FW upgrade - now worse than before! What's latest version 3650?

[Thanh]

Hello :)

Few days ago my 3650 had a nuclear meltdown. I tried to play this "Siberian Strike" thing while having Memory Monitor active, in order to find out how much RAM that thing needs. Not a good idea, the phone froze up and wouldn't reboot. "Phone startup failed. Please contact retailer".

So i did, and had it flashed. Previously v3.14, now 4.17, the latest they had in that shop. What i gained:

Fading lights - beautifull.
Better display contrast - looks sharper now.
More free space in c: - even after installing all the same stuff that was there before, still 400kb more space free.

But also a LOT of negatives! As there are:

VERY slow startup - takes twice as long as before! Also display flickers once, like the 6260 does, and it never did so in the old version.
Every other startup even fails - it keeps displaying "Nokia" without going further. The light will go off, then it can be switched off normally, and next try it will start. Why..?
The picture quality of the cam got MUCH worse! Pics are blur, and when there is a bright background, the foreground will be too dark. Almost useless now, regardless what quality is set!
RAM problems are worse too - less free RAM than before, remember, SAME apps installed, no difference!
SMS alert tone changes itself just like the weather - always a surprise "how will it sound today?"

So currently i am looking for a replacement, actually. Still not sure if i should save money for a 1-gig MMC as originally planned, or for the difference between what i get for the 3650 and what i need to fork over for a second-hand 6600. I am just SO fed up with seing "Memory full" all the time. Yesterday i found out that the 3650 is THE Symbian with the lowest amount of RAM available, even the MMC-less 7650 got more of it! Of course it's got to be the 3650, because i got one of those, aaaaargh i am soooo used to that kind of coincidence.

However, what is the actually LATEST firmware version of the 3650? I have seen (but only thru the glass showbox, unable to touch it) that the 3650 is still on sale in Nokia-shops here, so i believe it must still be produced and therefor also still be upgraded from time to time.

Does any version of 3650's firmware have a better RAM management? I would be glad if at least apps, after being closed, would be cleared from the RAM. I can start and stop three apps, the next will produce the "Memory Full" anyway. I can't play any decent game because of it, Opera won't even start (it requires 2.4 MB and since yesterday i know that the phone HAS ONLY 2.7 MB!!) and even SmartMovie now occasionally crashes with the damn error.

Please inform me of latest firmware, or better, of BEST firmware before i kick the poor thing out (and i just designed a lovely cover for it!)

Kind regards......

your Thanh

[8675309]

....tsk tsk tsk. my dear friend. first of all my 3650 version 3.16 ocasionnally
comes up with the "Phone startup failed. Please contact retailer". error and i
recover by removing battery, sim and memory card.... and reboot later....

anyway you can have it reflashed back to your previous version....
you are always in a hurry to max out your phone - "cha cha"! (not sure how it
is spelled). 4.17 is still the latest version.....

thanks for the info about the 4.17firmware.....i might consider doing it inspite...

just take it 3 applications at a time......

had my 3650 for about a year and 2months, love every thing about it....

another tip, if you have lots of applications installed, copy the contents of
c:\system\install to drive e: then delete all contents in this folder, if they total up to more 500kb. then when you have to uninstall an application just
copy the files you need from drive e and recopy them back to c:\system\install. Of course you have to know the filenames but they are giveaway names. just don't do this if you are not sure.

note: skyforce is way better than siberian strike.

[Thanh]

Hello :)

Hmm when i tried that with the battery, it did not help - the phone stayed dead. However, it was flashed anyway and i need to see the new version before finding out that it's worse :)

I already found with Photographer, v2.4, that seemingly the new FW requires certain apps as lower versions to work. Mentioned Photographer 2.4 wouldn't run - "System error" on startup, yet it worked on the old FW! So i installed 2.02 and THAT worked perfect :)

Today i went tackling the startup problem - *something* self-starting made my phone not boot, more often than boot actually. I uninstalled one after one untill i found the culprit - FSCaller 3.03! And here too, i installed 2.6 and voila - no more boot problem, PLUS it uses a heck less RAM! Explain that to someone, nobody gonna believe. Shouldn't normally NEW program versions work BETTER with NEW firmware..??? Nokia is giving an exception here.

About those files in c:/system/installs, i have all files there deleted because they took up too much space. The only one i keep is some license manager for Photographer, it won't run when i remove that file. When i want to uninstall something, i first simply re-install it (i have the SIS files of all my apps in a folder on MMC in case something crashes) and then uninstall it via "Manager". No problems with that method so far.

And yeah, should you use Psiloc stuff- check in c:/data, Psiloc puts some stuff there that does nothing but waste space, such as Psiloc-license.txt, psiloc.mbm and psint.jpg, you can safely dlete those (particular the mbm, it is 35 kilobytes!) and everything will still work.

Thanks for your opinion!

Kind regards.....

your Thanh

[MozzyTM]

My brothers 3650 did the "phone startup failed" bit. it was fixed by formatting it. im supprised you went to such great lengths actually

[Sony_Ericsson]

My 3650 hanged at the Nokia logo, after I upgraded to v4.13. After lots of trouble, I discovered it had something to do with the SIM-card. I got a another SIM-card and after that it worked perfectly again.

[Thanh]

Hello :)

On mine 3650 the "formatting" didn't work - it did not format, only deleted the GPRS settings and resetted the time, EVERYthing else stayed as it was. Useless for a "format" :) Haven't tested if it works now.... and no intend to test tat :)

About the Nokia logo hang - yes, same with mine. But in my case i knew it was some soert of software thing, because when i booted into safe mode, it booted fine. I found out that FScaller 3.03 was responsible - after i uninstalled it, it booted fine as well. So i installed an older version just to test - worked and still works just excellent :)

Kind regards.....

your Thanh

(still eyeing the 6600 now - 10 MB of RAM, yeah, THAT's it!)

[Skater-Chris]

Hi there.
I think i solution for you would be to buy a fairly big memory card (not sure how high 3650 can cope with). Install all your apps and games onto the memory card and then have the user area on your phone formatted. Not the kind of format where you type in a number, the format that a shop can do where they use a box e.g UFS3.

This will get rid of everything you have entered onto your phone (remember to back up contacts and any messages you want to keep onto the memory card).
Running games and things off of the memory card tend to cause the phone less "stress" and may help to cure some of your problems.

Chris