Database Develop

Chip Upgrade

Is it possible to put the newer MSM7201A (the one in the new touch diamond), into a tilt's chip location and have it speed things up a bit? (528 vs 400 Mhz).

no as the chip is intergrated into the motherbaord.

Sure, with a very steady hand go on & solder it in, LOL

Not a problem
I have access to both the needed equipment, and a clean room to do it in. So that doesnt worry me, i really meant, what is neccesary to do so other than place the new chip. Will the software immediately recognize the difference? Or will it be a pain to make it work?

Blunt reply.
If you have to ask you don't have the skills to do it.

hah
I do it all the time for my PhD work. Really the physical work is not an issue at all.

Out of curiosity, where would you get the replacement MSM7201A chip? Assuming you are capable of replacing the CPU on a motherboard the size of the phone then you would also be capable of determining from the spec. sheet the similarity between the two and likelihood of utter catastrophic failure.
Personally I have no idea how feasible it is (sorry), but I would love to see someone potentially ruin their phone trying to be proven wrong

ladytoast said:
Out of curiosity, where would you get the replacement MSM7201A chip? Assuming you are capable of replacing the CPU on a motherboard the size of the phone then you would also be capable of determining from the spec. sheet the similarity between the two and likelihood of utter catastrophic failure.
Personally I have no idea how feasible it is (sorry), but I would love to see someone potentially ruin their phone trying to be proven wrong
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
LOL exactly. You're going to have to buy a phone that has the MSM7101A chip in it already. Then your going to take the chip out of a perfectly good phone that is not even out yet mind you and then place it in the Kaiser. LOL. I just don't know why you would actually want to do this.

Magnets on a case intefere with GPS?

Does anyone know if magnets interfere with GPS? I don't have a data plan, so I use TomTom GPS with the maps stored locally. I'd like to use my phone as a GPS on my motorcycle, and could fairly easily fabricate a case with a magnetic plate that could mount to the middle section of the handlebars.
For illustrative purposes (not my bike or same handlebars, but that rectangle-ish section in the middle is where the phone would go): http://home.cogeco.ca/~ninja650r/bikemaster/DSCN5929.JPG
I don't care about phone reception as I won't be talking while riding, but retaining GPS functionality would be fantastic. I'd also like to verify that the magnets won't damage any other parts of the phone, such as the screen or storage media.
Any thoughts? Anyone have a better bike-mounting suggestion?

Generally speaking, magnets are a big no-no for electronic devices. To get one strong enough to make sure that your device doesn't fall off while riding would almost ensure some kind of permanent damage to the device. But you might want to wait for someone else's opinion.

That's what I figured, but I was hoping I might be wrong. I haven't seen any real method of mounting this phone functionally on a bike. Is there a RAM mount that works?

I'm sorry, I don't know exactly what a RAM mount is. You could probably get a hard case for your phone and install that onto your bike, and put some mounting brackets to keep it on tight. I really don't have any other ideas.

That's essentially what a RAM Mount is: http://www.ram-mount.com/
They sell mix-and-match parts, consisting of a base, an articulating piece, and a bit that holds your device. Some GPS and similar devices actually have a RAM-standard set of mounting holes. I'm not aware of anything like that for the Vogue, although there may be an aftermarket case with RAM mounting abilities... I'll have to look it up.
Thanks for the feedback!

No problem. I hope you get it sorted out! It would be a bummer if you couldn't get it to function easily as a GPS for your bike!

Agreed. I was looking at the more inexpensive bike-centric GPS units and realized that the TomTom Rider is essentially the same exact thing as the TomTom software on my phone. I'm likely going to be upgrading to an Android phone this fall/winter, so it'd be nice to retain some use from the Vogue.
Anyway, if I do get or build a mount, I'll post some shots in case anyone else has the same thought.

bogus83 said:
. I'm likely going to be upgrading to an Android phone this fall/winter, so it'd be nice to retain some use from the Vogue.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not to be completely off-topic, but android for the vogue is coming along nicely, so you COULD just keep the same phone. The only nice phone I know of for android coming out is the xperia II. I know there are others on the way... but that's the only one I know of right now
And pictures would be nice.

To make a long story short, I don't have a data plan for my phone which is why I use TomTom for GPS (maps stored locally). In theory that should continue to work even when the phone itself is deactivated.
I've been waiting for a good QWERTY android phone. The Xperia II, if it's actually an android phone (and not WinMo as I'd heard) would do nicely. I do a lot of work "in the field" and being able to type up quick emails and documents would be nice. Too bad the Lancaster isn't spec'd as well as the Hero, or I'd consider that too. If the rumors of Sprint getting the Hero are true, there's a small chance they'll get a QWERTY version eventually, or something similar. The Touch Pro2 would be an option if it were fully functional under 'droid as well.

Nook Tablet tear down

Well I 'll start the fire ...
Have you all seen the Nook Tablet tear down by iFixit ..
http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Nook-Tablet-Teardown/7121/1
Here is the Nook Color
http://www.zdnet.com/photos/nookcolor-teardown/487636?tag=mantle_skin;content
Don't all the parts look exactly the same as the Nook Color.. even the new battery has Nook Color on it.
Here is a comparison pic of the two boards. Attached.
So could the parts be interchangable...?

