Database Users

Front camera lens!

The protective cover on my front camera has disappeared! Given that I haven't even dropped the phone, this is vaguely annoying! I'm sure it won't come to much harm, but anyone know where I can find another?
My Ameo is now getting WM6; for some reason it went into a mad rebooting cycle lately and refused to work reliably before, eventually, locking up entirely. Attempting to access messages or similar resulted in a locked-up phone with spinning progress wheel.
Very annoyed about that, it's going to take ages to get it all the way I liked it.

spooky mine has also disappeared. Have only dropped mine twice. Both on the same eve (excess alcohol). Although hammered asssumed that i would have noticed things flying off.
http://www.bichonhotel.co.uk

oh wow... i hadn't noticed my lens was missing until after new year's eve also... my phone was perfectly fine on the eve of, but i guess a little too much Patron had something to do with that...

Same for me, I don`t know when. Thinking of going to a glazier to see if they can cut a small pice of glass.
BTW, I have also lost the small rubber thing on the joystick but this I have repaired with the eraser from a pencil (the one with lead) Cut the top of and glued it on the joystick.
Regards
Hans

AT&T powers off after drop

I have been using AT&T 8525 for about 5 months now. Dropped it in office a week back and it was on an uncarpetted surface. No external damage but it powered off. I had to try for a while to power it on but eventually it did power on.
Since this event it just powers off on its own. Right now, even minor jerks cause it to shut down. When you pull the phone out of your pocket after a while, it has already shut down!!! Took it for repair to a local cell phone repair assuming it might have some connector damage but they could not figure out the problem. They opened it, cleaned the interiors (as it had dust build up) and according to them everything appeared normal.
What would you guys recommend? It is running Schaps 4.30. I see that HTC has a repair service in US.....had anyone tried that?

Sounds like battery might be a little bit loose... Jam something in behind the battery to make sure of constant connection... You're not the first with this complaint. The battey terminals may have been bent back just enough to cause this intermittant problem, especially when it gets jolted, the battery disconnects from the teminals causing an automatic shutdown due to no power.. Just thank god you didn't break the terminals off. Sometimes can be fixed but if the break is at board level, you may as well sell it off on ebay for parts because its just about impossible to fix then.
Cheers...

Very smart ultramag!! Your reply made me think what I did after it fell down. At that time I did think that the battery was loose as it was running when on active syn (powered by laptop) but not when I removed the cord. I did turn the terminals a bit and it powered on after few attempts (the drop must have given the circuitry some shock to recover after sometime).
I have jammed a paper on the side of the battery opposite the battery terminal. Will report back in a day or two if it still gives any problems. That should help others with the same problem.
Also this event has taught me that invisible shield (the plastic shield that we stick on) perhaps may not be the best protection. Case is a must to absorb the shock!

ok the problem still continues despite sticking a paper on the battery side (opp the terminal). I do believe that the battery was part of the problem. Before sticking in the paper, it used to give me a Red LED for few seconds when I attempted charging and then turned to amber. Now that problem is not there....it turns to amber right away on plugging in the device.
So part of the problem is addressed but the Hermes still powers down on its own when subject to minimum shock (in your pockets and you are walking around in the office or driving a car). What do you suggest? Should I send it in to HTC? Are they good about addressing repair issues?

... and yet I think it probably is the contacts as suggested above. It may be that it's a little more than just the contacts not pressing firmly on the battery though. There have been cases where a fall has actually broken/cracked the solder joints between the contacts and the board. A trickier thing to fix unless you have some skills in that direction.
Mike

AT&T powers off after drop - HTC's take on the situation
Ok so here is HTC's evaluation of the situation.
They want to change the main board (mother-board I guess). In addition, though the phone is just 4 months old (was purchased refurb from AT&T) and has barely any scratches, they would replace the casing, the keyboard and the structure that holds the keyboard and LCD. And they would ONLY charge me $272. Isn't that ridicuously amazing??
To me it seems they can't figure out what the hell is going on, so lets just go ahead and replace a bunch of things and one of them should be a hit.
I have asked them to send the phone back. Mike, do you think the main-board could be the issue? Any recommendations of who I could try for repair.....or what I should ask the repair guy to look into to find out if the main board is the issue or not?

