Database Users

Crazy Tytn screen and button problem, please help

Hi all, this is my first post on this forum but I've been reading for a while to educate myself.
I've got a Herm200 that I've been trying to troubleshoot but to no avail. I'm fairly certain that it has a hardware problem but I haven't been able to isolate anything.
Here's whats happening:
Occasionally the screen will come out of stand-by all white. This will also happen randomly if i touch the screen to perform a command. While the screen is operating, sometimes the buttons on the face will stop working, however the buttons across both sides will continue working just fine.
When the screen turns all white a soft, hard, or stand-by cycle will not always bring it back to life. The fact that the hard reset wont always fix the problem makes me think it's a hardware issue since the phone will boot-up with the the all-white screen.
This is incredibly frustrating especially since HTC wont accept any warranty claims in the USA on the Tytn.
At first I thought this might be a problem with the ribon connection between the screen and the base but i haven't been able to confirm or discount anything at this point. I have yet to find a way to consistently reproduce or rectify the problem so it's very hard to troubleshoot.
I pretty much have to take a second phone with me everywhere right now just incase i need to make a call. Please help! Has anyone ever encountered such a problem?
Thank you in advance!

SneezyRobot said:
Occasionally the screen will come out of stand-by all white. This will also happen randomly if i touch the screen to perform a command. While the screen is operating, sometimes the buttons on the face will stop working, however the buttons across both sides will continue working just fine.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi. This sounds very similar to a problem that I experienced with a HERMES100. I bought the phone off someone on Ebay recently - someone had obviously scrambled the radio on it. I re-flashed it, and it sprang to life. However, after a couple of days, I experienced a problem where occasionally the LCD would stop refreshing, all the pixels faded away leaving only a white screen. Under these circumstances, some of the buttons on the phone stopped working. Turning phone on/off sometimes cured the problem, or it would require the occasional hard reset. This would happen once or twice a day and I suspect thats why someone tried to re-flash the phone.
In the end, out of curiosity I took the entire phone apart, put it all back together again and now there are no more problems!! Totally fixed!
My suspicion is that it was one of the ribbon cable push connectors on the mainboard - possibly not seated properly, or a bit of dirt contaminating the connection. Obviously when I took the phone apart I must have re-seated it.
If you are planning to take your phone apart, please exercise considerable care because some of the parts are very small and easily damaged. I would recommend buying a proper kit to take it apart. I bought mine for about £5 off ebay. Particularly useful are the plastic spoon "wedges" used to gently prise open the case after removing the screens. Don't use a screwdriver - you will scratch the case.
Good luck.

wow... that sounds like exactly what's going on here, I actually even tried to disassemble it lastnight but didnt have the right driver set. thank you for the advice!
I'll look for one of those sets but what would you search for if i needed to find it?

Thanks again, I just got a set off of Ebay. Hopefully it'll be here next week
With any luck it'll be a connection issue.

I have had the exact same problem. Because I got the Tytn through work I made our IT department handle the issue and I am currently waiting for a replacement and to find out what happened.

Yep, it looks like the problems the OP is having are very similar to the problems we've been having over in this thread:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=291027
I'm beginning to think it's a hardware problem as well but not entirely sure.
People in the above thread mentioned that using the scroll wheel a while then moving back to use the D pad fixed the problem (very briefly in my case.) Once I use the center D pad button again it locks the hardware buttons under the screen until I make my device sleep and resume.
Somtimes rather than making all the front hardware buttons unresponsive the issue is that once I use the Down Dpad button I can't use the up button. Pressing up will make it go down, as will pressing down (at least that's working ).
Regarding the white screen - this sometimes also occurs. I can force it to white screen by putting a little pressure on the silver panel surrounding the top, right and bottom of the screen (I have an imate jasjam). Randomly when there's no pressure on the rim and I wake it out of standby, it has a white screen that can only be fixed by turning the screen off and on again.
Finally, the LED indicator seems screwy. Sometimes it never flashes. Other times it flashes sporadically (uneven intervals - we're talking maybe a minute between one flash then seconds before another). When I charge it sometimes the LED doesn't come on but nevertheless it charges. Sometimes if the LED is on it never turns green to indicate a full charge. Yet other times it comes on orange, turns green, then never switches off!
Is it possible that
a) The hardware button problems.
b) The white screen problem.
c) The LED problem.
are all related to some kind of connection going loose? Why would the hardware button problem be temporarily fixable with use of the scroll wheel if this were the case?
The other thread has fallen silent. I'm hoping that some of the gurus in here can offer some input here, even if they don't know the answer but can formulate an opinion. I know very little about these devices.
Thanks in advance guys!
PS - don't really know if I should start another thread, I've posted here as it seems like very much the same issue.

