Related
First and foremost, I don't promise this will fix anything as it has only worked for myself, but let me share my experience/journey and see if this can help at least another person in the same boat as I am.
If you do not want to read the entire story, feel free to skip to the break below.
Back story:
I got the phone in Hong Kong back in November. It's a 505 H815TR. (Don't ask me why I ended up with a Turkish phone, I have no idea)
The phone worked fine for about two weeks, then it would one day start to restart randomly. It also started happening more and more frequent, and the phone might fail to boot at all.
Sometimes it would just freeze on a screen and there'll be artifacts like the GPU overheated. When that happens the phone wouldn't even respond to a hard power-off (holding power for 4 seconds+) and I'd have to take out the battery.
Unfortunately for me, I have since went overseas and LG would not honour the motherboard swap. I also didn't want to sell this otherwise great new phone to another unfortunate soul either. So I'm stuck with the few hundred bux worth of not-quite junk. Determined to not let the money go to waste, I still tried to use it as a daily driver but it had gotten so bad at one point that I had to keep taking the battery off and restarting every few minutes during a meeting like an idiot.
So I tried upgrading the firmware, in hopes that it'll at least improve the situation. It was the 20c firmware. I used LGUP to upgrade it and it got better, if only for a while.
I thought, hey it ran better! Maybe I can stick it out, and sucker up the less frequent restarts. It will run okay for a week or so with occasional restarts. Then it suddenly got bad one day I opened up Maps for navigation. It would suddenly go back to a few restarts an hour.
At this point my hypothesis is that apps/sensors that would require a hike in power can trigger the crash. (duh!) So I turned off Bluetooth/GPS/disable every other app that I can think of. While it help a BIT, it certainly did not alleviate the problem. It had only gotten worse as time goes.
A few weeks went by, 20d came around. Hoping situations would improve, I upgraded the phone.
The problem got WORSE. I thought that's weird, the new version should have came with optimizations and gave less work the phone - hence it should freeze less. Puzzled and disappointed, I flashed back to 20c and was prepared to bite the bullet and accept it as lost cause. To my surprise however, when 20c finished generating cache and booted up, things started looking better again. It would run a few DAYS without problems. I got even more confused. If the problem was purely triggered by spikes of load, going back to the old firmware should have little to no effect. Something else must be going on. Before long, the problems came back and I'm plagued by the restarts again.
I came up with 2 possible hypotheses:
1 - It had something to do with cache
2 - It had something to do with Doze optimizations
Number 2 was easy to test. I went to settings and ignored every possible optimization (****ty UI on that screen by the way. It takes forever to scroll to anything and the checkboxes don't save until you exit the menu. When a restart hits before I exit the menu all progress is lost and I had to start from beginning :crying: ). I ran for a few more days and it seemed to have little impact.
So I was fairly confident at one point that it had to do with cache. Unfortunately, the G4 (at least my G4) does not have an easy access to erasing cache (which was incredibly annoying LG!). The so-called stock recovery only has an option to wipe the phone and obviously I didn't want to do that. I also did not want to temper with bootloader for the same reasons aside from the risk of bricking the phone. I had remembered that when I upgraded the firmware the cache gets wiped and it'll be regenerated on first boot. So I thought I'll just flash the same firmware and I'll be done! To my demise, apparently flashing the same kdz does NOT trigger the cache generation process. What I had to do was to flash 20d, boot that, and flash 20c again.
Things started to look better here. It ran fine. It did not crash for about a week or so. I thought it was a fair compromise. I can deal with a quick refresh(flashing 20d and then 20c again) once a week. Whenever I see signs of the restarts, I would quickly refresh when I got home that evening and it will be good for a week or so. Here I was ready to finalize my theory until...
It crashed. Soon after one of my routine refresh. I thought this was interesting? If it had to do with some kind of cache buildup, surely it would not crash right after a refresh? What's weirder still was it stopped doing that after 2-3 times. Something ELSE MUST be contributing to this. What else was related to the process of cache generation that could affect the stability of my system?
Here ladies and gentlemen, is what my little pea brain have came up with, through trial and error, no engineering background, limited tech knowledge, and limited common-sense:
It had to do with the activity of the CPU; or more precisely, it may have to do with the extended heating process that caused some component around the area to change in some kind of state, and thus improving the stability for a duration until it gradually changes back with time.
Engineers are probably laughing at me right now. I know it probably makes no sense, but it's the best that I can come up with. So I come to you guys, maybe some may help shed some light on this issue that plagues those of us who are stuck with the problematic phones that are not eligible for exchanges/repairs.
Anyway, to test my theory out, I downloaded some kind of stress tester from Google Play (I used StabilityTest v2.7)
I would wait until the phone starts restarting again (and it will, and when it does happen the stability dropped SHARPLY, from no restarts to maybe 2-3 an hour).
Then, I would run StabilityTest. I chose the classic stability test, and just let it run.
The first time it ran, it did not survive the first 10-15 mins. The phone would restart, and I would try again.
This time it ran for 2 hours without restarting (double the time needed for generating cache twice on my phone). I manually stopped the test and started using it normally.
Lo and behold! It was rock solid stable! No crashes, no matter what I did! Wifi, bluetooth, GPS, games, maps, youtube,... all of the above?!
And it would stay this way for me for about 2 weeks. When the phone starts restarting again, I would run the stress tester for a couple of hours, and it would be stable again.
I have since tried the 20d firmware, which also ran fine. I also flashed 20e yesterday, and so far it has been very smooth. I have tried various amounts of times like 1hr, 3hrs, 10hrs, but it would seem that going longer than 3hrs have no impact on the interval between restarts. So personally I find 2hrs will last me 2weeks or so and that works best for me.
I may not have completely solved the problem, and I still don't understand why it works, but it is sort of working for me.
And I hope it would work for you as well!
So here you go! And thanks for reading this unnecessarily long post!
TL;DR
Summary - I have found that by putting the cpu on load for an extended amount of time will dramatically increase the stability of the problematic phone. Here's something you can try:
Disclaimer: I do not guarantee this will work on your phone. I am no engineer. I take no responsibility if it causes any problem on your phone or if it explodes. That being said, it has worked for me. Please try at your own risk!