According to B&N, the Tablet does have microphone, so the bare board must have some sorts of difference.
Can you re-take a look at the Tablet's microphone, it should be somewhere in the lower left corner of your picture (opposite side of the jack)

Yes its actually on the other side of the the board and doesnot create a problem.
Just a small hole needed ...

It's possible you could run into problems with the lcd and touch screen controllers. I know the Tablet uses a different model touch screen, but as long as the connection is the same that might only be a driver problem that would require a custom NT kernel with that NC driver added. The lcd controller is on the system board and appears to possibly be an identical model (LVDS83B), but there are other numbers on the chip before that and I honestly don't know if they indicate different models

They look similar to the extent they are the same size and shape with some parts in the same place, but to me they look radically different.

patruns said:
They look similar to the extent they are the same size and shape with some parts in the same place, but to me they look radically different.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sure, but I think he's asking in terms of being able to swap out a system board from a NT (like if he found one with a broken screen that is being sold cheaply for parts) and many of the internal changes to the system board wouldn't affect that

The thing I like most about this tear down is their use of connectors NOT soldering. Makes replacing high wear parts much easier. Also the neat thing here is the interchangeability of parts between NC and NT, should make the screen/buttons/battery quite cheaper.
Aside from that I didnt see any notation of onboard bluetooth. Did I miss it?

unsivil_audio said:
The thing I like most about this tear down is their use of connectors NOT soldering. Makes replacing high wear parts much easier. Also the neat thing here is the interchangeability of parts between NC and NT, should make the screen/buttons/battery quite cheaper.
Aside from that I didnt see any notation of onboard bluetooth. Did I miss it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Bluetooth is built in to the Wifi chip on both of these. It still remains to be seen if the Tablet's BT can be activated though

boomn said:
Bluetooth is built in to the Wifi chip on both of these. It still remains to be seen if the Tablet's BT can be activated though
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The teardown doesn't list the wifi chip. I don't think they even exposed the processor fully. Are you sure that's true?

Well even replacing the battery with the tablets one which is much bigger is a huge benefit.

AndrewTL said:
The teardown doesn't list the wifi chip. I don't think they even exposed the processor fully. Are you sure that's true?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Good question. Either I saw it on someone else's photos or I'm misremembering that confirmation

pavlos46 said:
Well even replacing the battery with the tablets one which is much bigger is a huge benefit.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No that's wrong it appears the batteries are identical. So the only benefit possibly is replacing the main board.

pavlos46 said:
Well even replacing the battery with the tablets one which is much bigger is a huge benefit.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The pictures show that the batteries are identical, and the Tablet's battery was even labeled as "NOOKCOLOR". The battery life difference comes only from newer, more efficient parts like the CPU, GPU and probably the screen too

Hmmmm, I have a Nook Color that the motherboard is fried on.
I was going to replace it with one from Portatronics or hope someone is selling theirs with a broken screen or sell mine for parts.
I'd be willing to try to replace it with a Nook Tablet motherboard and see if it works once they become available (depending on cost), the only thing that looks like it might give trouble is the touchscreen controller.
Everything else looks like it has the same orientation and connectors.

trevoroni said:
Hmmmm, I have a Nook Color that the motherboard is fried on.
I was going to replace it with one from Portatronics or hope someone is selling theirs with a broken screen or sell mine for parts.
I'd be willing to try to replace it with a Nook Tablet motherboard and see if it works once they become available (depending on cost), the only thing that looks like it might give trouble is the touchscreen controller.
Everything else looks like it has the same orientation and connectors.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
http://www.portatronics.com/product...rboard.html&XTCsid=54urbaq70eh1agh4fv3cklijj4
It is available now, pls let me know the result, i want to "upgrade" my nook color to nook tablet too

singlag said:
http://www.portatronics.com/product...rboard.html&XTCsid=54urbaq70eh1agh4fv3cklijj4
It is available now, pls let me know the result, i want to "upgrade" my nook color to nook tablet too
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry, I got a great deal on one from a Nook Color from Ebay.
I replaced it and it works great again.
I remember reading somewhere that CM9 includes the touchscreen driver for the new screen but I could be mistaken.

External NFC readers...

Bit of a shame they scrimped on the NFC reader / writer. I found it really handy on my Nexus 5 for topping up my travel card and have missed it on my current phone.
I've seen external micro-usb RFID reader / writer doodads like this one - which obviously wouldn't work since it would need to be usb-c. Has anyone ever used one? Any idea if these types of solution (if usb-c) could allow an F1 to write to an NFC tag? Obviously it's not something you'd want to leave plugged in, but if it worked it would be handy to pop on and off when required

If you really need the NFC , you should think about any good smartwatch with NFC. If it is acceptable for you to use any smartwatch , it will be the best use of NFC interface we can imagine.

