LCD/LVDS Interface Board Via Xilinx Spartan 3e? - Hardware Hacking General

LVDS is a nightmare. Don't know what LVDS is? If you've ever taken apart a laptop, it's that display connection it uses. And there's no standard so it's different for nearly every device.
Maybe phones and tablets are using it too?
I've already done my research and saw that other people are using Xilinx Spartan-based FPGA development boards to achieve this. It seems to be in the specs and is probably the perfect solution to this problem.
Oh, and my friend was throwing out an old TV and I found one. TV is a Panasonic Tc-p50s1, the board it's on is the Main Unit Board Pn# Tnph0786 2a. The specific chip is the Xilinx Spartan xc3s500e.
The board it's on seems pretty pro, but the complete lack of any visible diagnostic ports make trying to reverse engineer it a nightmare.
Luckily it looks like the chip has JTAG on it. I'm unsure as of yet if I will try to figure out what all of the existing chips on the board do and try to reuse it, or if I will end up desoldering the Spartan chip entirely. Powering the unit also seems like it would be a concern since is uses some funky connections with completely unknown values.
Anybody here ever worked on a project like this before?

Related

mapping hardware for this device

Hi all,
As i started servicing all pdas for a couple of monthes (only as a hobby, i fix them for friends and relatives), i came across one BA that gave me some trouble.
i got it to replace its LCD that was broken as it was dropped and thats very simple to replace it, so far so good. now it has two main problems :
1. no sound from speaker (even when in speakerphone mode), but there is sound in the stereo earphones (i plugged to the connector by the sd card slot). - i can only assume that a bluetooth handsfree device it will also work.
2. although the backup battery is fully charged, if i remove the main battery even for a brief second, when turned on, the BA acts as if i made a hard reset.
as for solving the problems :
1. using a digital multimeter, i managed to track the conductivity from the internal speaker through its connector, flat ribbon to the connector which connects to the main pcb - so there is no contact problem from the speaker to the main pcb.
using the help from WIKI, i went to site that has the list of all components and their description - the IC that is responsible for audio amp is a MAXIM's MAX4410 which is a stereo headphone driver. a quick look at its charasteristics and typical configuration and i understood that (assuming this is the IC that drives the internal speaker) the speaker should have one pin which is ground and the other goes to the amplified signal from the IC. neither one of the pins showed it has GND to it. so maybe there is a bad GND line to the connector.
2. regarding the backup battery issue i do not know what makes this problem.
I am sharing this info with you all with two ideas in mind :
1. to resolve my problem and know those devices hardware better.
2. because i am quite a while watching xda-developers and WIKI and i got the feeling that a lot of eforth is given to the software side of all those pdas (which is greate!!! keep going, this work helps lots of people and it shows al thos mega corps they are not the only ones), but the hardware is a bit forgotten and left behind. let me tell you this, there are many VERY simple mini projects i made useing electronics (i am an electronics engineer in my profession) that made my life easy . i am now investigating those instruments hardware as i have several ideas to develope useful accessories to my pda (like an external IR transciver to control IR devices like TV,DVD and to communicate with my laptop, and some other ideas) and i believe we can do the same info sharing as done on software side but on the hardware side.
I will thank any ideas, thoghts or commentsabout this matter. Yol.
I think you should post this again, just in case we missed the other 9 duplicate posts... wouldn't this have made most sense in the development and hacking section, pretty much the only section you didn't post to?
V
@Vj LOL
Fault 1) When I hear someone saying 'maybe it has a bad earth' i think of car mechanics 'wiring' and Ford cars! If you have the data sheet, use a 'scope - fixing it should be a piece of cake (IF you know what you are doing)
Fault 2) These devices usually have tiny 3V Li-ion button batteries somewhere inside - find it, replace it.
BTW - search the internet for a SERVICE MANUAL - you NEVER know your luck!
Andy
Fault one the backup battery is designed to keep memory alive not power the unit! I would expect it to act the way you describe.
Audio check the stereo jack, my guess is you'll find the problem there. It's rather common failure.
I never said the battery backup powered the unit, did I? He said removing the main battery & putting it back in acts like a hard reset indicative of a knackered memory backup battery.
I'm making educated guesses based on 15 years experience as an electronics engineer & also that I have just fixed an Xda Exec with EXACTLY this problem (If I'm reading his post correctly that is).
Andy

