I accidentally bumped a cup of coffee over on the back of my HTC Evo 4g LTE. I bumped a pillow into the nightstand while trying to contort my body in a way that would let me set sleeping my 10mo old into bed without waking him
I turned off the phone immediately, took off my Otterbox Commuter case (not the really waterproof Defender) and found a thin liquid coating on the back housing. Perhaps 1-2hrs later I made the poor estimate that it wasn't "that bad" and tried turning it on. The phone went into what I think was a boot loop (the display never showed anything, so I can't be sure), vibrating every ~30sec as it would if it were constantly trying to turn on and failing. It doesn't have a battery designed for removal, so I just had to let it sit.
Perhaps 6hrs later I went to check on it, and thought it was unresponsive after pressing the power button and nothing appeared to happen. I inadvertently pushed the volume rocker, however, at which point it made a beep as though it were adjusting the volume! After that, I noticed that the power button was also toggling the capacitive navigation buttons, which would illuminate and shut off as if the phone was "running" as well... but I still had no display.
Since then I've done a complete teardown (pop off all cases, separate all ribbon cables, vibration motor, speakers, camera, and removed the battery). I've done a few washes/brief soaks in isopropyl with the motherboard and then put everything in a vacuum chamber overnight at -20 inches of mercury. I also set the display and motherboard it in DriRite (lab-grate dessicant) for about a week now. In the meantime, I assumed the display may have been fried and ordered a replacement since it was only $28 on ebay. I just got it yesterday, but get the same results (phone "turns on," but display never lights up).
Any input on troubleshooting further?
- I've thought about looking at the two ribbon connector receivers for the display under a microscope to see if I can see any residue.
- I've also considered opening my wife's phone (same model) and swapping the batteries based on a probably false idea that if the battery might have gotten zapped, it could power the rest of the phone but not the display? Thinking not, as the power-ups I've attempted have had the USB charger plugged in, but easy experiment.
Would it be possible to short out just something related to the display on the motherboard so that the phone could run seemingly perfectly fine but just with no display? Just seemed so darn unlikely and that if I toasted some circuitry that a lot more would have been toasted in the process.
I plan to reassemble tonight and test for call reception (I think I can guess where the answer button is) and notifications (email myself and see if I get a vibrate/beep). That would confirm that the radios are also still functional.
Sort of at a loss and am not sure what else to do! I'm an engineer and even if the phone is toast... I'd really love to definitively figure out what's causing the issue.
Related
Hey all,
I have no idea what the hell is going on with my tab. I did not have any issues and all of a sudden lost any and all sound. I was running Vegan 5.11 and then installed Vegan Ginger RC1 and thats when, I think, it started happening. I NVFlashed back to stock and still no sound. Tried to install a bunch of other roms and still no go. I am absolutelly lost of what to do. BTW I tried the earphone plug in and unplug but nothing. The only way anything happens is through bluetooth.
Help!!!!!
System & Alarm OK, No Media Sound
Let my G rested for a few days and last night the sound was cutting in/out. Today the sound is completed back. I am still on stock ROM, did not do anything special, just turned on the “Audible Selection” and rebooted a few times.
I guess it was too much water while putting on Skinomi screen protector...
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Now it’s confirmed, media sound works, as long as the screen is off.
Tried to play music with stock ROM, as soon as I "saw" music is playing, hit power button to turn off screen, then I can hear music, but as soon as the screen is on, media sound is silent.
Would be great if sound and screen can both be on again. Please HELP!!
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I installed Skinomi screen protector and after that lost media sound. During the installation I tried to power down my G but as soon as I squeegee the screen (even after confirmed power off) G will come back on and of course a lot of commands were popping up on screen since I could not power it down. After Skinomi installation I lost media sound. At first I thought I drowned the speakers but then realized system and alarm sounds still work, just no media sound.
Then I had another interesting discovery. If I tried to watch Youtube video and while it’s playing, hit the power button to shut off the screen, I can hear the media sound when the screen is off for a little while. As soon as the screen is back up, media is silent again.
