My Onda V972 has "bricked" itself

tags318

Member
Feb 9, 2013
1
0
The tablet was in the process of displaying an MP4 video and was forcably shut down by holding the power button. Now the unit only starts to boot showing the array of tablet features but never boots to the main screen. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks
 

BamaPanda

Member
Oct 6, 2011
119
4
Looking at a picture of the business end of the tab, it looks as if there is a reset hole ....dead center. I am not 100% as I do not own the tab.

Worth a try if that is what it looks to be.

Also make sure it is charged properly.
 

Racka

Member
Feb 12, 2013
1
0
You should be able to get it back with a factory reset (I've had to a couple of times as I play around with mine)

1. With power off hold down the home button for at least 5 seconds
2. While continue holding the home button, Hold the Power button for about 8 seconds
N.B. sometimes it does not work, or works by releasing & pressing the power button again .. not sure why ?
3. If correct, should have an option to factory reset. You have to swipe the screen to move up / down the menus and press the power button to select as the tablet does not have volume keys.
4. The tablet will reboot into Chinese To install English (or any other language) tap the settings icon, then look for the line with a 'red voice bubble'. Tap it, then tap the top option on the right side. You should now have a list of languages you can select from.

Steps 1&2 don't always seem to work and you end up turning on the tablet. Simply hold the power button for 8 seconds or so to turn off and try again. Of course, you will lose all your apps etc, but at least you should have a working tablet.
 

jpieter

Member
Feb 15, 2013
2
0
You should be able to get it back with a factory reset (I've had to a couple of times as I play around with mine)

1. With power off hold down the home button for at least 5 seconds
2. While continue holding the home button, Hold the Power button for about 8 seconds
N.B. sometimes it does not work, or works by releasing & pressing the power button again .. not sure why ?
3. If correct, should have an option to factory reset. You have to swipe the screen to move up / down the menus and press the power button to select as the tablet does not have volume keys.
4. The tablet will reboot into Chinese To install English (or any other language) tap the settings icon, then look for the line with a 'red voice bubble'. Tap it, then tap the top option on the right side. You should now have a list of languages you can select from.

Steps 1&2 don't always seem to work and you end up turning on the tablet. Simply hold the power button for 8 seconds or so to turn off and try again. Of course, you will lose all your apps etc, but at least you should have a working tablet.
I have BRICKED my Onda v972 as well in one day!!!
Got rid of all the Chinese apps then found LAUNCHER wouldn't work, so tried a factory reset and it has stuck at the first screen showing CORE4,tried the above and loads of other variants ,but all to no avail. If I had hair I would of pulled it all out by now!!! ANYONE ANY IDEAS?????
 

tragidy

Junior Member
Jan 29, 2011
827
433
I have BRICKED my Onda v972 as well in one day!!!
Got rid of all the Chinese apps then found LAUNCHER wouldn't work, so tried a factory reset and it has stuck at the first screen showing CORE4,tried the above and loads of other variants ,but all to no avail. If I had hair I would of pulled it all out by now!!! ANYONE ANY IDEAS?????

Is there any custom rom or official updates you can try out?
 

Dvalin21

Senior Member
Oct 28, 2010
89
8
Slatedroid has an awesome guide to getting it back up and running. The Onda v972 and the Novo 9 are pretty much unbrickable....as long as you know how to get back online
 
Feb 26, 2013
118
20
The Onda V972 cannot be bricked..You can flash the new firmware with PhoenixSuite! Make sure you choose the 'format' option.
 
Last edited:

w2o4ts

Member
Feb 26, 2013
3
0
Slatedroid has an awesome guide to getting it back up and running. The Onda v972 and the Novo 9 are pretty much unbrickable....as long as you know how to get back online

Hi. A friend has a V972 that seems to be completely dead... The thing worked for a while (he even managed to install the rooted/slightly modded v1.32 rom that's been around for a while - having earlier installed the stock 1.32), but the tablet kept showing signs of instability, with apps FC'ing all the time, or even the whole thing shutting down or rebooting by itself. And then, one day, it went completely dark and never came back up again.

We (repeatedly) tried the Home/Power button/USB cable sequence suggested by all upgrade guides (including Onda's own) but the best we 've managed so far was to make the PC 'see' a device plugged in just *once*, and accept to install the driver (which was something in itself, of course!). We also got a momentary, faint popping sound from the speaker while pushing the buttons -a possible indication that the thing wasn't *completely* dead- although the screen remains black and there's no other indication of activity.
We tried with various PCs (2 desktops and 2 laptops!), with WinXP and Win7 (also admin access and language set to English - I'm just mentioning these, as these used to cause problems with the upgrade procedure for AMLogic dual core tabs - not sure if a similar issue might exist with AllWinner's app), to rule out the possibility of some incompatibility there.

