Database Users

My weird Herald experience...

<warning>may be a long post</warning>
Ok, some history first...
I bought my Herald 1 year ago, and after 3 months of proud ownership i dropped it into the toilet. (was just changing to my swimsuit in case you are wondering)...
After that underwater experience, the only kink was that the End button stopped functioning.
Fast forward to the present day. After opening my phone with the help of the service manual i found out that the fault was with the flex cable (the cable that has the keypad buttons, and connects the screen to the phone board)
So i hopped on Ebay and ordered a new cable, along with a new housing as my old one was full of dents, and had the parts delivered today.
I opened my happy ol' Herald, removed the screen protector (this is an important bit, just stay with me) and changed the cable and housing, hoping to transform it to almost-new condition.
After doing the transplant, and hoping that everything went fine, i closed everything and booted the phone up.
The End key functionality was restored, but the Touch Screen STOPPED WORKING!!!. It was registering some very strange positions and as i lifted the pen the cursor was yanking to the right, so i tried the first obvious thing of Align Screen. Since that wasn't registering ANY positions, i reopened the phone, reseated all the cables and still nothing was happening.....
I was at the brim of despair, after 5 hours of screwing, testing, unscrewing etc... and was leaving work... and just as i was packing everything up i picked up the old dirty and worn Screen Protector and tacked it on the screen (and since it was on my office the whole time it got very very dirty).
And lo and behold, everything worked with the screen protector on!!!
So this is the story....
Now, i have a couple of questions:
1) Anyone has a logical explanation about this??
2) I'm afraid to remove the screen protector in case i lose the touch screen again, so now i have a brand-new looking phone with a screen that looks like it was run over. What do you think will happen if i remove it?? (maybe open a poll on this)
3) I also yanked the keyboard (after discovering that its held with Glue on the casing). Now i have it tucked in place but it's not glued. Anyone now what glue is safe to use to make it stick in place ??

AT&T powers off after drop

I have been using AT&T 8525 for about 5 months now. Dropped it in office a week back and it was on an uncarpetted surface. No external damage but it powered off. I had to try for a while to power it on but eventually it did power on.
Since this event it just powers off on its own. Right now, even minor jerks cause it to shut down. When you pull the phone out of your pocket after a while, it has already shut down!!! Took it for repair to a local cell phone repair assuming it might have some connector damage but they could not figure out the problem. They opened it, cleaned the interiors (as it had dust build up) and according to them everything appeared normal.
What would you guys recommend? It is running Schaps 4.30. I see that HTC has a repair service in US.....had anyone tried that?

Sounds like battery might be a little bit loose... Jam something in behind the battery to make sure of constant connection... You're not the first with this complaint. The battey terminals may have been bent back just enough to cause this intermittant problem, especially when it gets jolted, the battery disconnects from the teminals causing an automatic shutdown due to no power.. Just thank god you didn't break the terminals off. Sometimes can be fixed but if the break is at board level, you may as well sell it off on ebay for parts because its just about impossible to fix then.
Cheers...

Very smart ultramag!! Your reply made me think what I did after it fell down. At that time I did think that the battery was loose as it was running when on active syn (powered by laptop) but not when I removed the cord. I did turn the terminals a bit and it powered on after few attempts (the drop must have given the circuitry some shock to recover after sometime).
I have jammed a paper on the side of the battery opposite the battery terminal. Will report back in a day or two if it still gives any problems. That should help others with the same problem.
Also this event has taught me that invisible shield (the plastic shield that we stick on) perhaps may not be the best protection. Case is a must to absorb the shock!

ok the problem still continues despite sticking a paper on the battery side (opp the terminal). I do believe that the battery was part of the problem. Before sticking in the paper, it used to give me a Red LED for few seconds when I attempted charging and then turned to amber. Now that problem is not there....it turns to amber right away on plugging in the device.
So part of the problem is addressed but the Hermes still powers down on its own when subject to minimum shock (in your pockets and you are walking around in the office or driving a car). What do you suggest? Should I send it in to HTC? Are they good about addressing repair issues?

