[8125, K-JAM, P4300, MDA Vario Software Upgrading] spoonter:
This post is simply to document my recent experience with a malfunctioning battery in the hope that it may help someone is a similar situation one day.

For just over 12 months I have been the proud owner of a T-Mobile MDA Vario. Over that time I have successfully applied several custom ROM upgradess. And then one day some months ago, my phone started behaving strangely:

The initial symptom was the screen going white, or sometimes it would have flickering lines. I worked around this by cycling standby off then on. Generally the phone would be OK for another day, or perhaps another hour or so.

The next symptom that started to occurr was the battery status would change dramatically. The phone would display a full battery one minute then down to say 10% the next. Restarting the phone would see the battery status return to 100% or whatever it was on previously.

The final symptom was the phone would re-boot itself, particularly after a phone call, and sometime even when receiving a phone call.

It was at this point I decided it was time for a warranty repair. However I was running a 2.26 custom ROM. I decided to downgrade it back to the most recent T-Mobile factory ROM (2.21). This is were things went really wrong. Part way through the downgrade the phone rebooted! I could not get past the boot loader (RSOD - rainbow screen of death)! I tried everything, and many different ROMS's. Sometimes it would get to 60% through the upgrade, other times the RSOD would flash repeatedly on then off every few seconds. The battery had a full charge so I could not understand what went wrong.

I took the phone to a "specialist" in London's Chinatown. They spent a good hour on it and couldn't solve the problem. They told me they even rang to the guy who founded xdadevelopers forum! No luck.

So, with my phone stuck on the RSOD sceen, with IPL proudly displaying as 2.26, I boldly walked into T-Mobile on Oxford St and checked the phone in for warranty repair. I told them I was trying to install the latest T-Mobile ROM when it went wrong (the truth - only I didn't say upgrade or downgrade :)).

A week later I got a phone call to say my phone had been repaired! The warranty repair sheet said something like "base unit replaced". Sure enough, it was a brand new phone, only the battery and the battery cover were the same as before! Interestingly, the repair sheet clearly stated "battery tested - passed".

Unfortunately the story does not end here. I took my phone home, unlocked it, and quickly went about installing the latest AKU 2.3 custom ROM..... and you guessed it.... RSOD!! I couldn't believe it! What had "I" done wrong! How was I going to take the phone back again!

Well, at this point, I thought about all the steps I had been through, and recalled the original problem. The battery! Even though it often reported say 90% sometimes it would drop to 10% then 0% then back up to 60%! If this was happening during an upgrade then that would explain it. Fortunately a college I work with ahs the same phone. I borrowed is battery, ran the upgrade and hey presto... it worked!!

So, the message is this - if you have problems with an upgrade, consider your battery may be faulty and you need to get a new one!

Spoonter

P.S. Love this forum, you guys rock! Moski's ROM's are the best and thanks to everyone for your postings and ideas and everything!! Happy Christmas and all that!!!