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Nokia N-Gage QD "White Screen of Death?"

Hawanja

Hawanja

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Aug 3, 2019
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Hello folks. So I got an N-Gage recently for a very good price, however it doesn't seem to boot up. The Nokia logo appears, then the screen remains white. The only other thing that appears is the battery charging indicator on the upper right. I can't get it to do anything past this point. Would this be the dreaded White Screen Of Death that I keep reading about? If so, is there anything I can do to get this unit to boot up properly?

Thanks
 
You can try removing any cards (memory, SIM, whatever) left in the unit. If that gets you any further, do a hard (factory) reset and reformat those cards to start with a completely clean slate. Worked for me at least... Good luck.
 
I didn't think the white screen of death could be fixed without a service kit and wiping/re-flashing the entire storage through the latop?

I have an original N-GAGE with the white screen of death and pretty sure I tried the button combo above, but will try it as well, much prefer sidetalkin'
 
Hey folks, some new developments.

Turned out I didn't have a proper sim card installed. So I got a sim card, everything worked great for a day or so, then like an idiot I tried to install some s60v1 games on it. A few of them worked fine, then when I tried to install Storm Lord the console got screwy and now I think I really do have the WSOD.

So now it boots to the Nokia logo, then doesn't say anything. I tried doing the factory resets, it will briefly flash "System error," then do nothing. I can't even power it off, holding down the power button does nothing. I have to remove the battery to turn it off.

Anybody out there have the equipment or know-how on how to do this? I'd hate to have to buy another one, just for this issue.

I'm willing to pay to have it done, if anyone is interested please PM me.
 
Hawanja said:
Hey folks, some new developments.

Turned out I didn't have a proper sim card installed. So I got a sim card, everything worked great for a day or so, then like an idiot I tried to install some s60v1 games on it. A few of them worked fine, then when I tried to install Storm Lord the console got screwy and now I think I really do have the WSOD.

So now it boots to the Nokia logo, then doesn't say anything. I tried doing the factory resets, it will briefly flash "System error," then do nothing. I can't even power it off, holding down the power button does nothing. I have to remove the battery to turn it off.

Anybody out there have the equipment or know-how on how to do this? I'd hate to have to buy another one, just for this issue.

I'm willing to pay to have it done, if anyone is interested please PM me.
Click to expand...

I am currently watching a load of old phone flashing kit on Fleabay that should fix the WSOD, problem is, it's going for more than just buying another N-GAGE so I am in two minds about buying it as I would have to find the software/firmware files on dodgy sites as well.

From memory the WSOD is caused by filling up the internal memory to the point where it crashes and can't boot as there's no (whatever the Symbian equivalent is) swap space so you can only fix it with a service kit. If I could find some schematics for how the old phone flashers worked, I might be able to do the same thing with a Raspberry Pi.
 
Hey Tachikoma, good to see you!

So anyway I’ve been looking into what it takes also to do this. Apparently the kit involved is rare and hard to find - something called a Griffin box? Apparently it would be cheaper to me personally to just buy another n-gage, which is sad because it’s not like the one I have has something wrong with the hardware or anything.

Apparently this can happen not just from installing games, but from putting any data at all on the phone. Apparently also the N-gage QD only has 4 mb of internal memory, and the system uses this same memory to run the OS as well as to store data? So like if you make too many phone calls or put too many contacts in your phone and go over this 4mb it’ll WSOD because unlike every other phone/PDA/computer ever made it doesn’t give you a warning that there’s insufficient memory and cancel the operation but just fills up all available memory and just bricks itself. Talk about design flaw.

Also apparently every other Nokia phone has a hard reset option that’ll wipe the memory, except for the N-Gage QD. Well, shit.

I’ve been trying to see if there’s any websites or small cellphone repair shops that might still be willing to flash the phone, but nada so far. What I am encountering is page after page of people saying they have this same problem, so if you do decide to invest in the hardware you could probably make a cottage industry out of flashing people’s n-gages.

Anyway, I think I’m just gonna buy another one, as you can get a refurbished QA for around $60 or so. But yeah Tachikoma if you do decide to invest in the hardware let me know, and I’ll just donate my bricked n-Gage QD to you to practice on.

This sucks. I literally bought this thing, it sat on a shelf for 5 months, then the day I get it working I brick it.
 
Good to see you too fella!

Griffin box is just one brand I think, I am searching for "JAF Flasher" and finding a lot more results, just make sure it's a DCT-4 flasher as there's different DCT boxes for different generations of phone.

Yeah it's an absolute joke of a bug, I can't believe they never tested for this, I didn't actually know the QD had this problem as well as mine is the original sidetalkin' model, both my QD's have had heavy use for years and never had issues.
 
Just wanted to comment to say I was a moron and hopefully will help some other morons haha. Got a used QD on eBay and was experiencing the white screen with only a battery icon. WELL, it turns out that's because I thought the Check-Mark button was the power button. Once I found the actual power button on the side the phone booted properly. Just a tip for anyone in the same boat. I was ready to buy all the flasher tools haha.
 
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