Thanks for the reply, but that doesn't really fit my use-case plus smart watches ain't really my thing. Gonna recommission my Nexus 5 with the sole function of adding credit to my smart cards

I came across gadget by some reviewer which was a ring with an nfc chip embedded. Smart watches are costly and in this case might even be as much as the phone itself. :S

Get different phone. Really.

nC3rtaintiy said:
I came across gadget by some reviewer which was a ring with an nfc chip embedded. Smart watches are costly and in this case might even be as much as the phone itself. :S
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, I bought one a year or so back. Didn't work! My Nexus 5 couldn't find any trace of an NFC tag

ГАСООП said:
Get different phone. Really.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If this was a deal breaker I would but as it goes, NFC is a "nice to have", while the F1 has all the higher priorities covered

I have a same problem. I love Poco F1 but this feature is pretty bad for me
I thinking same way.. but I can't find any small usb-c reader

anims said:
I have a same problem. I love Poco F1 but this feature is pretty bad for me
I thinking same way.. but I can't find any small usb-c reader
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The obvious option is to buy a micro-usb NFC reader/writer like the one I think I liked to above and a micro-usb to usb-c adapter, but I've no idea if the devices actually work. Rather than order one and wait weeks for it to arrive I wondered if the wisdom of crowds might help...

This is a 300 phone that should be as fast as a OnePlus 6 and an S9+. Of course they need to cut corners. Plastic back (unless to get the Armor), no wireless charging, no NFC. I'm OK with all of that in a ~300 dollar smart phone. It has a Qcom 845, water cooling, 6GB of RAM, and decent camera. It is so cheap I decided to order one to play with it. I've never been a big fan of MIUI but I'm hoping the develpment community will provide lots of options. My bet is this phone will have a lot of development given the specs and price.

@Mike02z We are ad idem

Generally,get xiaomi 8.
Secondary,wait for mi band 3 nfc edition?

I still don't get the liquid cooling part. The teardown showed no liquid inside..

nC3rtaintiy said:
I still don't get the liquid cooling part. The teardown showed no liquid inside..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, I think that might have been a fib. As far as I've understood it, it's a rod thermally conductive metal, so it draws hear from the soc to other areas of the phone less likely to overheat (though when I was watching the teardown it looked like it was drawing hear to the battery - hot batteries didn't do Samsung a whole lot of favours. Jus' sayin')

thesoupthief said:
Yeah, I think that might have been a fib. As far as I've understood it, it's a rod thermally conductive metal, so it draws hear from the soc to other areas of the phone less likely to overheat (though when I was watching the teardown it looked like it was drawing hear to the battery - hot batteries didn't do Samsung a whole lot of favours. Jus' sayin')
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Okay so I saw a galaxy s9 teardown who was inspecting the liquid cooling in it and found that the liquid is basically inside the metal heatsink. The liquid can physically move inside thereby facilitating heattransfer. Guessing Xiaomi used that.

Mike02z said:
This is a 300 phone that should be as fast as a OnePlus 6 and an S9+. Of course they need to cut corners. Plastic back (unless to get the Armor), no wireless charging, no NFC. I'm OK with all of that in a ~300 dollar smart phone. It has a Qcom 845, water cooling, 6GB of RAM, and decent camera. It is so cheap I decided to order one to play with it. I've never been a big fan of MIUI but I'm hoping the develpment community will provide lots of options. My bet is this phone will have a lot of development given the specs and price.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can always use another launcher if you don't like MIUI....
That should fix that .
What I love with Android, if it's broke you can fix it how you like it - mostly...

Back to the subject of NFC devices, it seems the one I initially linked to in the first post is only an NFC tag reader, that is, it will read an NFC code from a tag. Writing is a different matter and probably requires something more like this.
Scouring t'internet revealed some other interesting idea though. Apparently there have been trials of NFC reader / writers built into microsd cards (even SIM cards) though it's not clear if any of these reached the market. That would be a much more elegant solution than a plug in external device.
Does anyone know any more on this?

Does NFC feature came with galaxy gear s3/watch a writer or reader only? Can it be use to top up something like eMoney card?

alexyie said:
Does NFC feature came with galaxy gear s3/watch a writer or reader only? Can it be use to top up something like eMoney card?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'd assume they would read and write, but idk.
Not sure about emoney cards, but my Nexus 4 and my Nexus 5 can both top up my Leap Card (an Irish travel card for trains, trams, buses etc)

This will not work. The NFC hardware should have secure element. There are microsd card with NFC.
But I have not seen Google pay supporting it.

How to check voltage level at a resistor?

I have a Samsung Galaxy S7 (SM-G930F) that appears to be dead. I found the service manual online and I'm now trying to follow the troubleshooting flowchart for power issues. I am stuck at the third step (already), where it tells me to check the voltage level at a resistor.
"Check the voltage level at R7027 while pressing power key. Is the voltage high?"
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So my first question is, how do you check voltage at a resistor in circuit without shortening something out? Ground to either side of the resistor? Multimeter in voltage metering mode?
Second question, what is a "high" voltage? How high is high? High as in digital circuit, like one (high) vs. zero (low)?
Two possible answers are given for this question in the flowchart. One is "No" and the other is "Abnormal". So my third question is, what does "abnormal" voltage look like?