I also tried the headset trick and switched from Vegan 5.1.1 to TnT Lite to stock ROM. I believe the silence was caused by pressing keys in special sequence but don’ t know what it was since I was using a squeegee. Otherwise I have had my G since Feb2011 and never had any problem.
I am praying to all you android GODs out there and hoping I can find an answer to have the media sound back again.
I fixed my sound issue that sounds identical
You should appreciate the beauty of the problem and the solution...
After thinking it had to be a software issue (because the sound worked as long as I turned the screen off) and finding no one at all who knew what to do I was about to give up on the sound on my g tablet.
But then I had a crazy thought - what if it was a hardware issue where either a contact on the motherboard melted together or somehow the sound cable was interfered with by a loose connection.
If you open the gtablet case - Gulp! Its actually not that bad...
Using an eyeglass repair kit screwdriver, gently remove the rubber circular pads on the back of the tablet.
Underneath you will discover screws that the eyeglass screwdriver can unscrew.
After unscrewing all four, use a credit card to gently slot between the seals of the casing all the way around. eventually the casing will separate without problems.
Once open, and with the tablet now facedown on your lap. look at the lower right section of the motherboard for a thin brown wire that is connected near the 3.5 mm jack up and connected on the other end near the middle right of the motherboard.
Mine was untaped and loosly laying over two contacts of the motherboard. All I did was gently position that little wire away from those two contacts to the left (right of the metal screen backing wall) so they would not touch those contacts.
Believe it or not - that solved the problem. Turns out that the two contacts when touched by the wire cause the sound to short off. But when not touching them, everything works fine.
The reason the sound would work before when the screen was turned off in sleep mode was because IF THE SCREEN IS OFF THERE IS NO LONGER A CURRENT GOIND THROUGH THE CONTACTS!!! Beautiful....
gently snap the cover back on and ensure it all snaps back all the way around, reinsert the screws and replace the little rubber backings and turn you tablet back on.
Good luck!
What was that? I can't hear you over my newly working tablet speakers!!!
Very interesting. Thanks.
I've been puzzling over (and, frankly, have not been able to diagnose) a similar problem. Looks like bad engineering on VS's (or Malata's) part if 5 users have encountered this same problem.
Karmas coming your way if the user verifies that what you suggested fixed his problem.
Thanks. I had the cover off before to resolder the power jack to the board. This time I accidentally pulled on the headphone cord.
amoffa said:
You should appreciate the beauty of the problem and the solution...
After thinking it had to be a software issue (because the sound worked as long as I turned the screen off) and finding no one at all who knew what to do I was about to give up on the sound on my g tablet.
But then I had a crazy thought - what if it was a hardware issue where either a contact on the motherboard melted together or somehow the sound cable was interfered with by a loose connection.
If you open the gtablet case - Gulp! Its actually not that bad...
Using an eyeglass repair kit screwdriver, gently remove the rubber circular pads on the back of the tablet.
Underneath you will discover screws that the eyeglass screwdriver can unscrew.
After unscrewing all four, use a credit card to gently slot between the seals of the casing all the way around. eventually the casing will separate without problems.
Once open, and with the tablet now facedown on your lap. look at the lower right section of the motherboard for a thin brown wire that is connected near the 3.5 mm jack up and connected on the other end near the middle right of the motherboard.
Mine was untaped and loosly laying over two contacts of the motherboard. All I did was gently position that little wire away from those two contacts to the left (right of the metal screen backing wall) so they would not touch those contacts.
Believe it or not - that solved the problem. Turns out that the two contacts when touched by the wire cause the sound to short off. But when not touching them, everything works fine.
The reason the sound would work before when the screen was turned off in sleep mode was because IF THE SCREEN IS OFF THERE IS NO LONGER A CURRENT GOIND THROUGH THE CONTACTS!!! Beautiful....
gently snap the cover back on and ensure it all snaps back all the way around, reinsert the screws and replace the little rubber backings and turn you tablet back on.
Good luck!
