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Hello
I bought mine Vario II (with CoPilot) just 8 days ago, so I've enjoyed it quite a lot for the past days
yet .. ~30 hours ago I found out that the touch screen was not responding at all .. well restart did not help, getting the battery out and putting it back again didn't help too ... I tried to do EVERYTHING with the thing ... starting with restoring factory settings (all the data! ) , ending with browsing the forums for common failures ...
Finally I ended up with the very start page where the Vario II asks for tapping the screen (irony huh ?) to start setting it up ..
Since I was not able to make it work again (the whole thing seemed to be working fine ... just the touch screen ... ) so I brought it to the local T-Mobile shop today in the morning.. guess what, the guy at the shop just removed the battery and put it back again (I've done that XXX times during the night) AND IT STARTED WORKING again ... I couldn't understand anything there, felt really lame
anyway after I've left the shop and used it for quite a bit it started again .. now I've kind of figured it out .. when I'm using the device actively (the temp raises) and it starts at the top right corner of the screen .. the touch screen just flickers there and then after a minute or so it doesn't respond at all any more .. if I just put it away and don't use it - the screen responds again after some time ...
NOW finally the question is: has anyone had any problems with Vario II like I do? I ought to think that it is a somewhat faulty device that I've got (it hasn't been physically damaged)
PS the touch-screen gets stagnant faster with bigger programs (CoPilot, Skype, etc...) and it takes some time to get stuck with just using the phone...
btw I've put a temperature thingy in the device - it shows that the battery temp is at 42 C . Isn't that a bit too much ?
yeah and how do I figure out what version it is ? I mean the S/N that is mentioned here ( http://wiki.xda-developers.com/index.php?pagename=Hermes_Problems )
?
wundis said:
anyway after I've left the shop and used it for quite a bit it started again .. now I've kind of figured it out .. when I'm using the device actively (the temp raises) and it starts at the top right corner of the screen .. the touch screen just flickers there and then after a minute or so it doesn't respond at all any more .. if I just put it away and don't use it - the screen responds again after some time ...
NOW finally the question is: has anyone had any problems with Vario II like I do? I ought to think that it is a somewhat faulty device that I've got (it hasn't been physically damaged)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, one of my Hermes' had the exact same problem - touch screen malfunction starting at the upper right corner when temperature rose. The usual tricks to solve the screen alignment problem (loosening the screws, removing the gasket with a stripe of a business card) didn't help at all. I returned the device and got a new one.
yeah and how do I figure out what version it is ? I mean the S/N that is mentioned here ( http://wiki.xda-developers.com/index.php?pagename=Hermes_Problems )
?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's printed on the box (at least of an O2 Trion) and on the sticker underneath the battery. Just look for the S/N starting with HTC6xx... but "our" defect is not the normal SA problem, it seems to be much rarer and not described in the Wiki.
Cheers
Daniel
Thank you so much for the answer Daniel, I'll get them to change it tomorrow.
I have exactly the same problem with my TyTN. In the morning, after the phone has been off all night, the touchscreen works for maybe 30mins, then the phone warms up and the screen ceases functioning. Bizarre though - I got the phone about two weeks ago - the screen worked fine (i.e. under all temp. conditions) for about 7 days, then it decided to crap out. Tried all the usual SA type solutions - as you guys noted above they didn't work. Gonna have to go back to the shop and get it replaced :-(
Oh, nearly forgot, s/n is HT632
One other thing I noticed (not sure if this is normal behavior or if it started after the touchscreen borked) - When the phone is active (i.e. not locked or in standby,) the top status leds (wifi, bluetooth, gsm) don't flash. Once the device is put in standby (i.e. tapping the power button) they start flashing again. Like I said, not sure if this is normal or if its related to the touchscreen going.
Vrobenmat said:
One other thing I noticed (not sure if this is normal behavior or if it started after the touchscreen borked) - When the phone is active (i.e. not locked or in standby,) the top status leds (wifi, bluetooth, gsm) don't flash.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is definitely not normal. But it's an interesting observation. If the TyTN were a car, I'd say there's a bad ground connection somewhere.
Try a hard reset, and if that doesn't solve the problem, have it exchanged. (I very much doubt that a hard reset will help, but at least here customer service refuses to exchange a device before you tried a hard reset. )
Cheers
Daniel
Hard reset borked even more. Could't get past the touch screen calibration. Phone is now in the freezer to cool down - hopefully the touch screen will work long enough so I can get past the calibration
*EDIT* Just got it out the freezer (nice and cold now.) Hard reset, got through the calibration, everything ok for about 10 mins. LED's flashing with backlight on and touchscreen working. Then - touchscreen non-responsive at exactly the same time the status LED's cut out. I'm hypothesising that there's some kind of electrical short between the circuitry for the touchpad and the status LED's - it shorts as the devices temperature rises and (i guess) some of the materials expand and come into contact with each other. Since I don't want to void my warranty in case I have to take the phone back to the store, I haven't opened it up to confirm this. Has anyone had a detailed look at the connections at the top of the screen and around the status LED's to see if my explanation is at least possible? (then I might open it up and see if I can insulate the connections.)
tadzio said:
Yes, one of my Hermes' had the exact same problem - touch screen malfunction starting at the upper right corner when temperature rose. The usual tricks to solve the screen alignment problem (loosening the screws, removing the gasket with a stripe of a business card) didn't help at all. I returned the device and got a new one.
It's printed on the box (at least of an O2 Trion) and on the sticker underneath the battery. Just look for the S/N starting with HTC6xx... but "our" defect is not the normal SA problem, it seems to be much rarer and not described in the Wiki.
Cheers
Daniel
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have the exact same problem!!
Two additional points :
1) my device screen will not switch off automaticaly and will stay on for ever unless I switch it off
2) When the issue manifests itself for the first time the device would automaticaly go back to the today screen like if the OK button would have been pressed many time or ... was stuck!!
That's my second Tytn device the first one had the SA defect.
I was so happy when I got my new one because the S/N showed HTC637XXX but sounds like a new issue even though I'm pretty convince that that the SA issue is not far from being related to this one.
My device SPV3100 HERM100
Hello lads,
Absolutely everything you've posted seems to be happening to my device.
Now the touch screen fails to respond even if it's cold (been lying on the bed for 5 hours doing nothing at all .. ). damn... seems like I'll have to ask the local shop to get me a free portable refrigerator for the thing to work properly
HT645
Vrobenmat said:
Hard reset borked even more. Could't get past the touch screen calibration. Phone is now in the freezer to cool down - hopefully the touch screen will work long enough so I can get past the calibration
*EDIT* Just got it out the freezer (nice and cold now.) Hard reset, got through the calibration, everything ok for about 10 mins. LED's flashing with backlight on and touchscreen working. Then - touchscreen non-responsive at exactly the same time the status LED's cut out. I'm hypothesising that there's some kind of electrical short between the circuitry for the touchpad and the status LED's - it shorts as the devices temperature rises and (i guess) some of the materials expand and come into contact with each other. Since I don't want to void my warranty in case I have to take the phone back to the store, I haven't opened it up to confirm this. Has anyone had a detailed look at the connections at the top of the screen and around the status LED's to see if my explanation is at least possible? (then I might open it up and see if I can insulate the connections.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Might get a chance to have an internal look tomorrow. From memory, and can't remember if the Wiki or Japanese dismantling site shows this, but I recall only a single mylar ribbon cable coming from screen area through to main board. There are if memory serves push in multi connectors from the bottom hard keypad and from front camera board (inc LEDs) to the muti ribbon cable on the back of the screen. Thus, simply put the screen, camera,hard phone keys all connect at the back of the screen to a single multi ribbon cable that goes to main board. Possibility then of a short with digitizer is at least possible. Of course digitizers are suceptible to current leakage and field interference so would not have to be an actual physical contact but could just be a close proximity issue.
Mike
Facing the same problems...
