My HTC ONE M7 might have got some sand in the microphone, which has caused it to cease functioning. I'm trying to determine my next step, replacing the microphone, or selling on Ebay with the defunct mic and buying a new phone.
I've done a few tear downs and replacing Android LCDs, but nothing like this phone. It looks like it requires removing the LCD and hoping it doesn't break and swapping out the microphone.
Don't have the proper tools at the moment, either.
Thanks.
try cleaning it with a pin gently and by not pushing in too far then blow in it really hard. worth a shot. worked on mine
You can buy a new mic module (e.g.: link) so I would assume replacing it can't be that challenging. My understanding from people who have worked on this phone is that the hardest part is opening the case and getting it back together without damaging things.
techjohnny said:
My HTC ONE M7 might have got some sand in the microphone, which has caused it to cease functioning. I'm trying to determine my next step, replacing the microphone, or selling on Ebay with the defunct mic and buying a new phone.
I've done a few tear downs and replacing Android LCDs, but nothing like this phone. It looks like it requires removing the LCD and hoping it doesn't break and swapping out the microphone.
Don't have the proper tools at the moment, either.
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Successfully removed the back and replaced the microphone, but the replacement has the microphone hole vertical, while the old one was horizontal going out the phone. This seems to be a problem since when the back is in place it now blocks that hole and cannot be heard.
Recently, on CM10.2.1 I noticed my headphone jack stopped working. I updated to the latest 4.4.2 official update with the Israeli customization and this is still occurring. I'm only receiving audio to both right and left streams if I hold the connector in a strange angle, and if I don't, only the left stream works.
I'm having difficulty deciding what to do: a couple months ago I sent my device for repair to Sony because of a broken charging port and that costed 250 NIS (about 73 USD). My father replaced his iPhone 4S and 3GS batteries, so he has a little experience with repair, but I don't know whether to take the risk and repair at home or send the device to Sony.
Also, I don't have warranty. I read what it covers and it doesn't do anything for me anymore so I installed a ROM, but now I'm on the stock Sony firmware unrooted with a locked bootloader (flash tool displays it as unlockable).
Please answer if you can.
Well.... I'm in the same boat as you. I've got some dead pixels in my camera.
1: When I send it for repair I'll be without a phone for weeks.
2: It will cost more.
I've repaired several phones already, but the only thing slightly worrying me is that I might lose the water resistance, but then again I never use the phone near water anymore.
I have the phone since it came out so I'm not even sure if I still got any warranty.
Repairing a phone is really not that hard. Only thing making it hard is because everything is extra covered due to the water and dust resistance.
Dsteppa said:
Well.... I'm in the same boat as you. I've got some dead pixels in my camera.
1: When I send it for repair I'll be without a phone for weeks.
2: It will cost more.
I've repaired several phones already, but the only thing slightly worrying me is that I might lose the water resistance, but then again I never use the phone near water anymore.
I have the phone since it came out so I'm not even sure if I still got any warranty.
Repairing a phone is really not that hard. Only thing making it hard is because everything is extra covered due to the water and dust resistance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But is repairing the XZ really hard? On iFixIt it says that repairing the headphone jack is difficult.
Go And Buy A New Headphone Jack @ rounded.com
I recommended ...
Price Are Very Low.
yotamdo said:
But is repairing the XZ really hard? On iFixIt it says that repairing the headphone jack is difficult.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It really depends on what you mean with it being difficult.
I learned a lot by looking at disassemble videos like this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfXaze8AS2o
It's really no rocket science.
But do note that you'll probably lose the water resistance after doing this.
anyone's phone last until now without charging port problems, or anyone changed their port and does the problems return? I'm considering if it is worth to replace the port
I have exactly the same question.
xdaxdap said:
I have exactly the same question.
