Database Users

HOWTO: Replace digitizer

I'm writing this up because someone else might like to benefit from my experiences with doing this repair.
Get your tools together: Multimeter, Torx T5, jeweler's Phillips (size 00), 15w soldering pencil, a bit of flux, some thin (I used 0.38mm 63/57% tin/lead) solder, and a clean place to work. You may want to grab a small ice cube tray or something similar with compartments to toss the screws in so you remember where they go. I highly suggest you get Kapton (3M) tape but you could use cellophane tape or a cut piece of packing tape. I had Kapton on hand so that's what I went with. You also need to either make sure the seller provides the double-stick tape gasket that binds the digitizer to the LCD shield or that you managed to salvage the one that secured the old digitizer. I was lucky and it came off the glass and stayed on the metal.
First of all, I've always had horrible problems with alignment with my Vario. The top of the screen was usually fine but the bottom would start drifting up. Cleaning the crap out of the edges under the bezel with a business card or doing the thumb rub was fine for that particular session but when I would sleep it and put it in my pocket, it was screwed up the next time. Dropping my Vario on the floor has managed to create a triangular dead zone that peaks at 1/2" from the bottom center and degrades towards the bottom left and right corners.
I bought a digitizer on Ebay from a seller in Hong Kong. It arrived about two weeks later and came with a T8 Torx and a case cracking tool. The T8 was thrown aside because it's obviously the wrong tool so I used my T5 and cracked the case. I won't get into disassembly/reassembly because that isn't the object of this and you can google the directions. Suffice it to say, when you reassemble the back half, ensure the volume slider on the case isn't going to snap the tab off of the volume switch on the board like I did the last time I disassembled it.
A note on this particular digitizer - It's NOT a HTC brand part. It's a generic part and doesn't have the glossy top sheet. I paid $20 shipped and for $20 it ain't bad. There is slightly less light transmitted and it's harder to read outdoors in direct sun but no big deal - it hasn't had to be realigned yet.
Now that you've removed the back cover, lifted out the board, unscrewed the LCD slider from the front cover, disassembled the two halves of the LCD slider, removed the screws that secure the top and bottom button pads to the LCD top frame and lifted out the LCD/button assembly and it's sitting in front of you - lets get to work!
First of all, you need to commit to this before you start making irreversible changes. If you've never soldered before, put this thing back together or find someone who has. You don't need a SMT station or the ability to solder 0605 components but since you're soldering on the plastic ribbon carrier, you need to be sure of your skills in order to not trash the LCD ribbon.
Now that you're ready to do this, examine the LCD panel and you will see that the digitizer is attached to the frame of the LCD panel. Use thin blade like a single edged razor to slide between the glass panel and the metal case and start lifting up the glass panel. If you're lucky, it'll want to stick to the metal case. As you lift the glass, poke in some tooth picks or similar to keep the glass from seating again. Start at a corner and work around going SLOWLY. I got to the bottom, rushed, and smashed the old part causing glass dust to go everywhere!. Try to avoid that.
Now that the old panel is off, cut the ribbon cable going from the base of the digitizer to the back of the LCD. Just slice it in half to get the old part out of the way.
At this point, align the new digitizer at the top of the frame first and then gently press it down. Ensure that ONLY the back's protective plastic sheet has been removed to avoid smudges and scratches. Now place the unit face down on something like a mousepad or similar surface.
There is a piece of Kapton tape across the digitizer ribbon and the backlight ribbon. Peel from the side with the digitizer FIRST! I started pulling from the backlight cable side and damn near pulled the backlight ribbon off!
GENTLY GENTLY GENTLY peel the old ribbon cable from the digitizer DOWN and ensure that it isn't ripping the pads away from the LCD cable. There may be a better way to do this but this method worked for me, I grabbed a corner with needle nose pliers and slowly pulled at a 45 degree angle. You want to pull the top which is the side soldered to the ribbon, not the bottom, which you cut earlier.
Plug that soldering pencil in, make sure it's set to 15w.
Now, with my el-cheapo digitizer, the ribbon from the front was slightly misaligned and I had to angle it over to the right. Otherwise if I went straight up it would've been misaligned about 2mm to the left. Ensure you have the traces parallel and directly on top of the existing ones and tape the bottom of the cable so it stays put. Another thing with my digitizer was the end required trimming. This made it easy to position when I had it bent back.
Now that the bottom is aligned and you don't have to mess with it, bend the cable back so that the copper traces are now facing up. The bend should be at the bottom 3rd of the exposed traces on the LCD cable. Make a nice sharp fold on the cable. Swab on a little bit of flux to make things easier to manage. Grab a popsicle stick or similar to push the new ribbon to the LCD ribbon, get the solder ready, and try to keep the heat on very shortly. You should only need 3 seconds of heat to get a decent solder joint because there is almost zero copper to heat up. Ensure the first joint is good by a quick tug of the cable and do the next three. After they are done, test with the meter going across to ensure the joint is good and from one side to each neighbor to make sure you have no shorts. Do the next three and then cut the extra ribbon cable off leaving maybe 1/4". Grab your tape and put a nice big piece across the back of the LCD covering both ribbon cables just like it was.
Now, reassemble your phone, turn it on, align the screen, and you ought to be good to go.
I don't take any responsibility for anything you might do to screw up your phone. These were my steps to fix my phone and they may not work for you and your phone.
As an aside, the new matte screen doesn't accumulate 'face gunk' quite like the old glossy one did. Also, the sensitivity is down a tiny bit and it needs more finger pressure to use Slide2Unlock. The digitizer also gets Newtonian Rings (google it) whereas the OEM one didn't. Also, there is a faint hum from the backlight (?) when it's on now that I didn't notice before.
So far, so good... The alignment on the bottom right corner is about 1.25mm above where the stylus point is but that might just be a problem with the screen itself. The alignment has stayed rock steady since I aligned it yesterday morning.