What was that? I can't hear you over my newly working tablet speakers!!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yesterday I decided against my better judgement to try and take apart my x10 to see if I could get to the speakers, it sounded distorted during phone calls when the volume was all the way up. I used the dissasembly guide here: http://www.xperiax10.net/2010/05/10/xperia-x10-disassembly-guide/
however once, i started reading the guide, i realized I had to basically gut the entire phone to get to the main call speaker, so i put it back together. all i did was take out the screws, removed the lower support and used a credit card to pry between the covers and worked my way down. thats as far as i got, I had the back cover off and then I reassembled after reconsideration. however, the phone didn't work when i turned it back on. I mean, it works and I can see the backlighting on the screen but no logo or anything. I know it's actually booting into android because I can unlock the phone by memory and proper finger placement without even having the display working. I hear the "click" when it unlocks my phone and the volume/updown beeps. i've even heard my personal set notification tone go off a couple times. however, aside from the screen not working (besides backlighting), it wont respond to a phone call or chime when you send it a text message. If i use a different phone to call mine, it rings several times until you leave a voice message like normal. so, its not acting like its off. so again, I know it's actually booting into android.
after further inspection I realized that there is a ribbon cable on the bottom right hand side (battery side up) particularly close to where the covers snap together. I don't know if I did it with the credit card swipe or the covers weren't aligned well when I snapped it back together but I can see one little trace with a magnifying glass and a flashlight where it was "nicked" or scored. one teeny tiny little thing and my phone is inop.... does anyone have any suggestions? maybe like where I can get that ribbon cable? I'd start over with a new phone but the ebay prices are ridiculous. this use to be an ATT free upgrade phone and now its discontinued. I really doubt you can fix a ribbon cable... im feeling pretty helpless here.
I think you should send to shop to get professional repair before it getting worse.
I was very happy to get my new phone, tossed on a screen protector, gave it a change, put it in it's nice new case. Then today it started vibrating. Non-stop. It kept vibrating even after I killed the power. Even after I did a factory reset. Still vibrating.
What I discovered is that if you put a little bit of pressure on the back of case about a half inch below the led flash, it makes some kind of mechanical connection causing the vibraion motor to activate. In my case it didn't take much pressure at all, and would often "stick" like that.
I had to take the cover off and massage the plastic a bit to get it to stop vibrating at me. It will still get stuck if I apply a bit of pressure on the back of the case.
Did I get a lemon, or does anyone else have this issue.
-E
Breken said:
I was very happy to get my new phone, tossed on a screen protector, gave it a change, put it in it's nice new case. Then today it started vibrating. Non-stop. It kept vibrating even after I killed the power. Even after I did a factory reset. Still vibrating.
What I discovered is that if you put a little bit of pressure on the back of case about a half inch below the led flash, it makes some kind of mechanical connection causing the vibraion motor to activate. In my case it didn't take much pressure at all, and would often "stick" like that.
I had to take the cover off and massage the plastic a bit to get it to stop vibrating at me. It will still get stuck if I apply a bit of pressure on the back of the case.
Did I get a lemon, or does anyone else have this issue.
-E
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Must... restrain... joke...
I think you have a lemon that wont make lemonade. You're still under warranty, so why not just send it to a sprint repair store?
Try pulling the battery
Maybe it the screen protector touching the soft keys...
Sent from my SPH-D710 using XDA
shook187 said:
Try pulling the battery
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's cold.
sent from 2yr old Evo on ICS
shook187 said:
Try pulling the battery
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Seriously, that's the first thing I wanted to do when the problem started. *smirk* That was a bit frustrating. I thought I was going to have to wait until the motor draining my battery. Sounds like I'll be taking it to the store. Annoying. Oh well, I'm making up for the perfect luck I had buying the original EVO on launch.
-E
Hopefully not a design issue and just a lemon.
I've had screen protectors do weird crap if they have tension on them. Pretty rare these days though.
I'd try removing screen protector (but I hate to see you waste one if that's not it).
Also if you hold volume down it will vibrate. Not sure if it will be continuous.
You might stopp fussing with it and get swapped out, when it's easy to show the problem they should replace it on teh spot.
Newest HTC evo LTE also vibrates nonstop even with power off
Same problem as noted. I have this HTC evo LTE 4 months
No screen protector.
Phone was on bedside night table charging when it wakes me up at 4AM on a Sunday with the nonstop vibrating. Powering off did not stop the vibrations.
