Advice needed - Desire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Hi all.
I bought my HTC Desire sometime in May. I got it from someone that brought it from UK (Orange branded).
3 months later it started showing the signs of random reboot (the well known issue), and lately they have started happening daily. What's even worse, after 1-2 random reboots, the device sticks itself at the white HTC bootscreen and does nothing. No matter how long I leave it without battery the only solution I have found to bring my device back to life is:
1. Install a generic RUU (through PB99IMG.zip)
since I need/have non-generic ROM, I continue:
2. root it with unrevoked
3. install rom manager from market
4. restore the nandroid backup.
I do this all the time, in the beginning I used to do it ~weekly, lately I do it daily. This is getting worse and worse.
Anyway, let's get to the fun part.
I have decided to buy a new one, since I don't have a warranty for this one. I am in doubt a bit, that is why I decided to ask the community. I wonder about the future support from HTC for Desire, the knowledge that I will get a device with SLCD is killing me (seeing how better is AMOLED), etc... So what do you think, should I get a new Desire, should I get another device, or should I wait for something better soon?
Thanks all.

Anyone?

sell as faulty on eBay (should get about £200)
buy something newer, not saying that the Desire is bad (cos itsw NOT!) but technology moves on quickly so getting a newer device will last longer (as in you will appreciate it a lot longer)
would recommed the Desire Z or the Desire HD, however a lot more expensive...

Related

HELP! My phone gets hot and restarts! Please look for more info inside!

Hello dear friends!
HTC let me down Kind of stupid phones indeed at least desire...
I have my phone for quite a time now, it is rooted with unrewoked, clockwork recovery and s-on. I flashed many different roms in the past and everything was brilliant. In a pas half-a-year or so I stayed with only one ROM - MIUI-Au. I kept updating it to the newer versions and so on and on. Never had any random reboot or something. At least maybe it was because of some strange app or something else. But now it started to reboot randomly and constantly!
Phone gets hot abit and it just reboots, and never comes to android homescreen again, until I put out the battery, hold it for few minutes, pop it back and then it boots. But as soon as start to play music, or run a game the phone gets hot abit and reboots again. and so on and on. I thought maybe it was a miui issue. So I tried to flash different roms, but guess what? None of the even boot! The main screen shows and with the same second it bootloops again and forever!... (
Even from recovery it sometimes reboots randomly. So i managed somehow to flash my miui back and it at least boots. But it is very unstable now, I barely can use my phone now
PLEASE WHO CAN HELP ME????
My warranty probably out of date, and my phone is rooted, I dont think HTC would accept it...
any thoughts? friends?
What have you set the CPU max to?
Sent from my HTC Desire using xda premium
Thank you for response! Appreciate, really!! I didn't set it, I left everything by default I think! Because as i said, i even tried flashing different roms, not only miui.
What else could be? By the way, with stock froyo rom If I remember correctly, sometimes it became extremely hot, but I didnt get any reboots from that. But now, it gets just a little bit hot and it seems that this causes the reboot...
Now what I just noticed, I get reboots even when the phone is idle. And it is not even warm!
If its not getting hot then I'm confused lol. It sounds like a actual hardware fault. Sorry I can't help with this one
Sent from my HTC Desire using xda premium
cluendo said:
My warranty probably out of date, and my phone is rooted, I dont think HTC would accept it...
any thoughts? friends?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
try and get it taken back to stock if you dare.
The phone hasn't been out 2 years yet, which is how long the warranty is.
Thank you! But is there any possibility to fix it without HTC involvement? Maybe it is not hardware issue ? Can it be because phone is rooted and I flashed many roms to it ? I didnt try AOSP roms since reboots started, I will try to pop in Cyanogenmod or other and see if I will get reboots.
Would rerooting my phone and updating my recovery fix the problem?
and Note: yesterday I tried to S-OFF my phone, but I can't even do that with my unstable MIUI. It rebooted in the middle of the process..
I had a similar problem, apparently it's not uncommon on the early revisions. I sent mine to HTC and they replaced the mainboard.
Thank you for answer! But what if my phone is bought through a contractor?
Can just call HTC and ask the for repair? Or should I contact my contractor first ?
Just give them a call and they will try to help you out. I had a very good customer service experience with them when my desire had some issues.
