Charging today confirmed my worst fears. My original NST has an issue with the USB socket. I know there are tear-downs online, but I haven't seen anything addressing this issue. Maybe people just toss them?!
Anyway, I'm not afraid to open the thing but I am worried that it may be like other more recent devices I've tried to deal with where it was clear they were never designed to be touched by human hands.
Does anyone know if the solder connections are user-friendly? @Renate NST?
Replacing a USB socket is always the best fix.
I've still had good luck with blowing all the lint out of the socket and
carefully squashing the shell a bit to make the physical fit tighter.
Renate NST said:
Replacing a USB socket is always the best fix.
I've still had good luck with blowing all the lint out of the socket and
carefully squashing the shell a bit to make the physical fit tighter.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks. I'll give that a shot before disassembly but I'm not thinking that will solve the problem based on the way it behaves when the plug is jiggled. So far I can still charge if I am determined enough to find the sweet spot. I'm just hoping there's enough left of the solder tabs/points/? to allow a resolder if that's what's needed.
So finally I brought together all the tools needed and followed this guide to take the NST apart. Everything went smoothly and now I know I can easily replace the battery (although I'd be unlikely to do so since a new battery would probably cost more than another NST...). And....I got it all back together without misadventure (other than it turning on while trying to get the case back repositioned) and it all seems to work fine. That's the good news.
The bad news: as I feared, most of the contact points for the USB socket are so tiny that human hands could not possibly deal with them. At least not my human hands, and even if they could, I don't have a soldering tool tiny enough to even think about reheating a joint. It took a powerful magnifying glass to inspect what I could see of the joints and I did not find anything amiss. I even inserted the USB plug and gently jiggled it to see if anything betrayed a loose connection. NADA.
So, I'm out a few bucks for the tools but mostly I just now know that this situation is not going to get any better. I can charge by carefully inserting and tapping on the connector until I get a steady LED and the charging image comes up on the screen. I can do everything else via WiFi (but no USB Audio for this device any more).
Related
HEy I have an MDA but about a month ago my usb port broke and is loose inside the phone.
I want to know if this phone can be saved in any way
I have a LOT of contacts and other important info left on the phone and I need them badly.
the battery is dead and I need to know if to call it quits on this phone or not
maybe I could charge the battery through another MDA but i still need all those contacts to be transfered and its way too much to individually get.
please shed some light on what I should do
Maybe get a new battery and connect through bluetooth?
Repairing a HTC Wizard USB Connector
HEy I have an MDA but about a month ago my usb port broke and is loose inside the phone.
I want to know if this phone can be saved in any way
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, it can be saved!
The same thing happened to me and I fixed it. What you need to do is get
a soldering iron
some extremely thin silver solder (I used .015 dia. Radioshack 64-035e)
some desoldering braid (Radioshack 64-2090)
a continuity tester (the more needle-like the probes, the better!)
a tiny flat head screwdriver (1mm I think).
All this is available at RadioShack or can be found for less online.
Take the phone apart. This is tricky. Read the HTC repair guides available off of this site.
ftp://xda:[email protected]/Wizard/Docs_Tutorials/Wizard_Service_Manual.pdf
I can do it with a tiny flathead screwdriver instead of the torx that is recommended.
At this point, go on youtube.com and watch some videos on how to do surface mount soldering at home with a normal soldering iron. I found this to be helpful and confidence inspiring.
One thing I did was use the file on my Leatherman tool to sharpen the soldering iron tip to a sharp point. This helped get to the tiny nook that you will be soldering.
Find the loose usb connector in the phone. Its probably in fine condition. The reason why it broke is that HTC did not use enough solder to hold it to the board. Its not likely your fault. In the old days we called this a 'design flaw' and an organization called the 'BBB' would instigate what is called a 'product recall' for what we casually referred to as a 'lemon'.
Now, solder the four corners of the USB connector to the board. It probably won't be hard to put it in its original place. Don't leave a cold solder joint... make sure the dolops of solder are nice and shiny.