Any suggestions
Going to necro rez this thread to share my experience with an identical issue.
Couple weeks ago I noticed that once in a while the vibration motor of my Evo 4G LTE (bought in June 2012) would turn on for a second or so for no particular reason (no incoming notifications). Several days later the motor started vibrating constantly, even when the phone was powered down. Taking off the back cover and "massaging" the area around the camera LED and headphone connector would slow down the rotation speed and sometimes completely stop it, but it would always start rotating again in minutes/hours. Putting the back cover on would always start the motor again.
I took the phone to the Sprint store for repair. The tech said he had never seen this issue before, but was quickly able to figure out that there was a short circuit in the two-pin connector for the vibration motor leads. Luckily, he had an extra connector, so I was out of the store in about 15 minutes with a perfectly working phone. Who knew I didn't have to RUU and S-ON, the guy didn't even turn it on
I'm having this issue as well. Exactly as described in OP. Pull the plastic cover and no more vibration, just the slightest pressure towards the camera and it starts again.. sucks.
jshow816 said:
I'm having this issue as well. Exactly as described in OP. Pull the plastic cover and no more vibration, just the slightest pressure towards the camera and it starts again.. sucks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Like I said in the post above yours, might be a very simple repair that's worth a trip to a Sprint store.
Replaced vibration motor worked for me
I believe someone else mentioned on another site they replaced the vibration motor and the phone stopped vibrating all the time.
That is what worked for me. Took about 10 minutes. I had an old Evo LTE that was not working (glad I kept it) and removed the vibration motor assembly from it and swapped it for the one in my working phone.
All is well now. FYI...If you don't know what the motor looks like search for HTC Evo LTE vibration motor.
They are also being sold on Ebay for about $6 if you don't have one handy.
Thanks for the help, viva la Internet!:good:
I have the same problem. it is so annoying
so my amaze has been out of commission for a solid four months and i now have a nexus 5, but today i tried something. I originally thought my amaze's screen ribbon was messed up (it also has a missing contact in the headphone jack the left one to be exact, and both speakers are shot -prior to demolition-), but as it turns out there is actually a short somewhere in the circuitry. I took the liberty of completely tearing apart the phone (literally the plastic band around the glass is destroyed now). so after I have a pile of phone guts i start to put back together what I can. basically I had the screen, circuit boards, and battery sitting in it's shell. I also cleaned off a little corrosion on some of the parts too. then I plug it into my computer and bam the screen comes on! I almost had a heart attack, I honestly didn't expect that, and what is more interesting is that I was able to everything fine until it came time to flashing a ruu to get it back to stock, it wouldn't do it. but I kid you not, after multiple failed ruu flash attempts and a re-lock of the boot-loader I push the power button (more of a squishie than a button now) it started booting up CM10 like it was the day it died on me four months ago! Then when it finished booting up, the touch screen started freaking out and thought that I was touching it everywhere (i'm so glad I always turn on show touches in dev options) then it died again, I guess the short became active again, but here is the weird part, when I had it plugged into my pc and it started glitching I would unplug it and it shorted my pc and made it do a self-save power-out. I just thought i would share this with you guys to see if you have had any hardware probs out of you'r amazes.
I'm sure plenty of people have them.
Screen bleed is the most famous.
Randomly shutting off is common too.
HTC has crappy power buttons on a lot of devices.
I got bit by all 3 of those (but my power button wasn't quite dead yet) before I got bit by the bug that our flash chip has. I was trying to use my phone as a USB drive and copied a ton of stuff over, the progress bar stopped moving and the phone didn't seem to be running right, so I rebooted. Somehow it bricked and now the charging light wouldn't even come on. Started from the unbrick tricks, but I was way worse off than what they are for and near as I could tell something had disappeared really early on in the bootchain process and it was unfixable without direct access to the eMMC to rewrite the whole image.
Later found out once I got a pantech burst (which has very similar hardware) to replace my amaze that the MMC chip we have can get confused and randomly swaps blocks of storage around. It's easiest to trigger if you have lots of writes pending and the operating system tries to deallocate a block (like trim on a SSD); sometimes the chip will de-allocate the wrong block. Mine happened to garble something really close to the beginning resulting in my brick.
