Hey guys, like many Toro owners, I had my MicroUSB port finally go out on me. Followed unfortunately shortly after a tumble caused by a cousin just giving my phone to her 3 year old to play with at a family holiday party. This resulted in the screen being cracked all to hell, as one could imagine. In a stupidly rushed attempt to repair the screen glass with a spare piece I had from a friend, I messed up the digitizer, and decided to get a new screen assembly and start over. Unfortunately, after ordering both parts and starting to install both, I realized the mUSB board was no good and had to be exchanged. I slapped the old one back on, installed my screen, and went about my day.
The second time around, I actually remembered how to work on computers and went through my whole usual litany of prep and breakdown. Bled off all my static charge, made a mostly sterile work area, worked in gloves when I could, and proceeded slowly and carefully through the phone teardown. I made sure (to attempt) not to damage any ribbon connectors or even the LTE antenna coax cable and both ports for it.
All this only to notice a short time later that I was having poor call quality, call drops despite a couple of bars, random signal drops, all those good times. This was all with mobile data turned off entirely, but when I turned on mobile data, it hit straight to 4G full service and data was snappy and page loads/searches were fast. However, I cannot tell if it is area signal strength or phone error, but I'm inclined to believe I may have messed something up either in my first botch job, or in my second serious repair.
If there was any repair errors, I'm inclined to believe one of a few things happened. Either I screwed up one of the in-frame antennas the first time around, putzing about trying to pry the old screen off the frame. Or I somehow cocked up one of the CDMA antennas on the mobo itself the second time, but I find that very hard to believe. Or the old mUSB board with it's mic got screwed up, but I highly doubt that too.
Anyone have any ideas, further questions, or (preferably non) snide comments? I've tried to give as many details as possible in this post without overloading it, but let me know if I've left out anything useful. Yet again, it's a Toro, 32gb, running SlimKat's 4.4-1825 weekly. (Can't remember build date right now, and phone's in pieces again for visual verification/pictures)
Any help is greatly appreciated, and thanks!
Related
about 2 days ago my phone fell from a table flat into the floor, it now has a dead pixel and a vertical blue line going across the screen, the blue line does not show up on black background but when it displays other colors it is very prominent. I've searched the forums and while I feel confident I can replace the screen myself I wanna know if I have any "cheaper" or price comparable options from the sprint/manufacturer/warranty side before I attempt a DIY. my phone as it happens is only about 1 month old but has been rooted and flashed at least twice.
so the question is: what are my options?
Take it in to the Sprint Store. I don't remember pricing but while Sprint strongly recommends do not root your phone, it's not a policy they enforce. Might cost you $35, if you have TEP it might cost you nothing.
Just take it in and say it fell off the table and show them, then ask how much.... worth a try a least.
There's another thread here with some repair options, you can check them out too.
Edit: Here it is.
If you tell them it fell off the table they will charge you $100 for a replacement if you have insurance or tell you you have to buy a new phone if you don't. You would need a SUPER friendly tech to offer to fix it....which the odds are severely against you.
sweet, i'll try that today, I know a girl on my sprint store that fits the super friendly bill.
Good luck. I wouldn't mention the fall though.
Sent from my PantechP4100 using xda premium
If Sprint doesn't fix it for you, try checking the connection between the screen and the phone.
The bottom of my phone's display looked corrupted and I fixed it by reinserting the ribbon cable connecting to the screen. I guess it somehow loosened on its own.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using Tapatalk 2
YES, loose connection!!!!
Etirkca, thank you SO much for tossing your experience in at the end there!!! You've given me a quick shift from despondent and grasping to very optimistic and focused! to
My screen went completely dead today (and has stayed that way) at some unknown specific point but following a series of pretty hard-hitting drops of late. I quickly noted that the sound was still functioning when I tried to restart what I initially thought was a phone that had simply powered itself down. Felt like I was deducing in the right direction when I observed that the LED indicator appeared to be non-functional as well. Anyhow, cutting to the chase, had come up with power supply problem to the top-half of the phone as my leading theory before I headed over here to look for some answers/help and was directed to this thread as my very first hit and with your post at least confirming the possibility/likelihood I've got a minor problem, not the potentially huge, expensive one I'd feared.