Use a good set of probes and don't shake
Clip one to the ground plane so you only need to hold one probe instead of two.
Abnormal is under 2 VDC... I think.
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No worries, it all went well. Thanks for the tip about ground plane! I didn't find a plane, but I did manage to land on the ground. (I think got that in-joke right.)
I actually tried using both test leads directly on the resistor and while it did give me a reading, it also started to smell funny after a while. It also read something like 0.44 V. But after putting the negative lead on the metal shield, and positive on either side of the resistor, I got a very different reading. I got something like 3.7 V. Now that I understand the expectation, I know this is normal value. Because it's just the voltage from the battery which is rated 3.85 V nominal voltage. It's a bit discharged but it's OK (Samsung original replacement battery).
I do wish they had put more effort into writing these "service manual" things that they keep so secretive. They got me wondering what they mean by "abnormal" voltage. I admit do being a complete noob when it comes to repairing phones and electronics in general, but they could have used proper English and I would have understood (even though it's not my first language either). Now I understand this "abnormal" to mean "way above 3.8 V or way below 3.8 V". I get the impression they just slapped together some images and text, and they could not even spell things right or draw the little boxes in the flowchart with pixel perfect attention to detail. I do get it though. Why bother when no one else is supposed to even look at this except Samsung authorized service technicians?
Why below 2 V? How do you figure it's TTL and not RTL or DTL? Full disclosure: I have no understanding of what either of these things mean. I just looked it up on Wikipedia. I do know it has to do with the way electronic circuits are designed, it's engineering jargon. TTL stands for Transistor-Transistor Logic.

Pretty sure it's TTL protocol.
You really don't want to muck with most of everything on the mobo. Keep the phone in a good case at all times and keep it away from water. 99% of the time it's easier to replace a defective assembly rather than try to fix it.

Protocol? As in data transmission protocol, like USB? Can you elaborate please? I am only familiar with the term "TTL" in the context of UART interfaces, where you use some kind of USB or RS232 to TTL adapter in order to communicate with defective devices and things of that nature. I have used an adapter like that many years ago to clear a firmware error in a Seagate disk for example so I could recover the data.
I am in a similar situation this time. This phone is not powering on and I need to recover my data. It died suddenly while it was charging. What do you suggest I do to extract the data? I don't care about MOBO or assembly, I just want my data back. But I have no experience with phone repairs, and I have learned that the UFS storage chip is encrypted too. So I can't just pull of the storage chip and put it in a chip reader, do a data dump and then take it from there. I need to repair this board to get to my data. Or is there an alternative?

Protocol; voltage specs for different states.
A data recovery specialist may be able to retrieve the data. For you as it it is now, no boot, no data.
Not backing the data up redundantly was a big no-no.
As Dirty Harry said: "A lot of things can happen to an Android...".

I may not get it to boot in the end and recover the data, but neither will IBAS Ontrack. I doubt they even know what's involved in recovering data from such devices. They are probably still doing HDD data recoveries. Those guys don't even know how to answer the phone properly when a customer calls in. I called in three times and spoke to some weirdo at a switchboard, telling me that the people I need to talk to are busy. But they are always busy! And each time they give you this switchboard operator. They also don't call you back either when they promise to get back to you and you leave your phone number. I haven't called Drive Savers yet. I may try that some day, just to compare how they treat incoming calls for help. That's my experience with these data recovery specialists thus far (they don't exist!).
I agree, I should have had a fresh backup of the phone or at least a backup of the most important files. Should have, could have. That's not going to help me with what happened in the past. I made a mistake, and I didn't think my smartest phone of all smartphones would die so soon. Expiration date on these things seems to be one to two years, which is insane! So we keep buying and trashing them and creating e-waste. No one knows how to make make things or fix things, they only know how to buy and consume. We only have our theories and we know how to sell fog (ideas). All manufacturing is still done in China (they are the ones with the tools and the brains). I don't think it's right on any level. But here we are. A simple thing like changing the battery on these devices is intentionally made impossible.
It's not that I don't want a specialist to have a look at this and have my money. It's that there are none around, and those that are and do this type of job, they don't want it. They only want easy and quick jobs for big bucks. I had two of these phones sent to two different microelectronics repair shops, they both sent them back, on both occasions, saying it's a dead ROM chip. I don't believe them. How could I? The last guy didn't even send me back the 12 screws that I sent to him in a zip back along with the phone. Only because I told him to send it back disassembled, after he asked me. He asked if I wanted disassembled or assembled. Where assembled is twice the price. Why would I want it assembled? I already had disassembled it myself. Not fully, I just took the back cover off and tried putting in a brand new battery. I know how to assemble and glue it back together myself. He didn't tell me he would omit the screws if I opted to have it send back disassembled. It's a complete bull**** of repair shop, and he has like 40 thousands subscribers on YouTube. None of these guys will show you their failures. They only show their success to promote themselves. In my opinion, failure is where true learning takes place.
Anyway. I will take my chances and try to repair it myself. It's a costly experiment, and it's going to take time, but I am learning a lot in the process, and little by little I am actually putting together my own little microelectronics repair lab at home. I even got myself a thermal camera so I can inspect and locate overheating components. Hot air station and microscope is next. After that I may even start my own business and do phone repairs at a level that's simply not offered where I live.

