yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Epic 4G General] nubecoder:
RAM corruption, no, but what about RAM malfunction. If it is possible to damage the RAM with too little voltage (and I'm not sure this is possible, as I'm not an electrical engineer), then damaged RAM could easily be a cause of a total brick.

But to me the real interesting part is how they are bricking, what could cause the phone to brick just after a power off? From what I know, some phones were working totally fine, until it was powered down.

I have a theory that involves the screen just not being able to power up. Are the soft-keys, the screen and the LED all using the same power source (voltage)?

Has anyone given a bricked phone enough time to make a noise? I don't use any boot sound, so the first noise I hear is the phone getting signal.

Again, just theory and speculation.

=[
[Epic 4G General] k0nane:
Mystery will be posting more on it soon. Please be patient.

I'm deferring to the kernel team here.
[Epic 4G General] mattallica76:
It's not false. It's just not a cure all. If the hardware is fried, no button is going to fix it. I'm sure it worked as Mystery said it did for him, but he didn't burn up any internal components.
[Epic 4G General] heathmcabee:
My hardware isn't fried at all or corrupted and it didn't seem to do anything. I was just curious.
[Epic 4G General] gTen:
I don't think its the screen only as then Id be able to usb to the phone correct? even if it doesn't mount I should still see it.

What about the possibility of it being the NAND? with UV the ram if the data is corrupted, when we shut down data is written to the NAND right?
[Epic 4G General] musclehead84:
I'm running vision 1.2 and have been swapping batteries a lot. So far so good. I don't want another brick.

Sent From My Evo Killer!
[Epic 4G General] k0nane:
No, what's in RAM doesn't necessarily get written to disk - in fact, most of it gets discarded. And if that were the case, you would easily be able to get into Download Mode in the worst case.
[Epic 4G General] heathmcabee:
I"m sorry, but you guys need to look a little closer at that button, its not a button at all. It does have an indention, but no real actual use.

If you don't believe me, then take your phone apart and look for that button.
[Epic 4G General] nubecoder:
Understood, and I didn't know that, as I haven't been on their forums much. My xda browsing time has been down lately as well. =[
[Epic 4G General] gTen:
The bootloader is not on the NAND? or its like bios where it has its flash chip?
[Epic 4G General] thedevilslettucemd:
Exactly what i did. No button, just a transistor.
[Epic 4G General] k0nane:
Not applicable. The phone will never, ever write to the bootloader, the kernel, or anything but /data, /cache, and /system unless you specifically tell it to with bmlwrite or redbend_ua.
[Epic 4G General] gTen:
But what if..

A) OneNAND failed or first block got corrupted.

B) Due to some failure it wrote to the wrong block
[Epic 4G General] somedude0608:
I'm just looking to get my baearings here. I've rebooted properly many many times (I put helix startup/shutdown animations on) with no problems. Does this sound like a "gets worse over time and eventually fails thing" or would I have experienced it already if there was a problem.
[Epic 4G General] heathmcabee:
Funny how MysteryEmotionz fixed his phone 3 times with this magical button that serves no function that has a transistor below it. Hope he was drunk. lol

Hope you guys figure out the real fix! I just hate false information.
[Epic 4G General] k0nane:
Both EXTREMELY unlikely - infinitesimal, even. Kernels simply cannot cause that, and if one managed to, it would show up immediately, not after an unknown period of time.

We don't know for certain yet. If you are concerned, flash back to VisionKernel 1.1.
[Epic 4G General] gTen:
Did you UV at all with the kernel? also when you flashed this, did you reflash backup via clockwork mod to get journaling back on?
[Epic 4G General] mattallica76:
Based on what I know of what happened with the Bonsai beta, the first brick reports didn't start until at least a day after folks started flashing it. Some bricked after 24 hours, some after 72 hours, and at least one that I know of is still running it and has not bricked.
[Epic 4G General] gTen:
Was that rom journaling on? and was anything UVd? even CPU?
[Epic 4G General] k0nane:
Journaling isn't relevant. It'd be the same data corruption worst case mentioned above - but even the worst data corruption would still allow you access to recovery.
[Epic 4G General] mattallica76:
There was an option to turn journaling on in the install process, but most of the testers opted out of that. There were many UV's of several components.
[Epic 4G General] MysteryEmotionz:
Here you go heath
[Epic 4G General] MysteryEmotionz:
Read above.
[Epic 4G General] gTen:
I'm just trying to sort out via trial an error..see if there are any patterns approach..

also..I tried putting battery in, and hit the power button..then leaving it..and I am feeling warmth from the phone..its mild but its definitely there...
[Epic 4G General] k0nane:
Connect to USB. See if your PC recognizes it.
[Epic 4G General] gTen:
I already tried that..no luck...but tis safe to say the phone does turn on in the very least in some shape or form...
[Epic 4G General] squshy 7:
holy ****. i go offline for a few hours, and look what happens.