1. Make sure the area is well ventilated, the phone has sufficient battery or is charging.
2. Download and run "StabilityTest (ROOT Optional)" from Play Store.
3. Run "CLASSIC STABILITY TEST"
4. Let it run for at least 2 hours. If your phone restarts during the test, try again.
*However I would keep an eye on the temperature. I normal at around 50-60 Celsius.
5. It SHOULD be okay now. Depending on how bad your particular problem is, you may have to repeat this process every week or two. Experiment with different load times and see where your sweet spot is.
Thanks,
cbpneuma
Thanks for writing up your experience and theory. I wonder if the additional stress load is generating a large amount of heat that is curing some type of mechanically related electrical fault like a cold solder joint or marginally loose connection.
Some people bake or freeze their phones once the phone is continuously bootlooping so that they can get it to boot up and stay operational long enough to pull their data off the phone.
LG should take responsibility of their shoddy product and replace all affected serial numbers now without questions or provide a 3 year extended warranty.
Wow
That's great TC.
This is the first real lead that anyone has made ( to my knowledge)
And may be why LG is quiet on the cause of the hardware failures
Similar heading would help red ringed Xbox 360 and yellow light ps3's back in the day
cbpneuma said:
Engineers are probably laughing at me right now. I know it probably makes no sense, but it's the best that I can come up with. So I come to you guys, maybe some may help shed some light on this issue that plagues those of us who are stuck with the problematic phones that are not eligible for exchanges/repairs.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not laughing if anything your patience and dogged determination is inspiring.
Great write up
I have found out something !!!
After 6 months of use of my LG G4 H815 S/N 509 Germany... When I put it over heavy load and let it heat up pretty well ( about 70-80 degrees Celsius ) I used to take the back cover off !!! I smelled it several times through out this period !!! And guess what I used to smell ??? The smell of flux !!! which shouldn't be there... I used to work daily fixing Mobos and PCBs so I know how flux smells like !!! My theory is that there is an excess of flux with the solder on the board and as we know flux helps solder to melt at lower temps, so at certain high temps on the G4, flux is slightly boiling... which is causing these fumes ( no smoke though !!! ) !!! Which could cause either of both:
1. An isolation if flux wastes get between the solder and the PCB !!!
2. If solder is deforming or melting which might cause loose contact between the components and the PCB !!!
How to fix this, it is all about burning the flux away without causing damage to the mobo :
1. Heat the hell out of your LG G4 while it is sitting still on a table !!! ( AND I REPEAT, SITTING STILL !!! NOT MOVING AROUND !!! )
2. The better solution would be to fix it like we fix GPUs !!! And this will burn the flux away so the solution should work...
a. Disassembled your LG G4 and remove your mobo.
b. Turn on your oven and heat it to 200 Degrees Celcsus .
c. Place your mobo on the Aluminium foil stand onto a cooking sheet or Aluminium foil with the EMI shield Up.
d. Once Oven has reached the 200 Degrees Celsius... place it into the Oven and bake it for 7 min.
e. When time up, leave the Oven door opened and the it stand or cool down for at least 60 min. (but I recommend you wait 120 min. to be on the safe side !!! ). Do not touch it or move it or eat it ( LOL, that sounded dirty... ) !!! Be patient.
f. Finally, reassemble your G4 and turn it on !!! It should work fine now !!!
Don't attempt this fix unless you are aware of what you are doing !!! And only if LG refused to fix your precious device !!! Don't attempt to fix it if you lack the required experience and skills !!! Learn how to do things first...
" DISCLAIMER: "
I am not responsible of any damage you cause to your device, yourself, your surroundings... or even your entire god damn country !!! LOL... I am not responsible if you cause a thermonuclear war or get the USA and Russia into war trying to fix your device !!! So please be aware of what you are doing and be careful !!!
BTW I hear a weird sound ( similar to spinning HDD if you ever heard one ) coming from the SoC area on the LG G4 when I put it under heavy load !!! I wonder if it is normal or due to the loose contact which usually causes similar sounds to come out of electronic components !!! Does anyone else hear that ??? Is it normal ???
( btw before you start saying that, I know smartphones don't have HDDs !!! I was just describing the sound !!! )
Just a comment... flux does not actually lower the melting point of solder, but rather helps it to flow better to the metal traces of the components and printed circuit board.
From Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flux_(metallurgy))
In high-temperature metal joining processes (welding, brazing and soldering), the primary purpose of flux is to prevent oxidation of the base and filler materials. Tin-lead solder (e.g.) attaches very well to copper, but poorly to the various oxides of copper, which form quickly at soldering temperatures. Flux is a substance which is nearly inert at room temperature, but which becomes strongly reducing at elevated temperatures, preventing the formation of metal oxides. Additionally, flux allows solder to flow easily on the working piece rather than forming beads as it would otherwise.
The role of a flux in joining processes is typically dual: dissolving of the oxides on the metal surface, which facilitates wetting by molten metal, and acting as an oxygen barrier by coating the hot surface, preventing its oxidation. In some applications molten flux also serves as a heat transfer medium, facilitating heating of the joint by the soldering tool or molten solder.
cbpneuma said:
First and foremost, I don't promise this will fix anything as it has only worked for myself, but let me share my experience/journey and see if this can help at least another person in the same boat as I am.
If you do not want to read the entire story, feel free to skip to the break below.
Back story:
I got the phone in Hong Kong back in November. ...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Very interesting. Keep in mind that almost all of the bootloop problems are fatal - the phones won't boot up unless placed in a freezer, and eventually many of those phones won't boot up at all, even if placed in freezer. And the oven method doesn't provide for a long term fix.
For most of us, once it starts to bootloop, the phone is basically dead.
kwarwick said:
Just a comment... flux does not actually lower the melting point of solder, but rather helps it to flow better to the metal traces of the components and printed circuit board.
From Wikipedia...
In high-temperature metal joining processes (welding, brazing and soldering), the primary purpose of flux is to prevent oxidation of the base and filler materials. Tin-lead solder (e.g.) attaches very well to copper, but poorly to the various oxides of copper, which form quickly at soldering temperatures. Flux is a substance which is nearly inert at room temperature, but which becomes strongly reducing at elevated temperatures, preventing the formation of metal oxides. Additionally, flux allows solder to flow easily on the working piece rather than forming beads as it would otherwise.