They will require a proof of purchase though. If you managed to get the receipt from your "contractor" (I am unsure what you mean by a contractor), then there should be no problem.
Sorry for misleading word, I meant T-Mobile. I bought my phone under contract. I think I have a receipt. I even have whole box and stuff of the phone somewhere in my drawer.(just sayin ). So how is customer service of HTC? Poor, good ? I heard you need to tell them that you did a factory reset and that didn't help. Is that true. Also if I will unroot my phone, will they know it was rooted anyhow?
Ahhh....this overheating issue seems common. How they can release faulty phones?? No clue.
thanks for answers mates!
In Singapore, HTC service is really good. Phone was still under warranty.
It took me just one (real) call to confirm a repair order. The first call I was just checking to see what options were available to me.
The second call was an actual repair request. And the third call was me pestering them for a pickup date. heehee
In Singapore, repairs were done via courier. They picked it up and 1 working day later, they sent it back.
Naturally, you will probably need to impress upon them that you tried everything to fix your phone (which I hope you did which includes proving to yourself that it's not the ROMs fault).
You will definitely need to reset everything back to zero. In my case, I downloaded an RUU to totally reset everything back to STOCK, which included removing clockworkmod recovery. You WILL need to create a goldcard for this though so bear in mind that it's not exactly a case of a simple flashing procedure. At least not if you don't already have a goldcard.
Sorry if I overread it at some point, but you speculated at the beginning there could be some faulty app causing this, but you never meantioned performing a full wipe. Have you full wiped yet? Just to make sure it is indeed no software problem.
greets
Thank you for your answers. At the moment I have SuperNova classic ROM. ( 2.3.3 + Sense 2.1) But my phone crashes again and again, it is so annoying and causes me so much trouble.
I never tried a reset or unroot and return to original rom. Im just wondering now, would this help to remove or at least remove those reboots?
Today I was in my work and i was keeping my phone in my jeans pocket. it got hot as u would expect when keeping in pocket and suddenly it rebooten, then it went into a bootloop and started to bootloop 7 times in a row quickly. then again and again. It became very hot at that time.
For the interest, what exact hardware faults causes these reboots and why phone gets even hotter if you keep it on boot loop. If I keep phone cold, the rom usualy stays normal, without reboots. but as soon as I start using my phone, texting or calling for at least 5minutes of using it just reboots.
as I said- really annoying thing :S
I remember my happy times with miui, apps and no reboots Was fun!
cheers for helping!
I would give full wipe / factory reset a chance, and maybe RUU.
At least try it before sending phone to htc.
It is hardware problem, search forum. Fresh ROM without SD card, enabled WIFI and GPS, running G navigation, back of the phone is warm - restart after few minutes.
Maybe someone know how to read info form the phone right before reset? We could understand why the phone is reseting and hopefully add some patch.
Reboot-loop experience
Hey,
i had the same problem over the last few months: In the beginning my phone restarted only when it got hot, but it got worse over the last few weeks, in the end i was not able to use two apps at the same time (music and mytracks) or even to surf the internet longer than a few minutes. The problem did noticeably decrease when the phone was cool - tested by putting it on a fan or in the fridge. Yet, Skype was regularly killing it. As i really love my phone (and especially the AMOLED-Screen!) i did not want to resign. The battery cover contains some metal which is supposed to enhance heat dissipation - so i attached a little thermal pad to the hotter bottom of the phone to improve contact with the head spreader. Unfortunately it did not entirely fix the problem. Yes, it improved the situation a little, but it got even worse after a week or two - in the end i had to turn it in.
So i decided to take it to the Telekom-Shop. They were very kind and told me they would call the other day to confirm that the replacement would have been shipped. It took a few days longer, but i got a phone with the AMOLED-Screen! The employee said it was a used mainboard in a new case, completely refurbished. They only replaced the main unit, i kept the battery, sd-card, charger and so on. Now i have a working Desire again!
Terminator
Similar?
Hi i on the other hand have similar problem, qiute anoying one, my desire, cm7 hboot, s-off, insert coin cm7 rom, have phone freezing in diferent situations, sometimes its working sometimes just freezez and i need to get battery out and turn it one and sometimes several times in row to get it working again???? RUU and go to give phone in service? plaese advice?