I cant leave you guys alone for anything lol.
[Epic 4G General] k0nane:
Power it off again ASAP and leave the battery out for at least an hour.
[Epic 4G General] heathmcabee:
My apologies if it is legit.. I either didn't see it, and couldn't get it to work. I guess this doesn't mean it isn't real, just that my phone didn't support that function.
[Epic 4G General] Top Nurse:
Now that is just plain ****ing annoying. Randy was at the Linux conference and did you really expect either him or Mammon to post here after they keep changing the rules about threads?

I've been posting all along in that thread, you speak of, telling everyone what we had been discussing in quite a bit of detail as a Bonsai beta tester!

Sent from Bonsai 7.0.3
[Epic 4G General] mattallica76:
Even more familiar yet! Several of us that bricked on Bonsai noticed this also. I planned on going to the Sprint store on my lunch break so I took a fully charged battery with me. I didn't see the harm in putting it in the phone as it was dead right? When I got to the store and pulled my epic out of my pocket, it was hot. I put the battery in my new Epic and it was almost completely dead.
[Epic 4G General] somedude0608:
I've got journaling on. And only my 200 step is undervolted, running up to 1.4 and haven't touched 1.45.

My post wasn't meant to be me freaking out but just gathering info. I think eveyone here takes risks, knowingly or not, I'm just trying to avoid an excessive risk.
[Epic 4G General] k0nane:
Calm down - I didn't even imply that they were wrong in not posting. Simply that they were not here. There were no accusations made, and I would never deny that you were keeping the thread updated.

EDIT: And note that the Bonsai team and I have had a good working relationship for a while, that I have never spoken against them, and that several times we have shared valuable information.
[Epic 4G General] gTen:
Done...in an hour try to run it on again?
[Epic 4G General] k0nane:
If not longer.
[Epic 4G General] gTen:
Well the more information we gather, the more likely we can figure out what exactly is causing this..for future reference...

I'll leave it over night as intended then see if it works in the morning I guess.
[Epic 4G General] k0nane:
True, and a good idea.
[Epic 4G General] herbthehammer:
Just offering a suggestion to find out any similarities between the people who's phones gave up the ghost.

What if the people affected posted all the information they could remember about their setup. Were default values changed? Did you use the msl to change any settings under the hood? Are you using a stock or aftermarket battery? What kernel, rom and setting values did you use? What speed were you running at? Know what voltage you changed things to? What programs do you have installed? What were you doing or what app or game were you using just before powering off? What brand, size an class sd card are you using? Were you running a task or app killer? Do you remember about how much power was left when you shut it down? Were you using a different splash screen and or animation than what comes with the rom? What programs do you remember deleting from the way the rom came after flashing? What version of recovery were you using? Did you have a lot of text messages in the messaging program? How about google voice or sprint voice mail?

This could be endless and very annoying but it certainly could help the developers narrow down what could be contributing to this situation instead of people blindly speculating and pointing the finger. Sorry once again if I annoyed anyone with my 2 cents.
[Epic 4G General] MysteryEmotionz:
hardware reset informarion can be found here http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?p=13047288#post13047288
[Epic 4G General] squshy 7:
FWIW, ive been experiencing very bad memory management since flashing this kernel. Havent dealt with it too much since i frequently kill all processes in atk, but i have noticed that my normal running free ram is about 50% less than it used to be (~40mb as opposed to ~80mb)

could be a ram related issue
[Epic 4G General] burgerpimp07:
I wasn't powering the phone on or off at all when it happened. I was simply unlocking it, and my touchscreen started acting up before it went dead.

SFR/Vision/Emomtionles beast/undervolted cpu
[Epic 4G General] gTen:
Sure I'll start....

Rom: ACS 1.1

Kernel: Vision 1.2

FS: EXT4+Journaling + On

Sd: stock

UV: BFQ - 1000-75,800-75,600-75,400-75,200-75,100-75

Programs installed: Stock ACS with some games

Programs running: Voltage Control?