Only $272??? Good God! That lot would cost you around $450 if it were fixed at HTC UK!!
If the drop caused cracking internally then that may be why they want to replace the rest. if there are known defects that are not repaired, they cannot guarantee the repair and so will not do it at all if you do not agree to the whole thing.
of course, you could be right and they have no clue and simply want to replace everything and hope something gets fixed....
Don't PPCtechs also do repairs on that side of the pond?

ExtUSB just broke. Any tinkerer has played with that

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

replacing G1 speaker

Hey guys,
The earpiece speaker on my G1 has developed a fault, the fault being it doesn't appear to work, how easy is it to source a replacement for it and how easy is the repair itself? is there any guides as to how to do it around? (i looked but i couldn't find anything).
I've tried flashing the rom and doing a hard reset but its still faulty.
The loud speakers working fine though so atm all my calls have to be done on the handsfree kit or via loudspeaker which can get annoying.
any help is much appreciated
regards
Streather

Are you using a ROM where sound works?
What ROM are you using?

Tried it with cynagen and the stock tmob one, same results.

Same problem
I'm using CyanogenMod 4.2.5. I dropped the phone about a foot (it fell out of my shirt pocket as I was tying my shoe!), and the earpiece stopped working. Everything else (speaker phone, etc.) works fine.
I've seen a number of similar cases in other forums, so I'm thinking that this is a weak point. I'll attempt disassembly and see if the speaker contacts got moved or something simple. Fortunately, replacement receivers/earpiece/speakers are available over the net.
Meanwhile, I'd love to learn of others' experience with this. The tech manual makes it look like you have to just about completely disassemble the phone to get at the earpiece, even though you can easily access 3 screws on the back of the lcd. Is there a shorter route to the receiver than a complete disassembly?
[update] I found some good info (including a technical manual) by Googling "g1 phone disassembly". And searching for "g1 speaker" on eBay gave some decent looking results.
[update 2] I disassembled my phone, took out the receiver, cleaned its contacts, replaced it, and and reassembled everything. That was a pretty serious chore, and it demonstrated that a nearly complete disassembly is required to access the receiver (yes, including all the stuff at the opposite end of the phone). I don't know how to test the receiver without being in cell range, which my house is not. But at least nearly everything else still works, except the camera--I need to tear back into the phone and make sure I fully seated the FPC. I think finding a replacement receiver will be a challenge--most of what turned up on eBay is actually the main speaker on the back of the phone, and I have yet to find a vendor that sells receivers.

Sadly, you will almost have to tear down the whole unit to get to it. It's not extremly diffucult, but you will need to be steady and gentle. Good luck.

Success!
I haven't seen many report back after tearing apart their phones to address issues with a bad receiver, so here goes. My simple-minded approach of opening it up, cleaning the receiver contacts with a pencil eraser, and ensuring good alignment before reassembling WORKED. I did not have to buy a new receiver.
Now if I can just get my camera to work again (I think I didn't get the cable well seated).
[update]: camera works! Seating that FPC took some nimble fingers--I got it on the 3rd attempt. I hope this proves useful to others who, like me, do not have the warranty option for various reasons.

I dropped my phone once, by accident, same thing happened. The speaker you use to put your ear up to when making a phone call doesn't work, but the speaker phone speaker works as does a bluetooth headset. Called HTC lied said that it just stopped working out of no where, they said its covered under warranty. Luckily the phone is under warranty until March and will be replaced.

I ran into the same problem. I was having intermittent problems with the earpiece. Yesterday I was able to take out the battery and put it in and it started working again. Today that didn't help either. I saw this thread and I thought that I'd try blowing really hard on the earpiece to see if that helps. It seems to be working again! I hope it continues to work.

dirtprof said:
Now if I can just get my camera to work again (I think I didn't get the cable well seated).
[update]: camera works! Seating that FPC took some nimble fingers--I got it on the 3rd attempt. I hope this proves useful to others who, like me, do not have the warranty option for various reasons.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can you post details on how to do this?
My camera stopped working too.