@cp6ija Sandisk SD card? If yes, smash it.
nvm
cant delete post so just posting gibberish

[Q] trying to recover a semi-brick

I've seen this question around a lot but not a lot of the guides on how to solve it are particularly coherent (particularly for noobs like me) so basically here goes my issue:
I pulled the battery out of my phone when it froze the other day and it got stuck booting at the HTC splash screen. This has happened quite a few times before (CM7.1 seems to be particularly bad imo) but every other time, just doing a full wipe solved the problem. This time however, that didn't work. I get the messages about not being able to mount /cache/recovery/... I cannot flash new roms nor use backups (the ones in CWM). This has been noted a lot of times around XDA, especially with the Desire Z and S.
I have also checked which eMMC chip model I have and I apparently have the "dodgy" one (serial M4G2DE), which is quite partial to dying. I just need some way of knowing whether it's possible to recover my phone or whether it's gone the way of the dodo.
There seem to be a lot of guides about how to try to solve this on the Desire S but I don't know how applicable they are to the DZ (whether the hboot and images are the same or not), so what can I do?
I really want to try everything to get this working because I'm almost certain I can't return it (I bought it off ebay and it's rooted with S-OFF), and I can't really afford to splash out on a new phone.
If anyone needs more information, just shout and thanks!
the main thing is don't freak out, cause even in the worse case, all you have to do is send your phone and US$40 to that famous dude here in the XDA forum who un-bricks anything.

Will I still be able to root a new "refurbished" HTC One X?

Hi, i'm thinking about taking out a contract to get a HTC One X, seems like the best phone that's in my price range, however i'm seeing this offer with my network for a refurbished HTC One X that I get free on a low-pay contract. (meaning I won't have to pay the £100 to get the phone to keep the low-pay contract.) It says it's as good as new, but I was wondering will the refurbishment change any HTC settings or what not that will not allow me to root? I currently have a HTC Desire Z, and like the freedom to flash custom ROM's and change phone settings etc. So will a refurb affect this?
Note: This is what the website says for the refurbishment.
It's a used phone that's been restored to its original state, so it's as good as new. You'll receive a phone, battery and charger. You can start using it straight away!
It'll be same as a new one, except refurbished. Wont be any differences software wise.
You will still be able to root.
Some people are reluctant to take refurbished handsets. The reality is you still get your 12 months manufacturers warranty (can be 24 months in some places) and if anything your refurbished phone has actually gone through more testing than a new handset.
nookcoloruser said:
It'll be same as a new one, except refurbished. Wont be any differences software wise.
You will still be able to root.
Some people are reluctant to take refurbished handsets. The reality is you still get your 12 months manufacturers warranty (can be 24 months in some places) and if anything your refurbished phone has actually gone through more testing than a new handset.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah that's what I thought, I have to say to begin with I was one of those as you so put it reluctant people just because of the refurbishment, but the more I think about it the more appropiate it seems... I need a contract anyway to be honest, at the minute i'm on Pay as you go, which is alright but more often than not I forget to top up, plus it's my birthday in 8 days D) so this could go to that Plus I already have a fine rooted G2 running CM9, so if it does go bad after the warranty always got a backup phone Looks like i'll be the proud owner soon of a refurbished rooted HTC One X Thanks a lot

[Q] Fried eMMC chip Desire Z

Hi everybody,
After having tried to sort this mess out myself for days now, I feel that I am all out of options. I hate to have to bother you with this problem, because I'm sure I'm not the first one that has a fried Desire Z, but I really hope somebody can help me out. It seems that none of the solutions I have seen to revive this phone work for me.
Okay, so after having made that apology for wasting your time beforehand, let's see if somebody has any idea how to make my phones heart beating again.
The phone in question is the HTC Desire Z. It's not rooted and it's S-On. Honestly, before my phone died I did not even know what H-boot, fastboot, rooting or S-On meant. I had never heard of a bootloader before, but I've tried to educate myself on the matter as good as I could.
Anyway, it died after I tried to install a bunch of Market updates. Google taught me that that is how the phone dies for most people.
During the Market updates the phone froze, and I pulled the battery. After inserting the battery again, the phone got stuck in a boot loop. Pulling the battery yet again fixed that issue, and the phone booted fine.