Anybody any idea? advice?

I had a similar problem with my HERM100. I didn't mess around with it too much, I just had Cingular replace it out of warranty exchange (thank god those original ROMs are on the wiki ). I did notice however that after doing a master reset, the screen would function again although I haven't messed around with it too much. I got so frustrated with removing the battery for 5 minutes and STILL powering on with a white screen that I just threw it in my back seat until the new one arrived.

I don't have these screen issues. I only have hardware button problems. It's so damn frustrating! I already own a replacement.
I just received a call from my girlfriend. I wasn't able to answer the phone with the buttons, only with a screentap. I also wasn't able to close the call with the hardware button. Since the side buttons work, I went to settings -> phone, closed it, and there we go. The hardware buttons worked again.
Why the heck is this? I truly hope for some wizz out there with some advice, since HTC would only tell me to send it back after replacing it with a new TyTN with same issues.
Regards,
DM.

Anyone anyone?

HELP!!!!
barncourt said:
Hi. This sounds very similar to a problem that I experienced with a HERMES100. I bought the phone off someone on Ebay recently - someone had obviously scrambled the radio on it. I re-flashed it, and it sprang to life. However, after a couple of days, I experienced a problem where occasionally the LCD would stop refreshing, all the pixels faded away leaving only a white screen. Under these circumstances, some of the buttons on the phone stopped working. Turning phone on/off sometimes cured the problem, or it would require the occasional hard reset. This would happen once or twice a day and I suspect thats why someone tried to re-flash the phone.
In the end, out of curiosity I took the entire phone apart, put it all back together again and now there are no more problems!! Totally fixed!
My suspicion is that it was one of the ribbon cable push connectors on the mainboard - possibly not seated properly, or a bit of dirt contaminating the connection. Obviously when I took the phone apart I must have re-seated it.
If you are planning to take your phone apart, please exercise considerable care because some of the parts are very small and easily damaged. I would recommend buying a proper kit to take it apart. I bought mine for about £5 off ebay. Particularly useful are the plastic spoon "wedges" used to gently prise open the case after removing the screens. Don't use a screwdriver - you will scratch the case.
Good luck.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is my first post as I've so far managed to cure all my issues from just reading the forum. However, I am now having a similar problem with the white screen.
I have a cingular 8525. It fell and the following day the call and end buttons remained lit and wouldn't turn off and they also wouldn't work.
I soft reset, nothing, I then removed the battery and when I turned it back on, there was a white screen and the buttons below still don't work.
I have read the other posts on this issue, but I need help on exactly what kit to buy to reconnect the screen cable and instructions on how to do it as I've never taken apart a phone before, although I have dabbled with other electronic devices.
Your help would be much appreciated, as I am in Jamaica and there are no technicians here who I trust to help.
Thanks in advance.
Below are links to 2 kits I'm thinking of getting. Is either one better than the other?
http://www.pdasmart.com/pdaphonehtcmini.htm?gclid=CJrHntO-hosCFQx1VAodaQf6KQ
http://cgi.ebay.com/SCREWDRIVERS-TO...01677255QQcategoryZ108648QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