Failure on: Power off via menu

If failure was on power off/reboot, were you trying to get into recovery via the 3 buttons? YES

Previous freezes from UV: Yes

Battery Life on failure: 30-35%?

Strange behaviors list:

1) When I was playing with UV, I noticed a weird thing that when I applied settings temporarily there was no freezes but when I applied it to boot there was a freeze as soon as I applied it.

2) I got a config where my phone didn't freeze, and battery life was good..I didn't use phone much but while of it went 7 hours only using like 3-5% battery...then when I left it over night to wake up and my phone was dead..I turned it back on via pulling the battery and notice battery life went from 91% to 45%

3) Same UVs with CFQ that I used for Genocide caused freezes, I eventually got good working on -75 all and no freezes for 24 hours+

--

How does that look for a template?
[Epic 4G General] k0nane:
Looks good, thanks.
[Epic 4G General] stir fry a lot:
It sounds like if people are interested in reverting back to 1.1 or switching to a different kernel they should probably consider pulling the battery instead of powering off/resetting via the phone menu.
[Epic 4G General] gTen:
No luck with this..:(..oh well gonna try leaving it over night and see how it pans out...
[Epic 4G General] MysteryEmotionz:
Sorry it didn't work for you. Like I said it's worth the try but I doubt it will work 100% of the time. the cause of the brick is what determines if this will work or not
[Epic 4G General] Top Nurse:
Calmed down a bit. :)

Everything people are reporting here (except reset button) is what happened to the Bonsai Team. The last discussion we had was about a maxim chip that we *thought* might be involved. Unfortunately it is a proprietary chip and the manufacturer isn't interested in giving out any information. We are currently seeking information directly from Samsung. Not sure we will ever hear info on it as it would be a leak comparable to an os leak.

I had an experience with my phone turning itself off at night. Since then I have done everything I can think of to brick it and having a ham license I've come up with some doozies. I'm still running Bonsai 4.1.0 and as I mentioned earlier I *think* this is a hardware issue. Some phones can take a beating and others quit ticking. :D

Sent from Bonsai 7.0.3
[Epic 4G General] k0nane:
That may be. If we can get one of the bricked devices, one of our members may (may) be able to JTAG it and take a close look at just WTF is going on. No promises - but there's a MUCH greater chance of it if we have it than if we don't.
[Epic 4G General] gTen:
its ok...I guess i'll use it as a paperweight while (well i would if the phone wasn't so light)...:P lol

I would be happy if just we find the source of this issue.
[Epic 4G General] Top Nurse:
You might want to contact Mammon as I think he is already headed down that path. The problem (so far) is we haven't been lucky enough to get a bricked one to look at. Everyone keeps getting replacements from Sprint. ;)

Sent from Bonsai 7.0.3
[Epic 4G General] cerchiara:
I'm still surprised that my trick of unbricking my phone only worked for me. To be more specfic I removed the battery and put it back on like 2 or 3 times and then put the sdcard in and out 2 or 3 times and then held the power on and it turned on the phone no problem. This worked everytime.
[Epic 4G General] fhurricane:
hardware reset didnt work for me (if thats even a button at all is besides the point)

battery was out for 2 hrs. didnt go to download mode. I think its done. but I will try again in the morning. I think sprint store visits are imminent for us.
[Epic 4G General] k0nane:
Yep. The device is key.

We need your devices, people! ;) If you don't have to send in your existing to get a replacement.
[Epic 4G General] ecooce:
I just want to suggest one thing,that kernel devs leave screen/RAM voltage alone until you put more goodies in,and revisit UVing of screen/RAM later...

On another note,I think the "reboot mod" is flakey,anyone remeber windows 98/98se,it was shutting down and not writting everything it was supposed to...

I think this has been said before from someone that has taken the epic apart "That is not a button,or reset button"...