And that's when I got stupid and decided to run the Market updates again. Long story short: Phone froze again, I pulled the battery, and now the phone is stuck displaying the HTC logo (without the "'Quietly Brilliant" slogan underneath) on a white background.
First thing I did was calling HTC support, just to find out the phone is not under warranty anymore. So I'll have to mess with it myself, hopefully with you guys trying to hold my hand during the process...
The phone will still boot in H-boot.
If I select FASTBOOT I can still communicate with the darn thing when it's hooked up to my computer's USB-port. So at least that part still works. I installed the Android SDK on my computer so I have fastboot on it.
Selecting RECOVERY will make the phone reboot. After displaying the HTC-logo for about 5-10 seconds it will display a fancy looking icon of a phone with a green arrow for a couple of seconds (I can try and make a photo of it if anyone wants to see it?), and after that the screen goes dark. Then it will vibrate 7 times, and that's it.
Selecting FACTORY RESET just instantly freezes the phone in H-boot.
I did find a couple of topics on this forum that looked helpful, but I just cannot figure out how to make it all work.
Here is one that looked very promising:
"[GUIDE] Booting an Android System when only Recovery is at your disposal"
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1572924
However, my problem is that Recovery is not at my disposal.
And that is where I got stuck. What is also not very helpful is that my phone is not rooted and it's S-on, and I can't find out how to root a unresponsive phone with which I only have FASTBOOT access. I don't even know if that is possible at all.
So yeah, again:
A completely stock Desire S with a fried eMMC chip and no working recovery in H-boot...Any ideas, or am I just really, really screwed? With my own research I've come to conclude the latter, but I so sincerely hope someone can prove me wrong...
EDIT:
For what it's worth, here is the H-boot information
VISION PUT SHIP S-ON
HBOOT-0.85.0013
MICROP-0425
RADIO-26.10.51.26
eMMC-boot
Apr 11 2011, 23:36:27
Yeah probably screwed... sorry
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=33917375
Sent from my HTC Vision using Tapatalk 2
Hey, thanks for the reply. You are kinda confirming what I had already found out.
Guess all that is left to do is to take a hammer to my Desire Z brick, and to start to learn how to live life without a cell-phone and internet everywhere you go. Well, I guess we all did that 10 years ago.
Did you try the ruu... unlikely but last hope
Sent from my HTC Vision using Tapatalk 2
Thanks for your reply, demkantor.
No, I have not tried the RUU. And I'm sorry for having to ask this, because I'm sure you have answered this question a million times already, but can you explain to me what you mean by that?
I did run the "fastboot oem check_emmc_mid" command, and my chip showed up as the Samsung. So that doesn't look good.
It stands for ROM utility update or something like that, its what HTC uses for a full update to their phones when not done through an ota.
the thread I linked you too has a heading like stuck in boot loop not rooted
There I suggest trying to boot in same mode, factory reset or flashing latest ruu, unfortunately with a stock phone there isn't much else to do. But if all fails it more or less insures you have the bad chip and it has lost the ability to read and write to it.
Instruction to flash the ruu or in the HTC website, link in that post to it, just simple fastboot commands
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda premium
demkantor said:
It stands for ROM utility update or something like that, its what HTC uses for a full update to their phones when not done through an ota.
the thread I linked you too has a heading like stuck in boot loop not rooted
There I suggest trying to boot in same mode, factory reset or flashing latest ruu, unfortunately with a stock phone there isn't much else to do. But if all fails it more or less insures you have the bad chip and it has lost the ability to read and write to it.
Instruction to flash the ruu or in the HTC website, link in that post to it, just simple fastboot commands
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks again for replying so quickly, demkantor.
I will look at that thread, and try flashing the latest ruu, and report back here. Although I guess we both kinda know my phone is completely dead already, at least I want to have tried every possible solution for a stock phone.
I'm just kinda upset with this whole business. This was not a cheap phone when I bought it, and all HTC has to say is: Sorry, your warranty ran out in August. There was a 16 month warranty on this phone, but of course the darn thing decided to die right after that.
I can still send it in for repairs, but I'll be looking at 250 dollars to have it fixed. That's money I don't have.