I personally found it easier when disassembling the phone to carefully lift the entire camera and IMEI sticker as a whole unit and remove it as part of the motherboard. That way you dont need to mess with that hard to reach connector. So from where you are at, lift the board back out, reattach the camera assembly, and reassemble as a unit. I think you will find it is MUCH easier

Seat the camera FPC fully
RueTheDay said:
Can you post details on how to do this?
My camera stopped working too.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had to lift the motherboard up and away from the hook that held it down in order for the FPC clip to open fully. Then I inserted the FPC *fully* before closing the FPC clip (my failures resulted from not being able to fully seat the FPC because the FPC clip could not fully open as long as the motherboard was in place). Then the trick was to get the motherboard back under its hook without accidentally pulling the FPC back out again. What I did was to press it gently straight down, using my fingernail to ease it past the hook.
Good luck!

bump...
Yeah looks like all there is on Ebay for speakers is the back one, the one for the receiver earpiece looks like it has two wire connections at each end while the one for the back speaker has them right next to eachother.
So if anybody had this problem, it is very odd and might have to do with the spring connection maybe.
Still I had this problem before and it fixed itself randomly, but this problem came out of nowhere because 12 hours earlier I had dropped my phone on its back and it continued to work fine. Than on my way driving randomly it would not work and I barely set it down in my car.
Once again hopefully somebody has found a part for this because ebay only has back speaker parts.
Best bet is to blow on it and massage it or tap it until it works, damn this sucks because it is basically the very last step to get to after dissambling your phone. So much work to get to such a common problem for many people.
I almost wanted to try to shortcut it and undo the two screws on the screen section to move it around to make connection. Now I am the deusche bag with the bluetooth in his ear all the time.

I almost wanted to try to shortcut it and undo the two screws on the screen section to move it around to make connection.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That was what I tried at first. It didn't gain me access to the speaker.
Taking the phone apart is a pain. You really need nimble fingers and faith that you're not breaking the phone when you're levering apart the *very* tightly held together plastic parts. HTC did not make this thing with servicing it in mind. Just be sure to have the right tools (including light and a good magnifying glass if you're over 40) and patience.

Removing the 3 screws that are accessible without disassembling the entire phone will get you in there if you are VERY careful. Unfortunately the one I tried this on did not work differently with a known-good speaker in it. You can delicately dig out the old speaker with a knife (Xacto) and drop the new one in. Takes patients, but not nearly as hard as disassembling the entire phone (been there, done that x10)
I have at least one spare speaker. Maybe more, gotta check my stockpile!

Hey,
My phone got dropped in a rum & coke on Saturday, so i soaked it in 90% rubbing alcohol and let it dry in a rice bath. after 4 days in the rice, it looked dry, so i turned it on. IT WORKS! The screen looks a little trippy (the pattern is even changing throughout the day) but the touch and accelerometer work great. The only real problem is the speakers sound like crap. the receiver is so quiet that it sound like they're wispering, and the back speaker is all crackely.
I found a replacement receiver speaker, but as i haven't taken it apart yet, i was hoping one of you could tell me if this looks correct.
http://www.tvc-mall.com/details/Replacement-Speaker-Earpiece-Receiver-for-HTC-G1-HTCO-G1/photos.htm
If so, i guess i'll order both speakers and attempt to replace them.

That looks about right. Bear in mind, of course, that those pictures are greatly magnified. If you haven't taken apart a G1 yet, you're in for a bit of nerve-wracking prying. Just go slowly and be patient. Getting all the way to the receiver speaker means taking the phone most of the way apart.

Thanks!
I have taken apart a phone before, the Dash (excalibur). I had to replace the screen, it involved removing almost every component.
I think i'll go ahead and order it, and cross my fingers. right now the phone isn't much more then a tiny computer, since i can't hear anyone and i don't have a Bluetooth.

loose buttons but not something to worry about!