Edit::: I had my phone on,batt cover removed,tried this "reset button" and nothing,I don't even feel a click,so to me its not a button at all... No disrespect,I want this to be fixed just like anyone. My phone never bricked,but it would not install a ROM,it got hung on blitzing data,tried about 6 times,I had to factory wipe,and start over... Now I'm running the modded EC05.tar with Vision 1.0,much better experience atm. I just wish we could figure this out so I can move forward with my ROM,yeah I know,use a diff. Kernel in the ROM,but I like to stay current.
[Epic 4G General] gTen:
I REALLY wish I could..but its a work device :/
[Epic 4G General] wizayne:
Why can't affected people use sgs kernel flasher to flash different kernel? Or maybe I'm missing the point but I use out all the time on my mesmerize .. But of course nobody do a damn thing I day since I'm just scrolling thru threads reading ..i just thought it could help change the kernel ...
[Epic 4G General] gTen:
The device is equivalent to a paper weight.it doesn't turn on..so no software is going to fix it...if its going to be a fix it has to be some hardware way..
[Epic 4G General] gTen:
What about samfirmware..dont they leak stuff all the time? I am not even going to bother to say Samsung John..lol
[Epic 4G General] Top Nurse:
Unfortunately the only people that have the data sheets we want is the manufacturer of the chip and the phone manufacturers they sold it to. The former keeps forgetting that they ever made it and the latter are mum.

Sent from Bonsai 7.0.3
[Epic 4G General] gTen:
What is the model number of the chip? and who made it?

Maxim MXA8998 Power Management IC (seems like chipworks named it wrong lol..Maxim MAX8998 it is)

or

- Maxim MAX8893C Power Management IC

This? http://www.datasheetdir.com/MAX8893A+PMIC

?
[Epic 4G General] churro7:
Damn I was about to flash this

Sent from Snarf phone
[Epic 4G General] cache83:
aw man. i've been running SRF 1.1 with Vision 1.2 and I've actually been bragging about how much i like it, and how smooth it is and how good my battery life's been...

i've also flashed a couple themes -- seems to be fine for me.

...i'm not sure if i should feel lucky or if i should be worrying... =/
[Epic 4G General] spikey68:
Can we port this bug for the iPhone?

;)
[Epic 4G General] gabe2gg:
Same I was getting better batttery life than BS 2.3 with no problems but I dunno if I should stay on it
[Epic 4G General] stir fry a lot:
I'd stay with it. Best kernel I've ever used. Can anyone confirm that they have successfully powered down/rebooted via the phone menu without a problem I can't recall if I have ever used either of the options since flashing it. I've been pulling the battery left and right testing UV's so I don't think I ever found the need to.
[Epic 4G General] ecooce:
In all seriousness,I wouldn't run this untill an update comes out,why risk it...
[Epic 4G General] cache83:
CONFIRMED.

i just now powered down normally, rebooted into cwm and wiped cache/dalvik and flashed vision 1.1... figured that just in case it's one of those "matter of time" things, that i didn't want to get caught up lol

honestly, i don't know what the diff is btwn 1.1 and 1.2, i never messed with the u/v or overclocking..

never got even an FC with vision1.2, i think i got a lot less FCs with vision1.1 compared to TwilightZone..

hope everything works out for all who've gotten their phones bricked and that this bug or whatever it is gets fixed soon ... i was definitely a fan
[Epic 4G General] epic4GEE:
Ok I've read every post up to here, I'm going to chicken out now....wish me luck, brb :-( me hopes
[Epic 4G General] Top Nurse:
From my experience with Bonsai 4.1.0 if you didn't brick within 72 hours it becomes more likely that you never will. That is where the hypothesis came from regarding component varability.

Sent from Bonsai 7.0.3
[Epic 4G General] Top Nurse:
You get the Most Valued Suggestion of the day award. :D

Sent from Bonsai 7.0.3
[Epic 4G General] epic4GEE:
Talking to myself here, I just flashed genocide 1.0 powered down via menu. Was actually scared because I just read this thread about not powering down if your on vision 1.2.....shwooo I guess it wasn't a jinx.

@k0nane, Thomas and the rest of the acs team, its really nice to see this will be commented on publicly and I look forward to answers. You guys do great work I really hope what's happening here does not bring you guys down.

To all those that bricked, I hope this all works out for you some how, some way.....don't hold it against acs. This was not intentional and they never forced you to flash. They deserve a pat on the back and not a kick in the balls.
[Epic 4G General] epic4GEE:
I was right around 72hours, like I said bok-bok I chickened out:D

