iHiDE.iN » Computers

iPhone error (9) solution?

AiR — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 16:58:10 +0000

Solution?

Misleading? Yes. There is no solution to Apple iPhone’s error (9); you must replace your iPhone at the Apple Store.

Symptoms?

Your iPhone cyclically reboots itself by blanking to a white screen and then to the Apple Logo. When you try to restore the iPhone through iTunes it returns an error (9).

My Story?

I first purchased my iPhone 3G in AUG 2008 (with a 1 year warranty), and had error (9) in OCT 2009 and received a new iPhone with a 90 day warranty. The Apple Genius representative was sympathetic and gave me a new iPhone 2 months out of my warranty. 80 days later i get the same error (9) and received another iPhone.

Causes?

Having had 2 iPhones with this error, i can postulate the causes.

Car Audio systems have iPod input jacks, and when iPhones are connected you receive a disclaimer “iPod Accessories” and not compatible. But you can still listen to your playlist & charge the phone while ignoring the disclaimer; you will however notice latency issues while trying to multi-task when connected.

At times when i receive phone calls and i unplug the USB connection the music still plays in the background of the conversation through the ear piece.

The first time the iPhone cyclically rebooted itself was while charging the phone through a wall jack. I first thought there may have been a power surge making the iPhone act abnormally. And went to the Apple Store to have it replaced.

I’ve had the iPhone auto-restart to the Apple Logo while connected to my Car’s iPod USB port. It miraculously comes back to life when i leave it alone. During one of these episodes the iPhone took a self screenshot of the screen by itself and stored it in Photos.

The latest episode was while music was playing and i wanted to use the MapQuest app, and when i hit “find my current location” it cyclically rebooted itself forcing me to use a payphone and miss an important appointment.

Purchasing an iPhone 3GS will not solve your problem, because the latest generation iPhone also suffer from the same issues.

Bottom Line: You need to replace your iPhone! I’ve already browsed through hundreds of online forums and it seems everyone says the same thing: Hold ‘Home & Power’ get it to DFU Mode and restore it. But it doesn’t work for us …

Painful Logitech Premium Notebook Headset

AiR — Tue, 05 May 2009 23:46:34 +0000

980445-0403; lets start off with the model number, so we don’t get confused. In an earlier post, i talked about how i purchased a headset to play an online multi-player game, ‘Combat Arms’. Here’s my review of this product. It’s absolutely painful on your ears, it’s agonizing to wear. It digs into your skin, and it feels extremely irritating. After wearing for a long period of time your ears will inflame around the plastic which touches your skin. It looks great when you wear it, but it’s not comfortable at all. As headphones, the sound quality is decent. But i wouldn’t watch a film or listen to music with those headphones. With certain applications, the microphones picks up breathing which is extremely annoying. The mic had to be a certain distance from my mouth. These applications included Teamspeak. However with Ventrillo, it didn’t matter where the microphone was located, it was clear and concise at the other end.

I looked into retail electronic stores, and then i was really close to purchasing this product from Tiger Direct. I actually went through with the transaction, but i accidentally used an expired credit card. I then checked out ebay, and found the same brand new headset for $30 + $15 shipping. It was delivered in about 7 business days, i was satisfied with the transaction as well the delivery. But to be honest, get a comfortable headset. It works well for maybe 30 minutes, but then it gets annoying. I have long hair, so i even tried to get the headphones ontop of my hair to decrease irritation, but it doesn’t work for long.

Dell Studio XPS 13 Freezing ?

AiR — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 22:19:24 +0000

My neighbour came to me a few days ago saying that her laptop was freezing. I took a look at it, and did some random word processing. And an hour so later, the laptop was working fine, so i returned it. She then came back to me and said it’s still freezing. To replicate the problem, she said to go on google or try browsing. I did that, and within seconds the entire screen froze. Absolutely zero response from the laptop. I did a quick search on google and found that many people had the same problem with this laptop. I have found a solution.

The big draws for this laptop is the facial-recognition software, which i think could be spoofed by holding a picture of the laptop owner infront of the camera. A good graphics card for watching high bitrate videos. It has a nice design, and some good specs to boot. But with this nagging freezing problem, i’d tell everyone to avoid it.

I’m contemplating over whether to do a full re-install. I did some google searches and found an interesting troubleshooting tip. mgarde suggested to take out the battery and hold the power button for 30 seconds. He wasn’t clear as to whether we should have the power outlet connected, so i only tried without. And the laptop froze much more quickly this time. I then thought it over, what was the underlying cause for a computer freezing. It had to be a driver, overheating or lack of memory problem. But for some reason every time i opened Internet Explorer the CPU spiked to 100% usage, so i quickly downloaded FireFox. And it’s been running well ever since then. But not take any chances i wanted to update the BIOS just incase if it was outdated.

I went to the Dell support site, and entered the laptop’s unique service tag. It showed a slew of possible updates. I downloaded BIOS Version 1.1.0 (28/04/2009), but when i first tried installing it. I got an error, ‘The BIOS bin file is not for this system!”. After a few minutes i realized i typed the wrong service tag, so i got the bios for a different computer. What are the chances? So after being extra careful and verifying that i have the correct laptop: Studio XPS Laptop 1340. The correct version is A06 (21/04/2009).

So after executing the file, i get an error that i’m not the Administrator. My neighbour did give me her password, so i checked through the user controls and there was only one account and it had Administrative priviledges. So the error prompt had contradicting information. It did have additional troubleshooting tips, one of which worked. It said to disable the User Account Control. I went into msconfig > tools and disabled it. I then had to reboot for the deactivation to take effect. After rebooting, i successfully installed the BIOS update which i think went from A02 -> A06 which is a giant update.

Since then, i haven’t experienced any problems.