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How to replace Nexus Digitizier/Glass

So last week I cracked the glass on my poor Nexus. It took a horrible drop. Well I can't afford another Nexus and I can imagine having any other phone so I figured I'd repair this one. Read up alot on it and watched a video on Youtube. Ordered all the parts I needed I tackled it today.
Well I decided to do a How-To for any other Nexus owner with broken screens.
New digitizer - $40
Torx screwdriver -$5
Philips screwdriver -$5
Plastic tools - Free
Total - $50
Sure beats the $125 some online sites charge.
I would like to thank ifixit and slickromeo.
1. Gather all your tools and replacement glass (known as a digitizer).
Note: Needed tools are a Philips #00, a Torx T4, and a plastic pry tool (Mine was included with the new screen)
2. Set up a clean comfortable area to work in. You may be here for awhile and you're going to want to reduce the amount of dust that could potentially get on the new glass.
Note: I used a folded over microfiber towel to keep the area clean and also add some padding to the hard counter top to prevent even more damage while working with the phone.
3. Power phone off and remove battery cover, battery, SIM card, and Micro SD card. Set aside in a safe place.
4.Our first obstacle is going to be the antennae cover at the bottom of the phone. There are three plastic clips holding it in place (Circled in red). Use a combination of the pry tool, a guitar pick, butter knife, and any other instrument you need to shove in there. It is a pain in the ass... the video I watched online made it seem like it was going to be alot harder than it was, but if you work from left to right, or right to left, and get the outside one unclipped the other two come off pretty easy. Once you get it off set it aside with the battery cover and other things.
Note: Be careful not to break these tiny, fragile clips as they are the only things holding this cover in place.
5. Scream profanities and wipe the sweat off your brow from the previous step. I know it was frustrating and nerve racking trying not to break your precious Nexus.
6. Ok good job now to start the real deconstruction. I'm going to start with the battery tray and then move down to the antennae. There are three screws holding the tray down, but before we start on those there is this tiny ridiculous little "VOID" sticker covering up one of them. I wasn't able to remove it intake, partly because I don't really care about my warranty, but I'm sure with alot of patience and tweezers one could take it off intake and put it back. But screw that just get it off to get to the screw underneath.
7. Now two of these screws is a Torx and the third is a Philips (All in green). Remove them and put them somewhere very safe.
Note: I have four plastic cups set up to place my screws into. These are going into the first one.
8.Next you need to remove the battery tray. There are seven tabs (yellow circles) around it that you need to release using your plastic pry tool. Once those are released gently pull away form the bottom of the phone to remove the tray. Set the tray aside.
9. Now for the antennae cover. There are two more screws to remove, a Torx and a Philips (Orange circles). These screws are going in the second bowl. After the screws are out, gently lift up on the bottom of that cover and it should remove easily. Be very careful not to damage the circuit board during removal.
10. Next to come out is the logic board. there are two more very tiny screws to remove (White circles). Into the third bowl with those. Next you need to disconnect three connections (purple circles). Then carefully go around the perimeter of it with your pry tool and VERY CAREFULLY remove all the little tabs holding it in place. Then simply push up form the bottom of the logic board and slide it out. Set it somewhere very safe.
11. Now onto the actual case of the Nexus. Remove the six Philips screws, 1 at the top and 5 at the bottom . Again there are a series of little clips, five of em, around the perimeter that need to be undone and then the case very easily separates from the screen. Set the case aside.
12. Very simply pry the LCD screen away form the glass digitizer. There it is... the broken glass.
13. Now take your pry tool and from the back of the glass (not the side you would touch if you were using the phone) wedge it between the frame and the glass to separate to adhesive. Once the pry tool is in you can just slide it around the edge of the glass to separate the whole thing. TA-DA your broken glass is forever gone.
Note: The glass is broken and very sharp. Take extreme caution not to cut yourself.
14. Now we just have to put the whole thing back together. Start with the new glass/digitizer. Peel off the plastic protector to expose the adhesive and very carefully put it in place.
15. Wrap the connector that is part of the digitizer around and secure it in place with its adhesive.
16. Take the whole screen assembly and slide it back into the case. Push to secure the clips then replace the six screws that you removed.
17. Slide the logic board carefully back into place. You may have to hold down/more out of the way a few of the connectors. Take it a little at a time and see where it is getting caught up. You got this far don't lose your patience.
18. Snap the back antennae cover back in and replace its screws.
19. Slide the battery tray into place and replace its screws.
20. Snap the gray antennae cover back on.
21. Replace Micro SD card, battery, and battery cover.
22. Enjoy the beauty of your Nexus without a broken screen.
23. Place Nexus in Otterbox Defender case so this never happens again.
I have pictures that document each step but need to be approved by a moderator before it lets me post em... sorry guys

Hey, awesome job on fixing your screen. I would love to see them, my Nexus just went through the same thing 30 min ago. I had it on my lap, and upon stepping out of the car, SMACK, is all I heard. It landed face down and this is the aftermath. It's much worse than it looks in the picture.