... I've been thinking about repalcing the display and the touchscreen. But now, considering that it is a HW issue, I can only replace these two things. If the bug is in the module above the screen (statur leds and camera) or related to the wireing at the back of the screen, it won't get rid of the problem. On the other hand, if it is a problem with the screen getting too hot, then I'm on the right track...
Has anyone tried this yet?
I'll try to call HTC on monday, maybe they know where the bug is.
HTC is not able or not willing to share what they know about the problem...
Hello, they excuse my English, I am possessor of a TYNT and I am with he himself problem that you, the problem is a failure of weld in the processador, when it reaches certain temperature fails and cooling it or pressing strongly on the processor it lets fail.
Greetings.
ezbook said:
Hello, they excuse my English, I am possessor of a TYNT and I am with he himself problem that you, the problem is a failure of weld in the processador, when it reaches certain temperature fails and cooling it or pressing strongly on the processor it lets fail.
Greetings.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There may well be truth in what you say, I too believe it is something similar in some cases.
Do you have any proof of your suggestion. Can you provide pics or a diagram of the solder point you mean??
Mike
Hmm? The processor...?
...sorry, don't think so.
It's just that this bug occurs after using a device for months, isn't it?
Now, the first two weeks I installed all kind of programs using the wireless LAN almost permanently. My Hermes was never as "hot" as during its first two weeks. And what about the sliding-out of the keyboard? Doesn’t it always start there? This just doesn't sound right, does it?
Just received an email from someone who drew my attention to the ribbon cable connecting the upper and the lower part. What if there is a short one due to the plastic scratching the cable and then... who knows?
However, I do not disagree as far as the temp is concerned. Therefore, I'll put my Hermes on ice and see how long it does things right...
And still, there is no chance that it is related to the processor. If the processors ALU is getting too hot the entire device would be effected, wouldn’t it?
Anyways, I'm determined to find out what it is!
++ I just found a very peculiar post in the WIZARD forum. It was about some top-side buttons that kept pressing
++ without even touching… Opening the assigned programs over and over again. Odd, isn’t it?
++ That’s a HTC device AND has a sliding keyboard with a ribbon cable as a connector…
++ Yet, it operates with a different processor on a different main board.
++
++ Still blaming the processor?
microft said:
...sorry, don't think so.
It's just that this bug occurs after using a device for months, isn't it?
Now, the first two weeks I installed all kind of programs using the wireless LAN almost permanently. My Hermes was never as "hot" as during its first two weeks. And what about the sliding-out of the keyboard? Doesn’t it always start there? This just doesn't sound right, does it?
Just received an email from someone who drew my attention to the ribbon cable connecting the upper and the lower part. What if there is a short one due to the plastic scratching the cable and then... who knows?
However, I do not disagree as far as the temp is concerned. Therefore, I'll put my Hermes on ice and see how long it does things right...
And still, there is no chance that it is related to the processor. If the processors ALU is getting too hot the entire device would be effected, wouldn’t it?
Anyways, I'm determined to find out what it is!
++ I just found a very peculiar post in the WIZARD forum. It was about some top-side buttons that kept pressing
++ without even touching… Opening the assigned programs over and over again. Odd, isn’t it?
++ That’s a HTC device AND has a sliding keyboard with a ribbon cable as a connector…
++ Yet, it operates with a different processor on a different main board.
++
++ Still blaming the processor?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And you are right too! if it appears that I am tending to agree with both above posts when on the face of it they disagree with each other it's because:
1
There are different manifestations of this problem - the causes may not always be the same
2
I agree it's NOT the processor and firmly believe it's hardware related. Of course it could be be a break (sometimes intermittent) in contact somewhere between screen and board or even a broken contact on the board (IN SOME CASES)
3
In other cases it's just pressure being put on the touch sensitive screen often at the very inconvenient top right corner that closes/minimises applications or opens start menu.
There has not been a reliable way to fix this issue other than device replacement. Replacing the screen has been notable for it's failure to resolve the issue.
Mike
mikechannon said:
And you are right too! if it appears that I am tending to agree with both above posts when on the face of it they disagree with each other it's because:
1
There are different manifestations of this problem - the causes may not always be the same
2
I agree it's NOT the processor and firmly believe it's hardware related. Of course it could be be a break (sometimes intermittent) in contact somewhere between screen and board or even a broken contact on the board (IN SOME CASES)
3
In other cases it's just pressure being put on the touch sensitive screen often at the very inconvenient top right corner that closes/minimises applications or opens start menu.
There has not been a reliable way to fix this issue other than device replacement. Replacing the screen has been notable for it's failure to resolve the issue.
Mike
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So do you think the bug is to be found on the main board at all?
I'm planning to replace some parts from the screen half. In fact there are just 3 possible error sources:
1) The lcd in combination with the digitalizer;
2) The ribbon cable connecting screen parts and keypad at bottom; and
3) The keypad at the bottom itself
The ribbon cable includs the electronics for the status leds as well as the EARphone. ;-)
Soon I will be on all three of the above parts and if the error ain't there... I'm going to be MAD.
Will keep you IN THE LOOP!
Hello again, my conclusion is based on which I have disassembled my TYNT completely and I have connected it without the keyboard, of this form I have hoped to that it began to fail, later I have been moving and touching in any case the flat cable that unites the motherboard with the screen, the small circuit that takes built-in without obtaining results, single I have even obtained that it returns to work blowing air on the strongly pressed processor or on. Another observation is that if just ignited the machine and working correctly we applied single heat on the processor, begins to fail the touch screen. To my also is to me strange east failure since the temperature of the processor is not excessive when it fails, in fact desire firmly to be mistaken because there am lost the guarantee. Seguire investigating is matendre informed to you.
Greetings.
microft said:
So do you think the bug is to be found on the main board at all?
I'm planning to replace some parts from the screen half. In fact there are just 3 possible error sources:
1) The lcd in combination with the digitalizer;
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
May be a fault there, but if it's just a squeeze due to heat ? pressure it may not resolve the issue.
2) The ribbon cable connecting screen parts and keypad at bottom; and
3) The keypad at the bottom itself
The ribbon cable includs the electronics for the status leds as well as the microphone.
Soon I will be on all three of the above parts and if the error ain't there... I'm going to be MAD.
Will keep you IN THE LOOP!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I assume you mean earphone above as the microphone is on the mainboard.
Mike
Again I have tested, with the disassembled machine totally, start up it, I hope to that the touch screen does not respond and I put my tynt in the refrigerator, after two minutes and without moving I touch it the screen and magic, works correctly hata that again coje the room temperature.
Greetings.
ezbook said:
Hello again, my conclusion is based on which I have disassembled my TYNT completely and I have connected it without the keyboard, of this form I have hoped to that it began to fail, later I have been moving and touching in any case the flat cable that unites the motherboard with the screen, the small circuit that takes built-in without obtaining results, single I have even obtained that it returns to work blowing air on the strongly pressed processor or on. Another observation is that if just ignited the machine and working correctly we applied single heat on the processor, begins to fail the touch screen. To my also is to me strange east failure since the temperature of the processor is not excessive when it fails, in fact desire firmly to be mistaken because there am lost the guarantee. Seguire investigating is matendre informed to you.
Greetings.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is very interesting. When I said above it is not the processor, I meant it is not a software issue related to the processor. It can of course be a heat related problem with the processor. To summarise what you have found:
1
You have a device that when first started works OK
2
If you apply heat (but not much) to the processor it fails
3
If you apply pressure to the processor it works again
4
It begins working again when you blow on the processor or put it in the fridge.
5
If you move/press or ensure the ribbon cable has a firm contact - this has no effect.
Please post if any of the above is NOT correct ALSO please post which chip you are heating/pressing.
Cheers
Mike
Hello again, everything is correct except point 3 really when this failing and you press on the then microprocessor the touch screen works correctly. Associate images.
Greetings.
EDIT by Mike. Point 3 has been edited in Mike's post to show the correct situation.
