New Lumia 521 restarting - hardware fault?

[jrsavery]

I recently bought my wife a Lumia 521 from the HSN. Unfortunately this phone kept restarting. The trigger was physical - shaking then phone, squeezing it, or tapping the screen slightly harder than normal would all cause it to power off and restart. At the time HSN did not have any stock so I returned the phone and picked up a replacement from Walmart last Friday.

For several days all seemed to be good with the 2nd phone but a few days ago it too started to power off. If I start the phone with the back off I can get it to turn off by moving the battery - there is a small amount of free play moving up/down. Has anyone else had problems?

Aside from this the phone is fantastic for the price but 2 seemingly hardware related issues in 2 phones in less than 2 weeks? It makes it very tempting to just get a refund from Walmart and walk away... I don't want to as my wife likes the phone and it "plays nice" with the 920...

Thanks...

 

[Team of Zombies]

You just made me shake my phone around to see if I had these issues. No issues were found.. but it was a little weird. If you keep having this happen then clearly the universe doesn't want you to have this phone.

 

[Dustin Hodges]

I recently bought my wife a Lumia 521 from the HSN. Unfortunately this phone kept restarting. The trigger was physical - shaking then phone, squeezing it, or tapping the screen slightly harder than normal would all cause it to power off and restart. At the time HSN did not have any stock so I returned the phone and picked up a replacement from Walmart last Friday.

For several days all seemed to be good with the 2nd phone but a few days ago it too started to power off. If I start the phone with the back off I can get it to turn off by moving the battery - there is a small amount of free play moving up/down. Has anyone else had problems?

Aside from this the phone is fantastic for the price but 2 seemingly hardware related issues in 2 phones in less than 2 weeks? It makes it very tempting to just get a refund from Walmart and walk away... I don't want to as my wife likes the phone and it "plays nice" with the 920...

Thanks...

Have you used generic chargers that came separate from the phone or has it came in contact with anything (a reoccurring area both phones were being placed)? Windows Phones, from my personal experience, can go haywire if used with certain chargers (which is why I use the included charger and USB cable, and only use other chargers if they match in all specs to the AC charger); Purses and other bags sometimes have magnetic latches or other pieces that can mess with things (Theyre not supposed to, but at the same time, weird things happen.), or there could be something else where both phones came in contact with that cause problems.

 

[jrsavery]

After some more checking it's definitely to do with the battery. There is a small amount of free play up/down and side-to-side. It seems to be that latter that causes the issue - If I start the phone with the cover off and move the battery sideways then it loses power. For the moment the battery is wedged in place under the cover and there have been no re-starts for 2 days.

I don't know whether it would be worth getting a 2nd battery to see if there is a loose contact or something, Amazon seem to have cheap BL-5Js. If that doesn't sort it then I guess it's the phone. Given that wedging the battery in place seems to fix the issue I'm not sure it's worth going through the hassle of getting it replaced or fixed, at least until stock is easier to come by...

I would be grateful if someone could check to see if they have much free play in the battery, and if they can cause the phone to switch off by moving it.

Thanks.

 

[jpm1532]

No free play here. Just FYI - Regarding the old style bl-5j 1320mah, I picked up a few just for backup. Just be aware (at least in my 521) they do work, but do not charge. I use a universal charger to keep them juiced.

 

[jrsavery]

Thanks for the warning - foolish me, I had assumed that a "BL-5J" was a "BL-5J"! I will see if I can find out what's different, or if any "newer" batteries are available that work with the 521.

I was surprised when I took the back off to see a battery just like I used to have in my old Nokia N95...

 

[Dustin Hodges]

Thanks for the warning - foolish me, I had assumed that a "BL-5J" was a "BL-5J"! I will see if I can find out what's different, or if any "newer" batteries are available that work with the 521.

Its probably the amperage and/or voltage (and/or maybe wattage). AKA: Same battery model, only with more (or less) "juice". Like how tablets come in 32GB and 64GB models. Same tablet, only one has more memory.

 

[Ivaylo Katovski]

Phone stop working after less then a week of use , bought it from HSN

Phone start rebooting itself few days before it died , now reboots constantly and goes to a blues screen assume this is kind of boot manager mode.

Returning the device and wont be getting replacement will stick with old HTC Surround

 

[jrsavery]

It sounds like there may be a quality control issue with the phones, or perhaps more likely the batteries. In my case the low tech approach of wedging the battery in place has stopped all the reboots and the phone has ran almost perfectly since then.

 

[antiochian2010]

I recently bought my wife a Lumia 521 from the HSN. Unfortunately this phone kept restarting. The trigger was physical - shaking then phone, squeezing it, or tapping the screen slightly harder than normal would all cause it to power off and restart. At the time HSN did not have any stock so I returned the phone and picked up a replacement from Walmart last Friday.

For several days all seemed to be good with the 2nd phone but a few days ago it too started to power off. If I start the phone with the back off I can get it to turn off by moving the battery - there is a small amount of free play moving up/down. Has anyone else had problems?