Any other comparable phone I can get on ebay will run about 150-200 dollars, and that's also something I was not expecting to have to shell out, especially with Christmas coming up.
And because I don't have a back-up cellphone, and no land-line, it just means that I'm pretty much completely cut off. I mean, on one hand it's really peaceful not to get any phone calls, but it's mostly just outright frustrating.
I can't believe there is not an extended warranty or something on these phones, because I'm sure that HTC is very well aware of this problem by now. Although the lady from HTC-support told me that I was the first person ever she talked to that had this problem.
Oh well, I'm just venting right now, so I'll stop typing, start flashing the ruu, and report back here in a little bit.
And thanks again demkantor, for your willingness to reply to questions that have been asked a million times already...
May I suggest buying a cheap g1 to have as a backup incase another similar thing happens, they are quite inexpensive now and are probably one of the best made smart phones, not to mention still somewhat developed on. Also consider finding another g2 or mytouch 4g slide if you want a qwerty, or for more money the samsung relay 4g seems promising.
For me personaly, although my opinion on htc has dropped tremedously over the past year or two, the g1 and g2 are just amazing phones for their time and to this day I can not find a better phone to suit my needs then the g2/dz regardless the price.
If you are in desperate need I used to buy and refurbish to sell both g1s and g2s (along with other phones) but have stopped selling for a few months due to school and getting married and all sorts of personal things keeping my side buissness moving (also fix and repair cars, motercycles etc) but if you can't find or need a reputable seller feel free to pm me as this is the last week of finals ill probably do some more of this soon
Sent from my HTC Vision using Tapatalk 2
demkantor said:
May I suggest buying a cheap g1 to have as a backup incase another similar thing happens, they are quite inexpensive now and are probably one of the best made smart phones, not to mention still somewhat developed on. Also consider finding another g2 or mytouch 4g slide if you want a qwerty, or for more money the samsung relay 4g seems promising.
For me personaly, although my opinion on htc has dropped tremedously over the past year or two, the g1 and g2 are just amazing phones for their time and to this day I can not find a better phone to suit my needs then the g2/dz regardless the price.
If you are in desperate need I used to buy and refurbish to sell both g1s and g2s (along with other phones) but have stopped selling for a few months due to school and getting married and all sorts of personal things keeping my side buissness moving (also fix and repair cars, motercycles etc) but if you can't find or need a reputable seller feel free to pm me as this is the last week of finals ill probably do some more of this soon
Sent from my HTC Vision using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi demkantor. Well, to be honest, after this fiasco of a phone I'm done with HTC. Needless to say I will never want to buy another Desire Z, because who's to say that one is not just gonna die soon? Also, my previous phone was a TytnII (also made by HTC, running Windows Mobile 6.1), and that thing was incredibly slow out of the box, and gradually got worse and worse over time. Apparently the Tytn II has a graphics chip that HTC never bothered to make a driver for, hence the screen is incredibly slow when doing things like scrolling through a menu or webpage.
HTC has now proven twice to me that they don't give a crap about their products, so neither am I going to.
That being said, I did try to flash the RUU with the link you provided, but it doesn't work. The updater tries to reboot the boot-loader and that makes my phone freeze up.
So I guess that's totally it then? Phone is dead, and that's that.
Yeah that's too bad, phone is shot. The g2/dz had two different chips, one great and one prone to failure. I have been liking the build quality of Samsung a little more as of late, but the older HTC's do seem better. The g1 suggestion is just to have a cheap sturdy backup, but you will probably want a more advanced phone for daily use.
There are always one of the various nexus models, but none come with a hardware keyboard. So if you need one and want to stay away from HTC consider the relay 4g by Samsung.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda premium
demkantor said:
Yeah that's too bad, phone is shot. The g2/dz had two different chips, one great and one prone to failure. I have been liking the build quality of Samsung a little more as of late, but the older HTC's do seem better. The g1 suggestion is just to have a cheap sturdy backup, but you will probably want a more advanced phone for daily use.
There are always one of the various nexus models, but none come with a hardware keyboard. So if you need one and want to stay away from HTC consider the relay 4g by Samsung.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi demkantor, Right, that's what I thought. Phone is shot. I'm gonna smack the hell out of it with a hammer now, just to get some frustration out of my system. Thinking about uploading that to Youtube, just to see how many kids out there will reply with a: "why did you kill a perfectly good phone?..."
