I have a screen problem, and because of the cost would prefer to perform the repair myself. (I've repaired a number of laptops and smartphones in the past.) My problem is that I don't know which part failed.
The accident: I dropped my Galaxy S3 from a height of about 3 feet onto concrete. For reasons too embarrassing to detail, I didn't have the protective case on the phone.
The result: The front bezel around the screen has a 5mm abrasion scratch in it, but the screen itself shows no sign of damage at all. When I put the battery back in, and powered up the phone, the screen did not come on. I see a faint line of green pixels about 3cm long on one spot on the screen. There is nothing else on the display. The phone seems to be powering up and down (not entirely certain because I had the phone on silent mode before I dropped it).
I'm hoping that one of you with more experience might have an opinion on any fixes I might attempt, or tests I might run to determine what needs to be replaced.
Thank you very much for your suggestions!
Related
Has anyone had any success fixing the hardware on these units? As I have mentioned elsewhere on these boards, I dropped mine and now two things have happened: Firstly having successfully upgraded the ROM/firmware to XDA, the touch screen has stopped working almost completely. Occasionally it does respond to the touch, and the bits which respond are uniform but aren't the bits where you have touched!
Secondly some vertical lines have started to appear to the extreme right 2-3mm of the screen, indicating that there is some type of chip at the edge of the screen??? (someone suggested the digitiser but when I tried to ask a question about this, no one seemed to know what or where a digitiser was) In addition, when I press on the casing at where the lines emanate, the lines get worse.
I took the back off and found that it does seem very difficult indeed to get at the screen to replace it. Secondly, there are some difficult-to-identify bits floating around inside it (they may be just retaining pieces for the lower left hand case screw which is missing)
As there has suddenly appeared a job lot of 100 of these (obsolete?) screens floating around New York I was wondering whether it was in practice possible to replace one or is the amount of work involved cost-prohibitive?
It would be kinda nice to get this unit operational again (especially now that I have successfully loaded your ROM and unlocked it) if this could be done at not too great a cost.
The digitiser is also known as the glasstop and it's the pressure sensitive cover over the top of the LCD - it is a seperate unit although attached firmly to the LCD it can be replaced.
Try www.ppctechs.com for a price? It's farly easy to remove the screen if you want to do it yourself - I've seen a few guides on the internet.
Richard.
p.s how much / where was the job lot of screens?
china
They seem to be originating in China though I had a disastrous time getting hold of some. I got two. not sure if they are the sony originals but will try to install and report back if I can figure out how to get one in.
Where did you see the instructions on taking this thing apart?
Hi all,
Has anyone experience with a problem when the touch screen intermittently works, especially when you press/hold hard on the sides of the face of the phone. Without pressing down on the side, the top menu (start... x) most of the time are either unresponsive or respond as if you press elsewhere on the screen.
I'm thinking of open up the phone later tonight to troubleshoot, guessing the screen digitizer is loose or, HOPEFULLY NOT, cold solder somewhere. But if you'd heard or faced this problem before or even have an idea on what has caused the problem, I'd like to hear from you. Please help!
Thanks!
Adding info
Oh yeah, did I forget to say that not just the top of the screen, the middle part as worst. The only part of the screen is still responsive is the bottom. If I press down or punctual around the face of the phone tightly enought(?), I'd be able to have the good touch screen for a little while (5... 10 minutes) before it gone weird again.
Fixed... for now
Well, I jammed a couple of thin plastic to the bottom of the screen within the housing facelet behind the t-mobile logo... and it works... for now.
I still intend to disassemble the dawn thing as soon as I realize such quick fix has become unpractical or no longer work.
I will check back to this post again, so if you are interested, don't hesitate to reply, I'll try anything when desperate.
How long have you had the phone?
How do you carry it around?
If you got the phone recently and started carrying it around by putting it in your pants pocket, then you find the screen sometimes doesn't work well, those facts are related. A couple of years ago people used to always complain about this, and some recommended rubbing your finger firmly around all edges of the screen for a temporary fix. Others recommended forcing a business card under the metal at the edges of the screen. I got a leather belt case for mine, and the problem went away.
If you've had the phone for years and it just now started acting up, the problem might be related to a cable, connection, or something. There is a wizard service manual online. I've used its instructions to replace a screen, with no bad issues.
Good luck with your phone. The wizard is a bit old, but still pretty nice.
Good Day folks, here is the long and short of it.
Galaxy s 2 fell and the screen broke
I bought a new screen
Replaced the screen BUT two big problems occured.
1. The screen appears to have less colours than my original screen
2. NONE OF THE SOFT KEYS WORK, HOME, MENU AND BACK DO NOT WORK.
Number 2. is the big problem. Does anyone have any idea how these buttons work?
Even when I press the buttons directly with my fingers with the buttons off they still do not work.
Im baffled. Please help.
I also have attached pictures of the button area
It happened to me, I removed the screen, I replaced from beginning and it worked...
Hi Collado, do the white things behind the buttons have any electronic functionality or are those just things to make it stick?
To all future readers. I found out what the problem was. Basically,
The home, back and menu keys are all connected to a single ribbon. It appears there is a tiny piece, connected via the back key. That was torn while i was ripping off the the screen and digitizer.
See the picture attached
How much did you pay for your replacement screen and where did you get it. My digitizer is broken due to a drop. My front glass is perfect but the digitizer is completey shot. How difficult was this project?
Hi Johnboy
I cant remember the price of the digitizer offhand but make a check on ebay.. that is where i got it.
Difficulty is high as you need the minature tool set to do this effectively and a gentle touch.
However, it still appears as though the screen I bought has less colours.