[Q] Broken LCD screen :(

Hey im panicing so bad rite now. I just broke my htc's LCD screen ! Mad sad from this disaster . Dont got much money so can someone please tell me whats the cheapest or best way to replace or fix it ? I really need help because im freaking out!

The repair choices
There are basically two choices. Doing it yourself or having it repaired.
In either case the most straight forward is to replace the screen and digitizer as one unit. I expect you can still see things on the screen yet its cracked from one corner. Its the digitizer on the top that usually suffers but its hard to replace by itself. There is a YouTube video showing how to do this (search on Replace Touch Screen on HTC HD2 on YouTube).
If you are game to do it yourself (an electronics tech would be able to do it fairly well, though it is still fairly difficult) then you can buy a complete screen and digitizer off ebay (around $100). Getting the unit out of the case is tricky as its held in with 4xT5 Torx screws (easy bit) and lock notches around the case (tricky part). I found thin stiff plastic bits slotted in between the module and the case works well at releasing the locking notches. Then press out at the top of the battery area, while pulling the top edge of the plastic case out and down with your finger nails. One side at a time. Don't forget to remove the SIM card and SD card as these will hold the module in place if not removed.
The double sided tapes used to hold the screen in place are a problem, but warming them up with a carefully applied heat gun does release them. I would add that there is no need to unscrew any of the electronics boards as the screen can be replaced without doing this. Releasing the screen ribbon cable connector is done by flipping up the black locking section on the ribbon socket. Slide in the new cable, lock it down, then curl it around as you slide it backward under the metal case so that the curl in the cable occurs in that small space under the metal rather than being folded over sharply, which can fracture the ribbon cable "wires" rendering the screen dead.
Press the screen back down onto the tape (hopefully the tape has remained slick enough as its all that holds the screen in place). Be careful to align the edges and top and bottom correctly, otherwise your buttons won't work and the screen will not sit in the case properly. You can test the buttons as you align to feel for the slight click. Be sure to test all four as alignment left to right is just as critical for full function as up and down. You should also watch to be sure the light sensor little plastic bit (its a small clear cube of plastic) doesn't fall out and disappear while you are doing the screen swap and it stays in place during reassembly.
Then press it home into the plastic case. I remove the volume button (if it hasn't fallen out already) as it tends to push the volume button pads out of alignment (they are only held in with yellow tape (be careful not to loose them). Then with it all snapped in place pull out at the volume button section and slot the button back in place. Orientation is fairly obvious with the button points lower down and the joining bar going behind the case plastic to lock it in place (all with the screen facing upward). You may find the volume button only works if you press down on the screen slightly. This movement will be taken up when you screw the 4 torx screws back in.
Finish by powering up (with fingers crossed) and test. Hopefully all working.
Alternatively, if thats put you off doing it yourself, get it repaired by a service agent (around $300). Then it comes back all done with a small warranty. Most of the phone providers will be able to direct you to a good independent service agent.