If only this one would have come with the Sandisk chip. Who would have guessed it was possible for the eMMC to die this quickly? Little over a year and a half old, and always babied the darn thing. Not a scratch on it, never dropped...
Thank you for the G1 suggestion, but I'd rather save up a little longer and then buy a phone I do like. Guess I might have to do without the qwerty-keyboard in the future, because there are not a lot of phone out there with that option anymore.
I'll take a look at the relay 4g by Samsung. In the meantime, I did send you another PM...:good:
EDIT:
Yeah, the 4G looks like a nice phone, but is:
1) Way out of my budget
2) It's a T-mobile phone. I have an AT&T simcard...
Well, I can't believe there's no way out with HTC?!?!?!?
My backup phone is a brand new htc desire Z. ( I guy from my cell pohone provider get rid of it since they are ''old'').
Played some months with it, take it when my daily desirez had some trouble with custom roms...
So my unused back up desire z with stock rom (no-rotted), just get what you described!! Tried everything, looks like fried emmc.
Got the 7 times vibrate, htc logo, freeze on ruu restore...
what a waste...
Hi oVeRdOsE. Yeah, it's just outright ridiculous, how quick these phones with the bad eMMC's die. And HTC just doesn't care.
RUU !
RUU option from fastboot is your best chance of *trying* to save it !!
Else you could try and replace/repair the eMMC yourself !!
the Desire Z is still better then others in the market ! try ur best to save it !
mohnish.killer said:
RUU option from fastboot is your best chance of *trying* to save it !!
Else you could try and replace/repair the eMMC yourself !!
the Desire Z is still better then others in the market ! try ur best to save it !
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I understantd, but still, my dz is almost new...
RUU is just running for ever, do nothing.
with a fried chip your emmc can not read/write to some or all partitions making an ruu not an option. The only thing to do is boot from sd if you were rooted, if not time to get another phone, it sucks but yeah...
Sent from my HTC Vision using Tapatalk 2
demkantor said:
with a fried chip your emmc can not read/write to some or all partitions making an ruu not an option. The only thing to do is boot from sd if you were rooted, if not time to get another phone, it sucks but yeah...
Sent from my HTC Vision using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is eMMC replaceable?
If you own a factory machine to solder a new one in, if you were super good at it, soldering by hand would be extreamly difficult and getting a new chip to solder in would be hard as well. Then you would need to JTAG the new firmware onto the new chip... I'd just buy a new phone or buy a new motherboard
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda premium
demkantor said:
If you own a factory machine to solder a new one in, if you were super good at it, soldering by hand would be extreamly difficult and getting a new chip to solder in would be hard as well. Then you would need to JTAG the new firmware onto the new chip... I'd just buy a new phone or buy a new motherboard
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Asking cuz i saw someone in forum have replaced it for like a 15 euros.I wouldn't try cuz i'm to nervous and will send it to the wall as a result If it was bigger...well i could make it. I know a guy who can do it. Actually he root my phone, cuz i didn't do it right after i bought it and didn't want to lose everything on phone. He has this little toolbox, that attaching to sim port and root in a 5 minutes or less
Yes, you could replace the eMMC chip, but to do BGA soldering you need special equipment and you need to be pretty skilled. Because of the known problem with the HTC Desire phones, the Chinese jumped on the bandwagon and are offering eMMC chips that come pre-installed.
This basically means that you don't need JTAG to put new firmware on the chip. After soldering it'll boot straight up.
You can buy one of these chips here, for example:
http://www.parts4repair.com/htc-desire-s-sandisk-sdin5c2-8g-nand-flash-chip-with-f/
Another fun fact is that the replacement chip is 8GB. But, as others said before: You need skill and the right equipment. I have a soldering iron and some basic skill, but I'm not even going to attempt to do this.

[Q] "Retroactive Bricking" or "spontaneous" hardware fault? [Xpost One X/X+ Help]

[Q] "Retroactive Bricking" or "spontaneous" hardware fault? [Xpost One X/X+ Help]
*PSA: This will be crossposted in xda GenerAL Q&A and HTC One X+ forums, I hope cross posting is allowed, haven't seen it mentioned in rules.*
Hi all,
Quick disclaimer: I've been lurking parts of xda now and again for a couple years now, have flashed a couple of phones and tablets now and again for mainly practical reasons, recently getting more interested in it as a ""fun" interest or "hobby".
