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UPDATE: The phone is magically fixed!
Hey guys!
So i was at a party 2 nights ago, and I lost my S2. I finally found it in the morning, it had been outside all night, and then I realised that it had been raining heavily.
I took the battery, sim card and micro sd card out and placed the phone somewhere warm and let it dry for about a day and a half. I plugged it in earlier, and it started charging fine, and then I turned the phone on.
It booted up. The hardware buttons are working fine, and the touch buttons below the screen also work, but the screen is completely unresponsive
EDIT: Just as I posted this, i got signal, so only problem i can see is the touch-screen
Is there anything I can do, or is this phone screwed?
I cant remember if I have Vodafone's insurance or not, I'm praying to god I do :/
Put it in a bag of rice and let it dry out even more
Look this thread:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1128594
You'll find some tips that might be useful
danstah said:
Put it in a bag of rice and let it dry out even more
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Click to collapse
I was gonna say.... put it in rice. Should dry up faster
Had good result with silicate packets (the little bags in shoeboxes and many electrical goods) and rice. But let everything dry for days and don't reassemble - left my old PMP for 5 days after a toilet swim, still working. Smells great too. Honest.
Thanks for the replies guys. I've now put the phone in a bag of rice so I guess I just have to wait and see.
Lol keep us updated!
The problem could by the fact that the digitizer on capacitive screens are very sensitive, it sounds as if that may have been damaged.l I would think that the only thing you can do is to replace the touch screen, because it is gorilla glass and the fact the entire phone would need dismantling, If it isn't insured I would expect it wouldn't be cheap to get replaced. But you should be thankful that you entire phone didn't die, I mean you were quite lucky there. I broke my old hero by leaving it out side for 5-10 min whilst it was raining.
Bad news guys, its still not working.
Cant believe I let this happen, I need some trousers with tighter pockets for this damn phone! (and perhaps not carry it with me when I'm drinking haha)
Luckily its covered under my home insurance.
Do I get a new one or get it repaired?
Edit: Its also bloody ironic that I had just put a pattern unlock screen on my phone, so now I cant back up the contents because its locked! Is there any way to get round this? Or external ways to control the phone so I can get into it?
Cheers
There's insurance that covers phone water damage?
Hazlynch, you really need to keep it much, much longer than one day in the rice.
Trust me, apart from my aforementioned toilet episode, I've also lost phones and PMPs in the snow - all have worked again, but the shortest dessicating time was 3 days.
One day is simply not enough - not saying 100% it'll work after 5 days, but 100% certain it won't after one.
For the record, lost my Cowon S9 (OLED touchscreen) in a snowdrift - 5 days dessicating and worked - still going strong.
Ah right thanks for that info! From what I heard about the digitizer being sensitive I'm not very hopeful, but it wont harm to leave it in the rice longer.
I wasn't with my S9 either, but it surprised me, especially also being a touchscreen device too.
Remember to disassemble as much as you can from the phone - all cards and battery out but also in the box/bag - you need to expose as much surface area as possible of the device to the dessicant.
Try my silicate bag tip posted earlier too!
Let us know wha'ppen?
Ready to give it a try? How's it looking/feeling?
I managed to find some silica packets like you said so I put them in with the rice.
Just turned it on, but still no touchscreen responce
hazlynch said:
I managed to find some silica packets like you said so I put them in with the rice.
Just turned it on, but still no touchscreen responce
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Click to collapse
Shame - not optimistic.. A couple more days won't hurt if you have the patience!
Yeah, I wont be able to get anything done about the insurance stuff for a few days anyway, so I'll leave it in there for longer. Starting to miss it now! Haha.
Oh and thanks again for everyone's help on this!
My situation has taken an unexpected turn... Went into vodafone a couple of weeks ago and explained that the touchscreen had stopped working.
They tried to factory reset and do other things to fix it to no avail, so they sent it off to their repair centre to fix.
I received it back today, with a letter which stated that it was thoroughly tested and inspected, and that they found that the fault had been caused by water damage. They explained that water damage falls outside of the manufacturers warranty and they could not repair it.
