seeing if you would have warranty coverage directly from Samsung. In my life, $240 would be a bit much to pay if something goes wrong and you have no recourse. I paid around $200.00 directly from AT&T with 2 year commitment on my existing plan.
The random shutdown issue is well know to both AT&T and Samsung, and phones manufactured since about December seem to have good GPS as well as not have the random shutdown issue.

creepyncrawly said:
The random shutdown issue is well know to both AT&T and Samsung, and phones manufactured since about December seem to have good GPS as well as not have the random shutdown issue.
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Click to collapse
I am trying to figure out if I have some kind of warranty through Samsung. Also, if what you are saying is correct about phones made after Dec, I will wait to see when the phone was made to decide it's fate. Do you have an idea how I can know when the phone was made?
By the way, thanks for your inputs!

Well according to the samsung website, warranty is only for original purchaser. Now I have no idea how that works for att authorized dealer on ebay.

[Q] Stock GS3 dies while taking pictures

Ok here is my issue.
I had a VZ GS3, running the same software it had out of he box. ie I never rooted it or unlocked the bootloader(I was waiting for a stable JB/Touchwiz).
Anyway, I had the phone for about 3wks. Didn't run into any issues seemed to be working fine. One morning I was sitting around playing with the camera taking pictures of my girlfriend play with her dog.
In the middle of taking pictures the phone just died. At the the time the battery was pretty low maybe 10-15%. At first I thought the battery was dead so I tried charging it but the charging LED never lit up. Pressing the home button did nothing(no battery graphic). I went and took a shower leaving it on the charger for another 30min still no change. I tried booting into ODIN mode, but still got nothing.
So I got dressed and went to VZ. The tech pulled the battery and tried one from a display unit, but we still got nothing . We tried booting into ODIN with this new battery & still nothing. The tech said he had never seen anything like that happen before so they would return my phone on warranty (I don't have insurance).
Of course they send me a refurb and it works fine but I can't help but feel a little cheated, I bought a new $250 phone and through no fault of my own I have to live with this refurb. Also, this has made me a little wary of rooting my phone since if it hard bricks I won't be able to restore it to factory before sending it back.
Anybody hear of anything like this happening with other GS3's

What's wrong with a refurb? How do you feel cheated? You returned your non working phone for a phone that does work and passed another round of QC. I don't see the problem here.

mustbepbs said:
What's wrong with a refurb? How do you feel cheated? You returned your non working phone for a phone that does work and passed another round of QC. I don't see the problem here.
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I feel cheated because using electronics puts on wear. The processor, the OLEDs, every piece of silicon in the phone is subject to degradation based on the amount of use, heat, liquid and impact its exposed to. By definition, the refurb is a phone that had some issue and was repaired.
I don't know what the phone has been exposed to prior to me receiving it. For all I know they re-flashed someones highly used phone stuck it in a new case/bezel and sent it to me. Any additional wear may down the road effect the performance of my phone. Its the same reason that the display unit at most stores is sold at a discount.
As to your talk of QC. They actually sent me 2 refurbs. The first one was put back together incorrectly & the battery door wouldn't close, so I had to return that one immediately after opening the box.

sololhj said:
I feel cheated because using electronics puts on wear. The processor, the OLEDs, every piece of silicon in the phone is subject to degradation based on the amount of use, heat, liquid and impact its exposed to. By definition, the refurb is a phone that had some issue and was repaired.
I don't know what the phone has been exposed to prior to me receiving it. For all I know they re-flashed someones highly used phone stuck it in a new case/bezel and sent it to me. Any additional wear may down the road effect the performance of my phone. Its the same reason that the display unit at most stores is sold at a discount.
As to your talk of QC. They actually sent me 2 refurbs. The first one was put back together incorrectly & the battery door wouldn't close, so I had to return that one immediately after opening the box.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Even if you buy new or get new for a replacement, you're still subject to the same problems that could arise, as you've already experienced. As for your other points, the phone has been out for a few months. I think you need to relax a little bit if you have legitimate issues, verizon will give you another refurb as you've already had to do.
Just because it's new doesn't make it impervious, as again you've already seen.