SO: I am very aware that this is my first post, the rules, search function, etc. ..
BUT: After extensively searching both google and specifically xda to help me resolve this issue *myself*, I decided to create an account and post. I'm sorry if this Q should have been put in the newbie thread, my assessment was that it probably has no place there.
ALSO PLZ NOTE: What was meant to be a succinct summary and question somehow turned into a condensed but complete rundown of events, so here is a...
TL;DR:
- Replaced HTC One X+ display/digitizer unit myself, ran fine for 5 weeks.
- Then: flashed twrp 2.7x or 2.8, not sure anymore, before installing Android HD Revolution 33.1 by mike1986, and following the official instructions, which ran great for about week until my phone spontaneously BRICKED THE F*CK OUT COMPLETELY.
(yes, true brick, paperweight, robot-corpse, whatever)
=> Question: IS "RETROACTIVE/RETROGRADE BRICKING POSSIBLE/A "THING"??
If so, what could I have done wrong? (POSSIBLY something to do with a bootimage of firmware that I was sure I had the up to date version of... dunno though).
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About 6 weeks ago:
- Cracked the display of my HTC One X+ badly by dropping it onto concrete-type floor at a rave/party
=> Decided to try and replace it myself, researched for a good while (talking several days here, 90s/00s kids),
=> Decided to replace the display/digitizer unit myself to save money and gain knowledge.
Repair process was challenging and nearly as nerve wracking as playing the WSOP (not kidding, have played it three times), had an issue immediately after putting it back together where it suddenly wouldn't charge AT ALL anymore (NO LED), and overheated, and had unusually fast battery drain of its remaining charge (which never ran out completely before resolving that issue, since I kept turning it off whenever possible).
=> Took it apart and put it together again XX times until realizing the power switch flex cable kept slipping out of its two (jawbone?) connectors during putting it back together (I was doing something wrong with the flex positioning).
=> This resolved the issue.
=> Felt like a hero and that I win at life (since this phone has a rep as being hard to meddle with, and this was my first time even opening, let alone taking apart a smartphone).
=> Continued joyful phone shenanigans for over one month.
=> THEN: Decided to root it, mainly because there was a particular app I wanted that required root ("Quick reply for Whatsapp/Pushbullet", for the curious).
My previous, very limited rooting/flashing experiences =
- Google Nexus One (CWM/Cyanogen) a few times, years ago
- Galaxy Tab 10.1 (CWM/Cyanogen 10.1 ages ago, TWRP/Omnirom Kitkat 4.4.4 recently) a couple times.
So, did my research (or so I thought..?) for this particular custom ROM, decided to go for Android Revolution HD for HTC One X/+ 33.1 by mike 1986 (because it looked fckin awesome, and it was, while it ran) and loved the sh*t out of my "new" phone for about a week. Especially the vastly improved battery life seemed almost surreal, a big deal for a fixed-battery phone.
Then, ONE FATFUL EVENING in a bar, I remember looking at my phone and seeing 35% left, (days before it would've been an amazing 70-80% on an avg. day), which may not be relevant as it was my birthday, so had been using it a lot that day => may be a moot point
- Next time I looked at the phone ( < 1 hour without active use for sure) it was dead.
"Hmmmm," thought slightly drunk me. Whatever, charge it later, weird sh*t happens.
- Got home later, charged it over night after booting it with usb cord attached (mains).
Seemed normal, I even set an alarm.
=> Alarm never rang because it was in a powered-off state again come morning, despite all-night charging.
=> It booted to HTC logo. Seconds later, it turned off again. Held down power again, all I saw was the soft touch buttons flashing red a few times. After this it unexpectedly became (or was secretly crowned):
!! COMPLETE AND UTTER FCKNG KING BRICK OF BRICK COUNTRY AND ATTACHED TERRITORIES !!
No power on with or without volume up/down held for whatever amount of time;
No charging, no heating up when "charging";
No LED in any colour or flashing frequency, ever;
No response after hours and days of charging on different USB cables on PC/wall socket;
PCs and laptops don't register a sign of anything when it penetrates their port parts, etc etc...