The role of a flux in joining processes is typically dual: dissolving of the oxides on the metal surface, which facilitates wetting by molten metal, and acting as an oxygen barrier by coating the hot surface, preventing its oxidation. In some applications molten flux also serves as a heat transfer medium, facilitating heating of the joint by the soldering tool or molten solder.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You probably misunderstood me... But it is okay !!!
Flux helps the solder to melt faster ( not lowering the melting point of solder ) cuz it allows better heat transfer... It also helps soder to better stock to the PCB and the terminals of electronic components !!!
Flux with solder works like oil when you want to fry potatoes... It will make them get cooked faster !!! Without oil they will take longer time !!! I hope you get my point....
starfcker69 said:
Very interesting. Keep in mind that almost all of the bootloop problems are fatal - the phones won't boot up unless placed in a freezer, and eventually many of those phones won't boot up at all, even if placed in freezer. And the oven method doesn't provide for a long term fix.
For most of us, once it starts to bootloop, the phone is basically dead.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I feel like this more because of the **** implementation of CPU, since I disabled 2 main cores almost 3 or 4 weeks ago my phone is running pretty well and I'm even on a custom ROM.
Adam Myczkowski said:
I feel like this more because of the **** implementation of CPU, since I disabled 2 main cores almost 3 or 4 weeks ago my phone is running pretty well and I'm even on a custom ROM.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What was your phone doing before you disabled those two main cores and do you feel any performance decrease with them disabled?
divineBliss said:
What was your phone doing before you disabled those two main cores and do you feel any performance decrease with them disabled?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My wasn't completely dead, it was booting up sometimes, rarely but usually in the really low temps, I tried baking the mobo, worked for few hours and phone died, I put thermal pads on all the components what made pressure on them pushing them apart into the processor, phone worked, but again in REALLY low temps if it got up to like 27•C the phone constantly rebooting. ( I was on stock Marshmallow btw ). Then I found this reddit thread about disabling big cores, somehow it worked. Works only on 5.1, just saying. Anyway even though I disabled only 2 cores, the phone have been booting up only on 1 (WTF), what made it really slow and laggy. Fortunately, if you root your device you can enable all 4 cores in device manager. Or if you have H815 with unlocked bootloader as I do, you can flash any AOSP, CM, AOKP etc based ROM, with root and enable all for cores as well, I don't feel that big difference since I'm on pure android really. I already found a bug that disabling 2 cores is causing, on SUPERXE AOSP ROM this is somehow causing lockscreen settings to crash as I am not able to have any screen lock, weird bug... I didn't try any other ROMs.
so..
i bought a G4 H812 canadian off Kijiji (our local buy and sell like craigs list kinda thing) $50 no battery stuck in HS-USB 9008.
invested another $22 in a battery from a friend. now total invested into a possible bricked device... $72.. not to bad, a risk yes... but i had luck and confidence!
excellent screen scratch wise but had delamination all around the screen (see pic 1)
so with a half charged new battery, a possible bricked g4, and some previous knowledge and repair skills, i went to work.
tried QPST... nadda. tried LGUP... nadda. tried lg flashtool... guess what.. yup.. nothing... felt like friends repair shop was last left option...
but im a scrooge, and determined
so i took to youtube and google, found out it may have been one of a possible recall phones that had the thermal bootloop issue or emmc failure..
grabbed my custom heatgun and blasted it at 275 for 3min.. 3" away in circle patterns, just like most unbrick guides.. and left it cool for 30min.
put it back together and powered on to find it boot just fine not needing no relfash, had a pattern lock, contacted original owner the seller, got lock off,
wiped personals and internal storage, and found it was on 6.0.1... DAMN... no root possible.
go to downgrade and it doesnt, error's out before can even do anything, i forget, com41 change required...
so go to reboot and it stops booting again, but really warm... overheat issue again...
repeat the process many times trying to get to usable home screen as it would just keep freezing.. so i really examined all the phones parts and noticed... pic2 this really crappy black thermal tape, right where the main emmc and cpu is... kinda silly for such a heat hog i thinks.. so looking at the rf shield on phone where cpu is they also have this really ****ty goldish shield tape that on the reverse side is plasticy feeling.. not good for thermals i think.. so i tore it off, and removed that black thermal tape, cleaned top of cpu, heatgunned again this time at 300 for 2 1/2min. 2.5" away circulars, twice, 30 min cooldowns between.
took a light blue 1mm thick heatpad i found from a ddr3 ram stick heatshield, cut it to shape of cpu, and placed on top, also placed a piece on the slightly smaller black chip to the upper left of cpu, and also on the what i believe to be the power control ic on the opposite side of board, so that all possible sources of higher heat had thermal pads and better conductivity.
placed phone all back together, screwed all screws finger tight, placed sim card and sd and battery, back cover.. and hoped to god.. press power..
boots up nice and quick, hot at first after a factory wipe in recovery, like kinda scary hot at first then slowly cools...
its been running for almost 2 days now.. no slowdowns, no sluggish, does get warm when charging as expected.
but so far, ive been able to use sixaxis controller app, my ps3 controller, moonlight for root, and stream wildlands from my pc for almost 2 hrs,
charge up a bit, play Bully and run 3dmark for a while, and while it does get warm, its not near as bad as it used to be, i think something went right this time
its almost upon its 3rd full day of use without bootloop or overheat, mind u i am also using v4 CTT cpu mod
have xposed installed and root on 5.1 and am happy its still running so far.
so yeah, if this continues to run ill keep updating post when and if something happens to the device..
if it keeps running every two days ill update, and then this may just be a way to self fix the overheat bootloop cpu issues most of us have face i bet!
if you try this, let me know if it works for you.. id be happy to know im not the only one
I'm glad you got it working! Yeah this has been brought up here before on getting it working or putting in the oven etc lol. But it will eventually fail again there's no complete fix sadly. But hope it lasts you long I loved the G4 but the boot loop issues really gave it a bad rap.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Will follow this, keep us updated !!
I have done this already and I can assure you it's won't last. Nice work but you are being too optimistic. Without going into too much detail, the problem with the soc will slowly get worse the more you use the phone and putting heatsinks only slows down the rate at which it gets worse and does't stop it altogether. You haven't fixed the underlying issue. That's why it will fail again eventually.
