D3100 locks up / freezes / frozen

Greetings, I have a newly purchased D3100. With only less then 200 shots, the camera has frozen twice. I do not know the sequence of events which causes the lockup; but it occurred during normal use (viewing images, or switching shooting modes). The result of the lockup / freeze is that the camera does not respond to any buttons; incl. the power on/off switch. When it locks up the screen will show the standard display. In both cases it showed the 'P' program mode. Even with the power switch to the "off" setting, the screen remains lit. In both cases, I pulled the battery in order to reset the camera. After the "remove-battery-reset" the camera returned to normal operation.

Someone (not me) posted these same symptoms on youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbwmrpWXYaQ

Has anyone on this forum seen this issue? I've checked the Nikon site for possible firmware downloads, however, none are listed (as of yet).

I will contact Nikon, however, more then likely I will return this unit to the store for a replacement.

Had mine since they came out and over 1500 shots. I have had no freeze ups. I have had one picture with hot pixels.

For one month I have used D3100. But not seen any problem. It do Excellent job

Mine did the same thing couple of times but I figured later it was a user error. What happened is that I took a shot in very dim environment without flash and camera increased shutter speed to 30s or about. And when I thought that it was frozen it was actually making an exposure. Thinking it over later, I thought it was very smart for Nikon to do that. You can't turn off camera while shutter is open to prevent any damage to it. Along the same lines, camera disables shutter when battery is about to die.

Other possible reason of camera behaving like it is frozen is long write-up times to SD card. If you have chosen NEF or NEF+JPG, then it takes a while for a camera to record a file and you can see green light in lower right corner blinking.
Alex

Hi Alex, Thanks for your response. I do not believe that your description is the issue that I'm experiencing. During a long exposure the back screen is not lit with information; it is black instead. Furthermore, a power cycle should have done something - and in my case it does not.

Thanks for your post, it caused me to rethink this issue and run a couple of experiments.

Any one else ... ideas ?

Thanks,

I would contact the shop where you bought it , talk about it and send it back as quick as possible. I had the same issue with a D40, then it didn't occur for months and the I had the same trouble months later on holidays.What you describe doesn't sound normal and you better deal with it when it 's still in warranty

Two days ago I sent the failure description to Nikon. I immediately received an automated response stating that I would hear back within 24hrs. So far no response (could be due to the holidays).

In any case, I contacted the (on-line) store from which I purchased the camera, and they will send a new unit. It should arrive on Jan 4th. Hopefully no issues with the new one.

Happy New Year,
Palau

Hi,

I experienced the same problem not too long ago. I called the Nikon Support Team. They told me it could be the memory card incompatibility issue, and advised me to only use the approved ones which are - panasonic, sandisk, toshiba, lexar, platinum, and professional. I am not very convinced with their reasoning, but are any of you using SDHC card other than the aforementioned brand, and not having this freeze-up issue? I only got this two weeks ago. Quite frustrating since i have returned the unit two times already for other issues.

Any advise anyone?

I thought mine froze a few times but it ended up being the memory card. I was using a old slow card and after taking a few photos in a row sometimes it would freeze for a minute. After replacing with a new faster card have not had the problem again.

Spirit. Nikon gave you good advice and you choose to ignore it - instead favoring advice from this forum? Come on, get serious. Memory cards can be a huge problem in many modern cameras - too SLOW or, or. or . . .

Use a different memory card. Or suffer. Let me suggest SanDisk.
--
Steve Bingham
http://www.dustylens.com
http://www.ghost-town-photography.com

Steve Bingham said:

Spirit. Nikon gave you good advice and you choose to ignore it - instead favoring advice from this forum? Come on, get serious. Memory cards can be a huge problem in many modern cameras - too SLOW or, or. or . . .

Use a different memory card. Or suffer. Let me suggest SanDisk.
--
Steve Bingham
http://www.dustylens.com
http://www.ghost-town-photography.com

Click to expand...

So far my transcend card works flawless with my D3100 and it was really chepa.

I just wanted all of our user's opinion instead of blindly trusting the Nikon support people.

Steve Bingham said:

Spirit. Nikon gave you good advice and you choose to ignore it - instead favoring advice from this forum? Come on, get serious. Memory cards can be a huge problem in many modern cameras - too SLOW or, or. or . . .

Use a different memory card. Or suffer. Let me suggest SanDisk.
--
Steve Bingham
http://www.dustylens.com
http://www.ghost-town-photography.com

Click to expand...

I have been having the same problem but I have a SanDisk extreme card. The screen freezes and you have to remove the battery etc. Sometimes it says, memory card read error. I bought the SD card from Jessops so isn't a cheap copy.

Do you think it is something wrong with the camera and not the SD card?

The Nikon advice doesn't explain my problem.

spirit10 said:

Hi,

I experienced the same problem not too long ago. I called the Nikon Support Team. They told me it could be the memory card incompatibility issue, and advised me to only use the approved ones which are - panasonic, sandisk, toshiba, lexar, platinum, and professional. I am not very convinced with their reasoning, but are any of you using SDHC card other than the aforementioned brand, and not having this freeze-up issue? I only got this two weeks ago. Quite frustrating since i have returned the unit two times already for other issues.

Click to expand...

For what it's worth, I recently locked up a Nikon D3300 in a camera store by taking several successive photographs. The camera had no memory card and was in "DEMO" mode. After the last photograph, the camera froze and the last image remained on the led screen. Turning the camera off and on has no effect. Have not yet seen what the result of disconnecting the power to the camera might be. I think this occurrence may support the idea that the problem of the camera freezing or locking up may be related to memory card issues.

Update for what it's worth, removing the battery reset the camera. Cannot reproduce lock up. No obvious explanation. Fluke?