They also sent a picture which helped to show the extent of the corrosion, which looked a bit nasty.
I turned on the phone anyway when i recieved it, and to my great surprise... it is working - apparently flawlessly.
So it is a happy ending - and has proved to me how badass this phone is
hazlynch said:
My situation has taken an unexpected turn... Went into vodafone a couple of weeks ago and explained that the touchscreen had stopped working.
They tried to factory reset and do other things to fix it to no avail, so they sent it off to their repair centre to fix.
I received it back today, with a letter which stated that it was thoroughly tested and inspected, and that they found that the fault had been caused by water damage. They explained that water damage falls outside of the manufacturers warranty and they could not repair it.
They also sent a picture which helped to show the extent of the corrosion, which looked a bit nasty.
I turned on the phone anyway when i recieved it, and to my great surprise... it is working - apparently flawlessly.
So it is a happy ending - and has proved to me how badass this phone is
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Click to collapse
This has me worried haha. My SGS2 has recently took a bit of a bath as well. The phone worked perfectly fine after sitting off overnight drying out. However after about 3 days it started random hang up and shut offs. I sent it in to a repair center a week ago and i am just hoping for the best. I dont have high hopes that they will replace it as it was water damage but i suppose its worth a shot for a $600 phone.
If they dont replace/repair it i will be taking it apart and cleaning it in hopes that i can make it work.
Here is my old sgs2 after a dip in the ocean. No insurance either. What you guys think?
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA Premium App
Hey guys, long time lurker, first time poster here...
Two days ago, the touch screen and home row buttons intermittently stopped working. I am not sure what triggers it, but the frequency has increased to where the phone is no longer usable from a practical standpoint . Usually turning off the screen and unlocking the phone remedies the problems for a few minutes.
I saw several posts that this may be related to rooting and dropping the phone. I am running stock ROM (never rooted), and I haven't dropped my phone in over a month. I was wondering if anybody has found a fix for this yet other than buying a new phone. I bought my phone used off of eBay over a year ago, so I do not think that it is under warranty.
I should also mention that I did a factory reset which has not helped.
It probably has ssomething to do with the screen getting grounded or not grounded. Like a loose connection or a short circuit. For a while I was having similar problem and found that messing with the little copper connectors on the back of the top half that are exposed when the keyboard is out fixed it. Unfortunatly it was short lived, one day my touchscreen went out completly and I had to take it to Sprint who replaced the whole top half of the Shift. Of course, I had TEP so it was no charge.
Hmm, assumming its just a error with calibration, in mikshifted-G and SS, there is a option to calibrate your screen, this may fix it. You'll need to be rooted for this though.
If its a hardware issue, then, your pretty screwed without a warrenty.
Sent from my Tapatalk Premium app I got for free thanks to getjar!!!
If you have TEP, it doesn't matter how long ago you bought it. Just take it in, they'll repair it no charge.
Thanks
Thanks for the ideas, but unfortunately tinkering with the copper and screen calibration did not help. I think I am just SOL.
Update: Sprint replaced the phone for $35
So I took the phone to Sprint to see what they could do. They opened the phone and tinkered around with something inside (which actually fixed the touchscreen problem but left the casing jacked up). When I asked what was actually wrong with the phone, they said that they did not know. However, they said that they needed to order a part for $35 to fix the screen. When I came back a couple days later, instead of installing a new part, they gave me a refurbished phone with a 30 day warranty.
Although it only carries a 30 day warranty, a refurbished replacement phone for $35 is a pretty solid deal (especially since I'm on contract without insurance or warranty). I hope this helps anyone with similar screen problems.
Glad to hear you got it sorted out. Especially for so cheap without Insurance. Nice
I've been using this phone for around 14 months now. I've always thought about how LG managed to build a phone like this and sell it for 300 bucks. Well two days ago I got the answer. The lower part of my screen just stopped functioning, thus disabling my buttons. I searched for this problem and found a MASSIVE thread on google support forums about this. Basically the lower part of the digitizer just goes full retard. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. And when it doesn't work it makes the entire phone lag (on a custom rom)(it doesn't work 95% of the time).