My lg g4 had bootlooped issue too. Everything I did didn't solved the problem . From freezer to oven , and disabling two big core to remaining in only one core the device bootlooped everytime. Now what I did was : First I opened a device , remove the upper golden colour cover enclosing the processor, put some thin paper covering both processor and ram. Then put everything on their respective place. Then I turned a device it booted up. Downgraded to lollipop , disabled the big core using .tot method , rooted my LG G4 and enabled four core using free app by stojshic (Kudos to him: https://forum.xda-developers.com/g4/themes-apps/root-4-cores-activator-t3538175) . The device is working fine since week . I've restarted the device many times to check whether I will get bootloop again, played games like clash of royale for 2 hours etc. The device is working fine with less heating. The main culprit is I guess golden cover shield which is worsening overheating issue . The CPU generates heat and the cover shield is increasing thermal cycle . If by any means a thin better insulator is kept between the CPU and covering shield, this may solve the bootloop problem
georgemb said:
My lg g4 had bootlooped issue too. Everything I did didn't solved the problem . From freezer to oven , and disabling two big core to remaining in only one core the device bootlooped everytime. Now what I did was : First I opened a device , remove the upper golden colour cover enclosing the processor, put some thin paper covering both processor and ram. Then put everything on their respective place. Then I turned a device it booted up. Downgraded to lollipop , disabled the big core using .tot method , rooted my LG G4 and enabled four core using free app by stojshic (Kudos to him: https://forum.xda-developers.com/g4/themes-apps/root-4-cores-activator-t3538175) . The device is working fine since week . I've restarted the device many times to check whether I will get bootloop again, played games like clash of royale for 2 hours etc. The device is working fine with less heating. The main culprit is I guess golden cover shield which is worsening overheating issue . The CPU generates heat and the cover shield is increasing thermal cycle . If by any means a thin better insulator is kept between the CPU and covering shield, this may solve the bootloop problem
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes but the the heat of the phone when your playing games and booting up will still effect the soc to get worse over time, just at a slower rate. Its not a case of "if it does't reach a certain temp it will be fine". It's a case of "the more heat the quicker it will bootloop, the less heat the slower it will take to bootloop" but either way it will get there eventually as the problem gets worse over time.
Any recommendations?
Can anyone recommend a copper heat tape (or something better) that would work to get my phone running again? It's overheating and therefore bootlooping, so I am curious if there is any specific things to look for or stay away from when buying something to fix this, however temporary it may be.
Copper is better conductor of heat .. So it will work as heat sink ..U can put thermal paste in between CPU and copper tape..
Check it out
youtu.be/G3dQdS1b0aw
Try it and report back
tnap1979 said:
so..
i bought a G4 H812 canadian off Kijiji (our local buy and sell like craigs list kinda thing) $50 no battery stuck in HS-USB 9008.
invested another $22 in a battery from a friend. now total invested into a possible bricked device... $72.. not to bad, a risk yes... but i had luck and confidence!
excellent screen scratch wise but had delamination all around the screen (see pic 1)
so with a half charged new battery, a possible bricked g4, and some previous knowledge and repair skills, i went to work.
tried QPST... nadda. tried LGUP... nadda. tried lg flashtool... guess what.. yup.. nothing... felt like friends repair shop was last left option...
but im a scrooge, and determined
so i took to youtube and google, found out it may have been one of a possible recall phones that had the thermal bootloop issue or emmc failure..
grabbed my custom heatgun and blasted it at 275 for 3min.. 3" away in circle patterns, just like most unbrick guides.. and left it cool for 30min.
put it back together and powered on to find it boot just fine not needing no relfash, had a pattern lock, contacted original owner the seller, got lock off,
wiped personals and internal storage, and found it was on 6.0.1... DAMN... no root possible.
go to downgrade and it doesnt, error's out before can even do anything, i forget, com41 change required...
so go to reboot and it stops booting again, but really warm... overheat issue again...
repeat the process many times trying to get to usable home screen as it would just keep freezing.. so i really examined all the phones parts and noticed... pic2 this really crappy black thermal tape, right where the main emmc and cpu is... kinda silly for such a heat hog i thinks.. so looking at the rf shield on phone where cpu is they also have this really ****ty goldish shield tape that on the reverse side is plasticy feeling.. not good for thermals i think.. so i tore it off, and removed that black thermal tape, cleaned top of cpu, heatgunned again this time at 300 for 2 1/2min. 2.5" away circulars, twice, 30 min cooldowns between.
took a light blue 1mm thick heatpad i found from a ddr3 ram stick heatshield, cut it to shape of cpu, and placed on top, also placed a piece on the slightly smaller black chip to the upper left of cpu, and also on the what i believe to be the power control ic on the opposite side of board, so that all possible sources of higher heat had thermal pads and better conductivity.
placed phone all back together, screwed all screws finger tight, placed sim card and sd and battery, back cover.. and hoped to god.. press power..
boots up nice and quick, hot at first after a factory wipe in recovery, like kinda scary hot at first then slowly cools...
its been running for almost 2 days now.. no slowdowns, no sluggish, does get warm when charging as expected.
but so far, ive been able to use sixaxis controller app, my ps3 controller, moonlight for root, and stream wildlands from my pc for almost 2 hrs,
charge up a bit, play Bully and run 3dmark for a while, and while it does get warm, its not near as bad as it used to be, i think something went right this time
its almost upon its 3rd full day of use without bootloop or overheat, mind u i am also using v4 CTT cpu mod
have xposed installed and root on 5.1 and am happy its still running so far.
so yeah, if this continues to run ill keep updating post when and if something happens to the device..
if it keeps running every two days ill update, and then this may just be a way to self fix the overheat bootloop cpu issues most of us have face i bet!
if you try this, let me know if it works for you.. id be happy to know im not the only one
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can anyone recommend a copper heat tape (or something better) that would work to get my phone running again? It's overheating and therefore bootlooping, so I am curious if there is any specific things to look for or stay away from when buying something to fix this, however temporary it may be.