Then carefully proceed to solder the pinouts on the connector to the traces on the board. This is easier than it looks because the thin solder will flow right onto the traces under the connector.
If you accidently short two traces with solder, then use the desoldering braid to suck it up. Be extremely careful not to lift hard on the braid and pull up the traces. This did not happen to me, but I was careful.
The thing to know is that the USB connector has 5 pinouts but the USB standard only uses 4 of them. Google Mini USB connector pinouts and study which pins go to which wires: http://pinouts.ru/Slots/USB_pinout.shtml
When you think you have succeeded at soldering, use the continuity tester on your multimeter to check your work.
Check for short circuits between the traces.
Plug a mini-usb cable into the phone and carefully check continuity from the far end of the USB cable, to the trace on the motherboard of the phone. All four wires on the USB cable should match to the corresponding traces on the board. This is pretty logical when you are actually staring at it. But just in case, what I am saying here is, take one conductor of the continuity tester and place it on one pinout of the usb connector on the phone. Take the other conductor of the continuity tester and put it on the corresponding wire insider your 4 pin USB-A cable connector. If you hear the multimeter beep, you succeeded.
These diagrams show which pinout goes to which wire: http://pinouts.ru/Slots/USB_pinout.shtml
If everything checks out. Reassemble the phone, and see if it charges with the wall charger. If it does, then see if you can get it to sync with ActiveSync. If the phone doesn't show up in the device registry (or the MacOS X System Profiler), you definitely have not soldered it properly. Be sure the phone is on of course.
PS. Finally, was it all worth it? Well, it was great to get my data back, now its time to go get an iPhone! I mean really, all of this hacking is not worth your time. The iPhone is a far superior cell phone in every aspect. Who wants to screw around with installing half-baked ROM files and buggy M$ platforms? I digress.
PPS. I was able to do all this with MacOS X running VMWare Fusion, Win XP SP2 running Active Sync. So you don't even need a PC!
you tell us to make sure the phone is off way at the end i found this, but is this considered service mont? http://youtube.com/watch?v=KdWCffSdpuE
There 2 things I could add to the instructions above,
1 when I solder surface mount or tight connections I use lots of solder resin (like a acidic primer that cleans the surface as heat is applied, can be cleaned with isopropylene[alcohol]). This really makes the solder flow good to the contacts then use solder wick to suck up any extra solder that may present a problem.
2 You can sign up for mail2web.com and sync your pda with there exchange server, works wonders, I can flash my phones and all of them always have the same full contact list with all the emails, calender etc......
hope this helps
resin and alchohol do the same thing?
Oh disaster. My ExtUSB port just expired.
I think I saw a piece of trace fall out, and now I am getting a 'USB device not recognized' message on all my PC's and with verious cables. It is charging still, but no logic connection.
I read somewhere the connector on HTC is bad anyway, it uses PCB traces in stead of real connector leads. And when I first bought it, I wondered why eBay sells replacements
But the replacement one seems to have real connectors, not a piece of PCB. So it is either better, or it will not fit...
Well, I am going for warranty first anyway. I still have stock ROM luckily, but I did drill a 1mm hole over the soft-reset button.
Just out of interest and in preparation: Has anyone ever replaced this component? I have in the past soldered small surface mount SMD chips, which experience taught me it can be done, but is far from fun or easy.
Also, anyone can confirm the HTC ExtUSB connector typically uses PCB traces, and/or if this replacements will fit?
Thanks
Edit: Managed to locate my watchmakers loupe, and the connector has proper leads with a small spring-bend at the end. Some of these bends seem flatter than others, so that may be the problem.
Edit2:
Well, I fixed it, but not the way one may expect. No soldering or opening the device or any other possible voiding of warranty involved.