This is an amazing device. However, I figured out why the soft keys at the bottom are breaking! (By breaking I mean when you touch them, the light goes off and goes into a key lock disabling the menu key and the back key)
This phone most likely has a heat sink sitting on the bottom left corner of the device. When this phone is in a high temperature state (either lots of constant usage or a hot room) the heat sink begins to overheat causing the heat sensitive soft keys to think it's being held down.
Edit: (That or the GPU is sitting in the bottom left corner because i noticed when I run an emulator, it freezes the buttons really quickly. Especially if you get a text message in the middle of it)
therefore this is a HARDWARE error. Samsung, please fix this. Don't let this amazing device go down the ****ter. Either add a stronger heat sink, or like most laptops now-a-day, install a vent for the air to leave the phone.
Temporary fix?
Shut phone off for like 5 minutes, and place it in a cooler area.
Specs:
Stock Samsung Galaxy Firmware. Straight from the bell store. (I had to do a few wipes to exclude outside variables)
Phones these days are going to need a fan built in because they're getting too powerful.
I haven't made a forum search because I didn't want to get lazy and post this if I didn't find one.
TLDR: Hardware issue causing overheating.
I don't think the keys use heat. (Maybe it's a bug with the Bell variant). It's a capacitive touchscreen, so most likely uses electric current. How do you know the keys are heat sensitive?
it only stops working when its warm.
i use my phone constantly and i have never had this issue. actually, i have had two, as i returned the first one after two weeks for one that has the 3 button recovery enabled. not only have i never had this issue, but i have never come across any mention of it in any of the forums i frequent.
When I bought my phone, I was able to use both vol up+ home + Power, and the vol down + home + power, so I don't think I have the non recovery model.
I don't think mine has this problem or i haven't suffered from it yet anyway. Today the phone got really really hot, i was in an online multiplayer game whilst it was charging. I was aware the phone was becoming quite hot but i needed to carry on gaming lol anyway, for the first time i got a system message stating that 'battery charging had been paused due to excessive heat' so this shows the phone was hot. Well this finally got me off my game and i used the back key to exit without any troubles at all. You don't mention getting this error so does that mean mine was at a higher temperature?
I agree with andrewluecke about the keys being responsive to 'electric' and wonder if maybe you had sweaty/moist fingers whilst trying your keys, it does mention in the manual about irrational behaviour due to moisture.
I have a Bell phone and never once had this issue. I would take your phone back.
opensourcefan said:
I have a Bell phone and never once had this issue. I would take your phone back.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
make that two
the OP definitely have a defective unit
maybe some one dropped it when it was being demo-ed or something like that
else it doesn't make sense why those buttons would be at those horrible conditions
AllGamer said:
make that two
the OP definitely have a defective unit
maybe some one dropped it when it was being demo-ed or something like that
else it doesn't make sense why those buttons would be at those horrible conditions
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, I agree. I have the unlocked I9000 phone, and have never experienced this issue...
You probably have an intermittent fault caused by dodgy joints within the phone.
Get it repaired..
Nothing that could warm up is at the bottom http://www.careace.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/galaxy-s-disassembly-10.jpg (right)
Only the vibrator and the microphone
exactly, the stuff that warms up are the GPS and Wifi and those are at the top where the USB plug is
Yeah it's probably to do with a dodgy contact rather than heat, plus the touch buttons at the bottom are just an extension of the screen and so are capacitive, not heat activated.
Logicalstep
+1 for "never had issue"
You see that your buttons lock up when it gets warm and you automatically assume it getting warm locks up the buttons?
Ever thought that something in your phone was overloading and causing it to heat up at the same time causing the hardware keys to lock up?
sturmeh said:
You see that your buttons lock up when it gets warm and you automatically assume it getting warm locks up the buttons?
Ever thought that something in your phone was overloading and causing it to heat up at the same time causing the hardware keys to lock up?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And thats the increasing problem with XDA (and the internet in general).. It's becoming easier and easier for people to make ridiculous assumptions without proper proof. It's one reason why we should always question everything we see, if there isn't a reliable source, or proper testing.
UPDATE -
As of June 14. 2011 it appears the only viable way to solve this problem is to reheat the cpu with specialized equipment. I am currently testing if this can be done in a standard gas/electric oven (NOT MICROWAVE !!). If successful this method will solve the problem and the following guide (cpu cooling system) may help prevent it from happening again. Only building this cooling system is not enough and will not solve your problems.
Hello dear members of XDA
First of all please excuse my english, I will try to explain myself as well as I can. It will be a long post, it could be boring, it could be scary or whatever you like but bear with me on this one.
So.. got myself a HTC (T-Mobile) HD2. A bit late in the game, but hell no, still a good phone. I've dreamed of having one but couldn't afford. Anyway finally i got one. A second hand broken one, damn it.
As i found out the problem is pretty common: damn thing restart itself - thermally related - the old CPU overheat problem. By searching the net I found out that it's pretty common with some HTC models. HD2 has it, Desire has it, Nexus One has it, hell even some xperia models have it.. about half of the devices powered by anything from the Snapdragon series could have it.
The problem could be easely described as : phone hanging, restarts, the dreaded 7-8 short vibrate sequence - phone locked etc.
Mine was worst then i've seen on the forums or with other people. It locked itself for just about every reason i could get. Taking pictures, browsing the menu, using gps, the browser, 3g or wifi, watching a movie ... all concluded with restarts or lock-ups after some couple of minutes. I've found out that keeping the phone at 4-5 degrees celsius would solve my problems in most cases, but anything above 10-15 degrees would make the thing go crazy.
Well, I'm pasionate about electronics, development in this area, trying to solve problems and things like that. Also experienced in heat and semiconductor related problems. I also had one macbook air that suffered from core shutdown because of overheating (also a well known problem for MBA rev 1.0) and managed to design an alternate cooling system that solved the problem. So i gave it a shot, i know there are many users that have similar problems and altrough i don't suggest them explicitly to make this hacks to their phones.. this is one way to solve the problem if you buy your unit second hand or don't have some form of warranty.
So here we go.
Big fat warning!!! Don't attempt these things with your phones unless you are familiar with the concepts or the tools involved in the process. Also, there is a real risk to permanently damage your phone. Not just real.. but big if you get something wrong.
First step is to run some simple tests to determine the cause of the problem or the range it extends to.
So, I used a multimeter with a K type thermal probe to measure the temperature of various components of the phone during intensive use.
this is the back of the mainboard of my HD2. If you notice, HTC placed a blue-ish thermal pad over one metallic shield covering the back components. I don't know what's the purpose as the back casing in that area is made of plastic - no heat dissipation, or a bad one. Anyway that's a good place to place my probe. Some tape holded the probe in position. Because we don't have perfect mechanical contact between the probe tip and the casing or chips i expect +1 or +2 degrees celsius to be added to each measurement i will later describe.
i now placed the battery over the back of the phone and secured it with some other tape and some toothpicks
we're at 19.3 degrees. That's were we'll going to start from.
there's a usefull little app that allows users to overclock or stress test their phones cpu. Found it here on XDA, i'll use it for some heat making purposes.
as you can see.. we're already at 25.8 degrees, after 5 minutes of testing.. not to mention the actual heat making primary suspect - qualcomm chipset is on the other side. At 29.5 degrees at this point.. the phone locked itself. I reapeted the experiment 2 more times - got exactly the same result.. at least the readings were consistent.
Ok, i then removed the motherboard to take some readings from the actual CPU.
same procedure.. next readings. - at around 33.4 - 34.2 degrees (varies) on the CPU itself the phone will either restart or lock itself up. So you see how serious my problem is. Summer will come so I won't be able to use my phone...
Measures have to be taken.
Let's make a small introduction about heat related to semiconductors.