I soft bricked my first epic using z4root and had no pc to fix it and had no clue how to, sprint was awesome about the whole thing and just handed me a new phone. No need to push my luck again and expect the same results.
[Epic 4G General] mattallica76:
I was able to revive mine twice this way, but the third time I turned it off it was done for good.
[Epic 4G General] cerchiara:
Just wondering... Everyone who bricked there phones using this kernel were you using pimp my cpu? The Vs 1.2 Kernel seemed to be working fine when I was using voltage kernel but after I switched to pimp my cpu and the bfq scheduler thats when my phone started acting funny and eventually bricked. Anyway just my 2 cents could just be coincedence and my phone would have bricked eventually using any of the overclocking progs.
[Epic 4G General] llamaunix:
Just ran into this issue this morning. Phone was running 1.2 fine for about 3 days but this morning everything started force closing. Google Reader at first, and then several system apps. I finally shut down the phone because all apps kept force closing repeatedly. After, when booting up, it would get stuck in the Sprint / Android boot screen. I could not get back into Clockwork either, phone would just stay at the Samsung boot screen and the RED notification LED would turn on. Finally ended up using Odin to get back to full stock. So far so good on the stock image.

Note, I was just running Vision 1.2 on a full stock EC05 ROM with RFS (journaling of course). I was undervolting but not overclocking. Down about -50mV down the line.
[Epic 4G General] ecooce:
Well for me I had my own problems with PMC,lost root,and some other funky stuff. But once I had my phone up and running again I didn't use anything to change clock speed,I never got bricked,but everything went downhill,FC's every where (journaling was enabled),then I couldn't install a ROM,and I did a factory reset and wiped cache,but it would hang on formatting data.
[Epic 4G General] cerchiara:
Interesting. I had everything fc on me as well on pmc once I used bfq. I went to nandroid backup and everything seemed fine again. But then eventually the phone wouldnt turn on anymore. I finally got the phone back on using my battery sdcard removal trick. And soon decided the kernel being the culprit so I moved to viper uv kernel. I thought I was in the clear but was wrong woke up with a brick. In the end the only solution atleast for me as I mentioned before is odin back to eclair and work myself up again to root, ec05 custom, and use viper uc kernel.
[Epic 4G General] gTen:
Guys that bricked..can repost in the following format?

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?p=13048371&highlight=template#post13048371
[Epic 4G General] Lousyshot:
I was also able to power down normally, flashed vision 1.1, and rebooted fine. Running SRF 1.1, didn't want to take any chances.
[Epic 4G General] brickwall99:
I'm running SRF 1.1.0 and vision 1.2. Running vision 1.2 since it was released I think (a couple days?).

I just powered off via the menu and powered back up, and experienced no problems.

I undervolted 200, 400, 600, 800, and 1000 Mhz settings by -75. I've only used Voltage Control.
[Epic 4G General] gTen:
I used voltage control and bricked..so its not pimp my cpu...

Also the leaving over night thing is a miss...phone still bricked...
[Epic 4G General] Donmeister85:
Wow you guys. This is something else! So two days ago, I flashed Vision 1.2 like, "yeah, this ought to be interesting to try." Had nothing but bad luck with it thinking it was just me. Must have flashed SRF and that kernel 3 times before flashing SRF with Twilight Kernel. First times, I would get FCs out of the wazoo. I'm like, wtf? Seriously? I thought maybe it was just me, or because I was a Voltage Control noob. The undervolt abilities looked really promising, but after so many reflashes (hah, at the third reflash, I lost my dalvik cache partition? I couldn't even wipe it. When I tried reinstalling SRF 1.1.0, it would always freeze at blitzing cache. Had to Odin back to stock), I figured there was no harm in continuing to use TWZ. This thread makes me glad I did so.
[Epic 4G General] Neckberg:
Wow, this is some scary shizz. I flashed 1.2 about 2 days ago, glad I logged on today to see this fun stuff. Last night I rebooted from power button 2 times and nothing happened, thankfully. Anyway I just flashed vision 1.1, and all seems to be okay.

I was using setcpu, but only going from 200-1.3 with on demand. No problems, just flashed to 1.1 for precautionary reasons.
[Epic 4G General] dtm_stretch:
Possible brick help

I know this may sound stupid but those who have not been able to enter download mode; have you tried to run odin without the battery in?

Steps:

1. Remove battery

2. Launch Odin

3. Connect your phone via USB(your best port) also with your battery still out

4. Hold 1 then press power botton

5. Hopefully download mode then odin recognizing your phone.

**I apologize if this seems so painfully obvious to fix a "bricked" phone. Do not take my post count into consideration; I've thought I've bricked my phone plenty of times(to include the g/fs fascinate and this has helped several times.**
[Epic 4G General] gTen:
The phone does not turn on at all..aka complete brick...paperweight...its not about entering odin..even having the screen turn on would be progress.