To Asus and all owners of a dead Zenfone 8

[leoncarrera]

By now is it clear the Asus Zenfone 8 has a weakness when it comes to its motherboard. Phones are dying in very comparable situations; after installing an update or patch and/ or when charging. The died phones show the same state: a sudden black screen, no response on buttons or screen, sometimes an orange fast blinking LED for about ten seconds when the charger is attached, after which also this stops blinking. Even the life duration of the phones are alike when this happens;  around two years.  Some people are lucky that it can be repaired under warranty, most aren't when warranty has just expired.

All of the phones which were repaired received a new motherboard. So also in here the fix seems comparable. Or at least not repairable with a soldering or partial replacement of other components. There is no wide variety of repairs to be found on ZenTalk on this. 

This issue goes beyond individual or even wrong use, a single faulty or unfortunate phone. All phones that died did this in comparable situations and after comparable life times. There is something wrong with the design or components of the Zenfone 8, or at least a batch, which can't be put on warranty alone when it comes to a repair. 

Asus, please take this matter and your clients serious. At least more then you have proven till this date. Asus can't just address this matter with the initial question if the phone is still under the warranty. Asus does know what the technical issues are with these phones, so please then also take your responsibility. Asus put this premium phone on the market at a premium price. This comes with an expected life duration that goes beyond a hard line of just 24 months. Warranty is for specific situations. These dying Zenfones are not specific. It is a general issue. So please handle it as such.

Can Asus confirm that they will keep addressing issues regarding these dying Zenfones as individual technical matters? And thus with warranty as strict and main component to define if Asus or customers are financially responsible for further action? And if so, what is their response to these resembling dying phones that Asus will keep holding onto this strict warranty duration when it is clear customers can't be held responsible for their broken Zenfones, since they die during normal use or especially after installing new and updated Asus firmware?

To all users of a died Zenfone 8: please add your phone to this thread, when it died (lifetime) and on which occurence. 

Kind regards,
León

[Yinkloong]

Mine died too, on 29 May 24, for a phone bought about exactly 3 years ago in Poland. About a year ago (April 2023) I got the "no WiFi no hotspot" issue which wasn't solve. Then on 29 May 24 morning, I woke up to see the phone with the "ramdump" screen, after which in about 10 minutes the phone was completely dead.

[JohnWick_]

What does device manager in windows show? This is important

[Falcon_ASUS]

@Yinkloong 
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[Inidog]

Another dead zenfone 8 here. Died may 23th. Bought it right at the release in may 2021, so no warranty anymore. 

It happend while on holiday in China, so three weeks of photo's are gone... I put the phone on the charger with around 40% battery left. When I took the phone 45 minutes later, I was suprised the charging light wasn't on. When trying to turn on the phone nothing happens with any button combination. It's completely dead.  

If there are any ways of data recovery I would be very interrested, although I realise the chances are very slim. It's not a problem if this is a destructive method, I allready bought a new phone (no Asus anymore!). I'll look into the fysical reconnecting of the battery and this reballing that has been mentioned here. I do have a degree in Electrical Engineering so know my way around a circuit board, allthough no experience specifically with Android phones.

Also, I do find it strange that there so many failures happening in the lasts few months or so. I would not be surprised if the cause actually lies within a software update from earlier this year. I find the spread of the occurences in this tread simply too small for it to be a 100% mechanical cause. 

One thing I noticed during my holiday was that the processing of photo's took more time then I was used to. Right after making a photo the phone would need 2-5 seconds before the image was 'ready' in full quality. It also would heat up the phone considerably when taking multiple photo's in a short time. Perhaps this thermal stress caused degradation? Multiple people here say they were making photo's/videos when the issues occurred... But this is just guesswork...

[leoncarrera]

Unfortunate to read you teamed up with the bricked phon squad. 

You are right that is seemd to happen when the phone is put under some stress. Many cases happened during charging and use of camera. Timeline wise I'm not so sure when it peaked. My first dead ZF8 was August last year. It seemed to have picked up after then. There have been two updates in between. The last update (332) indeed seems to have worsened it, but that is just guessing from the people reacting in this thread. I've no inight in the overall cases. I'm sure Asus has. But it is alarming that many cases are being showed right after two years, which means many people can't opt for warranty repair. And that is still the real issue here. 

If is is hardware or software related, one influences the other in this matter. Even when the software is buggy, it should not fry or whatever the mb. And from what I could find, it is always the mb to cpu which caused the breakdown. The most specific cases I could find is that of a bad connection between the cpu and mb which makes is prone to stress, like charging and use of camera. The latter isn't liked by the ZF8 anyways. A videocall drains the battery in no time and heats the whole phone, like it can't disperse its heat.

I'm afraid you lost unique memories with those photo's. I havent heard a case the phone was repaired or even brought back to life with the storage intact. Apart from some guys who reballed the cpu.