CINGULAR IN JA said:
This is my first post as I've so far managed to cure all my issues from just reading the forum. However, I am now having a similar problem with the white screen.
I have a cingular 8525. It fell and the following day the call and end buttons remained lit and wouldn't turn off and they also wouldn't work.
I soft reset, nothing, I then removed the battery and when I turned it back on, there was a white screen and the buttons below still don't work.
I have read the other posts on this issue, but I need help on exactly what kit to buy to reconnect the screen cable and instructions on how to do it as I've never taken apart a phone before, although I have dabbled with other electronic devices.
Your help would be much appreciated, as I am in Jamaica and there are no technicians here who I trust to help.
Thanks in advance.
Below are links to 2 kits I'm thinking of getting. Is either one better than the other?
http://www.pdasmart.com/pdaphonehtcmini.htm?gclid=CJrHntO-hosCFQx1VAodaQf6KQ
http://cgi.ebay.com/SCREWDRIVERS-TO...01677255QQcategoryZ108648QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Both kits look ok. PDA one tells you a little more but the basics appear to be in both.
I'm curious though you soft reset and took the battery out, but have you done a HARD reset? I would always try this first before dismantling.
Mike

In my case, they also are always lit up when the screen is also active.
And no matter what ROM version, they occasionally stop responding. Side buttons keep working.

mikechannon said:
Both kits look ok. PDA one tells you a little more but the basics appear to be in both.
I'm curious though you soft reset and took the battery out, but have you done a HARD reset? I would always try this first before dismantling.
Mike
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the response.
I couldn't do a hard reset because the buttons weren't working.
I have made some progress with the phone now. Found a tech guy who looked at it for me. The white screen is gone, but the buttons still stop working from time to time.
All the connections seem ok.
Is there anything else that could cause the buttons to malfunction?

CINGULAR IN JA said:
Thanks for the response.
I couldn't do a hard reset because the buttons weren't working.
I have made some progress with the phone now. Found a tech guy who looked at it for me. The white screen is gone, but the buttons still stop working from time to time.
All the connections seem ok.
Is there anything else that could cause the buttons to malfunction?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nothing obvious.
Have you got applications installed that you have loaded - could be one thats playing up.
Have you now been able to do a hard reset?
If taking device apart and reassembling improved things it does suggest hardware though and might be worth double checking all those multi-connector blocks for good connections - i.e. take them out and in a few times to ensure any oxidation on contacts is removed.
Mike

mikechannon said:
Nothing obvious.
Have you got applications installed that you have loaded - could be one thats playing up.
Have you now been able to do a hard reset?
If taking device apart and reassembling improved things it does suggest hardware though and might be worth double checking all those multi-connector blocks for good connections - i.e. take them out and in a few times to ensure any oxidation on contacts is removed.
Mike
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks Mike.
I will give that a shot.
I haven't installed any new applications recently, so I don't think it is a software issue.
Thanks again.

CINGULAR IN JA said:
Thanks Mike.
I will give that a shot.
I haven't installed any new applications recently, so I don't think it is a software issue.
Thanks again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If it wouldn't be a software issue, why is it, in my case, instantly resolved when going to settings -> phone with the side buttons?

i had this problem i took it to a guy who fixed the problem he said it was a very small tear in the flex cable which causes this white screen every now ant then and the buton problem , sorry to say its the cable problem and u need a very capable person to fix it or replace it with a new one . its very common problem baised on the guy who fixed it .

dmxl said:
I don't have these screen issues. I only have hardware button problems. It's so damn frustrating! I already own a replacement.
I just received a call from my girlfriend. I wasn't able to answer the phone with the buttons, only with a screentap. I also wasn't able to close the call with the hardware button. Since the side buttons work, I went to settings -> phone, closed it, and there we go. The hardware buttons worked again.
Why the heck is this? I truly hope for some wizz out there with some advice, since HTC would only tell me to send it back after replacing it with a new TyTN with same issues.
Regards,
DM.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Exactly what is happening to me, no white screen issues, just screen taps and answering calls, I also have another problem where the PDA will not allow me to open anything, be it the start menu or contacts, it will open and quickly close again. I have had mine swapped through Telstra in Sydney, it worked fine for a while and then the same crap again. These problems started before I even touched the OS, so it must be a build problem. Maybe we should write a joint letter to HTC letting them know that there is a serious problem with their machine.

