Hi everyone,
I made an account just to get some advice on this issue, hopefully someone can help me out.
I've been using my Galaxy S4 (I9505 - Verizon) since its release and I've had few problems with it up until now. about 2 months ago, the range at which my phone can connect to wifi and bluetooth severely decreased. It seemed to have happened out of nowhere, there was no inciting incident. I have to stand within about 1-2ft of a router in order to catch a signal from it. When I do that everything works just fine, but the second i move even a step further away the connection completely drops off.
There isn't much documentation for this specific issue online, although the S4 is known to have some common wifi problems.
I've determined that it is likely a failed Wifi/Bluetooth IC module on my motherboard. Repair shops are asking for way too much money to fix this, so I'm going to try to fix it myself. I'm a fairly advanced user and feel comfortable doing it on my own. I just wanted some advice on the procedure of removing and replacing an IC module and what tools are needed to do so.
I am going to order this Wifi/Bluetooth IC from ebay:
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What else will I need to get it attached? Will I need a real soldering torch? Or will a hair dryer be powerful enough to heat it?
Thanks in advance for the help!
I don't think hair dryers are enough.
Besides, a hair dryer can't focus the beam, so you might end up loosening the solder on some other parts as well, which may lead to other problems.
But I don't have any experience with soldering or opening up phones, so what do I know?
But you could always check YouTube.
Related
A'ight, so i opened my good old' Prophet today.
I am 50% sure that the battery thing thangy on the motherboard (see pic) is broken.
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However, it might also be the battery, i have two batteries, one is the one that came with the Prophet and one is a cheap battery i ordered from Dealextreme.
I do know that the cheap battery is dead, but the other one (I did some testing with it, it shows up at 1.4V at my multimeter) i'm not sure if it is dead.
The phone has been like this before:
It randomly worked, randomly turned off, it wouldn't work for like 10 days, then when i put the battery in again it worked.
It kept doing that until it died completely.
Any suggestions?
I can't understand on photo. A battery pin is broken? If the problem is broken pin, a watchseller or jeweler can fix it. They have the right equipment to work with small things
zephyri-xr said:
I can't understand on photo. A battery pin is broken? If the problem is broken pin, a watchseller or jeweler can fix it. They have the right equipment to work with small things
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You think they will fix this?
I would try to get a new (third) cheap battery.
Or try to re-animate the cheap one (dangerous, forbidden, but works often for me: open battery casing, unsolder LiIon-Cell, reload with Lab power supply to around 3-3.8 V (never > 4.2V!!!!), resolder, put in Prophete, start charging....)
The pins look ok. 1.4V for LiIon is below the deadly shutdown value!
TS
OK, maybe my answer is a bit late...
So my power connector has a problem. I can't get it to reliably connect. Just a little jostling causes it to loose connection. If this happens while I sleep, the power drains completely and my alarm doesn't go off.
Any idea how to fix this?
I'm pretty sure the issue is not with my wires because I've tried several - and tried the wires on several devices and they work fine.
synpax said:
So my power connector has a problem. I can't get it to reliably connect. Just a little jostling causes it to loose connection. If this happens while I sleep, the power drains completely and my alarm doesn't go off.
Any idea how to fix this?
I'm pretty sure the issue is not with my wires because I've tried several - and tried the wires on several devices and they work fine.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's the piece of (excuse my French)..........sh*t USB port on the phone. Mine has come loose too. Just got my warranty replacement and it freezes and the colors are off (like the whites are actually a light yellow.....wasn't like that on my old phone)
very true, you can attempt to clean out the usb port on your phone in hopes this will fix your issue. otherwise get ready to spend $5-10 on ebay and pick up a new port, of course you will have to solder this in so yeah, its a fun job
Mine has been this way since the day I got it. I actually just bought some Samsung micro-USB cables off Amazon that have a solid fit inside the phone, wonderful cables! Can't beat the price of them either.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001XXUOQI/ref=pe_175190_21431760_cs_sce_3p_dp_1
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I bought a Note on eBay with some water damage with the hope of fixing it. Works perfect except no signal. Found this:
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I've replaced this with a new board. Luckily it only cost $9 on eBay.
Still no signal, so look further under microscope at work. Find a capacitor blown/missing from the board (C240):
(Click for full size)
It's not listed in the component parts list from the service manual. On the board layout it's highlighted green but I can't find what this indicates.
Does anyone know how else I might be able to find out this value?
I'll be lucky if it's only the cap that's damaged and not any chips hanging of that circuit but it's worth a try.
On second thoughts, green may indicate an optional component. Some other components marked green are missing from my board.
Back to the drawing board
It recognises my SIM card but I just get no service.
Service Manual troubleshooting points to U300, the main baseband chip, which would make sense. Unfortunately it looks to be a BGA so not easily removable.
A long shot, but if anyone has any thoughts they would be much appreciated.
Did you ever fix the phone? I have similar issues with water damaged gt-n7000. No signal but recognises the sim card and baseband processor (u300). Also the rf path looks good all the way to the antenna etc...
Nah, sorry. I ended up selling it as it appeared to have more serious damage, likely an IC on the mainboard.
Hi everyone
I got a defy+ two weeks ago and it was fine until a few days, it completely lost it, it keeps connecting to either car dock or dock media station all by it self, installed various roms, returned to stock 2.3.6 no way it just got mad, the screen keeps glowing even when nobody touches it, now even the phone's speaker (not the loud speaker) doesn't work in calls anymore, it thinks that the headphones are connected, and also the music doesn't get through the loud speaker, im just fed up, I have downloaded several apps to prevent the phone from entering dock mode with no success, as its a hardware problem. its the magnetic field sensor that went mad, I have no choice but to open the handset and give the sensor IC some heat (I'm very skillful in such things), whats your opinion guys? Does anybody have a picture of the motherboard to appoint me to the sensor IC please?
Please reply as its the only phone I currently own :crying: and in such country there is no warranty no matter what
I solved the problem by applying heat to the AKM ak8973 magnetic field sensor IC using a a high precision heat gun and a bit of soldering past and the phone seems to operate flawlessly now. after searching a little bit it seems that a wide range of Android based Motorola phones suffer from the same problem including Atrix and Razr so this may be the solution, I have attached an image showing the AKM chip that needs to be heated up
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Hi guys
Had my S5 for coming up to a year now (bought it used) and recently the screen rotation has stopped working and shows on sensor data in the test menu X: -180.0, Y: 82.0, Z: 0.0 and will not change.
The only thing I have done to it in the past few days is clean out the earpiece and speaker with a magnet as with my job (mechanic) metal filings frequently build up in these locations, I'm pretty sure this coincides with when the problem started. I have had the battery out for about 30 mins and no change. I also read that banging the device on a surface can 'recalibrate' the sensor, this has not helped. I have watched the XYZ axis while moving a magnet around the device and the values did not change, obviously I have tried turning screen rotation on and off with no change. The only other thing that I can think of is while I had the S View vover off I accidently dropped the device and the battery came out.
Has anyone got ideas to fix this as it looks to me like a hardware problem. If a factory reset may work I will try it but that would be a last resort as I'm fairly sure it won't work. I have factory warranty until the end of July also.
Thanks
Steve
I swear this thing knew what was coming as after doing absolutely nothing to it apart from checking the warranty status and finding my nearest Samsung service centre it has started working perfectly.
No need to reply
Probably damaged it with the magnet, not a great idea putting magnets against delicate electronics
The way the accelerometer etc works is iirc, extremely thin strips of metal, in very fine gaps in-between more metal, like two combs with the teeth pushed between each other, only with gaps
Magnet probably physically damaged them
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Rotation sensor too more than likely