Andre De Guerin

Hi, tried changing the wifi chip but the wifi is still greyed out. Is this likely to be related to the two small SMD 10K...

Have same problem here. OLED is apparently fine but the digitizer is glitchy. I did also find a crack in the top which *may* be why it had issues but can’t tell for sure until its completely removed.

have heard that the ribbons can be replaced but it needs specialized equipment like Z axis tape (this is for the lines only/blank problem, and a subset of those) but the glass is normally the cause. I have a very expensive camera here with this fault, internal cable went bad but its a special sort of tape more expensive than standard Z axis as used in ipad repairs, chibitronics kits etc. This works fine if the alignment is spot on for relatively large pitch connectors however like calculator panels! If you have a good ribbon and screen then try https://www.adafruit.com/product/1656 might do the trick but alignment needs to be finer than a human hair. Best done under a microscope or better still screen+camera.

Hi, invariably if the fan is clogged then thermal paste will have degraded. I believe that the silicone or other compound eventually evaporates or otherwise decomposes and the result is flaky cooling. Its also worth checking that the CPU is clean, sometimes they get fingerprints on the core and this can cause no end of problems over time even if it "seems" to work initially. Usually just clean it with IPA and do the contact area on thermal pipe at the same time. Also be aware that thermal compound containing silver can cause anomalies with silver migrating into the surrounding areas such as capacitors so you should be cautious and use only a tiny amount. I once trashed a very expen$ive TV by using it on a HOT (hint: don't do this!)

Hi, depending on where you look there are replacement B-grade panels that are sometimes used in airports etc because no-one notices the bad pixels at 30+ feet away. You would have to pay a lot of shipping but the good news is that the module on the back just plugs in. Another option might be to get an ex-display unit which is often a lot cheaper than new.

I think some of the panels are refurbished, as you can tell by putting it in blue mode and looking for screen burn. A little tip, some very sneaky sellers are actually "reverse burning" panels so they lose overall brightness instead, or reprogramming them to shift screen down slightly so it misses the burned area at the top. Cracked glass is easy to separate with the right tools and my own experiments suggest that a variant of moly wire works for curved as well ie use a strip from a broken HP printer/scanner/copier and gentle heat from iOpener. Its incredibly finicky but works for flat glass at least and screen is harder to damage provided you can ensure that the delicate under-glass flex is left intact (hint: fiddly) or use even thinner plastic to separate it ensuring you follow the instructions for whatever wire solution you use.

Yea, this is a known "feature" and pretty sure that U2 if it is genuinely bad will also get hot when you attempt to charge . Ipads like many fruity devices detect the presence of specific resistances on the two data pins, if any one thing is wrong it won't charge. Did read somewhere that if you've got a board with damaged pads on the digitizer its possible to get one with extended pins pre-cut at the factory to spec so you can micro-solder it in place as normal eg with solder paste and stencil. The solvent used is quite important as plastic will deform and melt if you try acetone, MEK or anything like that.

Hi, yes these are a pain to fix. Hint: if you purchase "DOA" panels to save the AMOLED do a quick test with a UV lamp first. This way you don't waste time trying a panel that is cracked internally. It does not pick up ones with bad interconnects but if water has got in you'll see patches where fluorescence is absent compared with the rest. This also picks up units where someone screwed up and tried to cut their losses selling panels on with heat damage, in this case you'll see a circular patch or two where fluorescence is far weaker. Great for finding hidden screen burn as well.

Changing charge port is feasible but as others say the S3 problem is usually bad battery. A dead giveaway, if you take it out and meter it instead of typical 3.5 to 3.7V you will see 3.05V, if so then no amount of reconditioning will work. Although some folks suggested connecting it in parallel with a smaller battery then running the combination down to 2.6V and recharging, a half dozen times as sometimes this works, in my experience it does not help. The "theory" behind this fix is that the negative electrode has got into a resistive state due to overcharging and getting it past this point reverses the damage however its normally irreversible.

Hi. Incidentally while you have it apart check for heating of the chip that controls the USB3 port: this is known to be a weak point. As with many low end laptops they can’t run external devices like hard drives properly so may report incorrectly that they need formatting. Fix is to use external power device.

Hi. Yes its probably a bad control transistor as R11 can’t use Wifi 2.4 and bluetooth at the same time reliably due to a shared antenna it seems like the power availability was marginal to begin with.

I had this happen on my workhorse Samsung mini but looks like the main cause is the same.

Hint: Changing the card is a good bet and they use them on quite a few “unibody” machines as long as the card is in the compatibility list it should work. Don’t use one with any sort of damage though.

If it won’t work even with replacement card it could be worth locating and replacing the bad component.

Is the digitizer actually part of the OLED? Looking at this one if you can see the spudger between the glass, display is already toast.

I did try to test it but any sign of cracking on these is generally terminal in about 12 hours unless you are incredibly quick at sealing it.

Actually did test this and display initially worked but not the day after.

There’s an argument not to use the very thin spudger for exactly this reason!!

Re. copper foil, I’d if possible use some Z-axis 3M tape sold to make vertical connections on electronics EMD shields among other things.Its not cheap but you need very little and only a single point needs to conduct so maybe 3*3mm2 squares positioned on the torn corners are fine.

I’ve used some to repair damaged flexis on Huawei phone after someone else’s botched repair mucked up the ground plane before but its incredibly hard to get it just right, only real application is checking to see if the flexi is only problem prior to replacement.

Yup, bad charging connector. I did notice that on this (dead) phone, its soldering is lousy with multiple blobs where there should be properly angled pins. Has anyone had any success reflowing this part on the actual flex on connector side? Can’t see anything obviously amiss with the connector but its not charging at all and battery voltage sitting at 0V.

Hi, also have the R11 bluetooth glitch. I’d like to try and preserve warranty as in the CI so can’t easily send it back for repair.

Is this likely to work with any microPCIe card or does it have to be the exact unit specified, believe there are 5 GHz variants now which weren’t available when originally launched.

Hi, I had the phone apart to replace the wifi chip.

Has anyone found a source for the two nano sized SMD resistors, because this also causes "no wifi" syndrome due to them being important for the I2C lines.

thanks!!! -A email testing_h "at " yahoo.com