There are recovery specialists that go as far as pulling the SOC to attempt to recover data. No small or easy task.
Otherwise if you can't get that mobo to run I would write the data off... and save myself a lot of time and trouble for nothing.

I'm stuck in a similar situation with my GT-i9060 (Galaxy Grand Neo) where I could care less about the board or phone and just want my data recovered.
This would be my last-resort attempt to repair but you could try it out maybe. I am attempting to figure out what's wrong with the mobo first and try to get that thing started.
Here's my post. Any inputs would be helpful.

Rizzi87 said:
I'm stuck in a similar situation with my GT-i9060 (Galaxy Grand Neo) where I could care less about the board or phone and just want my data recovered.
This would be my last-resort attempt to repair but you could try it out maybe. I am attempting to figure out what's wrong with the mobo first and try to get that thing started.
Here's my post. Any inputs would be helpful.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nice find. Last resort time... you see what a pain it is. Very involved and no guarantees.
Is the sim card still intact; are your contacts stored on it?

blackhawk said:
Nice find. Last resort time... you see what a pain it is. Very involved and no guarantees.
Is the sim card still intact; are your contacts stored on it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the reply.
The SIM is still intact but no, my contacts aren't saved on it. My Whatsapp backup is on there too and yes, I was ignorant enough to not have backed it up
As I mentioned, if I try to switch it on using the battery or even plug the charger, certain areas of the mobo get hot which points out to some component being shorted (according to my limited knowledge)
I'm trying to test each component using the schematic diagrams because the repair flowchart mentions some equipment that I don't have access to. Gonna pop open the emi shields today so I can test those components too.
I also have a G930F with a bad display (I think) but that will have to wait

You can't repair a mobile with just a flow chart. You need to be proffessional and also need some basic tools like dc power supply. Mobile pcb's most DC bus lines will normally shows below 30ohms resistance.
Connect phone to pc with charged battery and check phone's SOC detects or not, if detects probably emmc/bootloader failure.

Rizzi87 said:
Thanks for the reply.
The SIM is still intact but no, my contacts aren't saved on it. My Whatsapp backup is on there too and yes, I was ignorant enough to not have backed it up
As I mentioned, if I try to switch it on using the battery or even plug the charger, certain areas of the mobo get hot which points out to some component being shorted (according to my limited knowledge)
I'm trying to test each component using the schematic diagrams because the repair flowchart mentions some equipment that I don't have access to. Gonna pop open the emi shields today so I can test those components too.
I also have a G930F with a bad display (I think) but that will have to wait
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You're welcome and welcome to XDA
That link was an interesting read.
If you really need the data just stop now and send it in. If you have already or do damage the memory chipset it will be game over. One price quote I heard was $800 from another member here. Can't recall if they had to hot air the memory chip off or not.
Many people have no idea the trouble not backing up critical data causes or how fragile digital data can be. I have at least a dozen backup drives, many are redundant copies. No such thing as too much.

@blackhawk Yeah, I will probably head over to some recovery specialists and then experiment with getting the board to work again.
@R7027 - If you have the service manual for the G930F, can you check if it lists the main parts and exploded view for the phone?

