Samsung Note 2 - repair

[y2w902]

Hi, 

I had my Note 2 sent for repair last tuesday, as it randomly froze and then when trying to restart the phone, it would not get past the samsung logo.

I went back to the store today as that was the estimated date the return would be complete and I had no phone for notification of if it had been completed and back at the store.

I was told that it was deemed out of warranty as it had been rooted and a repair would cost £190. Apparently the PCB board has been damaged as a result of it being rooted? Makes no sense but anyway I have since asked for it to be returned.

Could someone from Vodafone please send me evidence of the fact the phone has been rooted? 

[hrym]

There have been issues with some rogue apps rooting phones.  I'm not sure how that could damage the PCB though, unless a particular component has been overstressed.  Interestingly, there was a issue with a Jellybean update that caused component failure on some motherboards.  This might be similar, but I don't think it would be possible to tell if it was down to rooting or something else.  If your device has been rooted, that would void the warranty anyway.

You're right to get it back, and I'd try getting it to Samsung and see what they say.

[y2w902]

From what I could tell my phone having used the eMMC brickbug check, the phone had one of the affected chips which would cause sudden death syndrome and before I understood if there way anything I could do about it, it died.

I would like to see how it has been identified to even be rooted when I couldn't access any mode of the phone? It would just stay stuck on the samsung logo no matter what. So that is why i'm asking to see the evidence, I'll be going to Samsung when I eventually get my phone back.

[hrym]

It's possible that there are tools that can access the system without starting the phone.  However, the thing is that Vodafone are 3rd party repairers and limited in what they can do under warranty.  Samsung are the manufacturer and have (and use) a lot more discretion.  My guess would be that, if you've got one of the affected chips, they'll replace the motherboard whatever.

[thesoupdragon]

There are several Flash Counters built into Samsung Phones now, not all of them obvious ones!

If they were able to restore the Phone without doing a complete wipe, it would show either a custom binary and/or modified system.

Some Custom Roms modify the size of different partitions which would cause an error during the standard flashing process. The partitions would have to be remapped using a pit file.

[y2w902]

I haven't done anything though, its simply been messing around for the past month or two, freezing and restarting itself which led me to google the issue which led me to the emmc check for the infected chips. Then it stopped completely. 

[Northern-dj]

OK we had this on the S3 section wear a customer was acussed of routing there device 

Now as soup said it has a custom rom flash count so it is aloud 

But there are some apps that do get into the route 

Facebook Home does as it alters the structure of the phone

Now does the phone show just four lines of txt and a blank screen 

Samsung can fix this they have to reflash the Bios of the phone back 

They can tell if it was routed first 

Most routed device use apps as well they can read the internal sd for traces of these apps one being Rom manager 

Now it may not be this bad if the phone can be forced into Download mode 

A three file flash and a re partion will wipe any routing 

Now one thing has me concerned it a factory wipe also remove routing 

Even if it was a app that was doing this.

I would get this back to samsung.

[satchef1]

I have had the exact same problem today. I sent my handset in last week - a faulty eMMC chip (model number VTU00M) running firmware 0xf1 caused the phone to brick, as per this thread on XDA-Developers:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2093599

As a result the phone needs a new PCB. I got a phone call today to tell me that the phone has been rooted, voiding the warranty. As a result, the repair (new PCB) will cost me £190. I requested more information - I wanted to understand how the phone had been rooted without my knowledge, and exactly what fault Vodafone's repair team had found. If the PCB needs to be replaced as a result of the above fault, the fault was present at the time of manufacture. It should be repaired regardless of root status. If it was some other cause, then I would like details. I would also appreciate some information as to how root status is determined as (to my knowledge) the phone has never been rooted (unless it is possible for an app to do this without my knowledge?). Customer Services couldn't supply me with this information, but gave me the engineering team's number. The Engineering Team wouldn't supply me with this information and told me to contact Vodafone. Who do I speak to now?

I would really appreciate it if someone could look in to this. Due to the technical nature of the problem, explaining it over the phone is difficult. I'm not convinced that phoning back will get me anywhere.

[y2w902]

Hey there, that is exactly what happened with me mate, As you can see I have had no reply at all from anyone at Vodfaone on here.

I asked the question on here as when I spoke to them on the phone at the Vodafone store it was hard to hear and I had been put on hold about 5 times resulting in an almost hour call and having read the S3 root thread beforehand i knew it wasn't worthwhile doing anything without getting extremely annoyed. 

I'll be going to the samsung repair centre asap.

[hrym]

Your best bet is to get the phone back and go direct to Samsung.  Vodafone are 3rd party repairers are and limited by the manufacturer in what they can do under warranty.  It's highly possible that Samsung will take the pragmatic veiw that EVEN IF the phone has been rooted, the chip is still faulty and the board needs to be replaced.

This problem has been reported before and there is a strong suggestion that there are apps that do indeed root the phone without your knowledge.  Whether it's your fault or not, the fact remains that rooting voids the warranty, which is why Vodafone can't go any further.