[Info] Power button hardware fix

Hello all. Yes I am a noob to the forum, but not to small electronics and the dismantling of them. After getting everything set up on my machine necessary to Root my TF and side load the netflix app, I noticed my power button wasn't being as responsive as it should. Doing a quick google search I found that this was a common thing, even on TFs with stock firmware, so I took to dismantling the thing to figure out what is causing it.
I did a quick search to see if anyone has cracked the case open and found this thread. I didn't use a guitar pick, but rather a plastic and metal spuder set I had from repairing my mom's ipod touch (damn soldered batteries!).
Tools:
Tool Kit
Or
A T5 Torx bit
A spudger
#0 Phillips screwdriver.
Lock-Tite super glue gel (optional!)
1. Start by removing the two T5 torx bits from both sides of the charging/dock port
2. Use the plastic spudger or guitar pick and loose the seam around the entire case. If you look closely at the face, you will see the glass meet a black plastic rim and then the metal rim around that. What you are aiming to do is separate the black plastic from the glass. The plastic is glued to the metal so if you see adhesive separating, you are prying the wrong spot. There are various plastic tabs around the glass like a TV remote so using the plastic spuder is safer until you get some visible room to go in with the metal one.
3. Once you have the frame off, there are 4 #0 Phillips screws on the face, one at each corner, then 3 screws on the top and bottom of the frame (previously under the metal case
4. Removing all 4 face screws plus 6 rail screws will allow you to remove the back plastic. Now you can see everything
5. Bonus points for ASUS for giving us a battery that unplugs vs one that is soldered in (damn you apple). If you want some peace of mind, you can pop off the battery cable. I did not see any side effects from doing this (no data loss, etc).
6. On the side with the power and volume buttons, you will see a blue-tipped silver cable under a black tab. This black tab is what holds the ribbon down and lifts up like a toilet seat. It does not pull forward, it does not pop off (unless you broke it), but because it is plastic, be gentle. Once the tab is lifted, the silver cable will come out.
7. Unscrew the 3 #0 Phillip screws holding down the button board for easier access remove it.
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It doesn't matter whether you are having a volume issue or power button issue, so long as you know its hardware related. The way these buttons work is under constant pressure is "off" and removing that pressure turns it "on". So the metal tab pushes down on the plastic button, which pushes down on the switch. What is happening is over time, that metal tab gives way to less pressure on the daisy chain and the button stops working. The good news is, this metal tab is just held on via 'wings' around the soldered base. A razer knife is enough to gently lift the wings to pop the assembly apart for repairing. Given the construction of these switches, I wish ASUS just made the entire board available, but oh well.
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8. With the offending metal cap off, bend the middle thumb further down and back in to position and re-assemble the switch.
9. (Optional). I bent my tab further in to prevent me from having to re-do this operation several months from now, but doing so meant that ANY pressure on the button caused the metal cap to pop back off. That is really bad if the case is re-assembled. My solution was to swab some lock-tite super glue gel on the bottom wings and base of the metal cap and put it back on the switch. A very thin film is sufficient because it is a gel, it dries in seconds. WARNING> Once you reassemble the switch, keep pressure on the metal cap while you keep pressing the black button. If you don't, any glue leakage will lock that button in place.

EVO 4g Power Button Failure and Repair - $14!

My Evo 4g started to develop the dreaded power button failure problems with it randomly not waking up the phone up or putting it to sleep. Over the past few weeks it got progressively worse until it fully failed over the weekend and the only way I could wake my phone up was to plug in the USB cord or have someone text or call me. I was super bummed because my Evo has been a great phone and I don't want to waste my upgrade on a new phone until they get LTE here ... maybe sometime in 2013?
So the good news is that I tried to repair it and found a fix that works! I can't guarantee that it will work for you, but it did for me! Here is what I did:
1. Remove the battery.
2. Remove all 6 torx screws (T5) that secures the red internal frame to the display. One of the torx screw is covered with a black paper-like covering - don't miss that one. It's easy to push the torx wrench through the black paper material to get to the torx head.
3. Carefully pry the red internal housing from the display housing. Start on one side and work around the phone.
4. With the red internal housing removed, unscrew the small phillips screw in the upper corner to remove the motherboard from the display housing. The motherboard will now lift out of the display housing. Don't detach any cables.
6. As you remove the motherboard, look at where the power button is located in the display frame. Just under the power button - but attached to the underside of the motherboard - you will find the actual power button. It is a small silver square at the top of the motherboard with a black button at the top of the motherboard.
Now here is the fix that worked for me...
7. Flip the motherboard over and away from the display so the power button is facing up. There will be some cables holding the display and the motherboard together.
8. Get a can of Radio Shack Electronics Cleaner (contact cleaner). See attached picture of what I used.
9. Hold the phone unit so the power button is lower than the rest of the phone and spray the power button electronics with the contact cleaner using the contact cleaner with spray tube. I was careful not to overspray the mother board (but some did get on the motherboard), and I made sure I didn't get any on the display housing.
10. Let contact cleaner dry for a few minutes, reassemble, and test when completely dry.
That's it! The contact cleaner must have cleaned out whatever corrosion or material was in the power button because it works perfectly now. I did this on Monday of this week and still no problem three days later. Total repair: about $14!
If you are apprehensive about taking apart your phone, here is a link with step-by-step instructions: http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/HTC-Evo-4G-Teardown/2979/1
So if you are experiencing the dreaded power button failure and you are out of warranty, give this a try before you throw your money away. Hopefully it will work for you!

