[Tilt, TyTN II, MDA Vario III General] jaysjob:
Busted? or just won't work

Hi all,

I have been coming to these forums for a little while and only posted a couple of times. I felt this was important. I was having the same problem. Tried the cables, resets, ROM changes the works. I have had my at&t tilt htc 8925 for 36 days when I reported the problem to them. But it actually started about 10 days before. At&t tech support was very rude and accusatory when it came to them "helping" me. I, like probably all owners of a phone like this treat it like gold. It is very important to me. So when I contacted tech support and was told it was probably abuse or I had "buyers remorse" (I don't want to return the phone I just want it fixed!?)

The best they can do and they do not budge on this is for me to return the phone for an exchange. BUT, and this is a BIG AT&T but, the phone they exchange it with is refurbished. Something someone has returned. I do not want a phone that has been returned. I want mine fixed. "This is my phone, there are many like it but this one is mine" Know what I mean? When I bought the phone the guarantee was "we'll just replace it with a new phone" and I like 1000's of others did not ask if that "new phone" was refurbished. It is. Now advocates will tell you as they did me, refurbished is actually BETTER than new. Huh? Then why aren't all phones sold refurbished ones? And if they are so great, take mine back, give me one of those "crappy" new phones and give mine to someone who wants a sweet refurb. I am outraged by the whole mess.

I have searched forums and complaint sites. The bad usb port problem is NOT an isolated incident. There are a lot of people with the same "it charges but won't sync" problem. This is a known problem they refuse to address. Their stand, send in for refurb.

Personally I would like to see a recall fix class action against at&t. It can be fixed but they just don't want too. I thought I would be relatively safe buying for a huge company. They spend millions on advertising to simply leave their customers twisting in the wind after 30 days. Very bad business.

That's the rant. So I decided that if the warranty was useless anyway I'd take a shot at it myself before sending out for repair myself. There is a place in California PPC Tech http://www.pocketpctechs.com/main.asp?area=home that will fix the usb for $79 and ship it back to you in a few days. They seem to be reputable and a lot of people are opting to fix this problem themselves.

How did I fix mine? by altering the mini usb end of the sync cable. I tried other cables and connectors but I think it has something to do with the contact points. The only way mine would work was if I plugged it in, wiggled it slowly and with a little bit of pressure at times, around until the screen brightens. That means it has made a connection, then don't move. Hold very still. It took both my hands. Wait for what seems like 2 mins and it would start to sync. Based on this. my repair (before I send it to California for repair, which I may end up doing anyway) is make sure the plug on the phone is straight and not damaged. If you can get the phone to sync this way you may be able to crimp the mini end of the usb very very slightly to make the connection you are manually doing by wiggling it around. It took a lot of small tweaking but it now syncs about 29 out of 30 times. That's about as good as it gets.

So good luck to us all. If you can't get it to work yourself send it out west to PPC Tech. In this economy the phone companies like at&t better start getting their customer service back on track before they have no customers to service, It has happened to the biggest before. Wake up AT&T! The days of the business model of massive turnover and new signups is coming to an end as people tighten their belts. Treating current and future users poorly is a sure fire way to put yourself out of business.