I have had the same problem, got my Tytn through work so we sent it back to the company that supplied it to us. Got it back yesterday and they had replaced the "switchboard". Not sure what it is but there was the problem. Had white screen and buttons not working.

Lets say I want to stop my phone from turning off..

Lets say I am sick and tired of my 8525 turning off on it's on randomly during the day and I have loaded 10 different roms all the way back to the stock one, I have ran it with NO aftermarket programs, I have replaced the battery, and I have added support to the sim card to make sure it isn't losing contact and still the phone turns off randomly on it's on.
Sometimes I have noticed that it will turn itself off if I slide the keyboard out (maybe 3 times out of 100 turn offs), but 97% of the time it will do it on it's on sitting on the desk untouched.
If I was going to take my phone apart, is there any ideas or general consensus to what parts might be causing the phone to turn itself off? Should I get a new sim card maybe?
Really sick and tired of my buddy with an Iphone throwing this bug in my face telling me what crap HTC is as well as missing calls.

If the phone is turning all the way off, over and over, then send it in for a replacement. If you mean the screen is just turing off after a certain amount of time, you can adjust that under: "Settings->System (tab)->Power->Advanced->then uncheck Turn off device if not used for x minutes. See if that helps, or maybe its just ur phone and you need a replacement. I sent mine in to ATT and got one back after my screen stopped turning on"white screen of death", heh. So it could just be a hardware issue that you cannot really solve urself...

The phone is turning all the way off on it's on. I have to boot it back up like I had just installed a battery or something.
I am out of warranty and do not want to pay for a refurbished phone since this is my third phone from them during the warranty already (and this ones been the best till now). I would rather someone tell me the board/part and I take it apart and fix it myself. I have the tools, the instruction manual in PDF someone posted a while back, a website with almost every internal part for sale, and experience taking small devices apart (ipods and such) and replacing items, I just want to know if anyone knew of which part could most likely be the part causing something like this before I start replacing things blindly. I plan to go ahead and take it apart and check ribbon cables since I want to replace the whole housing anyway.

Unfortunately, my D900 has the same problem with yours, it turned off when i just sending messages or just touching the screen, and my replacement battery is already on the flight, when i get it, i will test it again. Hopeful, i can get a sweat result~~

Mine doesn't seem to do it when it is in use. I have had to get in the habbit of looking at the LED on the phone to make sure it is still turned on. Gets real annoying trying to say the Iphone isn't all that people think, but then have this little problem and the fact I am on my third HTC product in the year time frame. But the others died within 30 days, this one has lasted 10 months thats why I want to keep it.

Well I think I figured it out. I took it apart and it looks like the black box that has the battery connectors to it and is soldered to the main board has broken loose. I am trying to fix it, but does anyone know how much the main board is if I need to replace it?

Pleae help, Ive broken my hermes!!!

I was removing the back cover, as I had to remove a broken stylus from its clot.. I successfully removed the 3 screws, and was able to prize open the case, and push the stylus out...
However, I put it all back together and now it doesnt work!! I get the red light on to charge when I insert power, but I cant turn it on...
I did notice that somehow, the contacts for the battery seem lose, and I dont know how to fix them...
How do you remove the whole of the back??
Anyone help, or suggest what I may have done??
Thanks

I think it is truly dead.. the plastic thing with battery contacts has come off completely... now how the hell do I fix that!!!!

Think I may be able to fix it, as if i hold it in place over the contacts on the board, i managed to get it to boot... so i just need to find away to fix it to the board....
Fingers crossed

DocSoton said:
Think I may be able to fix it, as if i hold it in place over the contacts on the board, i managed to get it to boot... so i just need to find away to fix it to the board....
Fingers crossed
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Better news than I expected to hear. Are the contacts broken above board level? If so a fix may well be possible by re-soldering the contacts. This could be tricky in as much as it may be difficult to prevent heat transfer down the wire into the board. I had assumed they had been wrenched out below the board surface. If you just glue the connector housing withe contacts in place you might be lucky and find it reliable. However I would worry that with every knock or jolt you.ll find the pone will turn of and you'll have to keep re-starting it.
Mike

See attached, not great quality, but you can see the contacts...
What on earth do I use to stick it back on???