@ezzony was right, mine finally took a permanent dump last week after 3 more reheat attempts since last post, but it atleast lasted this long..
now im on a heavily modified Huawei Nova Plus converted from a MLA-L03 to a CAN-L11 software wise, so i could get perfect rooted Lineage OS 13 on it and xposed
i miss the camera of the g4 so much...
i still have my dead board Note 4, note 4 edge also dead board, and lg g4 dead board, all cause of same problems SOC overheats
seems like it was a common problem amongst tons of models too.... sad that we the paying customer get shoddy manufactured devices that we end up paying so much for...
georgemb said:
Copper is better conductor of heat .. So it will work as heat sink ..U can put thermal paste in between CPU and copper tape..
Check it out
youtu.be/G3dQdS1b0aw
Try it and report back
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks a bunch! That's the exact video I've been watching and the most helpful too. I am just not sure if there are different sizes in thickness that are more conducive or not. Also, are there different strengths of copper to resist higher temperatures? I'm learning all of this through google, so I'm sure I sound as savvy as I am with technology.
tnap1979 said:
@ezzony was right, mine finally took a permanent dump last week after 3 more reheat attempts since last post, but it atleast lasted this long..
now im on a heavily modified Huawei Nova Plus converted from a MLA-L03 to a CAN-L11 software wise, so i could get perfect rooted Lineage OS 13 on it and xposed
i miss the camera of the g4 so much...
i still have my dead board Note 4, note 4 edge also dead board, and lg g4 dead board, all cause of same problems SOC overheats
seems like it was a common problem amongst tons of models too.... sad that we the paying customer get shoddy manufactured devices that we end up paying so much for...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry to hear that, but yes I feel every G4 will suffer the same fate as in your case. Once it starts it won't keep running forever.
Yes the camera is awesome. The no.1 reason I love the G4 and no.2 reason is the textured leather curved back cover which makes holding the G4 very easy in the hand to manage, as it is a big phone. I was going to go with the G5 when my G4 died as it has the same camera but I really don't think it's as special as the G4. I picked up a new secondhand G4 with a serial number of 701 so I'm hoping the fault has been resolved in the newer version.
I'm not totally optimistic it wont suffer from the same problem in time though as I do feel it gets very hot that one can feel on the back cover . And the heatsink over the soc is virtually non existent in comparison to a Galaxy S6 I owned briefly which had a much more capable heat sink on it. I'm hoping the heatsink is not the problem and it was purely the chip itself, but I don't know for sure. I stuck a copper shim on the soc with some thermal paste anyway just in case, couldn't hurt.
I'd suggest to anyone who like me loves the G4 then picking up a newer version with a serial number of 701 or above might not be a bad idea instead of messing around with a clearly faulty one that will fail on you possibly at a highly inconvenient moment.
tnap1979 said:
so..
i bought a G4 H812 canadian off Kijiji (our local buy and sell like craigs list kinda thing) $50 no battery stuck in HS-USB 9008.
invested another $22 in a battery from a friend. now total invested into a possible bricked device... $72.. not to bad, a risk yes... but i had luck and confidence!
excellent screen scratch wise but had delamination all around the screen (see pic 1)
so with a half charged new battery, a possible bricked g4, and some previous knowledge and repair skills, i went to work.
tried QPST... nadda. tried LGUP... nadda. tried lg flashtool... guess what.. yup.. nothing... felt like friends repair shop was last left option...
but im a scrooge, and determined
so i took to youtube and google, found out it may have been one of a possible recall phones that had the thermal bootloop issue or emmc failure..
grabbed my custom heatgun and blasted it at 275 for 3min.. 3" away in circle patterns, just like most unbrick guides.. and left it cool for 30min.
put it back together and powered on to find it boot just fine not needing no relfash, had a pattern lock, contacted original owner the seller, got lock off,
wiped personals and internal storage, and found it was on 6.0.1... DAMN... no root possible.
go to downgrade and it doesnt, error's out before can even do anything, i forget, com41 change required...
so go to reboot and it stops booting again, but really warm... overheat issue again...
repeat the process many times trying to get to usable home screen as it would just keep freezing.. so i really examined all the phones parts and noticed... pic2 this really crappy black thermal tape, right where the main emmc and cpu is... kinda silly for such a heat hog i thinks.. so looking at the rf shield on phone where cpu is they also have this really ****ty goldish shield tape that on the reverse side is plasticy feeling.. not good for thermals i think.. so i tore it off, and removed that black thermal tape, cleaned top of cpu, heatgunned again this time at 300 for 2 1/2min. 2.5" away circulars, twice, 30 min cooldowns between.
took a light blue 1mm thick heatpad i found from a ddr3 ram stick heatshield, cut it to shape of cpu, and placed on top, also placed a piece on the slightly smaller black chip to the upper left of cpu, and also on the what i believe to be the power control ic on the opposite side of board, so that all possible sources of higher heat had thermal pads and better conductivity.
placed phone all back together, screwed all screws finger tight, placed sim card and sd and battery, back cover.. and hoped to god.. press power..
boots up nice and quick, hot at first after a factory wipe in recovery, like kinda scary hot at first then slowly cools...
its been running for almost 2 days now.. no slowdowns, no sluggish, does get warm when charging as expected.
but so far, ive been able to use sixaxis controller app, my ps3 controller, moonlight for root, and stream wildlands from my pc for almost 2 hrs,
charge up a bit, play Bully and run 3dmark for a while, and while it does get warm, its not near as bad as it used to be, i think something went right this time
its almost upon its 3rd full day of use without bootloop or overheat, mind u i am also using v4 CTT cpu mod
have xposed installed and root on 5.1 and am happy its still running so far.
so yeah, if this continues to run ill keep updating post when and if something happens to the device..
if it keeps running every two days ill update, and then this may just be a way to self fix the overheat bootloop cpu issues most of us have face i bet!
if you try this, let me know if it works for you.. id be happy to know im not the only one
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It has been six months, does your lg g4 still working?
So there's been ALOT of talk about the bootlooping issues and phones dying at percentages over 10%, and I want to fix it.
Short bio: I work at a cellphone repair shop in the Bay Area called MD Wireless, and have been for over 8 years. I have seen lots and lots of phones and fixed maybe 99% of them (enough to know how terrible of phone Huawei phones are, but that's not what I am here to talk about that).
I am here to fix your issue.
