[Droid Incredible Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] dbrits:
Ok, so I had the five vibrations of death and blinking green LED this afternoon and my phone appears to be working fine - for the moment.

First, my phone's specs:

s-off

hboot .92

radio 2.15.00.07.28

clockwork 2

Chi Chi 1800mHz battery

AMOLED screen

Purchased directly from Verizon in August 2010

I've been having random reboot issues since last Friday. At the time I was running Incredibly Re-Engineered Z 1.2 beta (first time running a Z rom; it had worked flawlessly for the preceding week) with Lou's #9 kernel. I was attempting to answer a text and the phone locked up and went into a boot loop. It would boot to the lock screen but it would immediately reboot before I could do anything. I had to pull the battery to stop it from boot looping. At the time I answered the text, the phone was very hot. It was in its silicone cover, in my jeans pocket, and I was sitting outside in direct sunlight. I thought the phone had simply overheated. I waited ten minutes before I re-inserted the battery and when the phone booted, it appeared that the phone wasn't reading the SD card: most of the custom icons on my home screen are on my SD card and none of them were displayed. I booted into Clockwork and restored my most recent nandroid backup. It booted, the SD card was being read, and the phone was usable. It wasn't completely stable as it rebooted later that evening, but it didn't go into a boot loop.

I assumed it was the Z ROM (especially since the ROM is still in beta) so I decided to try Optimized Z 1.1 with ziggy's latest BFS kernel (I could be wrong about the kernel though). Optimized Z lasted two days. The phone was sluggish, so I switched kernels to Lou's #4. The phone seemed more responsive after I flashed #4, but I had more random reboots: once while refreshing the xda app and another while refreshing TweetDeck. So, I decided to flash Incredibly Re-Engineered 2.4 with Lou's #4 which is the ROM I had been running prior to Incredibly Re-Engineered Z 1.2 for several weeks without any problems.

I flashed Incredibly Re-Engineered 2.4 late Saturday. As a precaution, I also backed up the contents of my SD card to my Mac, re-formatted my SD card to FAT-32, then re-added each folder one-by-one. I had my first random reboot (no boot loop) late Sunday evening. I was using my phone quite heavily last night and again, it was warm. I again chalked it up to the phone overheating.

Cut to this afternoon - I was outside using my phone. It's 90F in my area of SoCal and the phone was warmer than usual. I had sent a few texts, received a few emails, and was browsing a few websites. I tried refreshing a webpage and the phone rebooted. It got to the HTC splash screen, and rebooted; it then booted to the lock screen, then it rebooted. I pulled the battery, immediately re-inserted it, then tried to power on the phone. I got the five vibrations and blinking green LED. And then I started to weep inside. I thought (hoped?) the Chi Chi battery might be defective, overheating, and causing the reboot issues. I pulled the battery, went indoors, waited ten minutes, re-inserted the stock battery, then the phone booted without any problems. And that's where things stand.

I haven't had any reboots in the past two hours, but given the phone's track record in the past four days, it obviously isn't stable. I've tried different ROMs, different kernels, and a different battery. Did flashing a Z ROM cause the issue? Before the Z ROM, I ran Incredibly Re-Engineered 2.4 (EVO framework) and Redemption 2.4 (Incredible framework) without encountering any random reboots or boot loops of any type. We'll see what happens with the battery, but I can't afford to not have a stable, working phone. Something is causing this problem and I'm having a difficult time pinpointing the issue. Does anyone have any suggestions? I'd like to think the five vibrations and blinking green LED was just a one-off fluke and that it's not indicative of any serious hardware problems, but I'm preparing myself for the worst. I'd like to avoid unrooting the phone, restoring it to its stock state, and returning it to Verizon, but I have a horrible sinking feeling in my stomach that this might by my only course of action. I'd like for someone to prove me wrong though...

Thanks in advance.

ETA: A few thought I had on my commute home from work:

1. Because I've had this issue while running different ROMs, the issue is most likely not related to the ROMs and lies outside the ROMs, such as the battery, hardware, etc., correct?

2. Some of the reboots took place while downloading 3G data - refreshing the xda app, TweetDeck, and a webpage. Could that indicate a problem with the radio?

3. As a last ditch effort, I'm thinking of flashing Redemption 2.4 (Senseless) to see if that solves my issues. I don't think I'll get around to it tonight, but maybe sometime this week...

ETA2: Just had another random reboot with the stock battery. Was barely using the phone when I tried to refresh ESPN's mobile website and check the Lakers/Mavs score. I guess I can rule out battery/overheating issues. Have yet to flash Redemption 2.4. I think I'm going to make time for that tonight instead of waiting.

Also thinking of re-flashing the radio, but I'm going to try Redemption 2.4 before I do so...