Well, simply put a conductor (semiconductors act the same way) generates some amount of heat when an electric current is passed along it. This is because of the fact that small electrons moving along the conductor (in a simple way that's the definition of any electric current) will ocasionaly collide with the atoms of the material their passing through. In the collision the electron loses some amount of energy. That energy is heat. Also, heat itself can be described at an atomic level as the intensification of natural ocuring brownian movement of atoms. If they move a lot, if they are more agitated they create more heat. If they are more agitated, they are more likely to be hit by passing electrons. So a hot conductor is more likely to get even hotter because of that. There is a point were the heat generated makes the conductor's atoms prone to more hits from passing electrons in kind of like a geometric progression. That's called thermal runaway. It will tend to destroy electronics by overheating, melting or burning themselves up.
Back to our phones now. The CPU produces heat. Because of the same effect described above. The heat in this case will either melt or break the small "balls" that comprise the BGA matrix on what these cips are mounted on. The small balls will either melt (extreme cases) or dilatate with increasing temperature. However it seems most of the new processors used by HTC are mounted in some epoxy resin that has both dilatation point and melting point higher then the flux and welding compound used to solder those cips. So the actual cip will tend to stay fixed in a particular position, unable to expand or contract with temperature variations, but the balls used in the BGA matrix underneath it will contract or expand with these variations. This could lead to a case when at least one of that balls (some couple hundreds in total) become "loose" or out of position, thus breaking the electrical contact it should have made. Therefore our problems. At fist large amounts of heat must be applied in order to actually break the bond between the cpu and board, but after that, once broken the tiny links are very sensible to temperature variations and they will expand or contract freely.
Most users notice that at it's core, the problem seemed related to overheating (in the begining) but after time it's effects are degenerative.. phones seem to restart with no apparent reason. It's still overheating, but things are starting to get more and more worse as the chip and it's connections become more sensitive to heat variations. Thus, even small variations now produce these problems - my CPU restarts at 34 degrees .. that sucks.
So, my only option was to try to reheat the cpu in the attempt to partially melt the broken "balls" in the bga matrix and hopefully.. i repeat HOPEFULLY they remake contact with the mainboard. A re-ball of this chip is not possible, as the resin placed around it by HTC doesn't melt at the normal temperature i could remove the chip itself, so heating it at even higher temperatures would risk killing the cpu long before the resin melts. Strange move by HTC to make things like this.
Anyway.. here goes nothing..
I've placed the usual aluminium foil designed to protect surrounding components by the heat generated by the rework station and the hot air used to heat up the CPU.
I preheated the CPU for about 10 minutes, from both sides of the board, then switched to heating it at 360 degrees. I applied even pressure above it after it was heated in order to tighten the space between it and the board, just a little bit. THIS IS VERY RISKY. Normally not recommended because of the risk damaging the BGA. In this case the resin would prevent me from moving the chip to much so it's less risky. Not safe.. but less risky.
I've let the board to cool on it's own for half an hour and repeated the temperature monitoring tests.
Now i had an increase of maximum temperature before a restart from 34 degrees on the cpu to about 42. It's not much but it's a start. However above these temperature.. the phone will still lock or restart.
I went for another round of reheating with the hot air station. After this, i've got slightly better results. Some 2-3 degrees more. My lucky break was when i suspected thermal runaway for the CPU. So i tried to make some sort of a heat sink for that chip using some mica foils for to220 can transistors, some thermal grease and a bunch of aluminum and copper foils. My theory was that heat dissipation will eventually accelerate faster above a specific level, a point from witch thermal runaway occur. In my case in the initial tests, even after the phone locked itself and i manually restarted (battery out - in) the temperature continued to increase even faster altrough the phone wasn't doing anything intensive.
The role of my "heat sink" would be to dissipate more heat rapidly and in some manner to press the cpu against the board.
After I placed the mica foils directly above the cpu with thermal grease above and beyond i mounted back the metal shield over that area. On it, i placed some more silicon paste and some thick copper foil (used in some broken laptops i have over here). It looks ugly but.. worth a shot:
after that i begin making the rest of the heat sink using aluminum foil. I folded about 12 layers, between each of them having placed... more thermal grease and at the 6-7 layer another round of mica crystal foil.
Here's the aluminum foil
I then pressed the foils very hard between two flat surfaces in order to remove the excess thermal grease.
I "anodized" the first layer (the one in contact with the cpu shielding) with some ferric chloride. Before that, the board looked like this:
After the logic board was mounted back, i remade all the connections and after some preliminary tests, mounted the phone back together. It now looks like this
I only have to re-attach the serial no. and imei, plastic sticker.
Of course i then run tests. I heated up the phone with a hair dryer to simulate a hot summer day. About 40 degrees, just to be sure. I then run cpu stress tests and a full divx movie (impossible in the past). On preliminary testing, i had indications that i avoided the thermal runaway the cpu now running stable at 24 degrees (19.3 in the room - ambient temperature). No more, heating up by itself to about 40 degrees then restart.
On the final testing, with the phone put together, i heated it with the hair dryer and achieved 40 degrees. I started it and run stress tests. No more lockups or restarts, not even a single one. However with the phone put together i can't measure inside temperature on it's components. As i feel it, it get's warmer, it heats up to some degree, but now it's spread all over it's surface. For some particular reason it doesn't restart anymore.
I then tried, cpu stress test, wlan connection, pc connection and browsing the net all at the same time. NO RESTART I watched a full 1.30 hour movie at max playable quality, the phone was really hot (43-44 degree at it's surface) but still no problems.
It appears that for the moment i saved the phone. However, future behavior is still to be determined.
I'll get back with more testing, in the following days and eventually i hope to devise a general method for building heat sinks for phones (yeaah, ridiculous....) using combinations of metal and thermal conductive cristals. The ideea is to find out if reheating the chip by hot air station can be avoided (this involves the most risk). But the start is promising. By the time warranties will expire and phones like the new droids or winmo 7's start to break from thermal problems, maybe i'll have some sort of a more user friendly solution.
EDIT JUNE 04.2011
since i have a dead hd2 motherboard here, i tried to remove the cpu to expose the BGA soldering. Just for fun, no chance of BGA reball, as there aren't any tools available for this particular chip. The resin prevents a proper removal, at about 450 degrees celsius it was still kind of hard, so i had to forcefully remove the chip and break some of the BGA. The chip is very thin, kind of like a micro sd card. It heats up pretty quick and fast, the solder points underneath it got melted in about 2-3 min at 370 degrees celsius.
Here's how it looks.
This is the motherboard without the chip. The BGA matrix is broken, some balls were simply ripped out when i forcefully removed the chip.
This is the actual chip compared with a mini sd and and standard sd card.
...and this is the underside of the chip. belive it or not, the chip is actually alive and it's pins are ok. It cannot be used because it cannot be properly soldered to a board. Guess i'm gonna punch a hole through it and use it at my key chain, along with a laptop cpu already there
In the following days i will experiment with the solder points&materials in order to try to produce a more safer method to reheat future boards with thermal problems. It seems this board died because of overheating and a short circuit made over the center of the array by 3 solder balls that got in contact once they were melted.
You sir are the man.
I personally do not have any over heating issues with my HD2. But there is so many people here on XDA tbat do. So your work will be greatly appriciate and followed here. From what you have posted you may just be onto something that will be very useful not just to HD2 owners but to a large veriety of smartphone and maybe even tablet owners, present and future. I too find the the epoxy resin that HTC placed around the chip odd. It is almost like HTC did not want this part of the hardware to be replacable. But make you have to buy a whole new main board, corperate crap
Anyways please keep up the good work and I will be following this thread very attentiavely. So please do post back here with your future findings.
The epoxy resin is there to hold the CPU (which is the biggest and probably the heaviest part on the PCB) in it's place, and thus making it more resistant to mechanical forces (such as accidental drops, shocks, etc...).