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Click to collapse
end up selling the device as the charging port i bought from aliexpress got no stock and grab myself a lenovo legion y70
The charge port issue isn't actually the charge port, but somewhere on the main board. I've tried fixing close to a dozen boot looping on charger RP2's in the last year or 2, and didn't matter if it was a charge port out of a working one, it still had the issue after swapping
TechX1991 said:
The charge port issue isn't actually the charge port, but somewhere on the main board. I've tried fixing close to a dozen boot looping on charger RP2's in the last year or 2, and didn't matter if it was a charge port out of a working one, it still had the issue after swapping
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
what more is needed to discover the flaw? im holding onto my first razer phone 2 because i still believe and i choose to believe anything can be fixed one way or another
Titanricky8 said:
what more is needed to discover the flaw? im holding onto my first razer phone 2 because i still believe and i choose to believe anything can be fixed one way or another
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Gotta figure out what and where the issue lies on the main board. What tiny component is going bad causing it to not charge
TechX1991 said:
Gotta figure out what and where the issue lies on the main board. What tiny component is going bad causing it to not charge
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i assume its like finding a needle in a haystack furthermore different for each phone
Titanricky8 said:
i assume its like finding a needle in a haystack furthermore different for each phone
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not exactly. If you have a thermal camera, you could hook up the phone with the back off and look for the component that's gettin hotter than everything else
I have a Razer Phone 2 that I'm refurbing for a client, and the USB-C port was in bad shape, so not only no data transfer, but she could only be charged via wireless. No worries though, at least in the case of this specific Razer 2, the problem was the flex cable that attaches the female type-c pin housing to the daughter-board. My theory, again, at least for this specific Razer 2, is because the 2 screws securing the port had come loose, the port was not secured, and was driven deeper inside the chassis when the owner went to plug it in. Since said flex is pretty wimpy, the movement back and forth probably fatigued the traces and the coating of the ribbon, more than likely damaging/breaking several traces.
My solution ended up being similar to the 2017 Retina MacBook Pro ‘Flexgate’ issue, where a very poor design choice created an LCD flex that had a spring/tension/rolling mechanism, which would pull out/extended the flex cable to accommodate the MB being opened, and retract to its resting position when closed. Unfortunately, the short length of the flex, along with a lack of robustness, meant that every opening and closing caused more and more fatigue, and eventually traces became severed and/or shorted out. This manifests as a 'stage light effect' that gets worse the further you open the lid, or in some cases, the 'stage light' effect is absent, however opening the lid past ~45 degrees causes the screen to shut off.
Apple did correct this the following year by replacing the flex with one 6mm longer that was more rigid than the previous year’s problematic flex. However, before the replacements were available (the 6mm extended flex worked a treat to fix the 2017’s issues, and it saved SO MUCH MONEY! A $10 flex cable as opposed to a ~$500 top housing assembly! So a $150 repair, as it is kinda labor intensive, not to mention if you’re not careful you’ll damage the LCD while removing it), a solution was needed to prevent clients from having to pay the ~$500 for a new display (which, OF CORSE, Apple refused to sell the LCD panel by itself (which are made by 2 suppliers, LG Display & Samsung Display, and Apple’s manufacturing contracts prevent both companies from selling any panels as replacement parts. Sometimes they’ll be a few here and there, but it’s rare), forcing people to buy the entire top case, which, of corse, STILL HAD THE PROBLEMATIC FLEX CABLE, meaning that the replacements would also eventually fail.
The solution to both the Razer 2 & 2017 MBP Retina's flex woes is to cut the offending flex just below where the fatigue is visible, or in the case of my client's Razer 2, where a visible kink was. Since the flex has 2mm or so of slack, you can then scrape (or VERY CAREFULLY use a fine tip soldering iron) to expose the tips of the traces, and using nanowire, bridge the two halves together with low-temp solder after aligning and stacking them, with one overlapping by ~0.25mm. Shielded nanowire isn't a common thing most people who don't do repair have laying around, so a workaround is to use twisted copper wire, which you then can un-twist, giving you very thin strands that are perfect for this. Just MAKE SURE THAT YOU EITHER APPLY SOME LIQUID ELECTRICAL TAPE OR UV CURABLE LIQUID INSULATION, since the strands wont be individually insulated or shielded. You should do this regardless of the type of nanowire you use, not only to prevent potential shorts, but also to reinforce the flex just in case it gets moved around again. This will make it more resistant to kinking up and/or breaking if it does experience any movement/bending. Louis Rossman of Rossman Repair Group has a great video that goes through the flex bridge technique in extreme detail.
One more interesting thing. I originally had ordered a replacement daughter-board/USB-C port from a 3rd party that I knew was used, but worth a shot. Unfortunately, it took about 2 months to arrive, so I got impatient and did the flex repair described above. After it eventually arrived, I installed it to see if it worked but found it was also defective . . but for a different reason than the one in my client's Razer 2. The control chip on the board (a 40-pin QFP, pin arrangement=12x8x12x8) needed to be removed, cleaned, and reinstalled, and voila, she lived again! I noticed some people saying their device was really hot by the port, and bad solder joints can create poor connections to their respective pads, and poor connections can cause increased resistance, which creates heat. Also, I think that specific charger control chip also has a pass-through for the mic that's on the board, so if your port AND mic are both not working or working intermittently, that might be the cause. I could be mistaken about the pass-through, I need to look at the data sheet again, as it's been a minute since I worked on said Razer 2, as the owner was out of the country for months on business. I actually finished refurbing it about 6 months or so ago.
