Rooting & boot loop (Is it a bad idea?)

[MageLuingil]

I have a Droid Incredible which is plagued with the infamous boot loop problem - if I do too much with the phone, it presumably overheats and goes into a boot loop which can only be stopped by pulling the battery and waiting a couple minutes.

Now, my understanding is there are two likely causes for this problem.
1 - Software issues - there is a bug in the software causing this to happen, fixing that bug or running different software would theoretically stop the problem entirely.
2 - Hardware issues - the problem is caused entirely by the phone's hardware; it's a design flaw, and there's pretty much nothing to do about it other than getting a replacement phone.

From the research I've done around the net and on this and other forums, it seems people are not sure exactly what causes this problem, or how to fix it. Which brings me to my point.

I want to try rooting my phone to remove some of the bloatware and maybe eventually flash some cfw on there to see if it helps. Before I do that however, I want to ask if anyone knows whether there are greater risks in rooting a phone with the boot loop problem.

Is this a bad idea which will definitely brick my phone? Or am I right in believing I might be able to solve some of my problems?

I'd rather not make myself an expensive brick, so I'm getting as much information before hand as I can. Anyone who has any knowledge with this issue - please let me know what you've found out!

 

[DROID11]

Although I am not familiar with this issue, from what I have read on this forum, rooting for that reason isn't the best idea. You should be covered still by the manufacture warranty, so doing a warranty exchange would be what I recommend.

 

[sudod2g]

Get the replacement then root.

d2g liberty 1.5 romer v5
fascinate voodoo kl
incredible incredibly engineered v2.3

 

[tweebee]

+1 on what was previous said. If your phone is still covered by warranty, you should take it to Verizon.

Rooting to troubleshoot a boot loop issue that maybe caused by hardware/software problem IS NOT recommended! Your phone should be in good, working condition when you root.

 

[MageLuingil]

Yup, that's about what I expected to hear.

Unfortunately, I purchased this phone from a third party, so I'm not entirely sure what the warranty status on it is. (There's also the fact that it happens to be one of the old AMOLED phones - not a huge deal, it's better to have a working SLCD than a broken AMOLED - but still, would have been nice if I could get it running properly)

I just wanted to get a feel for what some other people thought. This has been sort of a test phone for me, to see how I like using a touch-only Android phone; on the other hand, I'd hate to have to go back to my old Chocolate Touch >.<

I just wish there were more information about this boot loop problem. With the Thunderbolt release around the corner, odds it will be 'fixed' are about nil.