Aside from this the phone is fantastic for the price but 2 seemingly hardware related issues in 2 phones in less than 2 weeks? It makes it very tempting to just get a refund from Walmart and walk away... I don't want to as my wife likes the phone and it "plays nice" with the 920...

Thanks...

I just tried all of them on my phone - glad to see mine has a clear bill of health!

 

[Make_It_So]

My wife's 521, also from HSN, has the exact same issue. It restarts randomly at least twice a day now. I hope I can return it to T-Mobile store and get a replacement.

EDIT: I just checked the battery and there is a small amount of side to side play with it. I wrapped a small piece of paper to the edge of the battery oposite the contacts to give it a snugger fit. I will see how this goes. Not happy that I have to do this but.....$100. Get what you pay for I guess. Just surprised that it is a Nokia phone that is doing this.

UPDATE: My wife's phone has not restarted since I made the above adjustment. It seems, in my case, the issue is confirmed as excess battery movement.

 

[VIRGIL VILLARREAL]

It is indeed the battery I had a few weeks of frustration till reading this and with the paper fix......no more restarting yay thx guys

 

[fitcious]

Clearly a battery being loosr. I sent it to Nokia center and they fixed it free of charge. Took 7 business days and now the battery is super tight. No more free room. I suggest sending it in for a permanent fix. Nokia seems to be aware of this issue as there is an issue # attached to it.

 

[XP1]

This person tried bending the pins of the battery to make a tighter contact. If the paper workaround does not work, maybe this will help:

Hey I fixed mine, I used a needle to bend the battery contacts inwards making a better connection on the pins... Problem solved no more shut downs or restarts....

 

[XP1]

One of my Nokia 521s was constantly crashing and restarting every 30-60 minutes. The battery-related tricks did not work. When I performed further testing, the battery did not appear to be the cause in my case.

I posted about it here:

Nokia 521 crashes and restarts because of SIM card:
Nokia 521 crashes and restarts because of SIM card - Nokia Support Discussions


I did some further testing, and I think that I may have isolated the problem.

The crashing may be related to automatic network selection, when the network operator only supports T-Mobile, for example. I have stopped the Nokia 521 from crashing by disabling automatic network selection in Settings > System > Cellular > Network selection: automatic > T-Mobile.

Here are my diagnostic steps:
1) Determine if the Nokia 521 crashes when the SIM card is present. If there is no SIM card preset, then the crashing is not related to the SIM card.
2) Because I know that the SIM card is involved with the crashing, I inserted the SIM card and then enabled airplane mode. Airplane mode disables the cellular network connection.
3) Good results. I noticed that the Nokia 521 did not crash. Next, I disabled airplane mode and disabled everything else. Only the cellular network connection was enabled.
4) When the cellular network connection was enabled, the phone crashed. Good. I am further narrowing the problem.
5) Next, I tried changing some cellular network connection settings. My first setting that I changed was changing the automatic network selection to T-Mobile.
6) When I disabled automatic network selection, by setting it to T-Mobile, the Nokia 521 no longer crashed.

I have repeated the diagnostic steps before and after upgrading versions. I upgraded from 8.0.10328.78 to 8.0.10521.155 GDR3 preview. The upgrade had no effect. The Nokia 521 still restarted when using automatic network selection. The firmware version 3046.0000.1328.2024 did not change.

 

[Chesterdog08]

Thank you for taking the time to give us your diagnostic steps!

 

[jensonic1]

I have been having the same problem with my phone for two days now. I also wedge a piece of paper to hold the battery in place It hasn't turned off since.,

 

[Thomas Smith10]

Same here, It's the battery. What I was looking for is how to prevent the damned phone from constantly redialing the last call.

 

[joeyboo20]

I recently bought my wife a Lumia 521 from the HSN. Unfortunately this phone kept restarting. The trigger was physical - shaking then phone, squeezing it, or tapping the screen slightly harder than normal would all cause it to power off and restart. At the time HSN did not have any stock so I returned the phone and picked up a replacement from Walmart last Friday.

For several days all seemed to be good with the 2nd phone but a few days ago it too started to power off. If I start the phone with the back off I can get it to turn off by moving the battery - there is a small amount of free play moving up/down. Has anyone else had problems?

Aside from this the phone is fantastic for the price but 2 seemingly hardware related issues in 2 phones in less than 2 weeks? It makes it very tempting to just get a refund from Walmart and walk away... I don't want to as my wife likes the phone and it "plays nice" with the 920...

Thanks...

I have the Lumia 520 my phone did the same thing always restarted on me for no reason I looked up on it and people with the Lumia phones had the same problems I factory reseted mine it's working right so that might be the thing everybody should try to fixing ur phone if not then idk it worked for me last night

 

[triniari]

omg please help someone pls i am living in Trinidad & Tobago and someone sent me a nokia lumia 521 now it has been working real good until now ,now it wont start it has just been saying "nokia and t-mobile" and it repeats itself over and over i dont know whats wrong with it and i tried to see if it needed to be charged it put it to charge and it has been charging for more than 3 hours and now all it shows is the battery icon someine pls help dont know wat to do thanks