It could also be, that HTC wanted to prevent access to the CPU-s I/O pins, making it impossible (or at least very difficult) to desolder it. This way it is difficult to "reaserchers - hackers" to chart a schematic diagram of the connections between CPU, flash chip, ram, etc..., or to attach logic probes to the IO lines, and that leads to being difficult to make software hacks such as HardSPL, or sim unlocking, etc... I know that there are other methods to connect to CPU (such as JTAG), but fewer options mean, less chances to succeed.
B.r.:
d3m0n
This is an excellent post and thnx you for your testing and investigation. Do let us know how your unit goes within a week of real world testing.
The engineers @ htc should have incorporated a better CPU cooling solution on hd2. Your testing and modifications are a wealth of information.
thanks for the support
The resin on the cpu has a higher melting point then that of the solder joints of the actual cpu to motherboard. I guess the reason for it's presence is that when the phone is hot (and HTC knows the cpu can gen hot) the solder joints become less mechanical resistant, they could be more easily broken. In case of a BGA mechanical failure, the resin however would pose a problem as the chip can't be desoldered safely or even reheated. I took a risk there.
I don't think HTC didn't want us to desolder the chip because of JTAG pinnout mapping. Even with acces to the pins, it would be very hard to find the pins without some form of CPU datasheet. Same goes for CPLD for example.
Anyway, at this time i still don't know if either reheating or making some sort of cooling system helped me to solve this problem. So far, still good, not a single problem noticed so far. I can now reflash the phone, before the procedure, i experienced that vibration pattern during a flash. I've put android on it, stress test it even more, i'm now trying to play some 720p on it. It still heats up, it feels as warm in the hand as before, but for whatever reason, it doesn't restart anymore.
However...more testing still to come.
On another note, i'm now working on a broken Eten M810, some CPU problems. It this case, the CPU doesn't have that resin, however the nand memory has. Different brand, different choices.
as i found out until now the steps from a good working hd2 to this problems are something like this:
1. phone working ok. mainboard (lower part of the device) heats in some conditions - demanding programs etc battery can reach about 40-45 degrees max. without problems. The phone will restart or freeze (cpu halt) in any of these situations :
- battery temp exceeds 45 degrees and stays over this value for at least 5-10 minutes in order to trigger the thermistor used to measure the temperature in this area over i2c. at this time, it will prevent further charging and restart or lock the phone. This is normal behavior.
-CPU exceeds 60-65 degrees (exact value still to be determined. i'm trying to get acces to some similar chipset datasheets). This produces CPU halt. Depending on what you're doing, the halt will either reset the phone or simply lock it up. Restarting by soft reset or by itself will probably return the user back in the home screen with the phone still working. This is also normal behavior, related to qualcomm chip.
2. phone starts to malfunction. This condition starts by either large variation in temperature - mainboard al low temperature gets fast to full load or simply sustained full load. All HTC HD2's revisions have the same type of soldering in the cpu area. Visually speaking (no conclusive data yet) first revision used a bit more epoxy resin to secure the cpu in place. In the context of overheating and solder balls dilatation, that's not quite a good thing. Some sort of thermal spike must occur in order to break the contact between cpu and motherboard. Warning, if your phone will lock up and doesn't restart by itself, it's imperative that you disconnect the battery because as I measured, even with the phone locked, the CPU still overheats even more, thermal runaway occurs and temperature climbs to dangerous levels. I never left the phone do this for a long time, therefore I don't know how much it will still overheat, but it does and it will. In the initial stage of the problem, only extended heavy load use can trigger the problem. A common case is keeping the phone on in the car and using it for gps navigation in a hot summer. If the phone will restart before either 45 degrees at battery or 60-65 degrees at cpu level (however the last one is harder to measure) then you certainly have problems and they are just at the start.
3. problems get worse. At this stage it is possible to notice the 7 short vibrates at boot time if the phone is warm or kept in a warm environment. You don't have to push it very hard, it only needs to be warm. The vibration pattern is an error code made by the actual qualcomm chipset, not sent by either bootloader, spl or operating system. When in happens the cpu will lock itself up, however file transfer (including nand memory acces, storage card acces and basic operations) or other chipset functions will still work for some time. It appears only cpu processing is being halted. So if this occurs when you boot the phone, it will lock up, but if this occurs when you are flashing a rom, you might continue to see the progress bar still filling. The vibration pattern signals a physical damage to the qualcomm chipset has ocurred. There's no way around it, when it occur it will never just .. heal up by itself.
You will notice that the temperatures needed to induce a restart/lockup will decrease with time (both battery & cpu).
4. Problem at it's worse. CPU can lock itself even at 35-40 degrees (measured at it's level). Ambient temperature of only 10-12-15 degrees is enought to have the phone experience problems. The cpu start to suddenly produce either lock-outs or hard faults or simply work intermittently. The OS may give errors relating ARM CORE failure or fatal errors regarding execution of certain "lines" (related to code lines in the os core programming). At this stage, the phone doesn't need to feel warm in your hands to produce these problems. This could trick some people not to still relate this to thermal problems and look for the solution or problem cause elsewhere. It's still related... but at it's worse.
5. Total CPU collapse. If the phone locks and remains locked in whatever screen or program it was running, like i've said before, it will still overheat. If a stage 4 phone is left overheating, chances are that more balls connecting the chipset to the motherboard will fail. If any one needed to correctly initialise the chip or to power it on, fails - then it's end game for that phone. It will simply stop working and never turn on. Some other variants are that the phone will only start if placed in a freezer or start but never complete a boot sequence (either os or bootloader .. or both could be unable to start)
facdemol said:
as i found out until now the steps from a good working hd2 to this problems are something like this:
1. phone working ok. mainboard (lower part of the device) heats in some conditions - demanding programs etc battery can reach about 40-45 degrees max. without problems. The phone will restart or freeze (cpu halt) in any of these situations :
- battery temp exceeds 45 degrees and stays over this value for at least 5-10 minutes in order to trigger the thermistor used to measure the temperature in this area over i2c. at this time, it will prevent further charging and restart or lock the phone. This is normal behavior.
-CPU exceeds 60-65 degrees (exact value still to be determined. i'm trying to get acces to some similar chipset datasheets). This produces CPU halt. Depending on what you're doing, the halt will either reset the phone or simply lock it up. Restarting by soft reset or by itself will probably return the user back in the home screen with the phone still working. This is also normal behavior, related to qualcomm chip.
2. phone starts to malfunction. This condition starts by either large variation in temperature - mainboard al low temperature gets fast to full load or simply sustained full load. All HTC HD2's revisions have the same type of soldering in the cpu area. Visually speaking (no conclusive data yet) first revision used a bit more epoxy resin to secure the cpu in place. In the context of overheating and solder balls dilatation, that's not quite a good thing. Some sort of thermal spike must occur in order to break the contact between cpu and motherboard. Warning, if your phone will lock up and doesn't restart by itself, it's imperative that you disconnect the battery because as I measured, even with the phone locked, the CPU still overheats even more, thermal runaway occurs and temperature climbs to dangerous levels. I never left the phone do this for a long time, therefore I don't know how much it will still overheat, but it does and it will. In the initial stage of the problem, only extended heavy load use can trigger the problem. A common case is keeping the phone on in the car and using it for gps navigation in a hot summer. If the phone will restart before either 45 degrees at battery or 60-65 degrees at cpu level (however the last one is harder to measure) then you certainly have problems and they are just at the start.
3. problems get worse. At this stage it is possible to notice the 7 short vibrates at boot time if the phone is warm or kept in a warm environment. You don't have to push it very hard, it only needs to be warm. The vibration pattern is an error code made by the actual qualcomm chipset, not sent by either bootloader, spl or operating system. When in happens the cpu will lock itself up, however file transfer (including nand memory acces, storage card acces and basic operations) or other chipset functions will still work for some time. It appears only cpu processing is being halted. So if this occurs when you boot the phone, it will lock up, but if this occurs when you are flashing a rom, you might continue to see the progress bar still filling. The vibration pattern signals a physical damage to the qualcomm chipset has ocurred. There's no way around it, when it occur it will never just .. heal up by itself.