This was replaced under warranty so you should, in my opinion, have gotten a brand new phone. It's not like it was replaced out of warranty by an insurance company. You paid for a new phone that was defective at the fault of Samsung. It was not your fault. I'd contact Verizon AND Samsung and complain. Rerburb is NOT new. I call refurbished items used because that's a better definition of what they are.

I agree with sololhj. Even though the phone works and went through further qc, it's still not new. I paid for a new phone, I want a new phone. On my last phone there were issues, so I had it replaced. I got sent a refurbished one and it just wasn't the same. Weird feeling, hard to explain lol.
Sent from my SPH-L710 using xda app-developers app

mustbepbs said:
Even if you buy new or get new for a replacement, you're still subject to the same problems that could arise, as you've already experienced. As for your other points, the phone has been out for a few months. I think you need to relax a little bit if you have legitimate issues, verizon will give you another refurb as you've already had to do.
Just because it's new doesn't make it impervious, as again you've already seen.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Of course the same problems could arise, in fact I don't even blame Samsung for my phone bricking itself in the first. I probably just got a bad piece of silicon. The whole reason I started this thread is because now that this phone has been out for a month I thought I would have heard of this happening to someone else, but apparently it hasn't.
The point is, what if this phone belonged to a fellow XDA member who had a custom kernel running and had the cpu overclocked to 3GHZ, burning a whole in the phone? Then because of some other issue he reflashed the stock ROM, used the flash counter hack to return the phone to normal and returned it to Verizon.
Now that's my phone and all that wear & tear is on the chip potentially reducing its overall life. Aren't I entitled to a new unused piece of silicon, even if the probability of it having issues is the same as the refurb I received?

sololhj said:
Of course the same problems could arise, in fact I don't even blame Samsung for my phone bricking itself in the first. I probably just got a bad piece of silicon. The whole reason I started this thread is because now that this phone has been out for a month I thought I would have heard of this happening to someone else, but apparently it hasn't.
The point is, what if this phone belonged to a fellow XDA member who had a custom kernel running and had the cpu overclocked to 3GHZ, burning a whole in the phone? Then because of some other issue he reflashed the stock ROM, used the flash counter hack to return the phone to normal and returned it to Verizon.
Now that's my phone and all that wear & tear is on the chip potentially reducing its overall life. Aren't I entitled to a new unused piece of silicon, even if the probability of it having issues is the same as the refurb I received?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah if you bought it in the last 14 days, verizon should give you a new one. Maybe I'm just not that paranoid about refurbished things as others.

usb port warranty return with broken screen

Hi,
So my usb port stopped charging and getting really hot so i called about the warranty and they said it is covered and that I may return the phone. However about 4 months about the phone was dropped and the screen cracked. now i am worried that if i send it in for a replacement phone they may charge me due to the cracked screen that never had anything to do with the usb charging port not working. anyone ever had an experience with this or advice?

jgr208 said:
Hi,
So my usb port stopped charging and getting really hot so i called about the warranty and they said it is covered and that I may return the phone. However about 4 months about the phone was dropped and the screen cracked. now i am worried that if i send it in for a replacement phone they may charge me due to the cracked screen that never had anything to do with the usb charging port not working. anyone ever had an experience with this or advice?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You should call them and ask. I'd imagine they won't replace it and call it physical damage.

_MetalHead_ said:
You should call them and ask. I'd imagine they won't replace it and call it physical damage.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That would make sense. Well i guess I can see how much of a pia wireless charging is as the only charging method to use. Since that still works. Still though would suck if they call that physical damage since one had nothing to do with the other.

jgr208 said:
That would make sense. Well i guess I can see how much of a pia wireless charging is as the only charging method to use. Since that still works. Still though would suck if they call that physical damage since one had nothing to do with the other.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, give them a call and ask them. They would know better than anyone here.