blackhawk said:
There are recovery specialists that go as far as pulling the SOC to attempt to recover data.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know. That's a chip-off procedure. But that doesn't work on devices running Android 6 and above because of hardware based encryption of storage chips. This is enforced by Google. Manufacturers must comply with Google's demands if they want to receive Android certification.
Rizzi87 said:
I'm stuck in a similar situation with my GT-i9060 (Galaxy Grand Neo) where I could care less about the board or phone and just want my data recovered.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm sorry to hear. I know the feeling.
Rizzi87 said:
This would be my last-resort attempt to repair but you could try it out maybe. I am attempting to figure out what's wrong with the mobo first and try to get that thing started.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm familiar with FlashFixers. I have seen the video version of the article you linked to, seen their website and read most of the information there.
For example, this information:
"Chip-off data recovery is only an option for Android OS 2.3-5.1."
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is why they stopped doing that after Galaxy S6, because Galaxy S7 came with Android 6.
I also know what software they're using, what adapters, what readers, etc. So I can tell you what's possible and what's not. Your phone shipped with Android 4.2 and was upgradeable to 4.4.4. Therefore, your phone can undergo a chip-off procedure. GSM Arena is source number one for mobile phone specs. Head over there and check it out. Since this is an older phone model and spec data submitters (users) at GSM Arnea didn't pay much attention to type of internal storage, there is no info on the type of internal memory. But I believe it's eMMC. I know for a fact that Samsung switched from eMMC to eUFS when they released Galaxy S6. The relevance here is that the chip reader you use needs to support eMMC, and virtually every one of them supports eMMC. Only a few readers support eUFS, the new standard that no one in phone repair community cares much for when they can't do chip-off procedures on anything running Android 6 or above, due to Google's enforcement of hardware based encryption.
So if you turn your phone in to FlashFixers, or anyone else with the same equipment, skill and know-how, they should be able to dump, read and recover all your data from the chip. They can even write the whole lot back to a new chip and put it back on a donor board and install it into the phone frame, and deliver a working phone with all the data on it.
But as for me, I'm not so lucky. It doesn't work on Galaxy S7 because of Android 6. Mine was running Android 8 when it died, but it shipped with Android 6 and that's reason enough not to try it, as it is encrypted, for sure. They need to either repair the original board, or transplant the CPU/SOC and ROM/UFS to a donor board. This is true for all the newer phones. It's a new era.
Rizzi87 said:
The SIM is still intact but no, my contacts aren't saved on it.
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Are they stored on the internal memory of the phone? Thankfully I have the master copy of all my contacts, some 250 of them, all well documented and manually edited. I decided to switch to Google for storing all my contacts about 10 years ago, and I have not looked back since.
Rizzi87 said:
As I mentioned, if I try to switch it on using the battery or even plug the charger, certain areas of the mobo get hot which points out to some component being shorted (according to my limited knowledge)
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That's a good indication of a short. Problem is in knowing your reference points. How much is too much? Similar to voltage, how high temperature is too high? How low temperature is too low? If you don't have a reference, it doesn't tell you much. Unless it's in the extreme. Extremely low, or extremely high. Reference point for that might be if you get a burn mark if you touch it or a frost bite. But in general, abnormal temperature is a good indication of a short circuit. If you can rule out overheating.
Rizzi87 said:
I'm trying to test each component using the schematic diagrams because the repair flowchart mentions some equipment that I don't have access to. Gonna pop open the emi shields today so I can test those components too.
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What equipment is that? What components have you tested if you have not removed the shields yet?
EMI shields? Is that what those things are called? I hate those. They are troublesome to remove. Some of them have a top cover that can be lifted and put back on, others don't. I knocked off a tiny capacitor on one of my test boards while removing the shield with pliers (expensive precision pliers for electronics by Knipex, "Made in Germany"). That board took a turn for the worse because of it. But I have saved the tiny capacitor. Good thing is I saw it and didn't digest it or something, it's almost invisible, it's like 1 mm x 0.5 mm.
Rizzi87 said:
I also have a G930F with a bad display (I think) but that will have to wait
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Does it have power? The first thing you should get in terms of equipment is a USB power meter.
engage4 said:
Mobile pcb's most DC bus lines will normally shows below 30ohms resistance.
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What does that mean? Can you re-phrase that please?
engage4 said:
Connect phone to pc with charged battery and check phone's SOC detects or not, if detects probably emmc/bootloader failure.
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Check if phone detects PC? Not if PC detects phone? I don't understand this. Assuming PC is working and phone is not working, then how could phone detect the PC? Where do you even begin to look if you don't have anything on display (of the phone)?
blackhawk said:
One price quote I heard was $800 from another member here. Can't recall if they had to hot air the memory chip off or not.
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Click to collapse
I think iPad Rehab takes like $999. You can also check the FlashFixers website. They have published their prices on there.
"Data recovery service of photos and videos from Android phones starts at $399 for Android OS 2.3-5.1, and $499 for Android OS 6-10, and $599 for Android OS 11 and newer."
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For Android 4, they take $499 and for Android 6 or newer, they take $599. They have more on their Android Phone Data Recovery Service page.
Rizzi87 said:
Yeah, I will probably head over to some recovery specialists and then experiment with getting the board to work again.
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Don't rush to send it in to a "specialist". I guess it doesn't matter much in your case, since your phone runs on Android 4 and any data recovery/microelectronics "specialist" should be able to do the job. But in general, and especially in case of Android 6 and above, I suggest you try to find someone who knows how to do repairs, first and foremost. Not data recovery.
In the past, anyone with the right equipment, steady hands, and good mental or cognitive functions used to be able to do data recoveries in a chip-off procedure. That's until Android 6 happened. After that, they were all faced with a decision: go out of business or learn how to do actual repairs. I have no insider information on this, but I can read between the lines and I can think. I suspect that Android 6 was a big blow to this type of businesses. Some of the old timers went on to do board swaps instead. That's the new default procedure for anything newer than Android 6 where data recovery is the priority. Board swaps essentially replaced chip-off procedures, starting from Android 6.
There is another guy on YouTube that used to do data recovery on Android devices. He no longer does that, not if your device runs on Android 6 or newer. He specifically states that on his website. He's from Canada if I recall correctly. I think he mostly does data recovery on USB flash drives and HDDs.
Apparently, FlashFixers offer data recovery on Android 6 and above. That's a good indication actually of a good service. They charge more for it, of course, but rightfully so. Because the name of the game is no longer "take the chip off, dump the data, mount it, read it, copy or upload and ask for payment". Now they have to do proper diagnostics and troubleshooting, repair the original board, or do a board swap and risk damaging the chips.
Board repair is really the territory of guys like Louis Rossmann. Most of the other guys will just do a board swap and hope for the best. But even that is a tall order. You can easily damage a chip in the process. I looked at my Samsung Exynos chip and it's like 1 mm thin, and it sits on top of a 1 mm thin RAM chip. I don't really want to mess with that if I want to preserve the data. So to increase my chances of recovering data I would leave it to someone else. Or! Skill up! I would need to practice on less important phones first.
To tell you the truth I have already ruined two SM-G930F boards. Not beyond repair, but I made them worse. I knocking off a tiny capacitor on one of them, and I ruined the connectors on the other one with what turned out to be fake Kapton tape that didn't stand the heat (I didn't know people made fake Kapton tapes and I didn't test my tape first). Both boards were already having the same issue as my main SM-G930F board. I now have 4 boards, 3 of which are not working. I purchased a fully functional SM-G930F that I plan on taking apart just to learn more about how it works when it's normal. In medicine, you study anatomy first, then physiology, and then pathology. It's same thing here.
All of this is very involved, I'm aware of it. It's not for the faint of heart or for people without stamina to continue when it gets difficult. I have the curiosity, drive and energy to pursue this. Little by little, I'm improving every day. I'm actually thinking about going for an electronics engineering degree. I have always been interested in electronics. I ended up working as an electrician instead, and then IT technician. I don't need to tell you my life's story, I'm just saying that there is more than one reason why I am pursuing this path.
Rizzi87 said:
If you have the service manual for the G930F, can you check if it lists the main parts and exploded view for the phone?
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There is one or two pages dedicated to listing only the components. Not sure if that's what you mean. A parts list? There is no exploded view, but there is a picture of the phone on one or two of the pages, with everything marked up for overview (anatomy). Then there is also board views, front and back, and also each side of the the sub-board (I think it's called). I don't know if I'm allowed to post it here? But you can find it online. What would you like to know from it? I can check it and get back to you.