So, thanks again, but thought I'd hit you up to see if there's any quickie web page you can direct me to which'll show me how to get at that connector. I've no doubt I'll be able to find drawings/instructions on my own, if necessary, but since I'm full newbie to this site and very much an average, amateur tinkerer (as opposed to legit tech) it seems worth asking you and the group for direction on my next step.
Thanks again and in advance! --
--Laz--
There are tons of great vids on how to take the phone apart... google it and watch the video.... its really pretty simple... if you know how to take the phone apart it will be very obvious as to the ribon which may have become disconnected
Follow up/Resolution
Just wanted to close the issue in case anyone should run across this thread in the future and my experience can help them find a solution.
Was actually looking forward to taking my phone apart and giving a fix a try but my lazy/practical side decided to pop into my local Sprint store just to see if there was any chance I could get them to take a look without charging me for anything. Surprisingly, the rep I spoke with took the phone to a tech on the spot and the tech dropped what he was doing to open it up and take a look. Ten minutes later the tech handed me my fully-functioning phone and said the ribbon had been torn completely in half! He said this situation was not uncommon after a year-and-a-half of sliding the keyboard open and closed, again and again. No charge, didn't even write up a ticket as far as I know. Probably got lucky in going into the store about an hour before close on a Thursday night. I'm CERTAIN (based on previous Sprint experience) I wouldn't have received that sort of service if I'd happened in at a busier time.
But worth noting that the ribbon had ripped completely through without any particular drop or other incident and with no prior intermittent performance or any indication something was about to go seriously wrong.
Dear folks,
One night I reached out my hand while sleeping, touched a glass of water (which fell over) and my Galaxy Nexus GSM got wet. In the morning I dried it (*no* hair dryer, just a vacuum cleaner and a radiator), and it still works like a charm. With few exections: Almost no signal anymore. Most often no signal, sometimes weak signal, rarely full H+ speed.
In my flat I have no radio at all (-110db if that matters). No speech, no data.
Outside I may have luck, I may not. Sometimes I get almost full HSDPA+ as stated, but most of the times with "standard" covering just no signal or a really really weak one, where my old HTC Hero (T-Mobile H2 Touch) and my work phone (Nokia 31xx) have full(!) radio signal. Embarassing.
Speaker was damaged, too. So was the USB port (not charging when switched on, no sound, wrong headset recognition).
I decided to repair it myself. I did this before many times with my old Nokia 3310, and ifixit.com suggested, it's not that hard. So I went to eBay and bought a new speaker part (that more bulky part at the bottom of the disassembled phone).
Well, this fixed the speaker/headset and the USB issue. Hooray! But my radiosignal was still bad.
So today, I replaced the antenna mainboard (L-Shaped). Well, this fixed… nothing at all. I still got bad radio (at least it's not broken down completely). Now I wonder: What could I do next? Flasing radio firmware has no effect either (I think, I tried three or so). Is it really because it got wet? Sth else to replace?
I'm looking forward to any suggestions on what to do next. If you need any information, just ask.
Thanks in advance.
I'm sorry I can't provide pictures atm, but I only wrote 5 posts or so.
Hi all,
the wife's HOX died suddenly, won't turn on at all, wont recoginse being plugged in into either the wall or the PC, no lights, nothing.
Unfortunately she has taken a number of pictures of our 5 month year old son on it, which obviously we would like to have back!
I'm competent with taking the phone apart and putting it back togther, however what I want to know is how the Samsung Flash chip is connected to the mainboard.
I can see black glue around the outside of it, but I am unsure if the underlying pins are also soldered down.
My intention was to razor blade the glue away and then buy a knackered (but working) HOX and transfer the chips over.
Obviously I wouldnt be able to do this if the chip is soldered down. I have monkey hands when it comes to soldering things.
Is anyone able to offer any insight?
I've had a google and read the datasheet for the specific chip, but it says nothing about how it is connected.
Thanks in advance.
ucof said:
Hi all,
the wife's HOX died suddenly, won't turn on at all, wont recoginse being plugged in into either the wall or the PC, no lights, nothing.
Unfortunately she has taken a number of pictures of our 5 month year old son on it, which obviously we would like to have back!