To fix this i tried to make the navbar slightly bigger, but that resulted in a growth of the defected part. And using PIE or button saviour is just a pain for me.
I made this thread to let people know that this problem exists. If the next Nexus phone is made by LG, I'm buying something else.
This is an open discussion, so anyone with a similar problem/fix can post.
I really dont know, what you guys actually do with your phones. I am using my nexus 4 for about 1 and a half year now, has been dropped twice with two scratches on the edges - no screen broken, no bootloop ever, no nothing. I can say of myself that I am not the friend of bumpers or screen protectors or any of those ugly things. I also flash a lot, try out a lot of apps - my nexus 4 has seen it all.
But not only the nexus 4, also my previous phones are fine and they still work (a nokia 5130 xpress music and a sony ericsson u10i). Thats why I thing a phone is just as good/stable/great as the user do. Of course there are a lot of issues out there but I think they dont appear from nowhere.
4 nexus 4's in the family most almost 2 years old......never a problem. This kind of crap reminds me of the " my back glass just exploded on its own" thread. Let's not make blanket statements.....digitizers on phones malfunction all the time....on all brands, probably due to your mistreatment.
I do not understand the point of blaming it on the user though. Yeah, many phones from different brand have digitizer issues. Yeah, digitizers fail. But if a lot (and I mean a lot) of users are complaining on the same exact issue there is a manufacturing problem for sure. And it's pretty clear that you did not bother checking the related thread at google's support forum, otherwise you would notice how many "mistreating", as you say, users are all having the same digitizer issues in exactly the same part of the screen. Now, does that mean that every nexus 4 sold will have the digitizer fail at some point or another? absolutely not. Maybe its' only one every 100, or even 1.000 or 10.000. Maybe it was a defect of a relatively small batch of screens (seems legit since the issue always occurs after a certain amount of months), that were sold in a period where you didn't buy the your four statistically (ir)relevant devices.
when will you guys understand that just because your phone does not have the issue, doesn't mean that NO phone has that issue??
(and even if it's not one but 5, 10 phones, how much relevance do you think it has compared to the hundreds of thousands of shipped devices?)
for what matters to the actual thread, anyway, I read LG replaces the defective devices under warranty without fuss. If the device is out of warranty, a diy repair is pretty easy to people savvy with tools.
Anyway, there is a couple threads here that talk about the issue:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/nexus-4/help/q-t2810588
http://forum.xda-developers.com/nexus-4/help/screen-touch-test-results-t2822075
This isn't the users' fault. Take a look at this: https://productforums.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/nexus/7SNIT8xPYzc
The repair costs in Sweden are so high, I might aswell get a new phone. I didn't even get this phone for 350$, LG sells it for 500$ in non-google play countries. And btw, half of my screen is not working now.
Or maybe you spent the last year keeping your phone in your pocket instead of a belt case and damaged it, or dropped it, or got water on it, or any of the other 10 million things that could damage an LCD/ digi. While I understand you have a problem and are looking for someone to blame....99% of these issues are due to physically caused damage and not defects. I have 2 teenagers.....I know how they treat their phones and I spend a lot of time repairing them after " I didn't do anything"
Same here
I'm having the exact same digitizer problem with my Nexus 4. First, a band of 8mm at the bottom of my screen became unresponsive, then a week later, the band grew to about 14mm.
I've had my N4 for 15 months. Bar two hairline cracks on the back panel (around the rear camera and speaker) my phone is mint. Barely a scratch on the digitizer front panel, and yet, it's failing. The weirdest part is, the otherwise lifeless zone at bottom of my screen occasionally springs into action with erratic ghost touches on my nav bar. I'm working around the problem at the moment, however, if the dead zone gets any higher, my phone will become unusable.
Reddit, YouTube and Google support are full of similar occurrences, and still not a peep from Google or LG.