I recorded the entire process, replacing the display assembly, battery, removing the old (and IMHO inferior) thermal putty and replacing it with Thermal Grizzly’s Kryonaut (reducing thermals by ~10C under load), and have EXTREMELY DETAILED footage of the repair from my USB microscope. I've been kinda lazy with editing it, but I just finished editing another refurb (an EVGA 660 Ti SC that needed a complete refurb, along with replacing 2 cooked MOSFETs. It has sentimental value to the owner, so yeah, a VERY COOL GPU that’s back at 100%), so I'm gonna start on the Razer 2 refurb video tomorrow. I’ll post a link here as soon as I upload it to YT and it’s published.
BTW, the fact that the charge ports are so hard to find new is kinda strange, and maybe suggest a much smaller production run of the Razer 2 than I had originally presumed. I repair devices every day, and my parts distributor can usually get ANYTHING, the guy and his business are amazing. He was able to get me an OEM display assembly and a brand-new sealed replacement OEM battery no problem. When it came to the charge port though, he couldn't find any new units, which is strange, especially since the battery was available as a newer, sealed replacement part. Charge ports and batteries are parts that usually get an additional limited production run for replacement part/repair purposes, since batteries will definitely need to be replaced after a few years, and charge ports USUALLY need to be replaced, unless a person is EXTREMELY GENTLE when they plug & unplug their devices. Unfortunately, all I've been able to find for charge port & mic daughter-boards are pulls from devices, and ya never know what a part has been through when it's not new.
Anyway, the guy who owns the Razer 2 just got back from the UK. and asked me to flash TWRP, LineageOS, etc., and when I opened the Razer 2 forum home page, this was the first thread I saw.
Hopefully this info can help someone out. Maybe someone can get something out of my experience with this specific device and part. And as I mentioned above, as soon as I post the refurb video on YT I'll post a link here. I think that’ll help out, if not because of the same issue, then maybe it can help rule out the issues I ran into.
Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.
Need4Sneed said:
I have a Razer Phone 2 that I'm refurbing for a client, and the USB-C port was in bad shape, so not only no data transfer, but she could only be charged via wireless. No worries though, at least in the case of this specific Razer 2, the problem was the flex cable that attaches the female type-c pin housing to the daughter-board. My theory, again, at least for this specific Razer 2, is because the 2 screws securing the port had come loose, the port was not secured, and was driven deeper inside the chassis when the owner went to plug it in. Since said flex is pretty wimpy, the movement back and forth probably fatigued the traces and the coating of the ribbon, more than likely damaging/breaking several traces.
My solution ended up being similar to the 2017 Retina MacBook Pro ‘Flexgate’ issue, where a very poor design choice created an LCD flex that had a spring/tension/rolling mechanism, which would pull out/extended the flex cable to accommodate the MB being opened, and retract to its resting position when closed. Unfortunately, the short length of the flex, along with a lack of robustness, meant that every opening and closing caused more and more fatigue, and eventually traces became severed and/or shorted out. This manifests as a 'stage light effect' that gets worse the further you open the lid, or in some cases, the 'stage light' effect is absent, however opening the lid past ~45 degrees causes the screen to shut off.
Apple did correct this the following year by replacing the flex with one 6mm longer that was more rigid than the previous year’s problematic flex. However, before the replacements were available (the 6mm extended flex worked a treat to fix the 2017’s issues, and it saved SO MUCH MONEY! A $10 flex cable as opposed to a ~$500 top housing assembly! So a $150 repair, as it is kinda labor intensive, not to mention if you’re not careful you’ll damage the LCD while removing it), a solution was needed to prevent clients from having to pay the ~$500 for a new display (which, OF CORSE, Apple refused to sell the LCD panel by itself (which are made by 2 suppliers, LG Display & Samsung Display, and Apple’s manufacturing contracts prevent both companies from selling any panels as replacement parts. Sometimes they’ll be a few here and there, but it’s rare), forcing people to buy the entire top case, which, of corse, STILL HAD THE PROBLEMATIC FLEX CABLE, meaning that the replacements would also eventually fail.