I'm competent with taking the phone apart and putting it back togther, however what I want to know is how the Samsung Flash chip is connected to the mainboard.
I can see black glue around the outside of it, but I am unsure if the underlying pins are also soldered down.
My intention was to razor blade the glue away and then buy a knackered (but working) HOX and transfer the chips over.
Obviously I wouldnt be able to do this if the chip is soldered down. I have monkey hands when it comes to soldering things.
Is anyone able to offer any insight?
I've had a google and read the datasheet for the specific chip, but it says nothing about how it is connected.
Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I really can't see this being successful, sorry. I'm fairly sure the chip is soldered down, and the chances of damaging the chip are very, very high if you want to try and get it off.
If the phone didn't come into contact with water a JTAG recovery might be possible. It may not get the phone working again but it could get your data back. Alternatively companies like DriveSavers have an excellent reputation for getting data off flash chips, but it'll cost you in the region of $400 - $1400 (I got a quote a month or so back, when I thought my HOX was finished.)
I really wouldn't recommend trying to remove the chip though. You could do irreparable damage to the chip, which would render it completely unreadable.
ucof said:
Hi all,
the wife's HOX died suddenly, won't turn on at all, wont recoginse being plugged in into either the wall or the PC, no lights, nothing.
Unfortunately she has taken a number of pictures of our 5 month year old son on it, which obviously we would like to have back!
I'm competent with taking the phone apart and putting it back togther, however what I want to know is how the Samsung Flash chip is connected to the mainboard.
I can see black glue around the outside of it, but I am unsure if the underlying pins are also soldered down.
My intention was to razor blade the glue away and then buy a knackered (but working) HOX and transfer the chips over.
Obviously I wouldnt be able to do this if the chip is soldered down. I have monkey hands when it comes to soldering things.
Is anyone able to offer any insight?
I've had a google and read the datasheet for the specific chip, but it says nothing about how it is connected.
Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try first change the battery to see if the phone will start again it is the cheap way and most secure
de4life - thanks, I've had a quote for data recovery from Kroll. They want £95+ to look at it and provide a list of what can be recovered and then between £195 and £395 for actually recovering it for me. Far too expensive!
As for JTAG, there's been no water damage whatsoever; I've had a quick Google and it says this is more for Routers. How could I do it to my phone? Im not fussed about getting the phone working again, just want the contents of the flash storage back.
Thant - alas, the was the first thing I tried. New battery has made no difference. Which is annoying as her old Desire Z showed the same symptoms, we bought a new battery and its works again. She's currently using that until we decide what to do.
ucof said:
de4life - thanks, I've had a quote for data recovery from Kroll. They want £95+ to look at it and provide a list of what can be recovered and then between £195 and £395 for actually recovering it for me. Far too expensive!
As for JTAG, there's been no water damage whatsoever; I've had a quick Google and it says this is more for Routers. How could I do it to my phone? Im not fussed about getting the phone working again, just want the contents of the flash storage back.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
First thing's first, if you do go down the data recovery route try to avoid companies that charge any type of analysis fee. Kroll are a well known company but I've not heard much good things about them. I went through an extensive search of companies when I thought I'd killed my HOX and found DriveSavers were the best in terms of reputation, and they don't charge a fee to look at the phone. They are very expensive though, perhaps more so than Kroll, and you have to send the phone to the States which is daunting and costly in of itself (I assume from your £ quotation that you're UK based?).
It's good that there's no water damage. It's difficult to say what can cause the motherboard to suddenly stop working like that, but it's unlikely there has been a serious short circuit that could have affected the memory chip. Have you tried dissembling the phone completely and putting it back together? It may sound ridiculous to even try it, but when one of my older phones suddenly died I managed to get it working by taking it apart and then just putting it back together again. There are a lot of connections within the HOX motherboard framework that could easily have come loose. You might already have done this, but just a thought.
In terms of JTAG, it can be done on mobile phone motherboards with the right equipment. It's usually used for soft bricked phones to reset the software back to its original form if it's been corrupted, but I have seen cases where hard bricked phones were brought back to life using this method, including the HOX. It's not really something you can do at home (not cheaply, anyway) but there are companies that provide this service. One of the more popular services is here: http://mobiletechvideos.mybigcommerce.com/htc-one-x-jtag-brick-repair/ - I believe they post on here from time to time as well. Again, based in the States, but significantly cheaper than data recovery and as far as I've heard very professional. I don't know of any mobile phone JTAG services in the UK, though they probably do exist.