My wife and I both have been using nexus 4 phones since it launched nearly two years ago. Hers started doing this 3 months ago and is practically unusable now. Mine started doing it last month and is getting worse too. I always thought of it as a great device and thought highly of LG's build quality but its hard to have those feelings now. Seems related to age + heat. Will be trying a different manufacturer next time since her phone has always been in a case and is flawless. Mine is banged up bad without a case but lasted longer.
Also my 16 monts old N4 two weeks ago after a run in hot humid weater followed by a very long phone call started to show problems at the bottom of the screen (no swipe up to activate Google Now) and in a couple of days all the lower portion of the touch became unresposive as clearly showed activating the pointer position under the developer options menu. Does anybody know exactly where is the problem? Digitizer connector, synaptics chip, cable? At present I'm trying to convince Google UK to issue an RMA in Italy where I'm now and would appreciate hints how to achieve that as it seems they offer RMA only to a country where the Nexus 4 was originally available on the local Play Store.
maulich said:
4 nexus 4's in the family most almost 2 years old......never a problem. This kind of crap reminds me of the " my back glass just exploded on its own" thread. Let's not make blanket statements.....digitizers on phones malfunction all the time....on all brands, probably due to your mistreatment.
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back glass does crack on some phones when there is sudden change in temperature ,it happened on xperia z as well dont be so naive , the probability of mistreatment has nothing to do with factory defects
My digitizer works fine until the batter gets to about 80% .... then the screen freaks out and the phone turns off.... fun stuff!
fahadsul3man said:
back glass does crack on some phones when there is sudden change in temperature ,it happened on xperia z as well dont be so naive , the probability of mistreatment has nothing to do with factory defects
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Ya right....ignorance......
This is actual real problem. My Nexus 4 works fine. But replaced the digitizer on my brother's after the bottom half died. Just go on eBay and buy the panel for around 50 bucks. About an hour of work
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk
repaired my screen
i replaced the screen after just 1yr 7 days. I live in India so phones available are quite cheap and the screen replacement cost was cost of an average smartphone but still i replaced it . I just want to know whether the replacement screen will have a digitizer problem after 1yr. I also had to replace the battery.
4 Screens replaced, the last 2 had bad digitizers?
I've replaced cracked screens 4 times now... the 3rd developed issues with the touchscreen going unresponsive every once in a while (I would tear down the phone again and again and finally the touchscreen would inexplicably begin working again.) I Finally cracked that one and now the new one has the same issue. I installed the new screen/digitizer, again with some difficulty , After a few reboots for whatever reason, suddenly unresponsive. Reboot 4 more times and it's back. Initially I'd thought I just bought a bad replacement screen but two in a row is pointing me towards .. well, something else...
Looking closely at the new component I'm a bit concerned as the text on the ribbon cable from the digitizer is labeled "Snaptics" rather than "Synaptics" though the chip itself is labeled correctly...
Sigh...
In any event, I was hoping someone could possibly shed some light onto this. 4 screens later I'm a bit sentimental and would hate to have to retire my N4.
I almost replaced my screen assembly because I had the dreaded dead band in the middle of my screen. It was present in TWRP so I figured the digitizer was bad. Then I started to get screen jitters and ghost touches. I tried wiping everything, new ROM's, etc. I final flashed the last PA KitKat beta and the 4.4 Gapps. Problem solved. I re-flashed the PA 5.0.2 Alpha 2 and there are no problems anymore. I was convinced it was a hardware problem because the problem mirrored every N4 digitizer problem thread that I saw.
Exactly like this, I was just enjoying some Fallout Shelter, then the screen just turned bright, like washed out.
Then BAM! Prince Purple Rain memento right there!
https://youtu.be/VA8CGoEKZrY
I've read around that people experiencing this problem, their phones died a couple of days later,
gotta get rid of all my files
Have you fixed your phone yet dude?
I had the same issue, took it to Samsung and they replaced it.
I seen your post on Reddit. I would definately suggest you take that to Samsung. They'll replace it under warranty.
That's not normal mate, get it replaced pronto!
Damn it, mine just started this crap. No stores here, I hope they mail you one first.