Replacing Shift Radio board with another one Possible!!!

okay under the instructions of our valused member Cmonex we have now opened this discussion as a food for thought
the begining of the conversation was here http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=2480768#post2480768 and now from there we continue
cmonex said:
there is no such thing as "standard WM drivers". drivers are hardware specific.
for god's sake why would you think it is based on the advantage? the processor and everything else is different. the closest is a kaiser but the LCD and some other things are of course n ot the same.
Please open a new thread to discuss this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
well i assumed that the board would be advantage because they both have spinning hard drive and maybe because i own an advantage will am willing to donate in the name of sience for such a cause other wise if someone who opened shift can tell us what he thinks of this as we can simpley replace that board with this one, the only 2 things that i assume would be hard is
2. the hardware button that switched between OS's
3. the sdcard slot, in which i assume with some soldering to unify the 2 boards it would work fine (hardware side but software i dunno
Rabia said:
okay under the instructions of our valused member Cmonex we have now opened this discussion as a food for thought
the begining of the conversation was here http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=2480768#post2480768 and now from there we continue
well i assumed that the board would be advantage because they both have spinning hard drive and maybe because i own an advantage will am willing to donate in the name of sience for such a cause other wise if someone who opened shift can tell us what he thinks of this as we can simpley replace that board with this one, the only 2 things that i assume would be hard is
2. the hardware button that switched between OS's
3. the sdcard slot, in which i assume with some soldering to unify the 2 boards it would work fine (hardware side but software i dunno
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can you explain to me why you would want to place the advantage board in the shift? Whats the use of that?
I dont get the point.
And no, I dont think it is plausible (possible)
not advantage, we are just saying what if, so we can use full mobile strength and not software solutions
Rabia said:
not advantage, we are just saying what if, so we can use full mobile strength and not software solutions
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Its kinda funny how big companies always screw up their stuff...
PS3 = only 256MB ram
Xbox360 = No BT and WIFI
Willcom D4 = only PHS
Shift = Crippled...
sad sad, isnt it?
I would be lying if I say I havent thought about swapping the CPU and I spent hours searching for ram...
i gave up....now my machine is sitting there, waiting for the SHIFT PROJECT
yes your 100% right, but swapping CPU and Ram is harder than swapping a whole Radio Board, just think of it, any HTC (kaiser for example) just mount it in a place inside the shift (after freeying the old space takin by radio) and just figure out how to connect the display, even better since shift has vga, get an advantage or one of those htc with VGA out pout and connect it from within, this is defenatly a project am doing 365 days from now or the second HTC will have a product i will buy (in this case a none crippled SHift), the more input we get from those who have looked inside it and looked inside other HTC's, personally i know how does wallaby, himalaya, jamin, jasjar, advantage look like, i have opened all and usually this is what i do in anything get, the second i the warranty ware off i strip it down to learn
You can't do that. Take a look at the FCC pics and notice the board differences.
well i looked and didn't make any sense earlier but should it be housed exactly the same, would't any radio board that fits withen the space in the shift just do the job?
No, it's connected through a proprietary connector, which you don't have in any other PDA Phone. Also you're not taking into account the Embedded Controller which allows sharing the touchscreen, keyboard, etc, between both systems. See the attached pictures.
oh now that i didn't look at, the controller that would share those things together, though after seeing the board its a close reminder of qtek 1010 or qtek 9090, i assumed that display belt is connected through the MB and keyboard is input is through a shipset like advantage with just keys being remappted throught SW, that what would i do if i was HTC coz then this would just save loads of production line equipment, this is stupid though, SDcard is connected though radio board but works with Main MB, it means almost a year from now we actually might have a full usable mobile, what scare me though is the Bluetooth Shipset, where is located to your knowledge?, i know whats going to happen in the first few realeses, phone will be working only while vista is on to be able to use WIFI and BT for audio routing and VOIP from phone board, then slowly they will become independant again (i guess)
Rabia said:
yes your 100% right, but swapping CPU and Ram is harder than swapping a whole Radio Board, just think of it, any HTC (kaiser for example) just mount it in a place inside the shift (after freeying the old space takin by radio) and just figure out how to connect the display, even better since shift has vga, get an advantage or one of those htc with VGA out pout and connect it from within, this is defenatly a project am doing 365 days from now or the second HTC will have a product i will buy (in this case a none crippled SHift), the more input we get from those who have looked inside it and looked inside other HTC's, personally i know how does wallaby, himalaya, jamin, jasjar, advantage look like, i have opened all and usually this is what i do in anything get, the second i the warranty ware off i strip it down to learn
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ram isnt that difficult to swap. You can just get a different module, since its not soldered.
Unfortunately, there are only 512MB and 1GB modules commercially available, but give it time and you can purchase 2GB.
About the CPU, nowadays, CPUs are not soldered onto the board like on the VAIO T1 to T5 series. They are glued.
My mate is soldering prototype PCBs for a living. He showed me how he glues SMDs onto the board.
So, you can change them, but its risky to pop the chip off.
But then again, will the BIOS reckognize it? How about power consumption and heat dissipation....maybe not worth the effort.
after looking at the scheme i think other than the keyboard loss its pretty doable, they are completly seperate, other than the display, which i assume the red circled connector is the one for it, i also assume the black and white are for power, other than the keyboard nothing is connected (which i assume the green circled connector is what shares the keyboard and power on etc