Sorry to jump in and unintended hijack
I also dropped my S2 and cracked the screen, and after checking around dropped it in to the Geek Squad at CPW. Who duly replaced the screen and digitizer for £80. Only problem is the screen seems less bright and if moved off the central viewing angle the screen dims, as if it wasa standard lcd and not the orginal AMOLED screen. Does anyone know if they make lesser screens or was it fitted badly.
Any advice greatly appreciated.
DM.
I would go back with it and complain.If you dont get satisfaction then do an impression of the guy that goes into the pizza shop in "rise of the foot-soldier" film.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda premium
Hi there,
my girlfriend smashed her Galaxy S3 sometimes. Now it's done, the glass is broken in the upper left corner. The screen worked fine. A few days later she dropped it and dropped it again... i think she needs some wooden sticks to make a bushfire to call her friends. After some drops the screen stopped working fine. The screen turns black and if i push the upper left side a bit, the screen apears... very purple. I watched some tutorials about replacing the glass'. So i opend the galaxy s3 checked the ribboncables and after reasembling the screen won't start anymore. The softkeys doesn't apears. The phone is booting and make sounds. That means, power is there but no power for the display. I only want to now if the display is okay or not, to buy a new glass. But now i have these power problem. Somebody know how i can fix it? Or do i need a new display with digitizer? It's not cheap... a glass is much ceaper .
Zebra1234 said:
Hi there,
my girlfriend smashed her Galaxy S3 sometimes. Now it's done, the glass is broken in the upper left corner. The screen worked fine. A few days later she dropped it and dropped it again... i think she needs some wooden sticks to make a bushfire to call her friends. After some drops the screen stopped working fine. The screen turns black and if i push the upper left side a bit, the screen apears... very purple. I watched some tutorials about replacing the glass'. So i opend the galaxy s3 checked the ribboncables and after reasembling the screen won't start anymore. The softkeys doesn't apears. The phone is booting and make sounds. That means, power is there but no power for the display. I only want to now if the display is okay or not, to buy a new glass. But now i have these power problem. Somebody know how i can fix it? Or do i need a new display with digitizer? It's not cheap... a glass is much ceaper .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Multiple posts on the subject including a you tube video on replacing .You need to search them and decide .
Accessories may have more information .
jje
Not sure how that happened...
Thanks in advance for looking.
Ordered a screen replacement for my wife's busted S3 screen. Got it, followed directions....got the area around the headphone jack a little too warm, but continued and finished removing the screen. Once I had the screen off, I thought it would be a good idea to power it up to make sure everything was working, especially the top left corner of the screen that was closest to the over heated spot.
To my skeptical surprise everything was cool. Took a picture, looked at some higher res pictures....just to make sure everything seemed normal, to which it did. Powered down, removed the battery and the SIM card and continued on.
I cleaned the screen with alcohol as the directions stated, put everything back together..and NOTHING. The thing is bricked. Any ideas how? I wasn't doing anything remotely related/close to the ROM. The only difficulty I had with any part of this (aside from the aforementioned over heating) was with the two ribbon buttons at the bottom, which got slightly tangled in the tape.
Before I attempt to 'unbrick' this does anyone have any other ideas? Battery is good, phone has been plugged/unplugged while attempting to power up....I didn't take anything else apart so I can't think of anything else that would have goofed up this phone.
If your LCD was broken a new bit of glass wouldn't fix it. It's almost impossible to change just the glass without damaging the digitizer. Most alcohol will destroy an LCD so cleaning it with that is a terrible idea. If you plug your phone into a computer see if it connects, that will at least tell you that the phone is still working, just broken display.
DrFredPhD said:
If your LCD was broken a new bit of glass wouldn't fix it. It's almost impossible to change just the glass without damaging the digitizer. Most alcohol will destroy an LCD so cleaning it with that is a terrible idea. If you plug your phone into a computer see if it connects, that will at least tell you that the phone is still working, just broken display.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Awesome. Per the instructions: "clean screen with Isopropyl alcohol to remove any excess glue"
Plugged in or otherwise, I get no LEDs, vibrations....nothing. Wondering if a jtag would even be worth it?
Hello all, and XDA developers,
I'm a short time lurker, and flasher, but that's besides the point. I've started my own business repairing phones and I've gotten very good at it, I have extremely fair prices, and this is putting me through college.
I've ran into an issue and I can't figure it out. I try to stay up to date on phones since my job requires that I work on phones, and although I couldn't find all the information about the hardware under the screen of the SGS4 i decided to replace a broken glass screen any way..... well now I have a dissatisfied customer on my hands and i'm doing everything in my power to rectify the situation.
What I did:
I used a heat gun to lightly heat the screen of my customers broken phone, like I have done many times before with other models of phones. I scraped off the old glass, cleaned the glue out thoroughly with alcohol and a small piece of microfiber (like for cleaning screens and glasses). I laid down 3m tape (possibly in the wrong place). Put the new glass on, and PRESTO done.......
The result:
A beautiful new screen, but the wake up motion doesn't work any more (where you swipe your hand across the screen w/o actually touching it), and the screen automatically blacks out once a call is placed. This may be because of where i placed the tape, but a new issue has reared it's ugly head...... It's typing now... by itself.... during calls and at other times. She wanted a different color for the screen and i told her that I will replace the screen and fix the issues all in one motion, but I'm not sure what is making it type on its own. Does anyone have any clue as to what could be causing this issue? I have until the afternoon of 9/25 Central time (UTC-06:00)
Thank you to everyone for existing, this forum, even if it doesn't resolve this issue, is simply a work of art by mad geniuses from all over the planet. I love everyone of you.