Keep in mind the data chip on your phone is likely fine. Even if the motherboard has stopped working, the memory chip itself is unlikely to be affected and will still contain all of your data - albeit in a scrambled form. If you send it out to companies then they can potentially damage the chip beyond repair, if you go down the route of sending the phone out to repair/data recovery companies I would urge extreme caution. If it's still on the chip the data itself isn't going anywhere. Take your time and make sure you're sending your phone to the right people, because one false move and your data is gone for good.
Hi, my apologies if my HTC is in the wrong forum, not sure where the Desire would fit, if anywhere.
Nonetheless this is a useful phone to me and worked fine till the day I had to jump in a lake to save my 5 year old boy from drowning. Naturally didn't have the time to remove the phone from my pocket before jumping in the lake. Kid was fine after swallowing some water but phone "swallowed" a lot of water. Let it dry in a bag of rice and baking soda for several days to fully dry. But when trying to turn it on, the screen just flickers non stop. However when connecting it to the computer using a USB cable, I get what appears to be a boot screen (see pic in address below). Phone was rooted and run CyanogenMod 7. Maybe someone that's familiar with the procedure could guide me? Tried a couple of the options shown but to no avail. Old but still decent phone, would like to get it working again. I've transferred the sim to another phone and I've saved the micro SD card. Just need to get the phone to boot again. PS: could the battery be toast? Maybe it got shorted when I first tried to turn the phone on while still wet?
Any help is appreciated.
I'm too new here, won't allow me to post external links. Please go to h-t-t-p://tinyurl.com/p4dmgej (remove dash from http)
I'd say leave it to dry naturally for a week or so and try again. If no joy then you could try a new screen but it's probably something really tiny and sensitive that cannot be replaced..
Glad you saved your boy!.
Sent from a stolen HTC M9
It's been 2 months. But I did make a crucial mistake: I tried to turn the phone on while still at the lake. This likely caused more damage than it needed.
However I suspect the issue is with the battery. It won't charge past 3.85 volts. And the display works just fine, once I press the key combo to enter the boot screen as seen in the pic above. Will try and track one down locally, hopefully a shop will be able to test it a battery in the phone before I buy it.
And yes, the boy was fine. But it was a close call. it is amazing how quickly something can go wrong. I neglected the lake rule of staying within arm's reach. Let this be a lesson to anyone with small ones: it only takes seconds for things to go badly wrong, even at a supposedly safe, man made lake intended for kids.
PS: 2 months prior an adult died on the same lake after falling off his boat. Another lesson: invest in swimming lessons. Scary stuff, indeed.
Right, i thought you were seeing that over usb via sdk or something.. You could always try opening it and inspecting for blown components. What damage can be done.. It's already useless.
I still think it's worth leaving it to dry naturally.
Sent from a stolen HTC M9
Basically what happened, was on Friday, my phone got stuck in a boot loop. It would get to the "Optimizing Apps" screen and shut off again. Other people may just get to the Verizon screen, or even just the LG screen. I looked it up and found that it was a major issue affecting many people, so I just filed for a warranty and received my new phone today. Well, on Saturday night LinusTechTips, a popular tech YouTube channel(You should really check them out, they are great), released a video on how they fixed a dead Graphics Card and PCI-E SSD by heating them up past the melting point of solder and then testing them. For them, it only worked on the GPU. As I was packing up my seemingly dead phone to ship back to LG TODAY, i decided to give it one more shot. I disassembled the device to the point where I could take out the logic board. I took the logic board and wrapped it in one layer of parchment paper and two layers of tinfoil, shiny side facing in(FYI tinfoil has two sides, shiny and matte). I then placed this package into a barbecue. I turned on the left and middle burners and left the package with my logic board inside on the right side to the grill so it wasn't receiving direct heat. After 10 minutes, I took it out, re-assembled my phone and it booted. I was able to get all of my pictures off of it. This has only been confirmed to work on my phone, but seeing as this SAME issue is affecting thousands of people, It's definitely worth a shot. If you are going to use an oven, PLEASE, make sure it's above 385 degrees Fahrenheit and that you don't plan on using that oven for food ever again, this may release some toxic chemicals etc. I plan on using my grill again, so I just made sure to leave the grill open for 24 hours and I'm going to clean it before I use it next. If you have any questions let me know!