DocSoton said:
See attached, not great quality, but you can see the contacts...
What on earth do I use to stick it back on???
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
From that it appears to have snapped through the soldered joints without any real damage. If that's the case then it is fixable. The last example we saw of this on the forum the contacts broken inside the board, but it looks like you are lucky.
Mike

From your comments, it sounds like you don't have any experience with soldering. I would look for an electronics repair shop, or find a friend that has experience soldering.
If you can't find that you may only have the option of selling it somewhat cheap. I do my own soldering, so I don't know what direction to try to point you for that. Hopefully this will help you getting your hermes back up and running.

Thanks for all your help.. lukily the old man is a sparky.. so Im sending it up to him to have a go, if not him, then his mates and electronics whiz.. so hopefully I should get it back all sorted.
Cheers

Its been a while since I started this post... just not got around to getting it sorted until recently...
Now, does anyone know what the different contacts do?? We have partial success with resoldering the contacts, the device now turns on, when on power, but it is not charging the battery.. I can only assume the contact(s) responsible for charging the battery may have a poor solder...
The battery says 100%, but when I remove power, it turns off after a very short while...
Can anyone help..?? Its come along way since I originally broke the device, and I wasnt sure if it would ever work again.. but I seem to be so close to breathing life back into the phone, and am sure we only need to resolder a couple of the contacts.... Would be handy to find out what all the contacts actually do...

The battery may have gone bung, especially as its 6 months later that this problems started. If it started right away I'd say it could be the contacts but if it has only just reared its head I'd say that the battery needs replacing. If you can get your hands on a spare, they are fairly cheap through ebay (less than $10), then you can check if it is the battery.
Cheers...

I already had a spare battery.. I get the same on both...
After powering on, the light goes amber for a couple of mins, suggesting it is charging, then goes green.. show 100% charged.. but dies after a few mins...
If the power is not connected, phone wont even turn on... I can only assume neither of the batteries is being charged...
I did read somewhere, although cant remember, that one of the contacts is responsible for charging.. would be good to know what the contacts do...
Thanks

Best idea would be to go to Mike Channons site. He is the guru of all things HTC. At the very least you could pm him but I haven't really seen him hanging around the Hermes site for a while. The link to his site is in his sig.
Cheers...

have no signal, after i pulled the phone appart

hi there,
this is probably the stupidest thing ive done in my life, but maybe, just maybe someone has a solution.
i was pulling my htc pharos appart, because i recently bought a new lcd screen and phone housing and was going to put it all back together. anyway i figured that this huge black sticker allong the back was probably covering up some screws, so i went ahead and ripped it off.
next time i turned the phone off i had no signal, so from what i can gather its actualy the phone radios aerial that i pulled off (smacks self on the forehead again)
so what im asking is, does anyone know of ways to fix this? (i know its a stupid quesion, and my phone is proably scrap now, but im really hoping theres something that i can do to save it.)
thank you so much,
kirk

HELP> Flashed Desire Rom, now screen wont light up

I have a serious problem. I noticed a bug in the Desire alphas where sometimes when the backlight went off during a call it would not come back on when the i took the phone away from my face. It always came back on eventually.
Ok now yesterday I flash alpha 8 and it worked fine. Now all of a sudden I reboot my phone bc the battery dies and the backlight won't come on at all! I know the phone is on because the haptic feedback and cap buttons are on and if I leave it on I can tell it's getting notifications.
How am I supposed to fix this?! I can't even see anything to get into recovery! My phone is unusable.