[Soldering?] Move internal memory chip

Hello lovely people.
Not long ago, my wonderful Samsung Galaxy S2 dropped dead. Before I send it in for service, I would LOVE to get the data on the internal storage back.
The phone does not get hot while charging, and nothing else whatsoever makes it show sings of life.
Is it possible to swap out the internal storage chip from the motherboard, and place it on an another identical phone, and retrieve the data that way?
Any sort of tips for businesses that would do something like this is welcome!
As you can guess, I learned to back up my stuff the hard way. My last clockwork backup was 20 days ago. Precious 20 days ago
probability = 99,99% yes ... a SD-card no matter of where it was before. have good luck
psytr0nic said:
probability = 99,99% yes ... a SD-card no matter of where it was before. have good luck
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And the deadly .01% is if the damaged part is the internal memory itself.
:good:
While emmc chip got like 20 important pads to solder (out of even hundred, when most are there being N/C) it is still BGA. A ****ass small BGA covered with glue. That would require someone really experienced with reworking such things. I do not know the prices but I would be prepared to pay even 100$ or more for such job, done right.
That from HW level. From SW+HW look: in theory there should be no trouble with properly swapped emmc ic from other phone. But you shall not forget about the said 0.01%, maybe more - reworking such chip might have influence on its content (I might be wrong) + GS2 had the emmc hardbrick bug - how did it die?
Please let us know how did it go.
Oh and btw - there must be companies working on such data recovery with proper HW to wire up to the unsoldered chip with sort of socket or other hackaround - I'd lookup there.
Max specified operating temperature of an eMMC is about 85 °C, there's no telling what happens above that... So whatever way you use to re-connect your eMMC, make sure it is not by soldering!
Of course it is possible but you need highly expensive tools for it to solder of the chip. it is BGA it's not just like a transistor..
It does have hundreds of micro balls under the chip. Did you try adb shell already? Or is it really 99% dead.
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You may find a company that can do it but it will cost A LOT of money. Because you need special tools for it.
Something like this
You best bet would be to try to use a heat gun on the main board. Just heat it up for a few seconds and cool it down to zero as quick as possible. Maybe the bga is cracked because it got hit by the ground when you accidentally dropped it. By heating it up you may temporarily fix this crack(will also cause slightly damage to the chips) in the soldering. So you can back it up and sent it back. I think it will void the warranty, but you have to decide for yourself what to do. Try to get back the data or get a new working main board from Samsung (if you sent the phone back they will just replace it with a new one most likely).
Bga soldering crack
0,1% of chance .. playing with Samsung EMMC chip = bye bye phone . look around forum or elsewhere 100% of bricked is due to it .
Question : what make you confident to say that your internal memory is good ?
to remind : it is also your phone flash chip which manage boot sequence and all . don't forget it .
Max specified operating temperature of an eMMC is about 85 °C, there's no telling what happens above that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Of course it is possible but you need highly expensive tools for it to solder of the chip
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
every time I tried with hot air , I removed chip with missing pads cause of glue under chip which make hard to remove .
why not to give a try ? have good luck
You best bet would be to try to use a heat gun on the main board
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Those are options you have instead of paying hundreds of euro's to a company that can recover it if it isn't the nand/emmc itself that is the dead part of the phone.
Of course i recommend him to go to a professional company and let them do recover it. Because they will do it the proper way but like i said before it cost you a lot of money.
So your best bet would be to try it yourself or just sent it back to Samsung for warranty.(by trying yourself i don't mean to solder it off because thet will not work out good. It will probably kill the chip, just try to reflow the mainboard and maybe you have luck.)
I know about glue in the corners of bga based chips in HP & Acer and other brands in laptops and such but didn't know that phones had that too.
But glue under the chip, never seen that before. And btw you cannot remove a bga soldered chip with a heatgun you need ir so that the whole surface under the chip gets loose. And you need to cover up all other components or they will get loose too or fry
Acer bga soldered chip -> glue in corners (this is not nand or emmc, its the chipset & cpu/gpu)