--edit--
Wow, I have to make this piece of crap back to them. 10 business day turn around. Samsung doesn't take care of you.
--more edit--
The screen went out 2 hours after noticing the issue for the first time.
--edits strike back--
Just keeping up with this incase another comes across the problem. I just got an email stating the part to fix it is on back order. So this must be a common issue.
Yep, common problem. Happened to me too. Sent it under warranty, they replaced the screen. When I got it back, the screen was damaged from within. Sent it back, they replaced the screen. When I got it the second time, there was a dead pixel in the center of the screen. Sent it back, obviously. Still waiting for it.
Hi, just getting this out of the depths of the board,
My phone also started to do this, like 6 or 7 weeks ago. I couldn't get it replaced because I was off to go abroad for two months but I will send it in once I return. I'm still well in the two years of warranty so that isn't a problem to get it replaced after.
My screen didn't die though. It works fine and if you use the app Screen Adjuster Free and turn all sliders up by +5, the problem is gone except when the phone is very hot.
What I find VERY odd is that I only see those smudges in bright light. e.g. direct sunlight, or a LED lenser. And what makes it more odd is that, once I block the light with my hand for example, the smudges are gone. I can have a HUGE smudge all over the screen and when I block the light with my finger, literally only that area where the "shadow" of the finger would be goes normal again. It's like the LED crystals react to bright light and cause this.
Let me show you what I mean.
That is some weird ass malfunction.
I have KNOX triggered though so I hope they'll replace it anyway. No experience with Samsung warranty handling so far.
So water got on my mtxp ..probably got under the screen..hour after the colors would fade when screen unlock and lines shown..now phone responds to power off and on..sound works but screen stays black. ..think I need a new screen or software related?..anybody have the same issue?
Doubt it is software related if it happened out of the blue like that unless you were flashing or modding something. Minor water damage can be kind of a slow moving thing. You might not see all the problems you're going to have just yet.
My wife left a phone laying face down in a thin film of water once; not submerged, it was actually just from a really heavy dew. Probably for about 30 minutes or less. When I found it I turned it off immediately and threw it in a bag of rice. The next day it powered up ok, but had some discoloration in part of the screen. Over the course of the next few weeks the "stain" spread around most of the screen. The "stain" actually got to where it was almost so uniform you couldn't see it anymore. It was an old phone anyway so she replaced it. We gave it to one of the kids to play with. Within the next few weeks it started having random reboots, and by about two months after the water exposure the battery wouldn't hold more than about 5 minutes charge. I'm pretty sure it was all related to the initial water damage, because it had zero issues to start with.
Not trying to discourage you, but just use caution with how much you want to invest fixing an unknown. It would suck to replace the screen, then have the motherboard or the battery turn goofy. The MXP sells pretty cheap lightly used and even new these days, or maybe you deserve an upgrade for the Holidays.
jason2678 said:
Doubt it is software related if it happened out of the blue like that unless you were flashing or modding something. Minor water damage can be kind of a slow moving thing. You might not see all the problems you're going to have just yet.
My wife left a phone laying face down in a thin film of water once; not submerged, it was actually just from a really heavy dew. Probably for about 30 minutes or less. When I found it I turned it off immediately and threw it in a bag of rice. The next day it powered up ok, but had some discoloration in part of the screen. Over the course of the next few weeks the "stain" spread around most of the screen. The "stain" actually got to where it was almost so uniform you couldn't see it anymore. It was an old phone anyway so she replaced it. We gave it to one of the kids to play with. Within the next few weeks it started having random reboots, and by about two months after the water exposure the battery wouldn't hold more than about 5 minutes charge. I'm pretty sure it was all related to the initial water damage, because it had zero issues to start with.
Not trying to discourage you, but just use caution with how much you want to invest fixing an unknown. It would suck to replace the screen, then have the motherboard or the battery turn goofy. The MXP sells pretty cheap lightly used and even new these days, or maybe you deserve an upgrade for the Holidays.
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Well already ordered a screen ..just tryna get some more life out of it..btw the screen acted the same way your wife mtxp reacted