Find out every step to do a backup in recovery... see if that works

BlackHawk6 said:
Find out every step to do a backup in recovery... see if that works
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Load into bootloader
Press power button once and wait about 20 seconds
press volume down once then hit power button once
Wait about a minute and move the trackball down slowly 3 time and press it
Scroll it down once and press it four times

trevorwhopkins said:
I have a serious problem. I noticed a bug in the Desire alphas where sometimes when the backlight went off during a call it would not come back on when the i took the phone away from my face. It always came back on eventually.
Ok now yesterday I flash alpha 8 and it worked fine. Now all of a sudden I reboot my phone bc the battery dies and the backlight won't come on at all! I know the phone is on because the haptic feedback and cap buttons are on and if I leave it on I can tell it's getting notifications.
How am I supposed to fix this?! I can't even see anything to get into recovery! My phone is unusable.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Unless your screen is broken you can always boot into recovery.
Take out the battery, then put it back in.
Hold the trackball down as you power on, this will boot you into fast boot.
Select bootloader, then select recovery. and bam your in recovery and can reflash.

I can get my phone into recovery. When I adb in i can push the phone into recovery, then when i hit adb devices it shows my phone and says recovery.
the problem is the backlight is not on even when i am in recovery. i would say the screen broke, but it seemed like a software problem, because it was just slow to come back on. It still always came back on. then I left it in my car chargine and it never came on again. The phone seems to be working fine though.

Kind of off topic, but did your call screen do this before flashing to Desire at all? Did you recently install a screen protector? I had problems with the PhantomSkinz screen protector making the proximity sensor less sensitive and behaved exactly how you're describing...as soon as I took it off it started working again. I'm now using a dcmugen88 screen protector and it works great.

interesting. i have one of those bodyglove or whatever protectors. best buy glued it onto my lcd. i suppose it could have started around that time. but would the proximity sensor still be deactivating the lcd even when its booting up or in recovery?

Oh, I must have overlooked that. The screen protector wouldn't cause any issues on startup or in recovery... guess it must be the rom then.

well, figured it out.
warning to n1 users: watch that lcd screen under the glass. its not nearly as sturdy as the glass cover.
the lcd/digitizer screen under my glass got cracked and stopped working. no drop, no warning, no funny colors. htc does not cover this in the warranty no matter how good the actual phones condition is.
i almost didnt get another n1, a phone thats inherantly weak (i found dozens of similar reports over the web) is not exactly a good case for a system with no insurance, no store to walk into, and very unhelpful support. they try to be very nice, but the rep i talked to couldnt even tell me whats covered and not. he just said let us charge 500 bucks to your card and we will ship a replacement, then decide if we think you have to buy it once we get your old phone. i demanded to talk to someone who did know. his manager denied hearing about lcd screen problems... after the original rep said he and htc knew this was a common problem. google didnt even return my email when i first contacted them saying my backlight was broken.
so again, be careful and get a good case.

trevorwhopkins said:
well, figured it out.
warning to n1 users: watch that lcd screen under the glass. its not nearly as sturdy as the glass cover.
the lcd/digitizer screen under my glass got cracked and stopped working. no drop, no warning, no funny colors. htc does not cover this in the warranty no matter how good the actual phones condition is.
i almost didnt get another n1, a phone thats inherantly weak (i found dozens of similar reports over the web) is not exactly a good case for a system with no insurance, no store to walk into, and very unhelpful support. they try to be very nice, but the rep i talked to couldnt even tell me whats covered and not. he just said let us charge 500 bucks to your card and we will ship a replacement, then decide if we think you have to buy it once we get your old phone. i demanded to talk to someone who did know. his manager denied hearing about lcd screen problems... after the original rep said he and htc knew this was a common problem. google didnt even return my email when i first contacted them saying my backlight was broken.
so again, be careful and get a good case.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ive got 5 bux that says the power connector to your lcd came lose so now the screen just doesnt turn on ... i have heard this issue before... send it in and get it fixed if its going to cost you then tell them to **** off and send their phone they just sent you back

Whatever rom you are running ask the developer of rom in his thread. That's where you will get the best information and help.