# Phone flash memory failing?



## itsakjt (Nov 9, 2017)

Hi everyone,

This is regarding my ASUS ZenFone 2 ZE551ML (1.8 GHz CPU, 4 GB RAM, 16 GB ROM). A few days ago, after 1 year and 11 months of excellent service, suddenly I saw that some of the apps (Play Music, ASUS MiniMovie) were corrupted. But a simple uninstall and reinstall fixed them. Later that day, I was about to open settings when a message popped up "Unfortunately, settings has stopped". Rebooting the phone did not fix it and I was totally stuck as I was unable to clear the data also for the settings app which also requires "Settings" to function. I managed to do a factory reset after which, I could not even get to the home screen because that involves the Settings app as well.






I went on to proceed with factory reset from the recovery mode and to my shock, the recovery mode was also corrupted. Screen just froze with a USB logo. I tried to flash the recovery with xFSTK but got write error.
Then I took apart the device and cooled the flash memory (SK hynix manufactured) with some IPA.
The device booted up and was able to get to the home screen. Then I followed the ASUS standard downgrade procedure to downgrade the device from Marshmallow to Lollipop (which should force flashing of the recovery as well and everything). Phone was stable then. Then following ASUS standard upgrade procedure, I upgraded to Marshmallow and did a factory reset again. Set up everything and phone is rock stable now, performs good as new with no slow downs or anything.

My question is "What exactly happened?" It was never rooted and very well taken care of (even looks like new). Is the flash memory failing? Can the firmware get corrupted on its own?
Any answers would be appreciated. Thanks.


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## eidairaman1 (Nov 9, 2017)

itsakjt said:


> Hi everyone,
> 
> This is regarding my ASUS ZenFone 2 ZE551ML (1.8 GHz CPU, 4 GB RAM, 16 GB ROM). A few days ago, after 1 year and 11 months of excellent service, suddenly I saw that some of the apps (Play Music, ASUS MiniMovie) were corrupted. But a simple uninstall and reinstall fixed them. Later that day, I was about to open settings when a message popped up "Unfortunately, settings has stopped". Rebooting the phone did not fix it and I was totally stuck as I was unable to clear the data also for the settings app which also requires "Settings" to function. I managed to do a factory reset after which, I could not even get to the home screen because that involves the Settings app as well.
> 
> ...



you must of had an app on there that goofed it up.

My phone had a bootloop issue despite the battery being good, i had to buy a tool just to fix the phone.


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## itsakjt (Nov 9, 2017)

eidairaman1 said:


> you must of had an app on there that goofed it up.
> 
> My phone had a bootloop issue despite the battery being good, i had to buy a tool just to fix the phone.


But my phone was not rooted. Can an app access internal system files if it is not given root access? To my knowledge, it should not happen. And even recovery was corrupted.
Edit: Even a factory reset could not fix it. Things got worse then with the keyboard app corrupted as well.


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## P4-630 (Nov 9, 2017)

Warranty?


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## itsakjt (Nov 9, 2017)

P4-630 said:


> Warranty?


It is not in warranty anymore. It had a 1 year warranty and I did not extend it. The phone will be exactly 2 years old near the end of December this year. It is working fine now. I just wonder what happened!


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## jboydgolfer (Nov 9, 2017)

Something very similar to this happened with my wife's phone. It started out small like what you're experiencing, until one day It was stuck in the boot menu and would not get out of it. no factory refresh or anything else would fix it ...system memory corrupted= rip


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## micropage7 (Nov 10, 2017)

itsakjt said:


> Hi everyone,
> 
> This is regarding my ASUS ZenFone 2 ZE551ML (1.8 GHz CPU, 4 GB RAM, 16 GB ROM). A few days ago, after 1 year and 11 months of excellent service, suddenly I saw that some of the apps (Play Music, ASUS MiniMovie) were corrupted. But a simple uninstall and reinstall fixed them. Later that day, I was about to open settings when a message popped up "Unfortunately, settings has stopped". Rebooting the phone did not fix it and I was totally stuck as I was unable to clear the data also for the settings app which also requires "Settings" to function. I managed to do a factory reset after which, I could not even get to the home screen because that involves the Settings app as well.
> 
> ...