Man, that sucks. I know that feeling.
I'll try to put the pictures up to help you out. Or at least a link to my photobucket.
Sent from my Nexus One using Tapatalk

thanks! I just cracked mine yesterday after the phone fell out of my pocket onto a concrete floor. Ouch. I'm giving this a whirl.

Nice, I'll keep this in mind for the day I accidentally break my n1.
I just wish we could somehow jury-rig the Incredible digitizer to our phones =/

I just recently converted to the n1, bought the phone for cheap off craigslists, but notice burn in on the screen, will changing the digitizier also fix the burn in?

Thank you so much for taking the time to do this write up. I just dropped my phone and smashed the screen on concrete 30 mins ago. All is working but the glass is cracked. I've ordered a new Digitizer/Glass from ebay for £30, I just hope it comes by tomorrow.

you can post picture after 5 posts so it should be good now you have 8 posts

I've just completed the work of replacing the broken glass.
I used your guide throughout, it's a shame you haven't been able to post the pictures as it definitely would have helped. I managed to google some dismantling pictures to help with your talk through as it was hard going some times.
Many thanks again.

Another useful tip: run an air purifier aimed at your work station to minimize the risk of getting dust in the glass.

blueboymj: Any chance you can edit your original post and add your pictures so others can use them? I searched quite a lot for a specific procedure to change the digitizer on my poor N1; This was the best, most accurate guide I found. I've done digitizers on a few iPhones (sorry for the profanity) using the ifixit guides, but alas, the ifixit guides were better for them than they are for the N1.
On a side note: The end cap that gives people so much trouble fell off of my N1 in the initial drop. I pushed it back on, and continued using the phone even though the glass was shattered. Removing it the first time was not so hard, I think it was not back on as well as it should have been. Removing it the second time (another story) was much harder. There are two little plastic "bars" on the end cap (step 4 above) that fit into small grooves on the "antenna cover". (step 7) I think the trick may be to possibly pinch the edges of the end cap, while sliding it toward the bottom of the phone. I looked at it after it was open, to see why it was so hard to remove, and realized I had been inadvertently helping it hold itself closed while trying to pry it open. Maybe one of the videos addresses this; I did not watch them.
Thank you to the OP and the responders for this post!

So where exactly did u order the new digitizier and parts from?
Sent from my Nexus One using XDA App

This thread should be added to the N1 wiki. Thanks for the instructions.

DrewOntheMYT said:
I just recently converted to the n1, bought the phone for cheap off craigslists, but notice burn in on the screen, will changing the digitizier also fix the burn in?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Burn in? Like shadowing on the LCD? Nope.
Thats the LCD, and is completely different than the digitizer. The digitizer is just a clear plastic/glass layer that goes OVER the lcd to detect touch.

I had the digitizer and a new case and was going to have a local phone store replace this for me. However, they just gave me some BS story about how you cannot replace the digitizer without also replacing the LCD screen, which I did not provide.
So I've been without a phone (since they have it) for no reason and have to drive out of my way to retrieve it.
Hey crappy phone store, if you're too scared to do the job just say so, don't try to make up a bunch of manure and say it can't be done.
Anyway, I just ordered the required tools that I don't have and am going to give this a whirl.
OP, if you can't post your pics, can you email them to me?

does it fix the multitouch problem?

[Q] Broke the exterior speaker, need some advice.

So I dropped my nexus today, everything looked ok it turned on and no cracks or anything. But I was using the gps later on and it was making weird sounds. Then the speaker just stopped working. I figured out that I broke a connector on the speaker cause when I press down on the center of the speaker very lightly with back end of a pen it will make sounds.
Can I fix this speaker or should I replace it?
For those of you who have taken apart a nexus how difficult is it to replace the speaker?
Any other advice is welcome too.