You will notice that the temperatures needed to induce a restart/lockup will decrease with time (both battery & cpu).
4. Problem at it's worse. CPU can lock itself even at 35-40 degrees (measured at it's level). Ambient temperature of only 10-12-15 degrees is enought to have the phone experience problems. The cpu start to suddenly produce either lock-outs or hard faults or simply work intermittently. The OS may give errors relating ARM CORE failure or fatal errors regarding execution of certain "lines" (related to code lines in the os core programming). At this stage, the phone doesn't need to feel warm in your hands to produce these problems. This could trick some people not to still relate this to thermal problems and look for the solution or problem cause elsewhere. It's still related... but at it's worse.
5. Total CPU collapse. If the phone locks and remains locked in whatever screen or program it was running, like i've said before, it will still overheat. If a stage 4 phone is left overheating, chances are that more balls connecting the chipset to the motherboard will fail. If any one needed to correctly initialise the chip or to power it on, fails - then it's end game for that phone. It will simply stop working and never turn on. Some other variants are that the phone will only start if placed in a freezer or start but never complete a boot sequence (either os or bootloader .. or both could be unable to start)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
my phone stuck after it fall on the ground facing the LCD down on the tiles. there is no physical damage the screen is in perfect condition, touch screen works very well but after it hits on the tiles my phone is getting stuck randomly.. since its been a month after the incident i have tried a lot of ways to fix this even tried removing all the parts except the LCD and digitizer to see if there is something lose inside but still not fixed.. i m noob to all this dont really know names for all the parts. the reason i have found for this freeze is due to a little press near sim card where the main board is. even a very lite press from the back near sim card results the freeze..i can say this because it wont get stuck if didn't touch the mentioned area, every time when its stuck i have to remove battery cover and press the red button and it will get stuck again if i put the cover back after it boots (becouse when putting cover back it definitely press the area....so i have to be very careful to put it back) so can anyone help me on this? what could be the problem.. sorry for my english
An interesting observation. I have been in air conditioned room last 4 hrs and it really cools the hd2 down. Perhaps the glass digitizer is quite conducting and non-insulating.
During summer hot days I have hit 42C without any issues. Dont want to hit 45C though this hd2 is a beast.. Imagine staying at 1100MHz o/c all the time... aiiii caramba... we could cook some eggs on it.
Yeah, I've experienced some of the freeze while HD2 got hot and stayed like that until it cooled off. I've noticed that when I try to charge it in the car and run google map it tends not to fully charge as it should but it heats up after a while until it becomes unresponsive then i'd let it cool off again.
Hope it hasn't effected CPU's connections much but at this point I'll have to monitor its heat situation to prevent future disruptions.
Good work/thinking on the "cooling adapter" , i've seen similar approach on IBM's graphic card which fail due to the same reason and ppl would heat them up to reconnect chips connection to pcb.
the back of the lcd display (the actual lcd, not touchscreen) is made of metal and on top of it there is some copper foil. So.. yes, if you cool the screen it helps cools the cpu. However when i disassembled my hd2 i noticed that the actual cpu isn't in direct contact with the metallic back of the screen. So, although it could help if you cool the screen, it isn't very effective. I adapted my "cooling" pad to have the cpu thermally connected to the back of the screen via that DIY aluminium and copper foils setup.
@ modex if the phone drops, the bga connection between either the qualcomm chipset or nand memory (the 2 largest chips onboard) could get damaged. As we know the connection between the cpu (inside qualcomm chipset) and motherboard can be faulty or get that way over time, it's a prime suspect in your case. It is very difficult to predict the outcome if you send in the phone for repairs or have it reheated. I know of no service center that can effectively reball the cpu to the motherboad (means that the chip would actually have to be removed, connections remade - chip resoldered)
My phone is still doing well, one week after the intervention i made. About 14 roms installed, running wp7, android builds, custom wm 6.5, ubuntu and etc. Not a single restart or freeze. It does heat up, but it's now spread over it's surface.
From what i can tell, the diy heatsync helped more then the actual reheating of the chip via hot air station. If in the future, someone else without a warranty to the phone, would try making a similar hack to the phone, we will know for sure if the problem can be solved by simply cooling down the cpu to some extent.
When i will get back from my holiday i will try your thing on my hd2 as it does all the freaky parts even when doing nothing.
today i noticed 7vibrations and got scared, got artemis as a backup, using now, but after a week will try re-solder and give back feedback.
still-after few years of silence in doing electronics- i got my hermes back to life-white screen due to faulty front pcb keyboard, had tp2 and exchanged for hd2-want to see it fully working for the price i paid for it.
regards
Very cool thread...reminds me of days of palm pda when people were more technically
Inclined. Will have to try this out as well.
Just one silly question.
I mended pcb on hermes using heating torch(butane powered)
do you use the same sort of thing or special ones?
first of all heating up the qualcom chip is recomanded as a last resort option. however if you reheat it, pressing the chip to the board is VERRY dangerous, as it could permanently damage the BGA connection.
Here's some sort of guide on doing this. You will need a screwdriver, some 4-5 mica foil pads (you can get them from any electronic component store (get them for either TO3 or TO220 casing and cut them to the size of the cpu inside hd2) some good thermal grease (arctic silver or something for pc cpu's) an aluminum sheet for you to cut a piece of it.
* i don't recommend silicon thermal pads, use only mica crystal pads
* you can substitute the aluminum plate with aluminum/copper foil - the first is the one used for food wrapping)
* i don't recommend using anything beside a smd rework station (either hot air or infrared) to heat up the board. Although a heat gun can develop high temperatures, the air debit is to high (dangerous, you can blow up other components) and you will lack precise temperature control needed for this job.
1. Disassemble the phone following HTC's official videos. Completely remove the motherboard from the phone's casing.
2. Once you have the motherboard de-attached remove all metallic shields on both sides. Normally these prevent EM interferences from the outside to get in and mess with electric signals over the PCB. We can use them as part of the "cooling" system later.
3. OPTIONAL - efficiency yet to be determined/great risk involved - use either a special oven (not microwave !! it WILL kill the phone!) or a smd rework station to pre-heat the mainboard. Temperature must be set at around 95-110 degrees. Board must be heated from both sides, or at least one at a time, beginning with the one opposing the cpu side. Let it preheat at least 10 minutes.
3a. after preheating, use an aluminum foil to cover the rest of the components, anything other then the cpu itself then get to the actual heating, switching first to 250 degrees and directing the air stream on the cpu itself (using a larger nozzle for the tip of the heating gun). After 2-3 minutes of 250 degrees, swich to 340-360 degrees and heat the chip for another 5minutes. Move the heating gun around the surface of the chip and try to heat it evenly. If you have the guts and you are crazy enough use a knife with a larger blade and put the tip of the blade in the hot air stream in front of the cpu. Let it heat for a while, and also, continue heating the cpu. When the blade tip is hot enough press the chip with it , starting from the center and following each side. Apply even force on each press and try to have the blade as parallel with the chip possible. Don't press too hard, if you haven't kill the chip yet, that will kill it.
3b. let the board to cool down on it's own and during cooling try not to move it or do anything to it.
4. place a little amount of thermal grease on top of the cpu then place 1-2 mica foil pads (depending on thickness) over the cpu. Gently press the mica foil with one finger over the cpu. Now place more thermal grease over that mica foil and try to place the metalic shield over that area. If successfully done, the metallic shield should be in contact with the mica foil and the grease. Place back all shields on the main board.
5. On the phone's casing, measure the back of the display and try to cut an aluminum sheet of exactly the same size. If the sheet you can find is too thick - polish it and place it in a solution of either caustic soda or ferric chloride. This will get it thinner, but you have to supervise the process as if you leave it for long, the sheet could get completely dissolved. Check the sheet on short intervals (1min) to see the progress. Always use gloves and eye protection as both substances are dangerous (never mix them, use only one of them, the one you can get or already have). Once done, you will have a thin aluminum sheet that's flexible and about 1mm thick.