As stated, looking up close with a proper 10x watchmakers loupe, I found that the ExtUSB socket did have proper leads, the middle ones bend slightly different than the outer ones. Touching them with a needle showed all still had a good spring action, and they seemed to be OK, only a little far back. Also, I found one cable that did work.
The middle leads in a mini-USB plug are also a little further back then the outer 2. I decided that under normal conditions they already barely touch, and usage may have bend or wore the middle leads back ever so slightly. Just enough to make them fail to reach each other.
So, with a fine grained grinding stone, I removed about 1/2 mm from the mini-USB plug on a cable. Take care to grind so you do not pull the leads away from the plastic. I guess you can also use fine sandpaper on a fixed surface, especially if you do not have a fine grained stone. After that, the connection works.
I do not consider this an advised solution, especially if you can claim warranty. But the fact I had already drilled a hole for easy access to the reset button, and the fact I would be without phone for a time, made me try and fix it myself.
my old polaris had a similar issue, and i took it to a local cell phone repair store. i was told these connectors partially break all the time. 20 dollars and 20 minutes later, my pda was fixed. consider having it fixed locally before sending it to htc and losing it for weeks
So my EVO has slowly developed a loose USB port over time. It got to the point I could only charge and not use USB mass storage.
So I fixed it. It turns out that pocket lint slowly got compacted over time from being in my pocket and pushing the USB jack into the port. I got in there with a pick (from my lock pick set, another hobby) and a razor blade (To get on the other side of the port) and sure enough, the USB port is now working just like it used to.
So, there wasn't a hardware failure of any kind.... just pocket lint.
Hey, I'm having the same exact problem with the usb port, you wouldn't happen to have taken pictures of the process would you? I'm pretty bad with fixing things myself. Do you think you could explain this to me with a little more detail?? Thanks
Sent from my dope fly fresh EVO
I can try to explain it, but I don't have any pictures of the process.
There wasn't anything wrong with the connectors on the phone, it was just that so much crude got compacted in the backside of the port that the jack couldn't be pushed in all the way to make a connection.
I got a small piece of metal (a lock pick) that is maybe 1/8" or 1/16" of an inch thick and started to dig at the backside of the port. This is the side closest to the battery. I grabbed the pieces I could with the pick, and used a pair of needle nose pliers to grab the more stubborn pieces after I loosened them with the pick.
The other side (the side not housing the connections and closest to the screen) is very tight to the USB housing. I slipped a razor in that space and managed to get out the remaining crude, which was very little compared to the opposite side.
Took maybe 5 minutes of poking around, and went from the jack falling out if I even slightly moved the phone to getting a nice click when I insert the jack.
I don't know how prone to damage those connectors on the phone are, but I wasn't exactly gentle at one point with the razor and it survived. I was going to get the phone replaced anyways so it was a low risk venture for me.
I was cleaning the dust out from behind my screen and I disconnected the cable that is glued to the top of the touchscreen. I put it back in place (as best as I could) and let the glue set, but my touch still doesn't work.
Is this something I can fix with better alignment (and maybe a little bit of conductive glue) or do I need a new digitizer?
Has anyone else done this?
where was the cable actually plugged into? I am assuming you just have to put that in and shut the rubber clip (I apologize to the community for my lack of technical terms) but can be a bit difficult depending on what tools you have
I had this happen too. I had to buy a whole new digitizer.
Damn. Thanks I guess :/ I'll find a creative use for this one. I wonder what my atrix will look like with all the paint removed <_<
It winds up plugged into the same ribbon as the speaker and front camera I think, but its on the glass end that my promblem lies. The metal fingers on the wire are glued to the ITO fingers on the glass, and I don't know how to get a proper connection back
try here and see if you can get any clues.
http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Motorola-Atrix-4G-Teardown/4964/1
i don't know if it helps, but it might lead to something.
I used that guide when I first took her apart, and tellingly, they don't disconnect the screen from the frame.
Hello everyone,
Since a few days my phone doesn't charge unless I hold the cable up and in the left or right corner of the port.
