Mobile device repairs
Back to ProjectsSo far I have worked on a few mobile devices so far, and I wish to work on more. These devices range from a couple of laptops, an all-in-one PC (see the TV), a phone and a tablet.
The phone was my own Galaxy S10 (the last good Samsung model, unfortunately), where I replaced the battery and the back glass. The old back glass had gotten a small crack in the very corner, which caused the adhesive to weaken over time, and eventually the adhesive was so weak that I could simply peel the back glass off by hand. The old battery was about 5 years old and getting tired. Despite my comment about the S10 being the last good Samsung model, one of its (along with its predecessors) weaknesses is the rediculous amount of seemingly military-grade permanent adhesive used to attach the battery to the frame. It was quite tricky to get the battery out (although upon further inspection, the issue may have been the fact that the isopropyl alcohol I was using to soften the adhesive was about 20 years expired), but once I got it out the installation of the replacement and the installation of the new back glass (as well as its adhesive) went very smoothly. The old battery was properly recycled.
The tablet was a very cheap and old tablet with a broken LCD panel. My family took it to a repair place, but they denied the job. I am assuming that the repair person assumed that the LCD panel was glued to the digitizer, which is a common practice and makes it basically impossible to repair just the LCD or just the digitizer without either breaking both or purchasing a complete replacement assembly. I was curious if this was the case, so I opened the tablet up to investigate. Fortunately, I found that the LCD and the digitizer are not permanently bonded. I reseated all of the connectors for the LCD, and inspected the connectors, the cable, and the LCD itself for signs of damage or clues as to why it is not working. The backlight was working, but the liquid crystal layer was nonfunctional. I searched the internet for replacement panels, there were only a couple of matches. I put an order in, and as we speak it is being delivered from China. This project is still in process.
One of the laptops is my old (not really all that old, maybe like 2019 or 2018) laptop, which was bought brand new for about $200 and has specs One laptop is my old which reflect the low price. It really is an awful ████box of a computer. It came from the factory with Windows ten, and it really felt like I was using a remote desktop over dial-up internet. I took it apart to replace the spinning hard disk with an SSD. I may have upgraded the memory, or I may have not. This was a while ago and I don't remember.
The other laptop is my main laptop, the one I am typing this on right now. For more detailed information see the tangent, although I will briefly summarize the extent of my repairs here. Shortly after I got this laptop, the LCD backlight went out. After some time spent thinking it may have been the backlight fuse, I came to the conclusion that the actual backlight had gone out. After sourcing a replacement panel, the panel worked fine but the ThinkLight didn't work. The ThinkLight is a part of the display ribbon cable, so I thought I would swap the new cable with the old one to restore functionality. Long story short, I had to order a new ribbon cable in order to fix it. A repair that I performed just hours ago as of typing this was replacing one of the memory modules. The laptop wouldn't turn on, and the memory was the issue. Anyways.