Since then, we haven't been able to even get one of the PCs to 'see' the V972 again, even once, so we could get the PhoenixSuit program to start 'burning' the firmware onto it (and to answer a possible question, we 've also left the tablet to fully charge - assuming it can still do that, of course...).

I 've looked for the guide in that other forum you mentioned (and I'm pretty sure I 've ran into it myself at some time, but can't remember where exactly...), but haven't been able to find it. Could you possibly post a link to it (or just PM it)...?

Also, any other suggestions would be highly appreciated!
 

groundhogman

Member
Mar 3, 2013
24
3
HI.newbie here and to tablets but i have found phoenix suit does not all ways recognise tablet.Try loading firmware on phoenix suit,hold down back button then plug in usb still holding back button then press on/off about 10 times.new firmware should load.I thought i bricked mine a couple of times while messing with cpu speeds it even came on with green Chinese writing in the middle and nothing else,but I have all ways been able to flash new firmware even when no device was shown.Hope this helps.
 

w2o4ts

Member
Feb 26, 2013
3
0
Thanks for the feedback!

Quick update: After several attempts, we did manage to get one of the PCs to 'see' the V972 and (re)install the firmware!
However, the tablet seems to be really unstable. Apps keep crashing and if we shut it down and attempt to reboot, we end up with a brick again -in most cases- and have to go through the whole update (through the Phoenix Suite) sequence again (obviously losing any settings, installed apps etc).
At least this now seems to work every time; we haven't run into the PC-won't-see-tablet again problem.
But given all this, I now tend to agree with the tablet owner's view (I used to be the optimistic one, at first) that there probably is something wrong with it - perhaps some sort of hardware issue (had it been a PC, I'd have put my money on a faulty memory, but with this one, I can't be sure...).

And since groundhogman did mention this, here's a bit of info that might be of interest to others too:
We too ran into the black screen with some obscure chinese inscription, in two rows of a huge, green font.
But we were lucky enough to have a fellow around, who could read chinese (now, what are the odds for that...?) and was kind enough to translate for us.
It reads something like "Checking filesystem. Please do not power off"!

In our case, though, after leaving it alone for a couple of hours like that, and seeing no progress had been made, we concluded it was just another case of... bricking and (re)applied a f/w upgrade... :cool:
 

Jayded

Member
Mar 19, 2013
2
0
You should be able to get it back with a factory reset (I've had to a couple of times as I play around with mine)

1. With power off hold down the home button for at least 5 seconds
2. While continue holding the home button, Hold the Power button for about 8 seconds
N.B. sometimes it does not work, or works by releasing & pressing the power button again .. not sure why ?
3. If correct, should have an option to factory reset. You have to swipe the screen to move up / down the menus and press the power button to select as the tablet does not have volume keys.
4. The tablet will reboot into Chinese To install English (or any other language) tap the settings icon, then look for the line with a 'red voice bubble'. Tap it, then tap the top option on the right side. You should now have a list of languages you can select from.

Steps 1&2 don't always seem to work and you end up turning on the tablet. Simply hold the power button for 8 seconds or so to turn off and try again. Of course, you will lose all your apps etc, but at least you should have a working tablet.


Hi - I have a 972 which only boots to the first "Core 4" screen. I have followed the above sequence to factory reset then reboot but the tablet still gets stuck at the same screen. Should I try to upgrade the firmware - and if so can someone point me to step-by-step instructions as I have no idea how to do it. Thanks
 

groundhogman

Member
Mar 3, 2013
24
3
Hi - I have a 972 which only boots to the first "Core 4" screen. I have followed the above sequence to factory reset then reboot but the tablet still gets stuck at the same screen. Should I try to upgrade the firmware - and if so can someone point me to step-by-step instructions as I have no idea how to do it. Thanks
Download Pheonix suite if you don't have it all ready,download firmware which you want to install,V1.35 is the latest. Open Pheonix suite and open firmware to be loaded.Make sure tablet is off,hold down home button and connect usb,while still holding home button press on/off button 10 to 20 times,tablet should start download sequence.Press yes to format and install,Procedure should only take a few mins.Good luck.
 
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