If I just stick it in, it doesn't connect/charge at all. And sometimes it says it's charging, but it isn't at all (or it's losing more power than it's receiving because it doesn't have good contact with the port).
Is there any fix to this or does anyone else have this problem?
It is NOT a problem with my micro-USB cable, I tried many, they all act the same.
Bad news
You have to replace your USB port, there's no doubt about, unfortunately!:crying:
Edit: there's a little chance to solve this by cleaning up your USB port...
i had this and it turned out to be dirt ground into the bottom of the USB port. A thin piece of wire from a tie wrap sorted it.
(of course, usually it IS a faulty USB port)
samsamuel said:
i had this and it turned out to be dirt ground into the bottom of the USB port. A thin piece of wire from a tie wrap sorted it.
(of course, usually it IS a faulty USB port)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I suppose this is a stand for what I said:highfive:?!
hehe,. yea, , only to begin with i was countering your 'theres no doubt' remark, , but then realised i hadn't read your whole post.
Well guys, I tried cleaning. A layer of dust came of so I got excited, but it didn't work.
There also is way too much play with the cable when it's in, so yeah.
How much is that port change going to cost me?
from what I've read its not so much the price as the difficulty, , there are loads of stories of repair shops screwing it up. If you're a dab hand with a soldering iron, give it a go, or if you go to a repair shop, get down in writing what they are gonna do if they screw it up.
Yet again a good advice!
I wouldn't suggest to do it your self unless you're a soldering master: as samuel suggested there are (so called) profesionals failing to do this, just because it's tricky enough to get the job done the right way.:fingers-crossed:
Sometimes it is possible to resolve by tightening up the connector in a fashion that promotes the contact of the female to male contacts.
Done one dismantled once as easy to work on connector, basically I pushed the shorter edge in just slightly & with CARE on the female socket in the area over the contact plate thus forcing the male plug to push tighter against the contacts, also tweaked the to plug retention lugs so plug clips tightly.
Worth trying as if lucky can be a cheap easy solution & has worked fine on one I did but as only done the 1 I have no idea if it going to work for majority of worn plugs :-S
Replacing board socket is tricky & not that cheap normally as a good tech knows it a not liked or easy repair ... good luck
Thanks for the great advice everyone, I really appreciate it.
Mister B said:
Sometimes it is possible to resolve by tightening up the connector in a fashion that promotes the contact of the female to male contacts.
Done one dismantled once as easy to work on connector, basically I pushed the shorter edge in just slightly & with CARE on the female socket in the area over the contact plate thus forcing the male plug to push tighter against the contacts, also tweaked the to plug retention lugs so plug clips tightly.
Worth trying as if lucky can be a cheap easy solution & has worked fine on one I did but as only done the 1 I have no idea if it going to work for majority of worn plugs :-S
Replacing board socket is tricky & not that cheap normally as a good tech knows it a not liked or easy repair ... good luck
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm going to try this first, if it doesn't work, I'll follow samsamuel's advice.
I love this community!
Unscrewed said:
Thanks for the great advice everyone, I really appreciate it.
I'm going to try this first, if it doesn't work, I'll follow samsamuel's advice.
I love this community!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
May take couple of adjustment to get it good & best do a little at a time.
Will only work if is contact issue between plugs, if issue is broken contact leg or poor connector leg solder joint to mainboard then no benefit.
Post back if get it working ...
Mister B said:
May take couple of adjustment to get it good & best do a little at a time.
Will only work if is contact issue between plugs, if issue is broken contact leg or poor connector leg solder joint to mainboard then no benefit.
Post back if get it working ...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sure thing! I have one question, though. How do I correctly open up the device without damaging it (too much)?
Torx screwdriver and a thin credit card, there break down videos on youtube.
As above really, do your homework on stripdown & take a lot of care, back cover is easy if done right, plectrum is useful plastic tool for prying things apart or get hold of decent plastic opening tools, credit card can be used but too thick really.