... and yet I think it probably is the contacts as suggested above. It may be that it's a little more than just the contacts not pressing firmly on the battery though. There have been cases where a fall has actually broken/cracked the solder joints between the contacts and the board. A trickier thing to fix unless you have some skills in that direction.
Mike

AT&T powers off after drop - HTC's take on the situation
Ok so here is HTC's evaluation of the situation.
They want to change the main board (mother-board I guess). In addition, though the phone is just 4 months old (was purchased refurb from AT&T) and has barely any scratches, they would replace the casing, the keyboard and the structure that holds the keyboard and LCD. And they would ONLY charge me $272. Isn't that ridicuously amazing??
To me it seems they can't figure out what the hell is going on, so lets just go ahead and replace a bunch of things and one of them should be a hit.
I have asked them to send the phone back. Mike, do you think the main-board could be the issue? Any recommendations of who I could try for repair.....or what I should ask the repair guy to look into to find out if the main board is the issue or not?

Only $272??? Good God! That lot would cost you around $450 if it were fixed at HTC UK!!
If the drop caused cracking internally then that may be why they want to replace the rest. if there are known defects that are not repaired, they cannot guarantee the repair and so will not do it at all if you do not agree to the whole thing.
of course, you could be right and they have no clue and simply want to replace everything and hope something gets fixed....
Don't PPCtechs also do repairs on that side of the pond?

Touchscreen not responding, backup question

Hi all,
Looks like my Sprint Vogue is flaking out on me. The touchscreen is suddenly and without warning not working at all. Everything else works (all other buttons, activesync, all functions). I'd like to do a hard reset before giving up on it, but I'd really like to sync my contacts/messages/photos/etc before doing that. So here's the problem- I use Dashwire to sync, and I'm unable to hit the "SYNC NOW" button!
Any ideas on how to switch to and activate the bottom left and bottom right menu buttons without being able to touch them? For example, the Inbox and Menu buttons on the Mail app screen, or Album/Slideshow on the Photos and Videos screen? If I can get to those I'll be able to activate the sync. Any help would be great!
Thanks,
Bogus

There is a application called "MyMobiler" which allows you to control your phone over ip/usb/bluetooth. If i remember correctly launching the installer on your pc while your phone is connected to activesynch will install it without having to press anything.

Awesome, thank you. That did exactly what I needed it to!
Once it finishes sync'ing I'll give the reset a shot and see if the screen is really borked or not.

No problem glad i could help. If the touchscreen refuses to work you might wanna try replacing it. The part is called a digitzer and they go for 15-20 dollars online. I bought one and it wasn't difficult at all to replace.

Yeah, that's the plan. Hard reset didn't fix the problem, so I'm guessing that part is busted. Between this site and PPCG I found the guide for taking apart the phone, so it's looking like I'll be doing some minor surgery in a few days.

bogus83 said:
Yeah, that's the plan. Hard reset didn't fix the problem, so I'm guessing that part is busted. Between this site and PPCG I found the guide for taking apart the phone, so it's looking like I'll be doing some minor surgery in a few days.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How would the touch screen instantly not work?
maybe someone let it fall and put it back to normal like nothing happened
and i know what u mean.I dont wanna give up my vogue. EVER,
but im 15...by the time im 30, i wont remember what vogue is.LOL.

Actually, it seems to have developed a very small air bubble in the very upper left corner. I'm pretty sure that's causing the digitizer to think there's constant pressure in that area, evidenced by the "Start" menu occasionally activating when I turn on the phone. I ordered a new digitizer anyway- the set of torx screwdrivers I'd need to open the case cost the same as a new digitizer and the screwdriver I need. I don't really understand how the air bubble formed (or even what it is contained in), but one way or another I'll resolve the problem next week.
And I just turned 26- I'm sure by the time I'm 30 I'll be sporting a Touch Pro 4 running Windows Mobile 8.5