Super easy to change the speaker.

Yeah, extremely easy. Remove sim, remove MicroSD, and remove 3 screws from the frame around the battery (2 TORX, 1 phillips). Then use a plastic pry tool, used credit card, or fingernails to pop the plastic frame around the battery up. There are clips along the edge between the metal and plastic frame. Once it's up, pull it out as part of it is tucked under the metal bar at the SIM/microSD area. Speaker is press-fit into the frame. It just makes contact to 2 gold posts with 2 tiny gold springs. Maybe one of those just got dislodged and can be bent back into place, but you can just push the speaker out of the frame to replace it if it's defective.

Thanks for the help, I'm gonna order a replacement speaker and fix it my self.

[Q] Scratched screen- How do I replace it?

The screen on my Rogers HTC Raider is scratched. It is deep enough that I cannot remove by applying polisher. Screen still works but I rather replace the screen as the scratch is visible.
Where can I purchase the screen and replace it myself?

http://www.tmart.com/Replacement-LCD-Display-Screen-for-HTC-G19-Raider-4G_p137438.html
http://www.repairsuniverse.com/htc-vivid-screen-replacements-repair-parts.html

..
Thank you.

tap the thanks button
and good luck

A little advice - I've already replaced the screen on my Raider
Hi, glad someone else is attempting this. I had never replaced a screen in a phone before trying this so for me it was a little hair raising the first time I took it apart. On the back of the phone under the battery cover are 5 screws you need to remove, and one little plastic cover. Under the cover is the connector from the mainboard. Its just a little pop out connection, gently lever it loose before removing the shell to avoid hurting the ribbon.
Once you get this far, flip the phone face-up, and *from the bottom*, gently lever the sides and bottom of the plastic shell away from the screen. Its relatively easy.
Continue working along the edges toward the top until the plastic shell pops free, after that put it face-down again and remove the screws holding the battery holder to the rest of the phone. Pull it up and out to the left to remove it, being careful not to bend the battery contacts as they stay with the rest of the phone. Keep the screws with it, trust me - its easier to remember what goes where this way.
Once you have the battery holder off, put it aside and remove the screws holding the mainboard(s) to the shell. Also you will find three wires with little cup contacts at the ends, gently detach these as well, and when the screws and wires are off, carefully remove the boards. Look closely at the plastic tabs holding them in and you'll see how they come out. When taking them out of the phone you'll need to lift them like you were opening a book - ie. folding them to the right. Underneath are two sockets with ribbon cable connections, one should already be detached - the other can be popped off at this point. If you skipped detaching it at the beginning, now's the time to remove both.
This should leave you with two free boards attached in the middle by a black ribbon. Put them aside and what you have left in your hand is the metal shell, LCD, and digitizer.
NOW..the crappy news. This wonderful, beautiful, powerful, ESPENSIVE phone, is held together by black double-sided tape. Yep. Tape. AND you'll need some more before installing the new digitizer. I ordered mine from tmart as well and it not only comes with the wrong screwdrivers (btw you need a #1 philips bit - VERY tiny!!) but it doesn't come with any adhesive to mount the screen to.
Your new screen should also come with some prying tools, and they are quite handy. The guitar pick one didn't do much but the lever is very handy. You'll need to gently pry the digitizer away from the LCD with this tool being careful not to put too much pressure on the lcd or it might snap. Its only a few mm thick. GO SLOW.. you should have no problems. I've done it a few times now - I'm kinda rough on my toys.
Once you have the part un-taped, its still got the ribbon cable going back behind the lcd. Its connected to a small, thin socket on ther board. You lift a small white lever (remove the tape and save it - reapply it to the new connection) and slide the cable out. You'll need to use your lever again and pry up the lcd enough to slide the ribbon out from behind it. This can be tricky. Again, go slow, be real cautious..the tape is pretty strong. Once you have the panel out completely its just a matter of reversing the process. If you're real careful when removing the original panel, you might be able to reuse the double-sided tape thats in there.. I wasn't so lucky. Mine was covered in glass shards, as I mashed my screen pretty good.
Hope this helps!! I had a rough time the first time, but now its easy for me. I like taking it apart lol..
Let me know how you do! Good luck!
Brian