P.S. My LG G4 was the Verizon model.
I highly recommend doing this ONLY if you have no other option. Remember that heating a logic board to high temperatures can release toxic fumes. Don't use an oven you use for food preparation! Toxic fumes can leave residue in the oven and will be re-released upon reheating over many cycles!
Assuming LG's press release regarding the issue is correct and it is really a loose contact, this "fix" could actually work. Of course, only if the loose connection is a soldered connection. Though, it's controversial. You have to remember that the melting point for SMD solder is around ~350°C, or 662°F. So 358°F, or 181°C, is not nearly enough to actually re-solder a loose connection. My guess is that the loose solder point is only expanding due to the heat. There is no real reconnect. It might only be a matter of time until it also breaks. If you could locate the actual loose connection you could really re-solder it and have it fixed permanently.
I've done this on many many devices, including graphics cards, smartphone logic boards, PC mainboards etc. It only works if a soldered connection has a crack small enough that heat expansion is enough to gain reconnection. If there is a loose contact on the PCB or the "crack" in the solder is too big, it does not work. Also, if you really have a dead chip, this trick also won't (always) work.
I read a similar story on reddit. The guy put his main board in the oven, reassembled it, and the phone started working. The last update I read was 3 days later, still working.
I fixed mine temporarily by heating up the emmc chip using solder hot air gun. It seems to be just the emmc chips connection.
Failed again after a fortnight when the phone got too hot. The connection seems to break when the g4 gets hot.
One option to try is to boot the phone inside a freezer. I found that worked too.
Pretty poor quality control on lg's part.
I'm going to try again and see if I can fix permanently.
Worked for me too
I have a LG G4 H815 with serial number starting with 507. It died yesterday night. The bootloop escalated quickly to full death. Even the freezer trick did not work.
I followed the OP instructions. I heated up the grill to ~250 degrees Celsius and cooked the motherboard for 10 minutes.
Magically the phone has been working for a couple of hours since and I have been able to backup files to the external SC card.
I wonder how much more will it work.
Thank you for help OP!!!
Word of advice to other LG G4 users. Backup your phone regularly. Use an external SD card. Set the camera to save images and videos to the SD card. At least at doom day you will have them saved.
Cheers
Silverdace said:
I'm going to try again and see if I can fix permanently.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
any more info on this? Looks like my phone bit it the other day, no boot...just dead...
I'm going to take her apart to see if I can find a bad solder, luckily I still had my G2 lying around.
NFN, I sent mine back to LG US in Texas for a full warranty repair. 10 days RT, no cost at all, shipping included.
No unfortunately. I managed to overcook it and it stopped booting altogether
Do you have the address and info Re your communication w/ lg
metropical said:
NFN, I sent mine back to LG US in Texas for a full warranty repair. 10 days RT, no cost at all, shipping included.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do you have the address and info Re your communication w/ lg, I'd like to send mine back for repair due to this same issue.
http://www.lg.com/us/support/repair-service/schedule-repair-us
they did a **** job. touch screen peeling and failing. Phone slowing down again after about 6mos. Looking for a new phone, but the choices are so limited.
My phone is 2 years 4 months old....never bootlooped
Feel bad for u guys
deltadiesel said:
My phone is 2 years 4 months old....never bootlooped
Feel bad for u guys
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Mine made it just about the same but died from other causes.
deltadiesel said:
My phone is 2 years 4 months old....never bootlooped
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What is the beginning of your phone's serial number?
Hi bro kindly tell is it worth to install custom rom kernal with root to prevent the cpu to clock high speed so it will not go into bootloop? My is also 2 years old thanks
250 degrees F for 6 minutes and brought the phone back to life. We'll see how long it lasts.
Actually it worked on BOTH G4s I have. I first just went dead and I bought a used one for $100 on eBay and it worked fine until the bootloop showed up.