No Screen Image [Experts Only]

[taylorwilsdon]

This one is probably only for the experts, its not going to be a simple fix.

I built a "frankenstein" iphone out of the parts of a number of broken ones and today was the first-run power up. Happily, most things worked. Then, I tried to pull it apart to fix the minor issues and that's when things went bad. When I lifted the digitizer with a suction cup, I had forgotten that it was not totally adhered to the LCD frame. It had a little bit of adhesive at the bottom and a little at the top, but it separated when I pulled. I put an adhesive strip on the bottom part and let it connect the two so that I could lift the assembly out. I'm guessing in the process of this I strained the ribbon cables, but read on, because its not that simple.

I adhered the pieces and reconnected everything. When I put it back together, the screen didn't light up when I hit the power button. The phone is still on, it still makes audible alerts etc but no screen image. I tried connecting another screen (not connected to rails, digitizer etc) and hitting power and still nothing.

Keep in mind all of these parts should be working, but this phone is built from the ground up. Every single piece was installed into a new frame separately, but it did work when I first put it all together.

edit : just tried my screen on a different iphone. Works fine. So its the phone, I guess. What could cause it to stop outputting an image just like that?

Any suggestions on what could have happened?

 

[chargit]

ok not bad if you totally built a iPhone out of parts from other iPhones. I am going call you Frank.....anyway you need to do a complete reboot of the iPhone. hold down the power button and home button until the phone shuts off and restarts. make sure you never try to plug anything in with the phone still on as this will blow your sensor. when you take them back apart before the adhesive hardens you usually have to use something like an exacto knife to help pry up the frame when it starts coming apart. you may have to take it back apart because the lcd comes unplugged real easy as this may also be your problem. make sure you unplug the dock connector when you take it apart to shut it down.

good luck Frank!

 

[taylorwilsdon]

Appreciate the reply. I've tried a hard reset a couple times to no avail. I've rebuilt 20-30 iPhones but this is the first time I've gone from the ground up. I think I somehow fried the video output on the mainboard, which may mean this project is toast (and I'm out an iPhone! )

 

[Techhie]

I think I somehow fried the video output on the mainboard, which may mean this project is toast (and I'm out an iPhone! )

The only conclusion I can come to is that the strain somehow deformed the pins within the logic board's video connector, which are known to be very fragile. Unless you want to fit a new board in, I'd say the phone is fried.

 

[taylorwilsdon]

The only conclusion I can come to is that the strain somehow deformed the pins within the logic board's video connector, which are known to be very fragile. Unless you want to fit a new board in, I'd say the phone is fried.

**** me sideways, but I actually brought this one back from the grave. It looks like I bent two of the little gold pins, so I busted out a magnifying glass and used my leatherman's knife to bend them back in. Sucker fired right up, go figure. Thanks for the insight everyone! I can now say I can rebuild anything on an iPhone, I guess Rather not go through this again though.