Now I am willing to take 3 phones (possibly more depending on the demand) and work on them at cost (You pay for shipping here, shipping back, and $15 for an OEM Huawei Battery[or you can supply the battery])
Now I know this is XDA and kind of an area to DIY and further development, but this research would really help me figure out what's going on with these phones. I know that LG has issues with the solder they use on their processors, memory chips, etc, but I believe that the 6P is just Huawei using a cheap battery and not fully testing it.
Feel free to ignore this, but I want to figure this out and solve peoples issues.
If you have any questions, feel free to PM me, and I will post if I learn any news. Unfortunately, the only 6P's that come into our store have broken screens on them, so it doesn't solve my issue.
EDIT: Now the obvious needs to be stated, I will not be liable for any issues that happen during or after repair. This should be pretty obvious, I can't just give you a phone for doing the labor for free. Also, I had a customer with an LG G4 with the bootloop issue come in our store on Friday and was actually able to fix it to get the information out of the device. It required fixing the solder on the memory or processor chip (can't remember which, but it worked.)
For mods; if this violates any rules, let me know, so we can work on a way for this project to work out.
I have 2 phones that have a bootloop issue right now that I would send to you if you can fix them.
FWIW I'm stuck in the boot loop of death without the option to enter into recovery. I've replaced a few digitizers on my 6p previously, so was unafraid to remove the casing. I did as such and removed the battery entirely, then connected the usb-c power cord to it and tried booting. Still no luck. You're probably correct in assuming that crap batteries have been used. I'm curious who manufactures the motherboard. Also, could be something in the software which is causing too much heat. I have a request in at Huawei to go through the RMA process but as per usual they're about as efficient and swift as a congressman on the way to a fat pension, so if I don't end up getting this sorted out I will gladly offer mine up.
tapeworm4602 said:
Also, could be something in the software which is causing too much heat.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Am also wondering the same, seems like this is also a factor.
I'm pretty sure the issue with the boot loop of death on the 6P is caused by a similar problem as the LG phones--bad solder that can't take the heat the phone generates over time--and that it has nothing whatsoever to do with bad batteries. In the past people have mentioned changing the battery or removing the battery and hooking the phone up directly to a power source and neither has brought the phones out of the boot loop state. When Huawei has fixed phones with the BOD they changed out the motherboards not the batteries.
Nexus 6P Bootloop after Update OTA Android 7.1.1
GohanBurner said:
I have 2 phones that have a bootloop issue right now that I would send to you if you can fix them.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Feel free to PM me when you can.
VN_Optimus said:
Nexus 6P Bootloop after Update OTA Android 7.1.1
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
NEVER OTA UPDATE! That's what heats up the processor and other chips that possible weaken the solder. It is a little difficult to update via computer though. Again, PM me, but this might be the processor or memory chip, etc.
tapeworm4602 said:
FWIW I'm stuck in the boot loop of death without the option to enter into recovery. I've replaced a few digitizers on my 6p previously, so was unafraid to remove the casing. I did as such and removed the battery entirely, then connected the usb-c power cord to it and tried booting. Still no luck. You're probably correct in assuming that crap batteries have been used. I'm curious who manufactures the motherboard. Also, could be something in the software which is causing too much heat. I have a request in at Huawei to go through the RMA process but as per usual they're about as efficient and swift as a congressman on the way to a fat pension, so if I don't end up getting this sorted out I will gladly offer mine up.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So it still could be the battery, but might need to be soldered or reworked, which the latter I can do. PM if you're interested.
jhs39 said:
I'm pretty sure the issue with the boot loop of death on the 6P is caused by a similar problem as the LG phones--bad solder that can't take the heat the phone generates over time--and that it has nothing whatsoever to do with bad batteries. In the past people have mentioned changing the battery or removing the battery and hooking the phone up directly to a power source and neither has brought the phones out of the boot loop state. When Huawei has fixed phones with the BOD they changed out the motherboards not the batteries.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have had a handfull of bootlooping iPhones, LG G3, LG G4, Samsung Note 4, and Samsung Note 5's fixed by changing the battery out. It is very true that bad solder could also be the issue, but I would like to see if I can get it working without soldering/heating first.
Hi all,
I might be crazy but I'm considering buying a secondhand Nexus 6P, basically to use Project Fi. The Pixels are out my budget. I've been reading a lot on the battery and bootloop issues. Replacing the battery myself is something I could do.
The bootloop fix is also something I can do, but it does reduce the cores and thus performance.
One theory floated around here has been that the infamous bootloop that affects the big cores is a result of damage from a failing OEM battery. If this theory has merit, than buying a used 6P which still has good battery quality would be safe if I replace the battery before it ever has a chance to start the failure cycle. I don't know if this is a safe bet, though.
Any thoughts? Thanks!
thebordella said:
Hi all,
I might be crazy but I'm considering buying a secondhand Nexus 6P, basically to use Project Fi. The Pixels are out my budget. I've been reading a lot on the battery and bootloop issues. Replacing the battery myself is something I could do.
The bootloop fix is also something I can do, but it does reduce the cores and thus performance.
One theory floated around here has been that the infamous bootloop that affects the big cores is a result of damage from a failing OEM battery. If this theory has merit, than buying a used 6P which still has good battery quality would be safe if I replace the battery before it ever has a chance to start the failure cycle. I don't know if this is a safe bet, though.
Any thoughts? Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No. There are really two main issues affecting N6 users. One is a poor quality battery that degrades much quicker than most batteries, and the second is a hardware issue on the motherboard that causes the bootloop. To answer your question, a new battery will help the first issue but will do nothing to prevent the second. It is a hardware failure on the motherboard. The bootloop workaround is not a "fix". It permanently hobbles the device, and most people only use it to recover everything they need off the phone and to just get by until they can afford a replacement. That all being said, there are thousands of users that have not experienced either issue... BUT many people are selling their defective devices second hand to offset the cost of a new device. I guess confidence would be dependent on the reseller and any warranty you would have or could get (eg. SquareTrade).
