[ExGMan]

My AT&T 8700c has stopped responding. I looked at it at one point tonight, and saw only the hourglass on the screen. The hourglass will appear for about 15-30 seconds, then go dark, followed immediately by the appearance of a brief light from the red LED in the little window in the upper RH corner. That sequence has continued for about two hours now. I have pulled the battery a number of times, and even tried connecting to BB Desktop Mgr. both with and without the battery in place. Nothing changes its status.

BB OS is 4.2.1 I believe. BB has not been dropped, nor has moisture entered the case. Any suggestions certainly welcomed. AT&T support is not available for the evening.

Thanks for whatever insights someone might offer.

[JSanders]

If a battery pull reboot will not reboot the device, resort to JL_cmder.

How do I wipe the BlackBerry using Jl Cmder? - BlackBerryFAQ

What to do next if Jl Cmder will not connect and wipe - BlackBerryFAQ

Give it several, 15-20 tries to connect. Both with and without the battery in.

[ExGMan]

Thanks for the help and the links. Since I live in the neighborhood, I just dropped by the AT&T Device Support Center in Waltham, MA. They just gave me a new 8700c, and swapped my old SIM card and battery into it. I was back in business in 15 minutes.

Thanks again J.

[holden]

Originally Posted by ExGMan

My AT&T 8700c has stopped responding. I looked at it at one point tonight, and saw only the hourglass on the screen. The hourglass will appear for about 15-30 seconds, then go dark, followed immediately by the appearance of a brief light from the red LED in the little window in the upper RH corner. That sequence has continued for about two hours now. I have pulled the battery a number of times, and even tried connecting to BB Desktop Mgr. both with and without the battery in place. Nothing changes its status.

BB OS is 4.2.1 I believe. BB has not been dropped, nor has moisture entered the case. Any suggestions certainly welcomed. AT&T support is not available for the evening.

Thanks for whatever insights someone might offer.

Thanks for the help and the links. Since I live in the neighborhood, I just dropped by the AT&T Device Support Center in Waltham, MA. They just gave me a new 8700c, and swapped my old SIM card and battery into it. I was back in business in 15 minutes.

Thanks again J.

EDIT: Ok, looks like your in business again... So, bad hardware then...

One question...
Under OPTIONS/ADVANCED OPTIONS/SIM, what is your 8th digit on your Sim card?
And, when did you get this device? Is it a newer branded Silver AT&T 8700c?

H.

[ExGMan]

Holden - This was my third BB8700c. My first was put into service in August 2007. It was the old Cingular-branded 8700c. It worked for almost a year, but then started dropping calls, and generally behaving badly, requiring a battery pull to get going again about four times per day. I took it by the AT&T Device Support Center in July 2008, I think. I was given another 8700c, but silver AT&T-branded. They gave me a new SIM card at the time. Now this new one (as of four days ago) is also an AT&T-branded silver unit. Eighth digit on the SIM Card is "2." Why is that bit of information important?

[ExGMan]

Holden - I searched on that issue and found the posts that you and others made. I pulled the card out of the 8700c, and the four-digit number near the gold contacts patch is "2022." Is this bad? Should I ask for something else?

[JSanders]

I am curious also, waiting to hear from Holden why that is significant... perhaps it is a run of SIMs that were bad?

[holden]

Originally Posted by ExGMan

Holden - I searched on that issue and found the posts that you and others made. I pulled the card out of the 8700c, and the four-digit number near the gold contacts patch is "2022." Is this bad? Should I ask for something else?

Sorry guys, I just got back to catching this thread.

Yes, at work we are seeing this combination as a potential issue and have elevated this with At&t. The 8th digit sheds light on the series of the sim card. At&t has 2022, 3022's and 4022's. The 8th digit will be the clue. A 2 equals a 2022, 3 equals a 3022, etc. etc. We have seen consistant errors on 2022's and 3022's in the 8700c as of late and we now replacing any new 8700c sim card that comes in with the 2022's or 3022's card with a 4022 card. At&t has provided us 4022 cards for this purpose.

At&t has escalated this by us continually calling At&t and then we called Rim and got both parties together after getting more and more issues with dropped calls and "Sim Card Error" showing on the 2022 and 3022 8700c combinations. And somehow through all this, we are still receiving this combination when our users order our corp. standard 8700 package. We EA as many as 5 users in one day so we get a lot of new 8700 phones.

What goes on is this, we get a new user who purchases our standard corp bb 8700 through our process channel and then the phone will come in. If we activate the card with the 3022 we start to get "Sim Card Error" within the first day and it will continue unless we change the card. We call At&t and start the troubleshooting process and even have had users with 2 and 3 replacement phones/sim cards and same error. We finally got fed up with this and got At&t and Rim together. What what we have determined so far is that it is not a hardware issue. Instead, if we replace the sim with the 4022 generation series sim, all issues go away. The 2022's will produce dropped calls and spotty performance. Once we change to the 4033, the issue goes away.

While this issue is still brewing within At&t R&D, we are still getting sent this combination and our only work around is switching the sim card. If you will notice on all At&t cards, on the back side near the contact it will have this number 2022, 3022, or 4022. An easy way to determine what the series is without opening the phone and pulling the battery is to inventory the sim number. (8th digit)

I would be curious to see if others are having this same issue and don't even know it. And when At&t replaces phones and Sims when issuing 8700's, what combination are they sending the customers?

It is a bit broad and obscure issue to get your hands around but I suspect that with all the new phones coming out, At&t knows the 8700 has a limited service life left. We have not seen this behavior on the 8310's or 8800's.

H.