The solution to both the Razer 2 & 2017 MBP Retina's flex woes is to cut the offending flex just below where the fatigue is visible, or in the case of my client's Razer 2, where a visible kink was. Since the flex has 2mm or so of slack, you can then scrape (or VERY CAREFULLY use a fine tip soldering iron) to expose the tips of the traces, and using nanowire, bridge the two halves together with low-temp solder after aligning and stacking them, with one overlapping by ~0.25mm. Shielded nanowire isn't a common thing most people who don't do repair have laying around, so a workaround is to use twisted copper wire, which you then can un-twist, giving you very thin strands that are perfect for this. Just MAKE SURE THAT YOU EITHER APPLY SOME LIQUID ELECTRICAL TAPE OR UV CURABLE LIQUID INSULATION, since the strands wont be individually insulated or shielded. You should do this regardless of the type of nanowire you use, not only to prevent potential shorts, but also to reinforce the flex just in case it gets moved around again. This will make it more resistant to kinking up and/or breaking if it does experience any movement/bending. Louis Rossman of Rossman Repair Group has a great video that goes through the flex bridge technique in extreme detail.
One more interesting thing. I originally had ordered a replacement daughter-board/USB-C port from a 3rd party that I knew was used, but worth a shot. Unfortunately, it took about 2 months to arrive, so I got impatient and did the flex repair described above. After it eventually arrived, I installed it to see if it worked but found it was also defective . . but for a different reason than the one in my client's Razer 2. The control chip on the board (a 40-pin QFP, pin arrangement=12x8x12x8) needed to be removed, cleaned, and reinstalled, and voila, she lived again! I noticed some people saying their device was really hot by the port, and bad solder joints can create poor connections to their respective pads, and poor connections can cause increased resistance, which creates heat. Also, I think that specific charger control chip also has a pass-through for the mic that's on the board, so if your port AND mic are both not working or working intermittently, that might be the cause. I could be mistaken about the pass-through, I need to look at the data sheet again, as it's been a minute since I worked on said Razer 2, as the owner was out of the country for months on business. I actually finished refurbing it about 6 months or so ago.
I recorded the entire process, replacing the display assembly, battery, removing the old (and IMHO inferior) thermal putty and replacing it with Thermal Grizzly’s Kryonaut (reducing thermals by ~10C under load), and have EXTREMELY DETAILED footage of the repair from my USB microscope. I've been kinda lazy with editing it, but I just finished editing another refurb (an EVGA 660 Ti SC that needed a complete refurb, along with replacing 2 cooked MOSFETs. It has sentimental value to the owner, so yeah, a VERY COOL GPU that’s back at 100%), so I'm gonna start on the Razer 2 refurb video tomorrow. I’ll post a link here as soon as I upload it to YT and it’s published.
BTW, the fact that the charge ports are so hard to find new is kinda strange, and maybe suggest a much smaller production run of the Razer 2 than I had originally presumed. I repair devices every day, and my parts distributor can usually get ANYTHING, the guy and his business are amazing. He was able to get me an OEM display assembly and a brand-new sealed replacement OEM battery no problem. When it came to the charge port though, he couldn't find any new units, which is strange, especially since the battery was available as a newer, sealed replacement part. Charge ports and batteries are parts that usually get an additional limited production run for replacement part/repair purposes, since batteries will definitely need to be replaced after a few years, and charge ports USUALLY need to be replaced, unless a person is EXTREMELY GENTLE when they plug & unplug their devices. Unfortunately, all I've been able to find for charge port & mic daughter-boards are pulls from devices, and ya never know what a part has been through when it's not new.
Anyway, the guy who owns the Razer 2 just got back from the UK. and asked me to flash TWRP, LineageOS, etc., and when I opened the Razer 2 forum home page, this was the first thread I saw.
Hopefully this info can help someone out. Maybe someone can get something out of my experience with this specific device and part. And as I mentioned above, as soon as I post the refurb video on YT I'll post a link here. I think that’ll help out, if not because of the same issue, then maybe it can help rule out the issues I ran into.
Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
NIce so what your saying is spare phone is the way to go unless you can bridge a flex cable. You think working ones ought to re-enforce the working cable? If so clear resin a conformal coating like what did you use tape to harden the cable? Still use mine from time to time and have done lets say a few rebuilds to make it extra pretty.