No, in massive bootloop now. battery replaced last month
aGoGo said:
No, in massive bootloop now. battery replaced last month
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry to hear that. Maybe you can access recovery mode and/or try the bootloop workaround to salvage your data.
v12xke said:
No. There are really two main issues affecting N6 users. One is a poor quality battery that degrades much quicker than most batteries, and the second is a hardware issue on the motherboard that causes the bootloop. To answer your question, a new battery will help the first issue but will do nothing to prevent the second. It is a hardware failure on the motherboard. The bootloop workaround is not a "fix". It permanently hobbles the device, and most people only use it to recover everything they need off the phone and to just get by until they can afford a replacement. That all being said, there are thousands of users that have not experienced either issue... BUT many people are selling their defective devices second hand to offset the cost of a new device. I guess confidence would be dependent on the reseller and any warranty you would have or could get (eg. SquareTrade).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I wouldn't count on Square Trade. After the one year warranty from Huawei ended on my 6P ( the 3rd one I've had ) it got shipped off to ST. They thought they could fix it. I told them the manufacturer couldn't fix it and to knock them selves out. Three days later they sent me a check.
Ok so, I work in a phone repair shop.
Today a guy came in with 2 6P's. One with battery issues, one with BLOD.
Well I tried the software fix for him for the BLOD 6P.....no dice. So he said, you take it. I have no use for a brick.
Well guess what phone I'm writing this on ?
So I tried a couple different flashes of software, different ROMs, stock and otherwise with the 4 core fixes and twrp. Saw no life regardless.
So I thought, nothing to lose, let's see what I can do.
First though was to just heat the SOC and see what happens, still nothing. Just a basic heating nothing extreme. I've brought back a few devices just doing a basic heating before (iPhone and Android)
Obviously not the case here.
So with nothing left to use I went extreme.
Removed the EM shield. Sat with the heat gun on the SOC (moving around slowly of course) till I smelt the sweet sweet smell of solder. As soon as I did I took these little clamps we have for holding down screens like iPads, and used a single one to ensure the SOC was held down to the board. Let it cool.
Then cleaned up the paste, and took some thermal pads from a broken screen Samsung a5 2017 we had. And replaced the old paste with those pads( a little cutting required) replaced both on top of the SOC and on top of the shield.
Put back together, and 4 hours after receiving it in bootloop this 6p booted up with all 8 cores running like a beast!
Don't know how long this will last, hopefully for a long time. We're going on almost 24 hours now so here's hoping ?
On another note, I plan to tear down the A5 screen for the copper heatpipe tommorow and replace the EM shield thermal pad with the heatpipe and see how that goes.
Hopefully this mini guide can help someone out who may be more willing to go all out to fix their fancy brick ?
UPDATE:
Heat pipes have been added.
Applied Arctic silver 5 with a copper shim directly on the SOC.
Put the em shield back on, took copper "heatpipes" from a Sony z5 screen, and noticed how thin they were. Arctic silver on the EM shield, cut a large piece of copper from the back of a Samsung S5 screen, then cut that into 2 pieces to about 3x1". To simulate proper "heatpipes."
Sat the copper pieces in the spot the EM shield sits and re-assembled.
Phone is still working just fine, I've been monitoring temps and the 4 bad cores. They haven't had an issue and the SOC sits at idle at 32°
I decided to stress it a little bit with multiple apps running, split screen YouTube(1080p60fps) and facebook. Max temp it hit was 37°.
Using "CPU Monitor" from the play store for this information.
And currently using it as my daily driver as my own sort of stress test lol
Nice...
are you able to boot into recovery before heating up the soc??
Mine unable to boot to recovery at all cost...
Tried heating with heat gun at soc but still unable to boot recovery...
ronald_loulan said:
Nice...
are you able to boot into recovery before heating up the soc??
Mine unable to boot to recovery at all cost...
Tried heating with heat gun at soc but still unable to boot recovery...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Were you running android pie before it started bootlooping?
imjuz4you said:
Were you running android pie before it started bootlooping?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1st bootloop was on 7.1 and suscessfully rebooted.
So I quickly flash 4 core mod.
After 1 month of battery replacement the device bootloop forever.
It survived for 2months+ from the day I flash 4 core mod.
I tried oreo and with 4core mod and etc but failed.
Moved to hardware repair, as above but still failed.
It bootloop and unable to boot into TWRP, not even booting TWRP thru ADB.
I can't say without having the device on hand, and running some tests. But from what your describing and the processes you've tried it sounds to me like the flash storage chip may be your issue. Either it's doing the same as the SOC and slowly separating from the board, or it's a generally bad chip.
Just taking an educated guess so don't take my word for it lol
However, to answer your original question (I'm sorry I didn't see it)
When the phone was booplooping I was UNABLE to access recovery, even after flashing an OS, however I was able to adb transfer and flash twrp without any issues.
Romain1911 said:
However, to answer your original question (I'm sorry I didn't see it)
When the phone was booplooping I was UNABLE to access recovery, even after flashing an OS, however I was able to adb transfer and flash twrp without any issues.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You mean adb push file.zip?
ronald_loulan said:
You mean adb push file.zip?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes
Tried that but my device doesn't boot into recovery...
Romain1911 said:
Yes
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When the phone was not working you was able to send with adb files to it? This is strange. Normaly you can then just flash with fastboot (fastboot flash recovery filenname.img) the 4 core twrp and from there on you can use usb file transfer to load for example your LineageOS and after flashing lineage os, you then configure the kernel with N5X-6P_BLOD_Workaround_Injector_Addon-AK2-signed.zip . This have really not worked (to make the phone usable with just 4 cores) but reheating the SOC worked?
Can you explain some more in detail what temperature (in celsius) you have used to make the solder of the soc fluid again?
Did you think this would also work when you just have a regulated SMD soldering station and no other tools? I ask that because you told that you have been using some other tools to hold something (if i understood you right).
nexus 6p BLOD
whats up guys, i have a nexus 6p with BLOD, i am unable to flash the 4 core fix provided by XDA due to USB debugging being disabled before the loop. is my only option to dissasemble and go for a reflow of the cpu? or is there anything i can do using fastboot or adb? cheers
You dont need usb-debugging. You need a unlocked bootloader. You unlock the bootloader with "fastboot oem unlock" when your phone is in bootloader mode. It does not matter what Android you have installed when your bootloader is unlocked or unlockable.
If you have missed to enable the option to unlock the bootloader previous, then you have to heat up your phone to boot up once and then immidietly enable the option to unlock the bootloader.