6. notice there are some ribbons connecting the display to the motherboard or other exposed metallic contacts. Before placing the aluminum sheet over the display's back, place some insulating tape over those metallic contacts to prevent any shortcircuit forming between them and the aluminum sheet. Next place the aluminum sheet over the display's back. Be careful not to damage any connector or ribbon in the process.
7. place more thermal grease on the cpu's metallic shield and check to see if the motherboard gets in good thermal contact with the aluminum sheet you just placed over the display's back. If there is still some space between them, use another mica foil and place thermal grease on both sides of it.
8. reassemble the phone, and make some tests to see if you get some improvements.
One more thing, this little project of our is in a "more to be seen/tested" state. As of now... only one device was fixed by this method - mine, it could have been simple luck. I don't know yet. more then a week later (strange weather also, + 20 degrees outside then last time i wrote the original post) the phone still works ok. Now running 1.3Ghz overclocked with NAND Android
@ januszgorlewski i remember the first time the phone was vibrating 7 times and i didn't know about this problem, i though it was an WM6.5 Energy Rom feature .
yep.. more than 2 weeks have passed and after i completed all possible tests the phone still works ok.
About 22-25 roms flashed (wp7, wm6.5, android, ubuntu) phone was used either normally or heated with a hair dryer. At about 30 degrees ambient room temperature, i run some 720p testing and manage to run sample videos until battery died out, then rerun the videos while charging (charging induces more heat also).
In all those 2 weeks i had only 2 restarts, both in wp7 (can't remember what rom version did that) and both occurring when i was setting up the phone after the phone update. Phone was cold however. I didn't manage to produce more restarts either when the phone heated up or i tried running intensive apps on it. Guess it was software related.
So.. i guess it's over with this problem.
This thread is awesome. I've opened my HD2 a few times in the past week to replace the LCD. Between the first time and opening it last night the LCM (LCD and touchscreen module) was slightly loose from the chassis so the screen was protruding a little and the front AP buttons were sunken. This was the case for a period of about a week, during which I noticed the phone would get very, very hot towards the bottom on the posterior surface, beneath the battery cover (around the area of the main board). Last night I properly assembled the whole device and it's now completely flush. The overheating doesn't seem to be occurring now.
I wasn't experiencing any restarts or lockups during the time it was overheating.
When I can get hold of the materials I'm definitely trying your heatsink. Thanks for sharing this.
Packaging Reliability - 7 vibration lock-ups
Thanks facdemol for your investigation and sharing.
I have been typing a lengthy description of what happend to me and then my browser hang - annoying so now only the short version
My long awaited factory fresh HD2 that failed exactly as described within 2 month at winter season. I was lucky get the original SPL back after storing it on the balcony at minus 5 and flashing from SD. Please mind, that for me the issue was heavily accelerated with the HD2 plugged in.
Yesterday I got mine back from warranty repair with the main board swapped. Since I am now anxious about this to happen again I asked about similar experience from others which has been denied. After reading this I recommend starting a petition, as this is obviously an wrong thermal design. I work as an packaging engineer and can access this as x-ray, ultrasound microscope (water bath only) and infrared imaging. Even though I dont have the time start this petition I would offer to help putting some serious reliability research behind.
So you could donate malicious hardware for inspection, as mine is still in warranty.
Few years back I had a good RMA experience with my Canon camera that died in warm humidity. After some research in the net I found the policy that all models will be replaced for exactly this failure -no matter when it occurs, as it was a design error (wrong material for CCD attach at this case).
So please people with thermally instable snapdragon devices STAND UP and ask HTC for seriously handling these mistakes. They should replace even after the warranty expiration if they only admit, it was their design flaw...
I for myself will probably try to stress my repiared HD2 in order to have this failure again and then I can opt for exchanging the device. Buth then, what device to buy? For the dual cores this might be even worse. Suppliers do not have long enough life cycles for their products to really do good redesign.
Keep it up
I had 7 vibrations while on the plane, just switched on, play solitaire 5min, then reset-7vibrations, took battery out, start it up, same 7vibrations, about five times same cycle.
Then i thought, ok I am done now-it's a brick, as PC's have BIOS which can tell you by beeping what the hell the problem is. In this case, no idea... Then i found this thread.
@ facdemol I might try only a heatsink - reheating cpu not needed, right? but i will wait for insurance exchange of my phone...
sir first of all i want to thank u for this excellent post . . . . Cn u tell some other easy material than mica foil pads which may b available .. I hav same prob with my hd2 with expired warranty .
the mica crystal pads should be available at any electronic components store. If you can't find any, you could try to substitute them with any other similar purpose material. Use only thermal pads used in electronics for semiconductor (transistors mostly) thermal dissipation. However from what i know or can test, the mica ones are superior to other designs or materials.
Also, good quality thermal paste is a MUST. Cheap one tend to dry out or loose effectiveness over time.
@ profahmad - yes, the back of the lcd unit is metallic. Normally it was not intended to provide heat dissipation, neither is in direct contact with the heat making components, but it takes some of the heat and spreads it over it's surface. What i did is to forcefully use this piece of metal along with the materials i used for the "heat sync" in order to facilitate better thermal dissipation. The HD2 is build on the "edge" as you can see, even if the display unit is removed or improperly mounted, the small effect in cooling the board it once had is enough now to provoke some of the thermal issues.
@januszgorlewski reheating is very risky without solid previous experience. Simply reheating the cpu didn't solve the problem for me, it only ameliorated it a bit. The new heat sync did the trick so i suspect you can skip reheating with not much of a loss in effectiveness. However i should have experienced with more devices in order to know for sure the effects of each stage of my experiment.
@sqeeza yes, a petition could be filed out. However, there are 20-30 topics in this area about hd2 freezing or restarting but most people don't know there is a thermal problem related with these events. If we advertise the problem and it's cause to these people they could run some simple test to determine if their phones are also suffering from this problem.
Hi, I've been suffering from randomly occurring phantom touches, seemingly without a trigger. Sometimes, immediately after I turn my screen on, digitizer starts going nuts and registers hundreds of touches everywhere, often to the point of crashing the system. I have tried to ensure better grounding by applying graphite to the battery cover contacts, but the issue got fixed only temporarily. Wiping the whole screen, bottom to top, with my skin stops the issue. I'm currently running a 4.1.2 Pacman 1.2a Android on an European HD2. Thanks for any kind of help or advice.
Phantoml337 said:
Hi, I've been suffering from randomly occurring phantom touches, seemingly without a trigger. Sometimes, immediately after I turn my screen on, digitizer starts going nuts and registers hundreds of touches everywhere, often to the point of crashing the system. I have tried to ensure better grounding by applying graphite to the battery cover contacts, but the issue got fixed only temporarily. Wiping the whole screen, bottom to top, with my skin stops the issue. I'm currently running a 4.1.2 Pacman 1.2a Android on an European HD2. Thanks for any kind of help or advice.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have seen this issue on a phone with a very dirty screen but I think this is not your problem. Did you ever try another ROM/OS? Maybe it's a driver problem.
If you have some sort of protective case, try to remove it and see what happens.
Otherwise, i suspect a defective touchscreen/digitizer.
Phantoml337 said:
Hi, I've been suffering from randomly occurring phantom touches, seemingly without a trigger. Sometimes, immediately after I turn my screen on, digitizer starts going nuts and registers hundreds of touches everywhere, often to the point of crashing the system. I have tried to ensure better grounding by applying graphite to the battery cover contacts, but the issue got fixed only temporarily. Wiping the whole screen, bottom to top, with my skin stops the issue. I'm currently running a 4.1.2 Pacman 1.2a Android on an European HD2. Thanks for any kind of help or advice.
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I had the same problem in may Galaxy S i9000. I went back to stock rom and that fixed the problem. Most likely it is due to a problem in the driver.
