I have a bad case of dust accumulating on the front facing camera lens and I want to open up my note to clean it off.
I've looked at the teardown video and it looks quite straightforward, but ... when I took apart my last smartphone (Nokia n900) I found that the ****ty philips screws they had used were very soft and also too tightly fixed - with the result that I stripped one thread while removing them and ended up with one crosshead worn smooth and unremovable without glueing/drilling out :-(
I don't want to risk this with my note, so can anyone advise whether the philips screws in it are of decent quality? i.e. will they survive being unscrewed/rescrewed a few times without stripping. Also, do they require a professional grade philips screwdriver or will a cheapo hobbyist one do the job OK?
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
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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.
I brought this phone a couple of months ago because the only other one I like (Z1 compact) is still too expensive but within only 2 weeks of owning it the front camera had a lot of dust in front of the lens and the rear one some dust.
I don't care much about the front one as its not much use anyway but the rear one is useful.
I took it apart and blew the dust from all the areas with a air duster can and put small pieces of foam in gaps that are apparent near the camera modules including the large gap to the side of the SD card.
This has worked a bit but the dust is still starting to come back - I can only assume it is getting inside from the headphone socket, usb and buttons.
I thought this phone was supposed to be dust proof/resistant?
Anyone else had this problem/ got any suggestions?
I also find most of the pics have some un-sharp areas although the exposure/contrast is ok and the video is a little clitchy/unsmooth
i never had dirt/dust in camera. and i'm not carefully with this phone
i also had never heard of this problem with this phone...
Hi guys,
I'm trying to do a battery replacement but I'm running into a lot of resistance on step one. Getting the glass of my Note5 was a cinch, but no matter how much I hear it, the suction cup won't open up a space to pry open. Anybody else have this problem or a suggestion?
Thanks!
Hi guys,
has anyone of you tried changing the front glass without digitizer and display?
In disassembly videos I can only see people changing the whole thing.
Also, do you think I can manage to repair the front glas as well as the USB port with just an iron instead of a hot air blower (and the usual tools made of plastic)?
Thanks in advance!
kadofl said:
Hi guys,
has anyone of you tried changing the front glass without digitizer and display?
In disassembly videos I can only see people changing the whole thing.
Also, do you think I can manage to repair the front glas as well as the USB port with just an iron instead of a hot air blower (and the usual tools made of plastic)?
Thanks in advance!
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Click to collapse
I haven't done the front glass on mine yet, but my understanding is that in general you're really better off replacing front glass as an entire unit with digitizer and display. An iron on pretty low through a cloth/towel might well work. It's not just glue that melts, it's a thin strip of rubber gasket material with adhesive (okay, maybe it's thick glue, but it looked pre-formed to me) holding the glass back cover on.
Heating probably helps a bit with softening the stuff, but after the first time you peel it up you won't really need to do that again. I'd recommend picking a corner (say, bottom left as you're looking at the back) and just plan on prying from there every time, so you only have one spot where the plastic gets marred.
Don't spend too much time heating, worry more about having a suction cup tool that you can lift with while you try to work a guitar pick or hobby knife or something in under the corner. Have at least two ready, so you can wedge one in, and work your way around without it just dropping back down on you. You'll probably tear the material a bit but that's okay, just spread it back out evenly around the edge on the glass before you put the cover back on. Also, you definitely should be using a case to make sure it doesn't just fall off in your pocket once you've opened it up a couple times.
USB cable replacement isn't awful, just time consuming. The biggest gotcha is to keep all three of the little gold clips on the plastic "mid frame" ring (that's the first thing you remove that requires screws after getting the back glass up) from fallling and getting lost.
You can PM me if you have any questions about this, I've replaced my USB cable/port assembly a couple times (first replacement was defective). And I'm about to attempt replacing the screen as a whole unit with glass & digitizer on my wife's Z2 Plus, so I'll let you know how that goes.