What a story!!
I bought a galaxy note 4 right on launch day first thing in the morning. Ive had just about every phone but have been waiting for a while now to get my hands on the new note 4.
I ended up buying the phone at the St . Bruno shopping center in Quebec, Canada and once i singed all the papers for my contract and got home, I finally open the box and took the phone out of the box. I loved it, it did everything one would expect from the highest end phone on the market.
A week later however, I started noticing that my buttons, especially my home button were slightly loose and my phone was also developing a weird oil spot under the home button.
So I went back to videotron but this time at St. Catherine street corporate branch store and the manager there obviously didnt know much about phones because he looked at it and proceeded with putting windex on a paper towel and wiping my screen with it and than told me that theres nothing wrong with it.
After frustratingly explaining everything to him, he told me that if the phone makes calls and works, than these issues arent covered for any kind of exchange as its not affecting the functionality of the phone. My logic tell me however that if one buy's a ferrari and realizes that the paint is f-up, wouldn't the dealership do something about it??? Anyways, without any luck I eventually left disappointed.
The following week After exhaustive attempt to solve the matter with Videotron to no avail, I found out that there was a store here in montreal called Service Absolute which is a samsung repair center that I could bring my phone to. I called them first to not waist more of my time and was than informed that yes they could help me but that it could take nearly a month before they would have any parts for this phone.
So after patiently waiting, I finally got a call back from them and droped off my phone the following day. I only had to wait two days before i got my phone back and thought that the turn around time was great! Only after few minutes of playing with it however, I noticed that the phone's new screen which now didn't have the oil spot was actually lifting from the housing about 1mm at the top of the phone and that the buttons were all still loose.
Its easy to imagine at this point how infuriated i was with all the time spent dealing with a phone that should of been right in the first place.. All the waiting, calling and runaround I got only to get a phone that was now even worst!! I could actually see inside my phone and behind the screen. Dust was starting to get inside the phone and under the camera lens and so on and I was really starting to freak out and was completly desperate to fix this issue asap to prevent things from getting worse and worse.
So I decided at this pont to take matters in my own hands and use my old trusty screwdriver to take this thing apart and get
To the bottom of the loose buttons and screen seperation.. I know! Scray [email protected]$ but it had to be done because at this point I needed a working phone for work and nobody seemed to help me. So after watching a few youtube videos, I unscrewed the screws at the back and gently seperated the phone from the metal frame with my fingers.
The whole assembly came out of the metal frame the same komd of way the old HTC phones used to. After doing so, the first thing i found out was that if your going scatch your phones metal frame which makes up most of the phone outer surfice, it's no big deal as it can be swapped out for around 40 to 50 bucks.
Next I noticed that all the buttons (volume and power) aren't adheared to the frame but only clipped in with a few pins stratigically placed. So its normal that they have play and wiggle. They're not gonna break and we're likely engineered to be this way. The wiggling is not really important as it won't affect anything on the phone's motherboard.
The next thing I noticed was that the glue between the inner midframe (the part that holds the motherboard to the screen assembly) also wasn't glued properly and was able to gently seperate it from the lcd/digitizer assembly without a heat gun or anything.. after doing so, the home button fell out and was simply dangling from its flex cable. It wasn't actually glued in place or held in with clips or anything. It's only connected to a flex cable on the left side of the button but thats it. I was easily able to pull it out and inspect it. It was built to be completely free floating between the midframe and the screen.
Which means that again, no need to worry about anything breaking as the home button is not a solidified part to start with and only in place where it is because of the space tolerence engeneered in the screen's home button whole. So it being slightly loose is normal and something that will eventually happen to all note 4's sooner or later. The slight looseness actually makes sense to me as any dust material that will get in between the home button wont get stuck as as much as if the space toleren was less. In my opinion, I thik that iPhones have less issues like this as the home button is part of the screen assembly and is also round.
In the end, I wasn't able to adhear the screen back in place as I didnt have double sided tape but manages to send it back to samsung and get it serviced again. I clearly asked them to fix it properly this time and it looks like they finally did and glued it back properly now.
This was a crazy experience and all I can tell you is that I definatly got an up close look of this phone and decided to keep it afterall as it's still better than a refurbished one and also because it's super easy to repair if anything ever broke on it.
Anyways i know this is a long post but I thought I'd share my experience with everyone and put some of your worries to rest.
Cheers!