Creaky Nexus 7 3G - FIX

To all people who have this problem! I recently got the Nexus 7 3G and the back was creaking so badly you could easily hear it across a large room. The noise seemed to come from the "nexus" logo near the top of the device.
I found the culprit an double checked with an older 16GB model. They changed the design of golden contact springs for the wireless radios from a simple C shape design to some complicated folding Z shaped spring design. It is those springs that upon being depressed rub metal on metal and make this horrible creaking noise. I don't know how many 3G's are affected but mine definitely was.
My solution was to open it up, which is easy enough to do with a guitar pick or something similar, just check YouTube, and to bend the springs until they stopped making noises under load.
While I was in there I also added double sided tape wherever necessary to stop the plastic from creaking (because they left out a lot of the foam they put in the older models, maybe to fix the screen lift issue??) and I re-wrapped the battery protection circuit because the circuit board was rubbing on the battery and making noises as well. (also, my battery was strangely wedged sideways in it's compartment)
All in all it's rock solid now, no creaks, nothing. And it feels like a really quality device now. Suffice to say that I should never have had to do this in the first place in order to own a device that is in satisfactory condition and one is not embarrassed to pass along in a group of friends because of the noises it makes

fabian.ecker said:
To all people who have this problem! I recently got the Nexus 7 3G and the back was creaking so badly you could easily hear it across a large room. The noise seemed to come from the "nexus" logo near the top of the device.
I found the culprit an double checked with an older 16GB model. They changed the design of golden contact springs for the wireless radios from a simple C shape design to some complicated folding Z shaped spring design. It is those springs that upon being depressed rub metal on metal and make this horrible creaking noise. I don't know how many 3G's are affected but mine definitely was.
My solution was to open it up, which is easy enough to do with a guitar pick or something similar, just check YouTube, and to bend the springs until they stopped making noises under load.
While I was in there I also added double sided tape wherever necessary to stop the plastic from creaking (because they left out a lot of the foam they put in the older models, maybe to fix the screen lift issue??) and I re-wrapped the battery protection circuit because the circuit board was rubbing on the battery and making noises as well. (also, my battery was strangely wedged sideways in it's compartment)
All in all it's rock solid now, no creaks, nothing. And it feels like a really quality device now. Suffice to say that I should never have had to do this in the first place in order to own a device that is in satisfactory condition and one is not embarrassed to pass along in a group of friends because of the noises it makes
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Would u mind taking a picture of the inside where u added tape to stop the backplate from creaking and upload it. I've tried many things to fix it to no avail.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

i will as soon as i find some time. there is another thread here on xda. it's for the wifi model but i adapted the suggestions for my nexus 7. also, what i did for mine might not work for yours. my suggestion is, figure out where the noise is coming from, add some double sided tape or foam close it partially and try it. took me about 2 days of trial and error to achieve an acceptable state

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1848013
here is the link

fabian.ecker said:
i will as soon as i find some time. there is another thread here on xda. it's for the wifi model but i adapted the suggestions for my nexus 7. also, what i did for mine might not work for yours. my suggestion is, figure out where the noise is coming from, add some double sided tape or foam close it partially and try it. took me about 2 days of trial and error to achieve an acceptable state
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks very much. My only creak is on the right side where the battery is and close to the bezel. Did u happen to have one there as well? Wish me luck lol off to void my warranty
Sent from my [insert phone model here]

fabian.ecker said:
To all people who have this problem! I recently got the Nexus 7 3G and the back was creaking so badly you could easily hear it across a large room. The noise seemed to come from the "nexus" logo near the top of the device.
I found the culprit an double checked with an older 16GB model. They changed the design of golden contact springs for the wireless radios from a simple C shape design to some complicated folding Z shaped spring design. It is those springs that upon being depressed rub metal on metal and make this horrible creaking noise. I don't know how many 3G's are affected but mine definitely was.
My solution was to open it up, which is easy enough to do with a guitar pick or something similar, just check YouTube, and to bend the springs until they stopped making noises under load.
While I was in there I also added double sided tape wherever necessary to stop the plastic from creaking (because they left out a lot of the foam they put in the older models, maybe to fix the screen lift issue??) and I re-wrapped the battery protection circuit because the circuit board was rubbing on the battery and making noises as well. (also, my battery was strangely wedged sideways in it's compartment)
All in all it's rock solid now, no creaks, nothing. And it feels like a really quality device now. Suffice to say that I should never have had to do this in the first place in order to own a device that is in satisfactory condition and one is not embarrassed to pass along in a group of friends because of the noises it makes
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Bookmarking so I recognize your nick on an upcoming "My wifi doesn't work!" thread.