http://i.imgur.com/aIHNu.jpg
Irda soldering
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=RrA-trDZPNs#t=170s
Recovering data from snapped Galaxy s2 motherboard
Hi everyone, i really need some help
My galaxy s2 motherboard has snapped (around the long thin bit) with all other parts of the motherboard still intact. I really need to recover all of the data. The data has sentimental value and cannot be replaced. Is there any chance of recovering the data either through chip extraction and onto new board? Can the existing motherboard be fixed?
All i keep hearing is that it is too difficult, the motherboard is multi-layered and would be impossible to fix. I am reluctant to take this as an answer. Is there anybody out there that has a solution for recovering all the data? Who would i go to? who do i pay? Ive contacted samsung and they say it is impossible, when questioning them why it is impossible they state tit would cost too much and they cannot do it.
Please help. thank you.
EMMC reball and some other tips
Hey guys,
I know this thread is a little bit old but I'll try to give in my 2 cents maybe someone here may find it helpful
So I come from background where I do around 20 bga reballs per week, so I do know a thing or two I guess about this although my knowledge on Samsung platform is relatively low compared to an iphone logic.
So to begin with replacing the emmc chip alone is not enough as you'll need a programmer box which connects to a jtag interface which is able to rewrite the initial files like bootrom to the emmc. You can find these boxes at any prominent gsm repair shops; boxes named such as RiffBox or Z3X Samsung box are the best I found recently.
Having said that before any repair is attempted by mainly removing the flash chip it is imperative to try to resurrect the phone using these said boxes, to try to find whether or not the NAND chip is actually detected. As one may have simply installed a ROM which is not compatible with the phone and all that is required is to rewrite the bootrom files. If the NAND (basically the same name as a flash chip) fails to be detected then obviously something went wrong and it either could be the NAND is burnt inside, or the NAND has some cracks under its critical ball pins or even may be a problem that the main power management chip inside the phone is failing from supplying usually around 3V to power up the NAND.
The emmc chip at least found in a samsung is a 14 by 14 pins which only about 1/3 of it's pins are critical, the rest are dummy and do not worry if they eventually get removed, while removing the chip or cleaning the board after desoldering prior installing the new chip.
Some tips on reworking:
Always cover critical glued components like CPU + POP (package on package) RAM, baseband processor usually XGOLD found in Samsung.
Clean surrounding chip glue before attempting to remove by giving around 250C of heat and with a needle scratching the glue around
Do not exceed more than 350C to remove the actual chip to prevent more damage to the built in tracks inside the motherboard.
Last and not least a schematic for your phone would always be a lot of help to help you detect what voltages are missing on bootup to make sure that the boot up sequence is starting fine and also the relative points of each pin under a chip while knowing which pins are critical and which are dummies, or NC (not connected)
If you need any help you can always message me and I'll try my best to answer your questions.
Regards,
Ryan
solder with care
Solder with care mate, else it will be totally gone
psytr0nic said:
0,1% of chance .. playing with Samsung EMMC chip = bye bye phone . look around forum or elsewhere 100% of bricked is due to it .
Question : what make you confident to say that your internal memory is good ?
to remind : it is also your phone flash chip which manage boot sequence and all . don't forget it .
every time I tried with hot air , I removed chip with missing pads cause of glue under chip which make hard to remove .
why not to give a try ? have good luck
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The glue in samsung is very easy to remove you just need to heat the board up to 250C and gently scratch the glued area with a needle. Do not worry on the removed pads as 1/3 of the pads under the EMMC are not connected and therefore not needed. Always clean the chip from the glue and use leaded solder for best shiny connections.
If you need any help you can always message me and I'll try my best to answer your questions.
Regards,
Ryan[/QUOTE]
Can you please explain more about JTAG.., types and the connections, how to get files for the different phones, where can we get the software etc. Thank you.:good:
richie16171 said:
If you need any help you can always message me and I'll try my best to answer your questions.
Regards,
Ryan
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can you please please explain more about JTAG.., types and the connections, how to get the files from different phones, where can we get the softare etc. Thank you.:good:[/QUOTE]