Forget "TTL" and 5V. There is nothing on your board that is at that level.
Sometimes signals that are designed for external things run at 3.3V, but they usually use a converter.
An actual SD card (if it's from the stone age) uses 3.3V levels.
Normally the system will just say, "Can we just talk at 1.8V levels?" And they do.
Most processors of the last decade work at 1.8V or less.
If a signal comes right out of the processor it will be at that level.
For instance, my Onyx Poke3 has UART running on 1.8V levels.
So, back to your power button. That's internal. It connect directly to a GPIO on the SOC.
That means the voltage levels are probably 0V to 1.8V.
I'd guess that "R7027" is a pull-down resistor to ground.
That means the power switch is connected to 1.8V and it pulls the input on the SoC up.
(Many other things tend to have a switch ground things and they use a pull-up resistor to 1.8V)
Did you find the test point for the power switch? Did you see what happens when you push it?
It should go to 1.8V (obviously).

Renate said:
Forget "TTL" and 5V. There is nothing on your board that is at that level.
Sometimes signals that are designed for external things run at 3.3V, but they usually use a converter.
An actual SD card (if it's from the stone age) uses 3.3V levels.
Normally the system will just say, "Can we just talk at 1.8V levels?" And they do.
Most processors of the last decade work at 1.8V or less.
If a signal comes right out of the processor it will be at that level.
For instance, my Onyx Poke3 has UART running on 1.8V levels.
So, back to your power button. That's internal. It connect directly to a GPIO on the SOC.
That means the voltage levels are probably 0V to 1.8V.
I'd guess that "R7027" is a pull-down resistor to ground.
That means the power switch is connected to 1.8V and it pulls the input on the SoC up.
(Many other things tend to have a switch ground things and they use a pull-up resistor to 1.8V)
Did you find the test point for the power switch? Did you see what happens when you push it?
It should go to 1.8V (obviously).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What's the name of that protocol? The low/high threshold ranges for 1.8VDC?

CMOS or LVCMOS
Earlier logic families didn't generally go rail-to-rail, i.e. the full range of the power supply.
Since CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductors) the logic swings from the negative power supply (usually zero) to the positive power supply.
Over the years the voltage has gotten lower to reduce the power needed to swing the parasitic capacitances.
Your desktop probably runs at less than 1V
There is 5V on your cell phone motherboard, for the USB power in and the USB power out when powering peripherals.
Even then the actual logic on the data lines only swings from 0 to 3.3V (in USB2 low and full speed).
In USB2 high speed, it's 0.4V