Don't worry about your warranty! there is a "seal" sticker INSIDE the case but popping the back off will most certainly not void your warranty. it's more like the battery cover on a galaxy s3 or a nexus s than anything else!
fyi i had it on the right, left, and top of the device

Replacing ear piece speaker (complication?)

So I'm in the process of replacing the ear piece speaker. It has always acted up but finally completely went out when I dropped the phone today. Tore the phone apart and pulled the bad one out, and put it back together, so for the time being it's a phone with no speaker, but strangely now the rear camera doesn't work either.
So I'm curious, maybe I still don't have the ribbon cable from the camera seated correctly. But do you think maybe the camera and speaker are on the same circuit and without the speaker in there the camera won't work?

The ear piece not working can usually be fixed by bending the metal pins. I've managed to fix3 Droid's this way. that being said, I don't think the camera has anything to do with the ear piece.
Check if you've inserted the ribbon properly. The ribbon goes in pretty deep. It's easy to make a mistake when connecting the ribbon.

You wouldn't have some instructions for that procedure, do you? Or is there an iFixit video? Have the same problem with the speaker.
Sent from my DROID4 using Tapatalk now Free

Bumping this old thread in the event that someone in the future finds it useful. Obviously, replacing the speaker will VOID YOUR WARRANTY in every way possible, and if you're not careful will ruin your phone! But, if you're like me, your D4 is long out of warranty and it'll be a cold day in hell before you give up your keyboard.
That being said, I just replaced the speaker in my D4, after the stock speaker fizzled and died after almost 2 years. Every now and then it would "fuzz out" and I'd gently tap the phone against my head (which I'm sure looked quite comical) and it would stop. Finally the speaker gave up the ghost entirely and it was nearly impossible to hear. I used resources from this site to guide me in taking it apart.
You'll need a torx T5 and T3 driver - DO NOT try to use any substitute drivers if you don't have an official T5 or T3, like I did - you will strip the screws (they strip VERY easily) and you'll need to bust out the dremel to drill/grind away the screw, or buy a whole new LCD/digitizer assembly for $~70 (which, as of this posting, are getting harder to find). You might think that you can fudge it with an eyeglass repair flathead driver, but you can't. Trust me. T3 and T5 drivers are cheap online, do it right.
For the actual replacement speaker itself, I got a speaker for a Nokia Lumia 610 on ebay for about 4 bucks (free shipping!). It's almost identical to the stock D4 speaker, but it looks to be a little better quality and the actual place where noise comes out looks to be ever so slightly bigger. It "sits" in a little pocket in the outer housing/screen digitizer, held in place by the flex cable. You'll see once you get there.
Make sure both the dual snap connector that connects the mainboard to the screen/digitizer is securely fastened, and also make sure that the tiny snap connector that goes from the screen to the digitizer itself is securely fastened as well - this second snap connector is up by the notification LED. I scared myself when I re-assembled everything and my touchscreen didn't respond. Also, when you're working up by the notification LED, there's a small piece of white-ish rubber that sits between the actual LED itself and the little hole where light comes out on the front of the phone. It's crucial that you don't lose this - the LED is a few mm offset from the hole, and this piece of rubber glows and creates the notification light that you see on the front. Without it, no notification light.
Be careful with the mainboard, replacement units are very hard to find and will only get rarer as the D4 ages. It's basically the heart of your phone.
Tweezers and a "safe-open pry tool" (basically a piece of soft plastic to ease apart the pieces of your phone) make this process easier as well.
Another note: there are 2 hidden T5 screws behind the bezel that surrounds the rear camera and flash. When you go to peel this up, you'll probably ruin it - this is poor design IMO, and mostly inevitable. Good news though, replacement camera bezel parts are available online for a few bucks.
All in all, this process isn't difficult, but requires really good light (super bright lamp or headlamp) and will give you a greater appreciation for your phone and how it's both a magical little black box as well as just a collection of shiny bits.
Good luck!!

Khiraji said:
You'll need a torx T5 and T3 driver - DO NOT try to use any substitute drivers if you don't have an official T5 or T3, like I did - you will strip the screws (they strip VERY easily) and you'll need to bust out the dremel to drill/grind away the screw
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Listen to him. I learned this the hard way and that is precisely what I had to do. Taking a dremel to my cell phone... I never want to sweat bullets like that again.