But thats all not relevant in this thread. This thread is about fixing up the SoC again and not for "getting it at work again with just 4 cores". There are ton of other forum posts that cover that.
ncc8uetou5et said:
You dont need usb-debugging. You need a unlocked bootloader. You unlock the bootloader with "fastboot oem unlock" when your phone is in bootloader mode. It does not matter what Android you have installed when your bootloader is unlocked or unlockable.
If you have missed to enable the option to unlock the bootloader previous, then you have to heat up your phone to boot up once and then immidietly enable the option to unlock the bootloader.
But thats all not relevant in this thread. This thread is about fixing up the SoC again and not for "getting it at work again with just 4 cores". There are ton of other forum posts that cover that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
well i have no way of getting the phone on, i cannot unlock the bootloader due to allow bootloader unlock not being enabled. i dont have access to settings. ive heated the phones exterior to no avail. so i will have to dissasemble it and fix the soc so yes i am on the right thread thanks.
ncc8uetou5et said:
When the phone was not working you was able to send with adb files to it? This is strange. Normaly you can then just flash with fastboot (fastboot flash recovery filenname.img) the 4 core twrp and from there on you can use usb file transfer to load for example your LineageOS and after flashing lineage os, you then configure the kernel with N5X-6P_BLOD_Workaround_Injector_Addon-AK2-signed.zip . This have really not worked (to make the phone usable with just 4 cores) but reheating the SOC worked?
Can you explain some more in detail what temperature (in celsius) you have used to make the solder of the soc fluid again?
Did you think this would also work when you just have a regulated SMD soldering station and no other tools? I ask that because you told that you have been using some other tools to hold something (if i understood you right).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes it worked just fine sending files too it however the 4 core fix still did not work hence why I went into the hardware method.
If I remember correctly the heat gun was set to max for this, so in our case it stops at about 430°.
As for it working without other tools, I can't say.
What was used is a clamp that we use in my shop to hold down screens that have been just been replaced so that the glue solidifies with the screen held down.
I can only assume that the clamp held it down so that the solder would make proper contact while it re-solidified, at least that was my hope when I clamped the chip down. Whether or not it was the main reason for it working I can't say, and at my shop we lack the hardware to do a full chip removal, re-ball, or anything of that sort unfortunately.
Cpu reflow
Romain1911 said:
Ok so, I work in a phone repair shop.
Today a guy came in with 2 6P's. One with battery issues, one with BLOD.
Well I tried the software fix for him for the BLOD 6P.....no dice. So he said, you take it. I have no use for a brick.
Well guess what phone I'm writing this on
So I tried a couple different flashes of software, different ROMs, stock and otherwise with the 4 core fixes and twrp. Saw no life regardless.
So I thought, nothing to lose, let's see what I can do.
First though was to just heat the SOC and see what happens, still nothing. Just a basic heating nothing extreme. I've brought back a few devices just doing a basic heating before (iPhone and Android)
Obviously not the case here.
So with nothing left to use I went extreme.
Removed the EM shield. Sat with the heat gun on the SOC (moving around slowly of course) till I smelt the sweet sweet smell of solder. As soon as I did I took these little clamps we have for holding down screens like iPads, and used a single one to ensure the SOC was held down to the board. Let it cool.
Then cleaned up the paste, and took some thermal pads from a broken screen Samsung a5 2017 we had. And replaced the old paste with those pads( a little cutting required) replaced both on top of the SOC and on top of the shield.
Put back together, and 4 hours after receiving it in bootloop this 6p booted up with all 8 cores running like a beast!
Don't know how long this will last, hopefully for a long time. We're going on almost 24 hours now so here's hoping
On another note, I plan to tear down the A5 screen for the copper heatpipe tommorow and replace the EM shield thermal pad with the heatpipe and see how that goes.
Hopefully this mini guide can help someone out who may be more willing to go all out to fix their fancy brick
UPDATE:
Heat pipes have been added.
Applied Arctic silver 5 with a copper shim directly on the SOC.
Put the em shield back on, took copper "heatpipes" from a Sony z5 screen, and noticed how thin they were. Arctic silver on the EM shield, cut a large piece of copper from the back of a Samsung S5 screen, then cut that into 2 pieces to about 3x1". To simulate proper "heatpipes."
Sat the copper pieces in the spot the EM shield sits and re-assembled.
Phone is still working just fine, I've been monitoring temps and the 4 bad cores. They haven't had an issue and the SOC sits at idle at 32°
I decided to stress it a little bit with multiple apps running, split screen YouTube(1080p60fps) and facebook. Max temp it hit was 37°.
Using "CPU Monitor" from the play store for this information.
And currently using it as my daily driver as my own sort of stress test lol
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey man, im in the same boat with my nexus 6p.. when reflowing the SOC do i need to use any flux ?
cheers
dyl2526 said:
Hey man, im in the same boat with my nexus 6p.. when reflowing the SOC do i need to use any flux ?
cheers
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Eh, when I did it I did not use any. But that was for lack of having any, otherwise I would have used it lol
So I would use flux for sure
Legend
Romain1911 said:
Eh, when I did it I did not use any. But that was for lack of having any, otherwise I would have used it lol
So I would use flux for sure
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the reply man, I’m new enough to this so what’s the best type of flux for this phone or is there one that’s good for smartphones in general?
dyl2526 said:
Thanks for the reply man, I’m new enough to this so what’s the best type of flux for this phone or is there one that’s good for smartphones in general?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No worries, Novacan old Masters flux in an 8oz bottle is what we usually use here, just didn't have any at the time. It's on Amazon, and fairly cheap.
This is exactly what I thought was going to work, just never had another 6P to give it a whirl. I have brought back numerous dead-GPU laptops this way by resetting the solder. Getting it to 385-400°F for 10 minutes and letting it cool reset the solder and allowed the GPU to work like new again (although results varied). No telling how long this will last but glad to see it worked on a phone.
My Nexus 6p today almost completely dead, I was flashing a ROM bootloggers android 9.0 and before finishing flashing the cell phone has been. off and now when trying to turn it on, Eve does not get anything, I connect it to the computer and it is detected as QS-loader-9008 or something like that, from what I have read it is a hard brick, I will try to make a complete rework to the SoC of the processor to see what happens I would like to know if someone here has done it before to guide me