I have read that the power button can possibly cause such issues. The digitizer cable runs very close to it and can get damaged after prolonged use.
Try quickly flicking the power button the next time it happens!
Sent from my NexusHD2 using xda premium
Well, I've installed several systems and it still persists. At least now I know it's hardware related.
Phantoml337 said:
Well, I've installed several systems and it still persists. At least now I know it's hardware related.
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Is your screen or finger wet? Try cleaning your screen by rubbing it dry on your clothes and rub you fingers dry on your clothes too (the friction will make your fingers dry).
My HD2 freaks out and registers touches everywhere even if there is a little drip of sweat on it. ;p
About a week ago I've found out that the issue completely disappears after I remove the battery cover. I've tried replicating the results in long-term scale with 100% success! It's definitely a touchscreen grounding issue.
I have completely (so far at least..) fixed the issue by putting a square piece of duct-tape over the right (with the phone flipped over) grounding pin next to the battery. :victory:
My S7 (G930F) has had screen issues that are fairly typical to the model. When it gets a bit cold, the bottom three quarters of the screen go dim, then pink streaks start to appear from the bottom as it gets worse.
This can be be fixed to a certain extent by disabling auto-brightness, then turning the brightness down until the screen looks normal again. Once the brightness is even across the whole screen, it can be turned back up again a little. Sometimes rebooting it helps.
It's been happening very regularly, and it's been so bad that if I'm outdoors in daylight, I need to turn the brightness down to the point where it's hard to see the screen. Even at a comfortable room temperature, it's likely to happen if the brightness is up high. The screen is usually going weird in the morning too, when I first pick it up, until it warms up a little.
As I understand it, it's caused by a bad solder joint somewhere on the screen assembly. It gets cold, the solder contracts a little, enough to cause a bad connection.
Anyway, last weekend I was playing Mario Kart Tour online for quite a while, to the point where the phone was really warm in my hands. Now, ever since, I've not had any screen problems at all. I've had auto-brightness turned on the whole time, it's definitely been exposed to low temperatures, down to maybe 5 Celsius. It was cold to the touch this morning, and it was fine. All the conditions where it would usually happen, the screen has been fine, all week, even with the brightness slider all the way up full for extended periods.
I'm guessing what's happened is similar to the crude but effective trick of fixing a faulty PlayStation 3 by putting the motherboard in the oven for a while, or blasting it with a heat gun, except in this case I've baked the phone from the inside.
A relatively graphically demanding game, played online, constantly processing touch and gyroscope input, means that everything that can get hot has got hot. GPU, CPU, radio. The copper heat dissipation pipe inside has spread the heat across the back of the screen assembly, et voila, the bad solder joint has been cooked just enough to make a better connection.
I guess that like baking a PS3 motherboard, it will ultimately be a temporary fix, but it will be interesting to see how long it works for, and if it will work again if the problems start again.
No. You didn't fix anything, you just avoided the problem temporarily. This also happened on my Galaxy S7 and it is due to a partial disconnection of the display flex. Over time, due to thermal expansion and compression the flex' contact becomes loose. When it becomes loose, it disconnects partially when the device cools down because the display and the motherboard contract and get away from each other increasing the distance between the display and the motherboard. If you keep your device hot at all times it will have a reduced lifespan. Don't.
Indeed, you repositioned your flex by heating your phone because it is loose and it sits just right, but at any moment it can come off again.
There is only one permanent fix. You need to take your back panel off and let the device cool to room temperature (important!)
After that, disconnect the display flex completely and then plug it again and push it just tight enough to make a firm contact. Your display should work perfectly now no matter the temperature.
Note that this will remove your IP68 water resistance, but you shouldn't get your phone near water anyways.
My phone has been opened up, all the connectors carefully cleaned with isopropyl alcohol, then firmly pushed back into place.
in fact my phone is made from spare parts. the screen was leftover from a friend's S7, after i replaced their screen for them. they had already had it fixed once while it was under warranty, and the screen problems ultimately started again.
i kept hold of the screen and paired it with a mainboard i had left over from another S7. i wanted to establish if the problem really was the screen assembly, if it was just bad connections, and if it still behaved in the same way with another mainboard.
the problem, in this case, is most definitely the screen assembly. it has displayed exactly the same problems with two different mainboards, after both myself and the warranty repair service had worked on it.
also, if you read what i said properly, you'll see i'm definitely not suggesting keeping it hot all the time as a solution. i'm saying that it got really hot ONCE, for maybe 40 minutes or so, and ever since, it's worked perfectly for the longest period of time i've ever known it to go for without the display going weird. it's been down to 5°c or maybe lower since, i live in rural wales, and it's autumn.
If you read what I said properly, you should know that what you did is just a workaround to keep the connector in the correct position temporarily moving it with thermal expansion, you definitely didn't reflow anything because RoHS solder only starts to soften at near 160°C, far beyond what the Exynos TMU will let anything in the board heat up before tripping and shutting the entire motherboard down.
If the problem persists then try putting a small piece of rolled electrical tape above the display connector to make some extra pressure against the board.
yeah "read what i said again properly" was an unnecessarily dickish choice of words on my part. i attribute that to replying before finishing my coffee
so would you say from experience that the issue where the bottom half/three quarters of the screen goes dull is pretty much always down to the display connector, and a little extra pressure holding it in place will stop it happening again? i have read conflicting reports, with a few attributing it to a bad solder joint in the screen assembly.
i'm not too worried about opening the phone up again, once the original adhesive has been removed and replaced with the third party pre-cut stuff, it's a bit easier to open it up again.
Mr Creosote said:
yeah "read what i said again properly" was an unnecessarily dickish choice of words on my part. i attribute that to replying before finishing my coffee
so would you say from experience that the issue where the bottom half/three quarters of the screen goes dull is pretty much always down to the display connector, and a little extra pressure holding it in place will stop it happening again? i have read conflicting reports, with a few attributing it to a bad solder joint in the screen assembly.
i'm not too worried about opening the phone up again, once the original adhesive has been removed and replaced with the third party pre-cut stuff, it's a bit easier to open it up again.
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Okay, no problem
We all get grumpy without our morning coffee, especially after fixing tens of AOSP build errors and having to restart our 7-hour build.
I had the exact same problem you had, the three bottom quarters of the display blacked out. I am pretty sure it is caused by a weak contact because, from observation alone the phone:
1. the connection restored itself when the phone became hot
2. after cooling down for a while, the display started to fail again
3. by artificially applying a CPU load, the phone heated and the display connector fell back into place connecting the bottom of the display and giving image.
4. the display NEVER flickered when it felt hot to my hands
Also, you mentioned that you exposed your phone to low temperatures so that might cause a cumulative effect over time on a loose display connector, I think they come kinda loose out of the factory or get loose after a few years. I myself opened up my phone with a hair dryer and a few guitar picks, it was hard and I ruined a student credential card but eventually I cooled down the phone so when I remade the contact it would keep itself together on a cold device. Then I detached the connector and voila, it came back to life and confirmed my observation. As a result, I got a free S7 for myself to upgrade from my Huawei P9. The display hasn't failed for me since.
On a second thought, you should probably avoid the electrical tape and use something that will resist higher temperatures without melting or being conductive. Or just avoid a shim altogether. I didn;t need one.
You are pretty much returning the connection to its factory state, keeping it nice and tight for more time.
Good luck, it was quite the learning experience for me and my first time repairing a phone.
I've got some adhesive foam pads that are meant for use inside electronics, I will cut one of those down to size and give it a try if my screen problems reappear.
After a couple of weeks, the screen problems started to reappear. They've never got as bad as they were before, i haven't had to turn the screen brightness down to the point where it was hard to see, but it has been getting worse and more regular. I've just taken the back off my phone, disconnected the screen connector and pushed it firmly back into place, and added a layer of adhesive foam to it. all seems fine at the moment, i will see how it gets on out on a walk in daylight with auto-brightness on.