Re: SOLUTION - Semi-Bricked h2200

Most of the time the theory was the hard reset wouldn't work and you had to let
the PDA sit and drain it's battery for like a week before powering it up
again.

I think your right about the 16K, what happens is the first 16K (or so) of ROM
is wrote to RAM then kicks over to that RAM copy to boot up far enough to
continue off of ROM. I thought the 16K corruption was already fixed for the
suspend to work. If not I think we need to try and fix it so the power
mangement (off & suspend) work better, possibly by telling either Haret, LAB,
Linux or the like NOT to touch that portion of RAM.

-- 
Thanks,
David Waybright
Certified CompTIA A+ Technician
Certified CompTIA NETWORK+ Technician
Apple Macintosh Repairs
XBOX/Playstation 2 MOD & Repairs
Audio/Visual Technician
Quoting Matt Reimer <mattjreimer_at_gmail.com>:
> On 6/5/07, David Waybright <david_at_iximd.com> wrote:
> > This is a solution I found to what I like to consider a Semi-Bricked
> State.
> >
> > First, Background:
> > What I mean by Semi-Bricked is things like booting Linux, it works!, then
> > reseting and it freezing at either a white or DEAD (NO backlight on) black
> > screen with ALL LEDs on along with the reset and power buttons NOT
> responding.
> > Basically ANYTHING BUT a TRUE BRICKED state (flashing a bad image).
> >
> > SOLUTION:
> > I actually came across this by accident (playing around while WinCE was
> still
> > installed, deleted ALL data in WinCE, Opps!) and thought about trying it
> for
> > this Semi-Bricked scenario.
> >
> > 1. remove the battery and reinstall the battery door (so the battery door
> > switch
> > is pressed)
> >
> > 2. Place the h2200 on the POWERED cradle or power cord (to give external
> power)
> >
> > 3. if NO LEDs light up OR the screen doesn't show signs of ANY activity
> > (Backlight either coming on or flickering) tap the power button (at least
> > holding it in for 1 second) [DO THIS STEP ONLY ONCE, it's just to
> kick-start
> > the
> > processor.  Even if it still doesn't present signs of power up]
> >
> > 4. Now pull the h2200 off the external power or cradle (You've just
> offically
> > pulled the power cord from the computer while it was in middle of boot up)
> >
> > 5. Install the battery & battery door and proceed as usual (You WILL need
> to
> > press the reset button to restart - just like when you pulled it from the
> > retail box)
> >
> > WHAT WAS DONE:
> > the battery door switch is what tells the pda to use the backup battery
> when the
> > battery is being removed.  Without the battery installed and the switch
> pressed
> > if the last remaining power is pulled (AC) the PDA crashes because the
> system
> > code didn't tell it "On battery, AC Pulled, if switch released OR battery
> dies
> > goto backup battery" it didn't have time to even think twice.
> >
> > WHAT'S NEXT:
> > I think we should try to find out why this state happens.  Did anyone try
> to use
> > a serial console while entering the Semi-Bricked state to catch any error
> > messages on the way in.  I think it's using a power state the hardware
> doesn't
> > understand like maybe POWER OFF.
> 
> I think what's happening is that the SRAM that holds the 16K
> first-stage bootloader gets corrupted, which only a hard reset can
> fix.
> 
> So another way to get a h2200 working that has all leds stuck on is to
> do a hard reset: hold down the calendar and iTask buttons (leftmost
> and rightmost) and reset for about five seconds or so until the leds
> go out, and then press reset again. I don't recall whether this works
> when AC is plugged in.
> 
> Matt
>