Well, the digitizer and tools came much faster than I'd anticipated (I won the auction on eBay on Friday, paid same day, and got it in the mail today, shipped from CA to NY!). So I dove right in. It was a straightforward affair- remove the four torx screws from the back under the cover, remove the speaker, pry open the front from the mainboard, disconnect the keypad circuit board from the mainboard and the digitizer from the keypad board, push out the old digitizer, swap in the new one and hook it all back up.
Not for the faint of heart to be sure, but for someone who likes to tinker it was a lot of fun. Took maybe 15 minutes because prying the case from the mainboard was difficult. More accurately, the top plastic case is extremely thin and fragile- if you do this you'll almost definitely crack it in at least one place. If not, you'll crack it pushing the digitizer out from behind. But I'm not that worried about cosmetics, I got my Vogue second-hand off-contract, refurbished, so it wasn't exactly mint to begin with.
On the plus side, the repair worked like a charm! I tested every touch feature I could think of and as many areas of the screen as I could, it actually seemed to respond better than when I initially got the phone. The odd part is I could still see the air bubble in the old screen, and couldn't flatten it out even by squeezing on both sides of it. I wish I knew how it formed so I could prevent it from happening again, but I'll just have to be careful.
So to anyone considering this project:
If you're worried about damaging the casing and have insurance or a warranty or something like that, take it to the phone company to get it repaired.
For anyone else, the $15 bucks for the screen and three tools is a lot cheaper than buying a new phone. Plus you get the geek cred for repairing your own phone.

X1 Ribbon cable - what happens and a fix I came up with!

Hi, I come on here quite a lot for information as it's an amazing resource! This time however, I'm attempting to give something back!
I experienced the "black screen on slide out" on Monday. Phone completely screwed. I've also had a few droppages and had it apart once before so there's no way warranty is gonna help!
I stripped it down and soon discovered what it is that actually fails on the ribbon. The coating had worn through due to rubbing on something during the slide out / in process. it had been playing up for a while, probably due to shorting out on the metal case, but now the tracks (aluminium?) had worn right down.....
In pic 1 i've circled the worn area. The shiny section is where i'd tried taping over it to prevent shorting, before i realised the tracks were gone.
Got an almost new one off ebay for 15 quid and, realising it was going to happen again, came up with a solution that, so far, looks like it will work....
A while back I bought some "anti rattle felt" for my car's dashboard - really thin and strong self adhesive felt to prevent squeaking joins between dash sections. I cut a piece of this and stuck it to the new ribbon. Once this stuff is on it's well stuck, by the way!
See pic 2 for the modded ribbon cable.
On reassembly everything is working just fine so far! Here's hoping that it lasts longer than 6 months this time!
Just need a new casing now as mine is decidedly second hand!
Hope this turns out to be of use to someone!

cool story bro

when i took apart my xperia to replace the housing this seemed like a really weak point in the device. glad to see someone who has had the problem has been able to fix it

Why does the screen go black?

Hi,
When the coating wears off the ribbon cable it exposes the tracks in it. when you slide the keyboard out the exposed tracks short out on the metal casing and the screen loses it's input signal.
thats whats happened on mine at least and i presume quite a few others?
HTH!

Update:
That's interesting: My phone was also losing signal with the keyboard out, and occasionally while closed up as well. It would just randomly drop to "no signal" for a few seconds.
It hasn't done it since replacing the ribbon cable.....could be coincidental of course.

I'm having the same problem
It just started a week ago and I got the phone in January off of ebay. I'm new to opening up the phone so could anyone help me find the correct tools or have a link to a site with pictured instructions?
I noticed that the sliding mechanism started to go loose about 4-5 months ago but didn't expect the screen not respond in landscape mode. I have yet to see the other symptoms you all are referring to. I would like to fix this before it get worse.

In mine case it went totaly black after one week of this problem... You have all the instruction on youtube, there is where i looked. For tools you can be inovative, but the exactly right ones come with housings from ebay, it is only 15EUR, and i bet you have some cracks so it wouldn't hurt replacing. That is what i did, along with ordering new sliding mechanizm, and new ribbon cable.
I am open for ideas to prevent my ribbon cable from being cut at it weakest point again.

I'm assuming my flex ribbon went bad yesterday, since sliding the keypad out causes my screen to shut off.
Already ordered a cable off ebay and will attempt to replace it myself :O

Replaced my flex ribbon cable with one I bought on eBay. The screen doesn't turn on at all now, which leads me to believe the cable I was sent is defective. Put the old one back in and it works okay, less landscape mode. ughhh what a pain.

great tips! my input is I bought a case off of ebay that was ~60$ and everything actually fit fine for me...so I wouldn't discount every seller but you do get what you pay for, the 15$ cases are probablly the ones that will give you problems

I working in a mobilephone repair center if anyone need help drop me a priv... i able to get 2nd hand or even brand new components