The connectors on the n5 (usb and headphone) are fairly easy to change

_MetalHead_ said:
You should call them and ask. I'd imagine they won't replace it and call it physical damage.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
PLEEZEFRAGME said:
The connectors on the n5 (usb and headphone) are fairly easy to change
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Click to collapse
I have heard that. However, now my phone keeps dropping calls when they are on LTE, never happened before. Could the usb cord have damaged this too? Since I tried to plug it in one more time to test it out and when i took the usb cord out i burned my thumb. So I had to out of need due to no other phone to use since no home phone get a moto g and wait to see if a new nexus comes out soon and if not just get another n5

I think they can wrap everything around the fact that there is physical damage on the phone.
You could always say that it was perfect when you sent it and maybe the postal carrier messed it up.

xhadudkenx said:
I think they can wrap everything around the fact that there is physical damage on the phone.
You could always say that it was perfect when you sent it and maybe the postal carrier messed it up.
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Click to collapse
Haha I know they will do that. One of the facts I have learned this year from being an adult is any company will try to get your buck any way no matter what. Still trying to get $20 back another company stole from me.

Its called liability. No single employee feels they owe you anything. The "company" knows nothing about you or even cares. If you want your money back you need to attack the company and not an employee who just works there. Even the CEO of the company is just an employee. The company is just a machine. Stick a grenade in its gears and you'll get your money as well as your screen fixed.

xhadudkenx said:
Its called liability. No single employee feels they owe you anything. The "company" knows nothing about you or even cares. If you want your money back you need to attack the company and not an employee who just works there. Even the CEO of the company is just an employee. The company is just a machine. Stick a grenade in its gears and you'll get your money as well as your screen fixed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Whoa I never attacked any employee. The employees are just there to help. Most of the time they are pretty helpful. I wasn't even talking about Google for the $20 or about my phone. Nor will I name the company since I don't want to start a flame war.

Won't turn on, tried everything i know.

Recently my S2 skyrocket turned off for no reason. I just wanted to check the time and it was off. 5 mins before was doing good and I was using it as always. Battery was 80% charged and in good conditions. Tried turning it on, it didn't. Pulled out the battery couple of times, didn't help. So when I went home I plugged the charger and tried with and without battery, no reaction at all. Tried to boot into recovery and download mode, nothing. Went to a local phone repairer and told me it was a problem about an internal part, something like ' memory chip' (don't know if I'm saying it right in english) He said it happens a lot with galaxy s2 and s3 phones.It would cost about 40$ to repair. I don't know if it's worth since the phone is too old now and not sure how much it'll resist or maybe this problem occurs again in no time. So I would appreciate if somebody knows anything, even a little might help me. Thanks.
Note: Phone was sim unlocked, using it in europe. No root, stock jellybean. (Done rooting and flashings before but it was all stock at the time)

Some time it happens if your motherboard is affected by VIRUS!!! In this situation you have no option rather than replacing it..

Sounds like hardware failure. Is it worth $40 to fix it? Up to you, although I would like to point out that the most modern replacements for the SR: the M8, S5 and G3, are all at least $200 through AT&T right now. The Rocket may not be worth fixing from a "what's the phone worth" point of view, but if you're not willing or able to dish out that much cash, the cost of repairing vs. upgrading might make repairing the older phone worthwhile.

T.J. Bender said:
Sounds like hardware failure. Is it worth $40 to fix it? Up to you, although I would like to point out that the most modern replacements for the SR: the M8, S5 and G3, are all at least $200 through AT&T right now. The Rocket may not be worth fixing from a "what's the phone worth" point of view, but if you're not willing or able to dish out that much cash, the cost of repairing vs. upgrading might make repairing the older phone worthwhile.
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Well that's the problem. I don't feel like spending again for a new phone, the rocket was fairly good for my needs so I'm going with the repairing. It's a bit much for me but anyway I need the phone now. Kinda strange how a failure can happen like this and without a good reason, no signs of any problems at all.

$40 bucks is not bad, u could still sell afterwards for >$100

vincom said:
$40 bucks is not bad, u could still sell afterwards for >$100
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Click to collapse
Nobody would buy it in my contry Anyway they told me it can't be repaired. Sent it to 3 different places. They all told me it 'died' . Using a piece of crap now as my daily phone -.-"