You will need special programmer boxes like riffbox to be able to rewrite the bootloader. JTAG is a dedicated space on the board where the riffbox will communicate with the phone.
AnArChYm said:
Can you please please explain more about JTAG.., types and the connections, how to get the files from different phones, where can we get the softare etc. Thank you.:good:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You will need special programmer boxes like riffbox to be able to rewrite the bootloader. JTAG is a dedicated space on the board where the riffbox will communicate with the phone.[/QUOTE]
Thank you., what about the riffbox connections? Which pin to connect what and is it common to all devices?
richie16171 said:
You will need special programmer boxes like riffbox to be able to rewrite the bootloader. JTAG is a dedicated space on the board where the riffbox will communicate with the phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you., what about the riffbox connections? Which pin to connect what and is it common to all devices?[/QUOTE]
Edit: I already got the site. And everything is explained in forum there. If anyone wants.. you can find here http://faq.riffbox.org/showcat.html
Would like the learn how to reball
AnArChYm said:
Hey guys,
I know this thread is a little bit old but I'll try to give in my 2 cents maybe someone here may find it helpful
So I come from background where I do around 20 bga reballs per week, so I do know a thing or two I guess about this although my knowledge on Samsung platform is relatively low compared to an iphone logic.
So to begin with replacing the emmc chip alone is not enough as you'll need a programmer box which connects to a jtag interface which is able to rewrite the initial files like bootrom to the emmc. You can find these boxes at any prominent gsm repair shops; boxes named such as RiffBox or Z3X Samsung box are the best I found recently.
Having said that before any repair is attempted by mainly removing the flash chip it is imperative to try to resurrect the phone using these said boxes, to try to find whether or not the NAND chip is actually detected. As one may have simply installed a ROM which is not compatible with the phone and all that is required is to rewrite the bootrom files. If the NAND (basically the same name as a flash chip) fails to be detected then obviously something went wrong and it either could be the NAND is burnt inside, or the NAND has some cracks under its critical ball pins or even may be a problem that the main power management chip inside the phone is failing from supplying usually around 3V to power up the NAND.
The emmc chip at least found in a samsung is a 14 by 14 pins which only about 1/3 of it's pins are critical, the rest are dummy and do not worry if they eventually get removed, while removing the chip or cleaning the board after desoldering prior installing the new chip.
Some tips on reworking:
Always cover critical glued components like CPU + POP (package on package) RAM, baseband processor usually XGOLD found in Samsung.
Clean surrounding chip glue before attempting to remove by giving around 250C of heat and with a needle scratching the glue around
Do not exceed more than 350C to remove the actual chip to prevent more damage to the built in tracks inside the motherboard.
Last and not least a schematic for your phone would always be a lot of help to help you detect what voltages are missing on bootup to make sure that the boot up sequence is starting fine and also the relative points of each pin under a chip while knowing which pins are critical and which are dummies, or NC (not connected)
If you need any help you can always message me and I'll try my best to answer your questions.
Regards,
Ryan
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi Ryan,
My son's galaxy s3 i9300 was inadvertently given a spin in the washing machine. When I realised what had happened I took it apart into its various components and put it in rice for a week. When I switched it on everything worked except the cell phone signal. From what I can gather the eMMC chip has been damaged and no software can fix it. I don't have it with me now but I think IMEI and baseband is unknown. The EFS folder is empty or corrupt.
Stumbling across your post I was interested in the fact that you seem to be an expert in re-balling. My son has since got a new phone and since I am a basic amateur in phone repair (for family and friends) I have been toying with the idea of replacing the eMMC chip on the s3 after watching this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s38vQxXv0GE
I don't mind if I buy the chip and it doesn't work I am more intent on gaining the experience and going through the stages. Do you think this is a good idea and do you have any tips or things I can research on the topic?
Yiannos
---------- Post added at 07:30 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:14 AM ----------
Sorry I meant this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ds04BTVL8i0&feature=youtu.be
yiannos50 said:
Hi Ryan,