...
.Even that semi-mystical bright-light-exposure-while-charging "light sensor manipulation" thing (which apparently worked for a lo of people with similar issues) did nothing for the cause.
Promotion: *Paperweight status successfully acquired.* Yay.
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Now, obviously my first thought was that the power flex that gave me trouble during display replacement probably slipped again., somehow (I had taped it down solidly I thought).
=> SO I opened it once again, flex position seemed ok, but I wasn't sure of its functionality as it did look kind of battered from the somewhat unprofessional repair I had conducted on it (which I openly admit to, though I really did try my absolute best).
- Spontaneously took mainboard/battery combo to a local independent phone/accessory shop after being told they'd take a look for free
(I was in there was in there buying a microsim adapter so I could use my ancient Nexus One, since my GF has my old S2 now, which she kindly offered back, but its hers now, so nah. Great phone though.)
=>Shop's advice echoed my thoughts: Flex cable may be screwed, I may have damaged it by bending in the wrong direction/too often, and that damage somehow didn't manifest until much later. I didn't mention the recent rooting + flashing as I deemed it irrelevant at the time.
Their secondary thoughts: Battery or mini-usb port fukt, (which would require soldering, which they don't even offer).
=> SO, feeling confirmed in my layman's assessment, I cheaply got a pristine new replacement flex on ebay, double checked all videos/tutorials, implemented the damn thing with considerably more skill/experience and even higher anticipation. What happened next was shocking:
Absolutely nothing, obv.
=> Did an additional epic f*ckton of internet/forum research, found similar problems and some resolutions, but no real answers, probably because my main problem translates to a kind of hybrid question.
So here I am now am with my core question:
Is it possible to FULLY brick an HTC/any smartphone but not become aware of this until one week later, when the device dies OVER ONE WEEK of reliable and amazing performance?
(and if yes, what aspect/stage of the flashing process is this likely related to?)
If the answer is NO, it must be a hardware fault with probability rank (I think)
:
1.) Battery dead for whatever reason
2.) Mini USB OR mainboard/integral component (equal rank as not sure), possibly caused by incompetent repair, but why or how would this express itself over a month later??
3.) Other, which I'm not aware of.
While researching new ROMS for the N1, I realized that I may have messed up on the "bootimg part" of the flashing process of the Revolution ROM, a part I found v. confusing in the instructions, even after rereading them many, many times. It was about the most recent firmware, which I was pretty sure I had anyway, since it was unrooted before and I do remember installing some firmware updates over the air.
I still did my best to follow the instructions though.
=> Maybe this has something to do with it, i.e. the hardware can't accept a charge because the software allowed it to become too uncharged (a fairly paradox concept to me, but apparently it can happen. Guess it's like a BIOS-type thing).
Thank you for anyone who read this far!
As it stands, I refuse to give up hope so soon after experiencing that rush of having fixed it myself.
Any specific or general help, tips, hints, pointers, replacement phones (One M8 or S5 plz., Iphones will go straight on ebay) would and will be greatly appreciated!!
The obvious choice is to get a new battery and see what happens, but I'm not sure if I wanna sink any more money into this phone, only to later find out the mainboard is at fault (not worth the money replacing), AKA "get a new phone without a contract", which would more than suck for me financially atm (Im ignoring my N1 here, which I love, but don't wanna be stuck with, esp. as it has the standard-issue broken power button (which I actually had repaired once under warranty, back in the ol' days of yore some prefer to refer to as 2009.
So guys: What's my move, if there is one, besides going to a local/online service centre (I live in Germany btw.) and probably paying unproportionate cash money to even have it looked at?
Cheers, thanks, merci, danke
PS: Just saw the polling function, so I attached one just for the hell of it, to see what happens (never used one before).
If you feel both qualified AND so inclined as to pass judgement on this here serious business, please indicate what you think may be the cause of my issue.
Poll is in "General QA" Forum original post: http://forum.xda-developers.com/general/help/retroactive-bricking-spontaneous-t2948954
*BUMP 1*
Come on guys, I know it's a wall of text, but can't someone at least answer the TL;DR?
=> Is is possible to flash a custom rom which then (possibly because of improper installation) causes the phone to brick about a week later?
Simple question surely!

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