[TRex23]

This is weird.

I have a BB Pearl 8100 -- AT & T -- that was purchase new 13 months ago.

Lately it has been randomly resetting for no reason (screen goes black, red light stays on for a second or two and then goes out, then system resets -- hourglass, etc.)

Well, within the past couple of weeks I've noticed that from time to time, the battery charge doesn't seem to last long. I charge it almost every night, usualy overnight.

Now, a couple of days ago it started resetting (as above), but it won't come back on. It will either go through the reboot (hourglass, etc.) and then shut off instantly or it won't come on at all.

The odd thing is, if I plug it in, I can get it to turn on (till reboots though) and once it's on, I can do things with it (text, call, etc.) as long as it's plugged in.

Last night I had it plugged in and turned on and then I shut it down, but kept it plugged in. The battery eventually charged fully (supposedly) and the light turned green. But when I unplugged it and went to use it this morning it wouldn't work. Same problem.

I thought it might be the battery so I went to a local AT & T store and the guy tried swapping out the battery. This didn't solve the problem. We had the same issue. It either won't turn on at all or it reboots, goes through the start up and then shuts down at the main screen or the AT & T screen.

I have the original OS. I haven't dropped it or gotten it wet. I could probably take a couple of third party apps off it if I could get it to come on and plug it into the PC, but it was working fine before WITH them on there. I have a 2gb micro SD card and that hasn't been a problem either.

Any suggestions? I've got 11 months left on my contract and can't even upgrade until January.

[blakeatl]

I would recommend an OS upgrade and see if that fixes your problem. Also, your battery may be going out on you. Good luck.

[TRex23]

Originally Posted by blakeatl

I would recommend an OS upgrade and see if that fixes your problem. Also, your battery may be going out on you. Good luck.

Thank you for the advice. Is there an OS upgrade for the 8100?

Even so, I'm not sure how I could do it. I can't plug the phone into the wall adapter AND the PC at the same time.

I am hoping that it is only the battery, but the experiment at the AT & T store -- changing the battery -- was not successful. The only thing I can hope is that the battery he put in wasn't full charged or something. I have a new battery on the way. The guy at the store said that it might be that the phone might not be getting power from the battery even though the battery is good -- something like an internal problem.

[blakeatl]

Here's the latest OS upgrade post.... http://www.blackberryforums.com/gene...ilanguage.html
I haven't had much luck with installing OS 4.5, but it may just be my pc settings.

[melvinodo]

Actually, from how you are saying it, it sounds like you have bad connections.

Ever visited by the water 'fairy'?

I assume you are out of warranty, and dont want to spend any money. You could consider taking it apart and look carefully at the batter connections.

Basically, the battery sits in its slot, and connects via four pads at the bottom to four spring like fingers. All four should sitck out the same amount. Do they?Are any of them squished down, or look odd? They should also look shiny. Do they?

So, these four spring like fingers are sitting in a plastic carrier piece in the bottom shell. If you take the shell apart, you will see that these fingers are not soldered to the phones motherboard (they stay in the bottom shell). You may be able to work out that they touch four contact pads on the board. Are those pads also shiny?

For those of use who have had water damage, those pads can look really dirty. You could clean them if they look bad. they should look like a goldish copper color.

Look at the springs again, this time from the underside. Do they look exactly the same or are any pressed in further then the others? An intermittant contact to the battery or to the pads on the board can give errors like you are talking about.

It is also possible that you just have a bad phone and these simple mechanical fixes will have no value. That is where having a second one (wife, GF, BF, SO, what ever) can come in handy as you can swap batteries with it and see what happens. Like can you phone charge it at all? Does the other phone have issues with your battery. Etc.

The swap you did in the store though seems a little telling. Chekcing out the contacts would be my first step. Assuming you don't have a warranty, or extended warranty plan with your carrier.