My son's galaxy s3 i9300 was inadvertently given a spin in the washing machine...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi,
If the imei is available (null), it could be the case that it needs repairing rather than actually chaging the eMMC chip , however you'll need a special tool to do this, which honestly do not know which exactly is as I'm more into hardware repairs rather than software.
Another possible issue could be that the phone can also have corrosion around critical components, ie around the main baseband supply, which is stopping from the baseband switch on, thus no signal or any radio communication from starting up. It would be best to have a microscope and inspect each part of the board for bad components, rather than rushing to the eMMC replacement.
It's very important to read this post very carefully and understand it as it is not easy to be done, but it is very much possible. And find a lot of youtube videos before even trying so you'll be more familiar with the process and different techniques.
Anyways for the most interesting part
Basically the eMMC chip is a 14 by 14 bga, ball grid array chip which is fairly easy to reball comapred to other complex ones, like baseband processor or the main application processor, You'll also be needing a reballing stencil to put the balls on top of the solder pins, and solder paste to paste the solder onto the holes and a hot air gun to melt that solder into balls. (Basically the solder paste will melt between those holes inside the stencil and will form nice silverish balls.
The chip also has got a lot of not connected pads (aka dummy pads) so do not worry when removing the chip as you'll be more then likely to lift pads from the board especially if this your first reball job.
First of all, you'll need to clean the surrounding glue around the chip by using around 200C and with a needle scrape off the glue, be very gentle not to scrape any tracks or board layers.
Then to remove the chip from the board use around 350C (always ramping up the temp), very important to use kapton tape around the surroundings to reduce heat stress. Personally I use the following temperatures: (do not use any nozzle with the heat gun as the chip is large and you need the heat to dispersed all over the chip)
1st min 180C full air
2nd min 280C full air
4th min 350C full air until the surrounding components turn silverish and are easy to lift, at that time get a very sharp needle and gently (very gently) start to pry up with ease the chip from one side, until it is fully lifted.
Then you'll need to clean the board, basically put flux and with a fine tip soldering iron clean the pads gently until all underfilled glue is no more remaining and the pads are nice and shiny and set the board aside.
If you'll buy a new eMMC chip most probably you'll have it reballed from the supplier. If not pre reballed, you ll need to reball it using a reballing stencil and solder paste.
Finally align back the eMMC chip over the board in the correct way, always note where is pin A1 and solder it back by ramping up heat again, same process as removing the chip.
The last process is all based on software, basically you'll have to copy the bootloader from a good working S3 phone to this one, as the new eMMC chip is empty of data, and obviously without the bootloader so the phone wouldn't be able to switch on.There is a process somewhere on the net how this is exactly done.
Ryan
Ryan,
Thanks a million for setting me on the right path. I'll let you know what happens.
Yiannos
Data recovery - Siemens A31
Hello everyone,
this thread seems to be what I've been looking for. My Siemens A31 got some water from a torrential rain while it was on. When I got to removing the battery, the phone was already off. I dried all accessible parts but I did not have the necessary torx screwdriver, so some water stayed inside. It was Friday evening and I got the screwdriver no earlier than on Monday. There was some corrosion in the phone, of course. It could not be turned on and subsequent cleaning with alcohol and even ultrasound improved only the look of the main board, but not its behavior. The only sign of life was that it seemingly recharged the battery while connected to the charger.
I have asked several repair services and people and I am quite confused whether it is possible to recover the data by soldering the memory chip into another A31, a functioning one of course. Last time, I asked a laptop service and I was told it is impossible, not just because of the difficulty of soldering a BGA chip. They told me it would not work because the phone would get blocked due to IMEI mismatch! This was surprising for me. If it is true, it implies that the IMEI is stored in both the flash memory and some other chip. I was unable to find any evidence for such a claim on the Internet.
Can anyone tell me if the target phone with replaced flash memory will actually work, assuming the memory is functioning? The video referred to by yiannos50 suggests it may really work. Anyone else has tried it? Two people in this discussion were about to do so.