Renate said:
Sometimes signals that are designed for external things run at 3.3V, but they usually use a converter.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What do you mean by external?
Renate said:
Normally the system will just say, "Can we just talk at 1.8V levels?" And they do.
Most processors of the last decade work at 1.8V or less.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
By system you mean the processor? That's assuming the signal is coming out of the processor and not going into the processor?
Renate said:
Normally the system will just say, "Can we just talk at 1.8V levels?" And they do.
Most processors of the last decade work at 1.8V or less.
If a signal comes right out of the processor it will be at that level.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So by "system" you mean the processor? That's assuming the signal is coming out of the processor and not going into the processor?
Renate said:
An actual SD card (if it's from the stone age) uses 3.3V levels.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So this would be pulled down to 1.8 V if it's going into the processor? And if it's below 1.8 V it may need to be pulled up if it's going into the processor? In other words, a processor simply talks at 1.8 V? Unless it's overvoltaged to 2.0 V or even up to 2.2 V for added headroom for overclocking (and shorter life span). I'm referring to PC processors (x86).
Renate said:
So, back to your power button. That's internal. It connect directly to a GPIO on the SOC.
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What does internal mean here? I recognize the acronym GPIO from my Arduino experiments. That's General Purpose Input and Output. I didn't know ARM SOCs have that too. I thought they had purpose built ins and outs, not generalized/universal varieties. You can tell how little I know, right?!
Renate said:
That means the voltage levels are probably 0V to 1.8V.
I'd guess that "R7027" is a pull-down resistor to ground.
That means the power switch is connected to 1.8V and it pulls the input on the SoC up.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not sure we're on the same page here.
The chipset is Exynos 8890 Octa (14 nm). The CPU of which is an 8 core (4x2.3 GHz Mongoose & 4x1.6 GHz Cortex-A53) and the GPU is Mali-T880 MP12.
Mongoose 1 or M1 for short is an ARM microarchitecture designed by Samsung and their first in-house design according to WikiChip. Exynox 8890 features one "big" core cluster of 4 of these and an additional "littl" core cluster of Cortex-A53. Interestingly, "big" and "little" qualify as technical terms. Very technical! LOL. For someone who can't tell size. Anyway! I could not find any specifics on M1, but if the "Juno ARM Development Platform SoC Technical Overview r2p0" document is anything to go by, the "core supply to the quad core Cortex-A53 cluster" is "0.8-1.0V". I believe the "Juno" is a device people in the know (and in need) use to develop their own electronic products based on ARM processors.
I will not pretend like I know all of this. I am just a good researcher and a decent google-fu practitioner. On the grand scheme of things, I still fail to see the relevance of this to my question of what the voltage should be level should be at that resistor.
Renate said:
Did you find the test point for the power switch? Did you see what happens when you push it?
It should go to 1.8V (obviously).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What do you mean by test point? If you mean what end of the resistor I put the positive lead on, then no. Such information is not given in the service manual and I don't have the board view software needed to go in depth on that. But either side will give a similar reading of around 3.7 V.
I quote myself:
"I actually tried using both test leads directly on the resistor and while it did give me a reading, it also started to smell funny after a while. It also read something like 0.44 V. But after putting the negative lead on the metal shield, and positive on either side of the resistor, I got a very different reading. I got something like 3.7 V."
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So negative lead on one end of the resistor and positive lead on the other end is the wrong idea.
The correct way to measure is to have the negative lead touch some point that connects to ground, like the metal around a screw hole or these metal shields, and then the positive lead on either side of the resistor. The difference between them is very small. It measures maybe 3.65 V if you put the red probe (positive) on the left end of resistor and it measures 3.70 V if you put the probe on the other side of the resistor. Can you maybe answer which value to note down? I keep running into this issue, and I keep notes of my findings (like a proper professional will do), so I keep writing down both. This I think is something I will learn with time, and once I get proper schematics of the things I measure.
I also wonder why some people will write down voltage as "5V" while others will write "5 V"? Is there no standard to this? Do you travel at 60mph or at 60 mph? I don't travel at either, because I use Km/h and there is always a space between measurement value and the measurement unit. But we have "Km/h" wrong too, because "kilo" is the only SI prefix that uses a lower case "k", so it should be "km/h". But Microsoft has it wrong too, because they write "KB" for kilobyte, instead of "kB". This depends on what version of Windows OS it is I think, or if it's MS-DOS. Anyway. I got carried away here. But please do tell me if there is a right and wrong way to write out 5 volts with unit symbols, I'm curious.

Renate said:
There is 5V on your cell phone motherboard, for the USB power in and the USB power out when powering peripherals.
Even then the actual logic on the data lines only swings from 0 to 3.3V (in USB2 low and full speed).
In USB2 high speed, it's 0.4V
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Click to collapse
Swinging logic sounds like fun.
Speaking of powering peripherals, maybe you can help me understand why my brand new Seek Thermal Comapct thermal camera doesn't work with my brand new Galaxy S22 phone? They both use USB-C connectors. But the Seek Thermal app doesn't see my camera when I plug it in. It sees is sometimes. It saw it the first time and Android prompted me to decide if I wanted Seek Thermal to auto start each time I plug the device in. I said yes. So now the phone does see something being plugged in, because it auto starts Seek Thermal, but the app complains that camera is not plugged in. If I leave it plugged in, reboot, and then it auto starts again and sees it. If I unplug, plug back in, sometimes it sees it again but most often not. So I have to reboot each time I want to be sure I will be able to use it.
It's something odd going on and I'm not the only one affected by this. Customers of FLIR ONE PRO (not caps scream, it's actually name of the product) have made similar complaints. One FLIR ONE PRO user said that this is due to lack of support for USB OTG on "modern" Android devices. Do you think it's related to OTG? What's the the current status of OTG? Is it deprecated? He suggested using a OTG adapter. Except there are none for USB-C to USB-C. They only exist for connections between USB-A to USB-C or micro-USB (B?) and vice verse. Not between USB-C and USB-C. Because USB-C devices don't need training wheels to enable compatibility, right?