i still think its just corrupted app, like crashing. but since its the part of system it hangs

i have xiaomi with bad emmc, i did nothing just restart it then it freezed, flashing just hanging

maybe its time to do backup than you sorry then


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## itsakjt (Nov 12, 2017)

Alright now, so it is now more than a week since this happened and I re-flashed it. The phone is still rocking. Can we assume that phone firmware can get corrupted on its own?


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## Steevo (Nov 12, 2017)

Probably a controller issue where certain performance states it's not getting enough voltage.


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## itsakjt (Nov 12, 2017)

Steevo said:


> Probably a controller issue where certain performance states it's not getting enough voltage.


Even I thought the same. But how come after re-flashing, everything is perfect?


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## OneMoar (Nov 12, 2017)

NAND degradation happens
this is exactly the failure mode you get when the NAND starts throwing bad bits data corruption,crashes reboots
ect
a factory data reset just wipes /data and /datadata  not /system(the rom) which is usually mounted RO but if there is a NAND issue it can be corrupted

hence the need todo a complete low_ship re-flash with odin or in this case asus flash tool xor fast boot a low_ship or 'raw' re-flash runs what is effectively a a chkdsk on the NAND marking any bad cells as unusable

that device has a unlockable bootloader if you want to get into playing with that as a smaller rom image or custom kernel may be of help with aging nand a custom kernel will go miles toward improving performace and battery life on intel based androidroid devices

I should mention this being a intel powered device not to expect much,intels x86-android platform is garbage(they run hot they have poor reliability poor kernel support)

https://forum.xda-developers.com/zenfone2/help/thead-bricked-phone-updating-to-mm-tips-t3452785


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## itsakjt (Nov 12, 2017)

OneMoar said:


> NAND degradation happens
> this is exactly the failure mode you get when the NAND starts throwing bad bits data corruption,crashes reboots
> ect
> a factory data reset just wipes /data and /datadata  not /system(the rom) which is usually mounted RO but if there is a NAND issue it can be corrupted
> ...



Thanks for the input. Thing is since this works perfectly fine now, what should be the next course of action? I don't have any plans to buy a new phone in the next 3-4 months unless it totally fails. Will it last that long? Next year on March, I will probably get a new phone but it would be great if the existing ZenFone 2 serves me well up to that time.
Also, what you said about Intel powered devices holds true. Though personally, I still like my device. I mean it can still do anything I want without breaking a sweat. Battery is still reliable even after almost 2 years and the phone does not heat up much as well except during fast charging (18 W) which is also normal. 1080p IPS display, 4 GB of RAM, dedicated memory card slot (I have a 64 GB EVO Plus UHS3 card) and even the camera is great as well if one knows to use it properly. True that it has it quirks but even after everything, it serves me well. And the most remarkable thing about the phone is the audio quality (headphones). Even GSMArena and Tom's Hardware have praised it for having top notch audio quality rivaling some of the flagships of that time.
The day this problem happened, I was almost about to buy the Moto Z2 Play which was a steal deal at 25000 INR but then I gave this a shot and now here it is.


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## itsakjt (Dec 2, 2017)

Update here: The phone died on 26th November at around 8:10 p.m. The battery got exhausted. I charged it and when I tried to boot it up, the revolving dots kept on revolving. Tried factory reset but no go. Tried flashing with ASUS flash tool. Flash failed and phone is totally dead. It just vibrates two times and goes on a loop. Bootloader and fastboot can be flashed as well, phone shows USB symbol but never boots into fastboot mode. May it rest in peace. 

On the good side, I got a new Moto Z2 Play. Overall, a great device for the price. I miss the capacitive buttons here but otherwise, everything else is good.


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