Broken Wifi tab, working on solutions.

The tabs connecting the antennas to the motherboard is pretty fragile and breaking them is a big problem. Mine is broken, for unknown reasons, and I'm proposing some solutions.
Solder with wire
Someone tried to do this and according to the replies, its not safe and would probably lead to the end of the world. But the results are better than having no antenna at all.
Using other pins on the motherboard
Crazy idea, but would probably work. This is the part where I need help.
I labeled which I think are not important(Correct me if I'm wrong). #2.1 and #2.2 looks like ground tabs for the motherboard.
Im also planning on using the nfc's tabs, labeled #2.3, since I never use nfc and probably never will.
First of all, is it safe and reasonable to take these tabs and use them as replacement tabs?
If yes, then which tab should I use? #2.1, #2.2, or #2.3
I'm currently choosing between solution 1 and 2. Any comment would be deemed valuable.
Thanks
Image courtesy of iFixit.com
Bump. Anyone?
You are correct in your assumptions of what the pins purposes are... the pins you call "ground" are to ground the shield on the back cover... most likely to pass FCC requirements on RF emissions... and if you don't use the NFC radio, those pins would probably do fine also... you may end up losing the NFC radio after awhile running with no load on the antenna outputs so that may be a "no turning back hack"
I have powered up my tablet and used it for 30 minutes or so with the back cover removed to test my antenna mods so those ground pins are not required for the tablet to function properly... not like they complete a circuit or anything
Worked for me
I know this is an old thread but, FWIW, using the mentioned spring tabs (#2.1 & #2.2) worked for mine. As previously stated, they appear to just be EMI grounding. They probably clean up emanated noise that could otherwise interfere with the tablet's antenna reception/transmission. I moved them to replace the broken wifi tabs and so far reception for wifi works just fine. I haven't tried any other antennas yet but I suspect the impact is minimal on the other antennas.
I'll update if I notice any degradation to the other antenna functions.

Help! connect phone directly to hdmi monitor (replace touch screen).

Hello folks,
I guess this is the most appropriate subforum to ask this kind of question.
I'm having a broken screen Samsung Galaxy Note 5. And instead of find a touch screen replacement, I want to just get rid of the screen entirely
and instead connect the board to external monitor via hdmi interface preferrably. I believe the part that connect the touch screen is called "LCD fpc connector", correct me if I'm wrong.
So I guess I need something like an adapter that convert "fpc connector" to "hdmi connector".
The question is, is this hack possible? can the phone board output to hdmi monitor at all?
If yes then how to do it properly.
Please englighten me, I'm a total noob on this
Many thanks!
Hey huannb,
I also wanted this badly enough to stumble upon your post. From the light research i have done so far, it seems like this is a project only for those who have well labeled board diagrams and a deep understanding of LCD driver technologies.
FPC stands for "Flexible PCB Connector" and it's usage is ubiquitous in the small form-factor electronics space. If you are working with a FPC connector, you are probably handling a one-of-a-kind engineered interface. There are some hardware hackers who have achieved great feats such as THIS JAPANESE HARDWARE HACKER who build a driver board to adapt iPad retina displays to HDMI. I haven't stumbled on a write-up depicting and FPC interface to HDMI conversion yet. If you find one, please post it here because i would like to meet the person responsible for making it.
The way i see it, we have two choices from here. Reverse engineer a device and build a snowflake adapter which only works on one device, OR recycle the device and continue to live within the realm of consumer hardware.
kipziptie said:
Hey huannb,
I also wanted this badly enough to stumble upon your post. From the light research i have done so far, it seems like this is a project only for those who have well labeled board diagrams and a deep understanding of LCD driver technologies.
FPC stands for "Flexible PCB Connector" and it's usage is ubiquitous in the small form-factor electronics space. If you are working with a FPC connector, you are probably handling a one-of-a-kind engineered interface. There are some hardware hackers who have achieved great feats such as THIS JAPANESE HARDWARE HACKER who build a driver board to adapt iPad retina displays to HDMI. I haven't stumbled on a write-up depicting and FPC interface to HDMI conversion yet. If you find one, please post it here because i would like to meet the person responsible for making it.
The way i see it, we have two choices from here. Reverse engineer a device and build a snowflake adapter which only works on one device, OR recycle the device and continue to live within the realm of consumer hardware.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi,
Thank you very much for your insight, it is super helpful and somewhat deep enough for me .
It does seem to involve quite a lot of hacking and there isn't a universal approach.
For my case, it is not worth the effort anymore, I have found a way to use most android mobiles to external monitor without fixing the screen itself without much complications.
I doubt that I can find anyone competent enough to explore this realm any further .
Thank you so much again for your research. Cheers

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