IT WORKS!!
You sir are a genius. Thank you for the walk through.

GPS problems? Have the fix...

That is if you're not scared to take out sixteen screws and figure out to take the back plastic fame off. I havent found a definitive guide for fixing gps and reading quite a few posts of pinch this area or twist/torque your phone and not working I decided to take the phone apart. I did find video guides for screen replacement that I used to figure out this adventure. Heat gun is not needed, but recommended. I highly recommend the plastic spudgers you can get from places like ifixit, but all I had was plastic butter knife and my computer repair kit, of which you will definitely need a #00 Philips screwdrivers.
Ok. The first picture is what you want. How I got to that point was I took out all 16 screws. If you have a heat gun, heat the edges of screen from front first. But if that is too much trouble or scared you'll burn your screen then you're going to have wing it like I did. Start separating the plastic inside the battery cavity. Be careful not to break the little strip of plastic around the micro SD card like I did. But try and make sure you have gap between the phone and insides of the battery cavity. If you have heated your screen adhesive up this will be less tricky. Push out on the micro SD card slot and upper right area of battery cavity. There are plastic locking tabs around the back plastic frame that lock into mid metal frame. Don't be scared to push but also take caution of your screen as our amoled's are very fragile. Keep pushing. Separate the inside parts again if you have to. You're trying to open enough one side will pop out enough you can get a spudger or in my case a plastic butter knife under one side screen and separate the adhesive and give you better chance of pushing out the phone away from the plastic back. Take care when pushing your knife or spudger underneath screen. Only go in about .25"/.5cm max. Don't want to scratch or mess up screen or connectors. In my picture it kind of looks hinged but is because there is adhesive on the other side keeping it like that. But keep pushing til it happens. Once it does separate the rest is easy.
In the second picture you'll notice 3 parts of plastic that look like they can be separated from the back plastic frame. Don't pay attention to that part. Pay attention to the contacts underneath those 3 places where it is like your antenna contacts are on the pcbs underneath. Some other references said the contacts above the vibrator motor were the gps contacts. Well I bent those up and snapped phone back together and tried gps. Didn't work. Btw, you should probably use something plastic or non conductive to bend the contacts up. My plastic butter knife was too thick so I used a very very small flat blade and was particularly careful. I bent every contact related to those 3 pieces of plastic I pointed out on the back plastic. I snapped back together and tested again. Satellites galore. Locked 6 satswithin 15 seconds and locked to another couple next 15 seconds down to 30 feet, inside my apartment. Turned gps off and went outside turned back on and was locking almost 15 satellites in less than 15 seconds to less than 10 feet accuracy. A few more seconds and I picked up more satellites.
Anyways, you can finish there or do some maintenance inside your phone. On all the places those metal contacts contacted on inside of the back plastic frame I used a qtip with cotton torn off and a drop of arctic clean #2 to clean the black spots I saw on contacts on inside of plastic frame popped off. I also cleaned all the contacts. Pushed down on any connector I saw. Used another qtip to clean around the USB cavity on the back plastic frame. Used another qtip with cotton torn off to clean inside USB port. I pushed on the top PCB where underneath are your display related connectors. One thing I forgot was to clean camera since it was exposed but luckily no dust or fingerprints got in it so my camera is fine. While you have it open figure out anything else to routine. Look at the USB PCB closely and take pictures if your USB port I'd flaking out on you for future reference. When done snap back together.
As an aside, when I got to the point I was ready to fully put back together, I notice my power button was mushy when I tried powering on to test before i put all screws in. Took it apart again and kind of slipped. Scared me, and I had reason to because when I put frames back together and made sure power and volume buttons weren't mushy. My screen didn't come on but it vibrated like it was on. Took apart again and pushed on the top PCB and heard a resounding click. Snapped back together turned and screen was good. Whew. Then I put EVERYTHING back together. 16 screws back in. Double checked all the tightnesses by hand and try not to strip any. I'm sure that will be a bad headache if you strip a screw.
After that, *#0*# and do every test to make sure all hardware is good. Goto developer options and Test your pointer location and touches. Test your repaired gps.
Sorry I didn't have better pictures. The moto x is decent camera but didn't take all the pictures I needed because I winged it with common sense and some of the pictures didn't come out well that would helped a little. If you follow all the directions, are careful and pay attention to detail that I might've not pointed out your gps and cellular reception should all have improved if you wiped the contacts clean and bent up a hair. Should've got rid of oxidation, dirt And improved contact so reception should improve a couple dB and your SNR on gps should be quite good.

Second picture didn't show... so here it is... remember this picture is for you to figure out all the contacts underneath the 3 plastic covers on the back plastic frame itself.

Did this thread go unused even though I see people still having GPS issues? GPS is still awesome on my notes after busting it open.