Much later I got a broken phone off ebay to rip apart to see if I could get the many gigs of data I MOVED to my phone immediately before it died only to find it just had a dead battery...maybe. It was well used, but didn't look physically damaged. It turned on but the screen was just static, like an analog tv with no channel. Couldn't get it working, but on other phones it looks like this is what happens when the chip in the LCD dies.
Combined the two broken phones to make a working one and find that this board has something going on where the battery drains when the phone is shut off, thus explaining why the battery that came with it was completely toast. Maybe I screwed up the rebuild, but I don't know how.
tl;dr: Yes, I have had some hardware problems.
Yeah I had that power button issue ( the problem is it splits apart and gets corrosion in it and its awfully wobbly) I had had that problem with my galaxy Nexus's volume rocker too (I had it for development) , i split it open and scraped off the corrosion and closed it back up it didn't come apart after that either it was fine. I also had the reboots , random extreme power drain from 100% - 30% - then dead in minutes ( it was a rare occurrence though), the LCD short, bad charger connection, and like 1/2 inch of the touch sensor didn't work( it was just at the tip of the twrp slider too so I had to use clockwork). You know its ironic looking back before I got it I was looking at reviews and they all said it had that "unmatched build quality" and it ended up being one of the most hardware plagued phones of its time, quality was a key factor when I chose it, though I did slightly overuse it, i think it shouldn't have been so badly designed, I only had mine for just over 1 year of my 2 year contract and I didn't even get it from the contract, I broke my T-Mobile g2x after 6 months with it and got the amaze through insurance [which was BS since i paid monthly for it, had to send my broken phone to them (which I could have fixed for less), and pay the difference between its price and the price of the amaze. I ended up paying full price for the amaze and the monthly insurance bill, I would have been better off not getting the insurance because it limited me to only getting the amaze and the sensation "phones of equal or lessee value" ($250 more than the g2x), they screwed me over]. Even though its in pieces and will most likely never work again I will probably hold onto it forever because it was a great phone, even if it let me down a few times. I learned around 90% of everything I know about android developing and software developing in general from that phone and its really sentimental to me. Lolz all my broken and worthless stuff is sentimental to me, I think I'm may be a little bit of a hoarder but oh well.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using xda app-developers app
Uuhh this post was a mistake... My bad, I done messed up
Here are pictures from after I tore it apart to get it working and it booting up after it was dismembered (after it booted it was fine, It would pick up touch from the messed up side but at the same time it went crazy and picked up "touches" everywhere, even when I wasn't touching it so everything almost worked but then died again) sorry the last one blurred I was riding in a car
Sent from my Nexus 5 using xda app-developers app
I accidentally got some water into the headphone jack of my LG G5. I only noticed when I turned my phone on a half hour or so later and saw that the screen was very dim on that corner where the headphone jack was. I realized what the problem might have been and took the battery out and put both the battery and the actual phone itself in some rice. After some time, I put the battery back into my phone and tried to boot it up, but the LED screen wouldn't turn on. The phone went from just part of the screen on the corner being a bit dim to the whole screen not turning on.
I looked up the location for the LDI on the G5 and as far as I can tell the one on mine hasn't been triggered. Would I be able to return this phone to T-Mobile and have it replaced under manufacturer's warranty? Is there anything I can do to maybe fix my phone? When I boot it up I feel it vibrate and I see the notification LED for different kinds of apps being triggered, but that's all that happens. The screen never turns on.
What would my best course of action be?
If you look at min 1:37 in the video, notice the top left corner of the phone, above the audio jack there is a sticker which might be a liquid damage indicator
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8x9uAH7QJM
Now, if that is not what it seem to be than it's worth giving a shot at warranty (although chances of a trained eye not to see a water-caused corrosion around the audio jack and circuit/connectors are slim). If you ever happen to drop your phone in water, i recommend you power off, let it dry a good amount of hours and then hope the damage is minimal.
If LG cancels your warranty, it might be worth a shot to do a disassembly and try to clean that part of the phone which was affected by water with isopropyl alcohol. Or try a repair shop. Best of luck to you!