BlackBerry® Bold™

[techlawyer]

I'm in Jordan right now and recently had my Verizon Blackberry 9930 die.  I just wanted to see if this has happened to anyone else.

Normally, I plug in my phone to charge when I go to bed.  When I'm outside the U.S., I plug it in through a surge protector, which I did in the case I'm going to describe (which occurred a couple days ago).

In the past the phone always displayed a green light in the morning indicating that the battery is fully charged.  However, this time,even after charging all night,  the phone did not have a green light but a slowly blinking red light.  I tried turning it on but it wouldn't respond.  I did a battery pull but it wouldn't respond.

I then called Verizon (using Skype) and the tech. had me try to connect to Desktop Manager but that displayed an error message indicating that it couldn't communicate with the Blackberry.

Following that, I spoke with a guy at Rim who 3 times ran me through the steps necessary to do a clean install of the operating system using AppLoader -- but that didn't work either -- and he couldn't think of anything else.

So here I am in Jordan with a dead 9930 that cannot be restored.   Conveniently, someone I know is coming to Jordan soon and bringing a replacement that I had Verizon ship to him.   But I depend on my BB for so much and it was really bizarre to have it just die like that -- for no apparent reason.  I just wondered if anyone else has experienced this kind of problem with the 9930?

[JSanders Resident Expert]

Couple of questions, you might have tried by didn't mention...

Can you try a different charger cable?

Can you try a different power outlet? Is the surge protector outlet actually live that you can run another device off it?

Can you try a different PC USB port, or on your laptop, whichever you are using?

Can you try a different PC?

When you do connect your 9930 to the charger, is there any LED activity now? Red blink?

Can you try this... on a charging source you are sure is good and with what you know is a good charger...

Leave the device to charge 2-3 hours, and then, still connected to the charging cable, remove the the battery from the device a few seconds and reinsert it. If it boots--leave it to charge to 100% (check Options > Status for the percentage). If it doesn't reboot on the first attempt, leave it several more hours. I've had one charge for two days before it came back to life after an extreme battery depletion. Every 3-4 hours, with the device still connected to the charger, you can remove and replace the battery to see if it reboots.

[techlawyer]

Thx for your response.  Let me answer your questions.

Yes, I did try a different charger cable.  Also yes, I did try a different power outlet and the surge protector is the one I'm using now to power my laptop, so I'm sure it works.

I have 3 USB ports on my laptop and tried them all.  The Desktop Manager recognized that the Blackberry was connected but flashed the same error message each time -- saying that it couldn't communicate with the device either because the battery was dead or because the device was rebooting.  Unfortunately, I don't have access to another PC where I can install Desktop Manager.

I just connected the 9930 to the charger.  First, the red light came on and then a battery icon with a charging symbol on it  appeared.  That then went off and now the phone is displaying the red light for approx. 10 -11 seconds.  It then goes off for an equivalent amount of time then comes back on.  This is the same behavior it displayed when it first failed.  The RIM tech's opinion was that the phone was trying to reboot but was being hung up by some software glitch.

I will try your last suggestion and see what happens.  I will post the results here -- and will wait for a couple days if necessary to give it a fair chance.  Thanks again for taking the time to respond.

[JSanders Resident Expert]

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techlawyer wrote:

I will try your last suggestion and see what happens.  I will post the results here -- and will wait for a couple days if necessary to give it a fair chance.  Thanks again for taking the time to respond.

---

That should work, fingers crossed for you... I've had it happen, the battery is what is called "severely depleted" and can take a few hours just for the first 10% charge to register.

Good luck.

[techlawyer]

I'm still trying your method -- hasn't worked yet but I'll continue to try. However, I wanted to call your attention to my most recent post "RIM Confirms problems with 9900 and 9930." My post contains a link to a CNBC article where RIM admits there is a software problem that causes the 9900 and 9930 to brick. It says the number of affected people is "limited." I have no clue what that means. But looking at the number of posts here and elsewhere about similar problems, I would guess it's a fair number of people. BTW, the CNBC article is at http://www.cnbc.com/id/45362561

[rombout]

thank you god! i have the same problem you have, also a 9930. It happened about 2 days ago and also during recharge at night. I also tried every trick in the book. Normal charge, dekstop charge, all USB ports. Clean install through desktop manager, start it by just the apploader, with or without the battery. install by download the bb software through the provider.

Nothing works! it keeps rebooting every 10-11 sec... Si i was glad to see this post on CNBC and hope there will be a fix

[JSanders Resident Expert]

Yes, I read that and have been aware of the issue with some 9900/9930 devices.

The best advice is to get a warranty replacement for a device in this condition as far as I know RIM has not been able to work out any fix for those devices, and obviously, all of them are still within their warranty period.

[techlawyer]

Just wanted to give you a follow-up report.  I let my dead 9930 charge for 1 day and periodically removed the battery and tried to get it to reboot -- with no success.

I know that you recommended giving it two days to charge but a client arrived in Jordan and brought a replacement phone with him from VZW so I took the battery that I had been charging with the dead 9930 and put it in the new phone -- and it started up right away.  So it wasn't the battery.  My guess is that it was one of the software glitches that RIM now has admitted cause random failures in the 9900 and the 9930.

BTW, the number of people who are reporting similar problems seem to be increasing, judging from recent postings on this forum.

Anyway, thanks again for all the time you took trying to help me.  I really do appreciate it!

[JSanders Resident Expert]

Yep I think that is it.

good luck.

[prazakr]

This has happed to me, too -- twice!  I now await my 3rd BlackBerry Bold 9930.  They say it is a limited problem - what are the chances then that two devices I have owned would be affected??

It's too bad - I like the phone and want to pull for BlackBerry in this market.. but this is very frustrating.