Replaced the flex ribbon cable -
I got my flex ribbon cable a few weeks ago and took it to my local repair shop. They replaced it but the LCD screen/optical joystick receives no power. The touchscreen and everything else on the phone works just fine now. I thought it was a defective item so it was exchanged with a new one.
Got the repair shop to replace it again and the outcome still remains the same as the first.
Theres no light coming from the screen nor the side illumination.
I just told the repair shop to just place the original back in for the mean time.
Before the repairs, there would be a flicker of white light and random illuminations. Now there's no lights at all except the power botton.
Could it be defective a batch that the seller was sending out? or the repair shop's mistake and is playing dumb so they do not have to admint fault?
Hopefully there's an easy fix to this problem.
-Also I did inspect the ribbon before and after the repair. looks new as the OEm
Can anybody help me out with this new problem after replacing the cable -

perhaps you should try a hard reset. Ive had problems in the past where the optical joystick and the illuminators did not work, and that worked for me.
On the other hand, the top illuminators are on the same piece of hardware as the flex cable that was replaced, so a faulty flex cable is possible. The bottom illuminators are on the circuit board that the optical joystick attaches to, separate but connected to the flex cable.
Ive recently replaced my flex cable and touchscreen. The experience i had with the faulty touch screen was that it appeared to receive no power, but was in fact displaying a dark backlit illumination that could only be seen in the dark. At the same time however, the screen did not display anything. I'm not sure if this is similar to your experience, but if so then your touchscreen would need to be replaced.
ive done all repairs on the xperia myself, and one thing ive discovered is if something doesnt work right after a repair, simply disassembling it and reassembling it to make sure all the connections are properly done has worked for me in the past.
"Before the repairs, there would be a flicker of white light and random illuminations. Now there's no lights at all except the power button."
Now when you say the power button, do you mean that a red light appears under it?
I dont know if i can come to a conclusion or that i can help (or have helped) you come to a conclusion, but i can only assure you that the xperia acts out in strange and weird ways.
Good Luck!

Tags
Dismantle / Disassemble Sony Ericson Xperia X1
http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Sony-Ericsson-XPERIA-X1/788/1
http://www.formymobile.co.uk/xperiadisassembly.php
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWDurQrRt-Y (REAR)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyGUbxFqvyc&feature=related (FRONT)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elgC8hwHfYQ&feature=related
For info.
Mike

Thanks for the links. I've tried the hardreset and restoring the original rom but the issue is still there. It's really bugging me that everything works but the LCD screen. I'm currently using MyMobiler to use my phone. The touch screen works fine and so does the soft keys. Just no power for the lights. I might just give up and wait for another phone that catches my eye and then tinker with the xperia myself. but if anyone got a solution or want me to test something then I'll give it a try.
My warranty is no longer affective so I'll use my phone as a tester to help others with any problems.

TRIONDAVE, how's your Xperia running now with the cable mod that you did? Its been 6 months since you created the thread. I hope you're still around.
My Xperia X1 works nearly fine, except for the keyboard issues, so I'm thinking of opening it up. If your Ribbon mod helped I might just do it too once I've got it opened. Mine has a MOUNTain of cracks though, and the battery compartment itself is cracked on both side enough to make the compartment CURVED. Hence the Battery cover doesn't sit well.
I'm looking around for broken Xperias which I might be able to use to change the internal cracked casing. Lets see.

DatDereX1 said:
cool story bro
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My thoughts exactly.

Hello guys, I am in need of real help over here!
Its just that Ive replaced my ribbon cable, the old one got screwd up.
However I got done for 10 minutes ago, tried to start up the phone.. without success :,(
The ribbon cable doesnt have anything to do with the start up, only the screen am I correct? Cause I cannot even start my phone..
Ive connected the charger, but when I remove the battery it shows a red light, meaning no battery, correct?
So what may the problem be exactly? Maybe the battery is all dead, or?
PLEASE HELP!

for the people with ribbon failures how long have you had the phone before it occurred ? im just interested on the cables lifespan.
mine is fine so far but i have noticed the slider is flimsy and rocks left and right.

loose buttons but not something to worry about!

