My Galaxy S2 broken? (with photo's now)

[Ace Modder]

You *could* threaten the retailer with small claims action under the sales of goods act - especially since the ROM corruption has nothing to do with water ingress (and if the phone is less than 6 months old they have to prove it is!)

My phone was a gift and I have no access to a receipt as it was thrown away.

 

[Ace Modder]

Did the person who bought it pay by card? Card/Bank statements count as proof of purchase.

It was my dad who bought me the phone and he doesn't use cards for anything he tends to deal with just cash. He is old and never uses cards... Esxcept for booking his holidays abroad.

Payday he even goes to the bank and writes a cheque to himself for cash and draws all the money out for his months spend.

 

[Ace Modder]

It really is a shame there is no way that I know to fix my phone via any altnerative method!

I wonder if any local independant phone repair shops have to means to repair my issue!

 

[Ace Modder]

Email sent!



Dear Sir.

Thanks for taking the time to read this email.

I feel a little let down with Samsungs repair service/warranty.

I have a Galaxy S2 which was bought for me by my father for my 30th birthday. As such I don't have a receipt. This isn't the issue as you offered to take the phone back for repair based on the serial number I provided.

The problem I have is that your repair centre claim that the phone cannot be repaired under warranty. The fault I have is a EFS data corruption, this is basically the file on the phone which holds all the phone ID info, including the IMEI number. The repair centre have confirmed that they are unable to repair my phone due to "moisture being found on the external part of the USB port" They provided me with the following image, which doesnt show anything really.



The repair centre confirmed to me that the fault within my phone has not and would not have been contributed to the fault that the phone has developed. The repair centre have advised that they can repair my fault for "FREE" if I was to pay £54 for a new USB port, which has not caused my fault in the first place.

I have received the faulty phone back unrepaired as I was not prepared to pay £54 to repair an external port which your repair centre claims has moisture on it. I can see no evidence of this in the image they have given me and also cannot find anothing on the actual phone.

The frustration on my part is that the fault is a software issue and has not been caused by any hardware mailfunction. I have read on the XDA Development forums since receiving my phone back that a software update (hack in my case if I was to try myself) can fix this problem. However I do not want to "root" my phone or want to have to mess with the OS level of data on the phone myself.

I feel it is unfair for Samsung's repair agent to want a payment to fix something which seems apparent after looking on the internet that is a common issue with the software on your Galaxy S2 phones.

I invite you to read my forum post on the XDA forums detailing in further detail the issue the handset has. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=23619656#post23619656

I would appreciate you taking the time to look into my issue to see if you can resolve it for me.

Regards
Lee Bryan

 

[Ace Modder]

What white/purple sticker?

I cannot see this?

 

[Ace Modder]

Managed to get a response from Samsung yet?

Yes, I had a response from Samsung, the CEO passed my email onto he Executive Officer. They have requested my handset for inspection (not their repair centre, but Samsung themselves) It should arrive with them tomorrow, so hopefully they manage to allocate some time to look at the handset.

I'm hoping that they can just complete the software repair and return the phone to me, if their is moisture in the External port on the phone, I'm prepared to take the risk of it "leaking" to the mainboard on the phone. I don't forsee this being a likely occurance though. Plus my contract is up for renewal in a few months.

I just hope that Samsung have it in themselves to fix my actual issue without any major issues under warranty.

 

[Ace Modder]

Good news. I got this email back from the Exective Officer from Samsung today.

Hi Lee

I got your phone today and have taken it apart. There appears to be no signs of internal liquid damages apart from the area around the charger/USB connector that has some signs of oxidisation which the repair centre picked up on. The liquid exposure markers within the phone have not been activated so that suggests that there has been no chance that the fault you are facing was as result of any liquid ingress to the main circuits/chips themselves.

The problem you have does seem to be down to some firmware corruption basically the phone has stopped recognising itself as a phone and cannot verify the IMEI. This is not something that we normally see unless there has been some issue occurring at time of firmware being flashed through official update process or in cases where un-official ROMs have been used and something within them has corrupted the firmware itself.

I have tried to re-flash the phone today but this has not proved successful in clearing the issue. We will need to replace the whole main PCB and the re-write the IMEI number to the new circuit board.

I will arrange to get this done at one of our service centres and ensure that they do not confuse matter again by finding the slight corrosion on the USB connection.

I would expect to get the phone sent back to me within about 3 days and can then return back to your home address.

Kind Regards

 

[Ace Modder]

Got my phone back. all fixed and good again.

Thanks to ben at Samsung