What a story!!
I bought a galaxy note 4 right on launch day first thing in the morning. Ive had just about every phone but have been waiting for a while now to get my hands on the new note 4.
I ended up buying the phone at the St . Bruno shopping center in Quebec, Canada and once i singed all the papers for my contract and got home, I finally open the box and took the phone out of the box. I loved it, it did everything one would expect from the highest end phone on the market.
A week later however, I started noticing that my buttons, especially my home button were slightly loose and my phone was also developing a weird oil spot under the home button.
So I went back to videotron but this time at St. Catherine street corporate branch store and the manager there obviously didnt know much about phones because he looked at it and proceeded with putting windex on a paper towel and wiping my screen with it and than told me that theres nothing wrong with it.
After frustratingly explaining everything to him, he told me that if the phone makes calls and works, than these issues arent covered for any kind of exchange as its not affecting the functionality of the phone. My logic tell me however that if one buy's a ferrari and realizes that the paint is f-up, wouldn't the dealership do something about it??? Anyways, without any luck I eventually left disappointed.
The following week After exhaustive attempt to solve the matter with Videotron to no avail, I found out that there was a store here in montreal called Service Absolute which is a samsung repair center that I could bring my phone to. I called them first to not waist more of my time and was than informed that yes they could help me but that it could take nearly a month before they would have any parts for this phone.
So after patiently waiting, I finally got a call back from them and droped off my phone the following day. I only had to wait two days before i got my phone back and thought that the turn around time was great! Only after few minutes of playing with it however, I noticed that the phone's new screen which now didn't have the oil spot was actually lifting from the housing about 1mm at the top of the phone and that the buttons were all still loose.
Its easy to imagine at this point how infuriated i was with all the time spent dealing with a phone that should of been right in the first place.. All the waiting, calling and runaround I got only to get a phone that was now even worst!! I could actually see inside my phone and behind the screen. Dust was starting to get inside the phone and under the camera lens and so on and I was really starting to freak out and was completly desperate to fix this issue asap to prevent things from getting worse and worse.
So I decided at this pont to take matters in my own hands and use my old trusty screwdriver to take this thing apart and get
To the bottom of the loose buttons and screen seperation.. I know! Scray [email protected]$ but it had to be done because at this point I needed a working phone for work and nobody seemed to help me. So after watching a few youtube videos, I unscrewed the screws at the back and gently seperated the phone from the metal frame with my fingers.
The whole assembly came out of the metal frame the same komd of way the old HTC phones used to. After doing so, the first thing i found out was that if your going scatch your phones metal frame which makes up most of the phone outer surfice, it's no big deal as it can be swapped out for around 40 to 50 bucks.
Next I noticed that all the buttons (volume and power) aren't adheared to the frame but only clipped in with a few pins stratigically placed. So its normal that they have play and wiggle. They're not gonna break and we're likely engineered to be this way. The wiggling is not really important as it won't affect anything on the phone's motherboard.
The next thing I noticed was that the glue between the inner midframe (the part that holds the motherboard to the screen assembly) also wasn't glued properly and was able to gently seperate it from the lcd/digitizer assembly without a heat gun or anything.. after doing so, the home button fell out and was simply dangling from its flex cable. It wasn't actually glued in place or held in with clips or anything. It's only connected to a flex cable on the left side of the button but thats it. I was easily able to pull it out and inspect it. It was built to be completely free floating between the midframe and the screen.
Which means that again, no need to worry about anything breaking as the home button is not a solidified part to start with and only in place where it is because of the space tolerence engeneered in the screen's home button whole. So it being slightly loose is normal and something that will eventually happen to all note 4's sooner or later. The slight looseness actually makes sense to me as any dust material that will get in between the home button wont get stuck as as much as if the space toleren was less. In my opinion, I thik that iPhones have less issues like this as the home button is part of the screen assembly and is also round.
In the end, I wasn't able to adhear the screen back in place as I didnt have double sided tape but manages to send it back to samsung and get it serviced again. I clearly asked them to fix it properly this time and it looks like they finally did and glued it back properly now.
This was a crazy experience and all I can tell you is that I definatly got an up close look of this phone and decided to keep it afterall as it's still better than a refurbished one and also because it's super easy to repair if anything ever broke on it.
Anyways i know this is a long post but I thought I'd share my experience with everyone and put some of your worries to rest.
Cheers!