Mobile Rapid Response Unit

I run a repair shop fixing phones and iPads, and I ran into an interesting problem today that I've never seen before,...

From left to right: (1) I'm not positive about this one, it may have been stuck to the mobo, but I'm not sure to what end, or where. (2) This looks like a rubber gapper, which sits under the EMI shields, to help cushion the chips against shock. I don't know which shield this one goes in, but I believe there is a space it fits in the underside of the mobo. (3) This is a rubber cushion that fits between the motherboard and the top of the metal frame. it wraps around the edge of the motherboard to the right of the rear facing camera, just to the left of the topmost screw in the connector cover plate. (4) This is the antenna grounding finger that goes to the right of the connector cover plate, over the stand-off screw, with the small screw holding it in place. The curved bit fits into the frame, and grounds the finger, and the flat arm sits on top of the antenna cable, after it's been clipped into the motherboard. Hope this helps, if I can clarify anything, let me know. ~Des @ MRRU

It sounds to me like your assessment of the situation is accurate. I think the hard reset is unlikely to help, though since there was no obvious hardware cause of the failure, it's certainly worth a shot. If you're worried about losing data, you could plug it into a computer to back it up, and save anything that iTunes won't. If you do open it up, I highly recommend looking for signs of water damage. It doesn't need to be recent to cause problems, most water damage issues don't pop up right away, but take time to develop, and can present in weird, unexpected ways. If there's no water damage, and the connection is flush, then a replacement LCD seems like the best attempt from there. Also worth noting, you can check the connectors, or try to replace the screen without doing a hard reset, if the work/cost is easier than the backing up of data. I've never had data integrity problems due to screen replacements, in est 150-200ish iPhones. Good luck! ~Des @ MRRU

It sounds like one of two things has happened to your device: (1) If you can still see images on the screen, but it is very very dark, to the point of being unusable without squinting, your backlight has probably cracked. (2) If you cannot see any images on the screen, but you can see a difference between On and Off in how bright the black screen is, then your backlight is fine, but your LCD is likely either not fully connected, or otherwise cracked/separated. I suspect it's the latter, due to the reference to the screen turning yellow. If you remove the front glass/digitizer, you can check the connection to the board. If reseating the connection fails to solve the problem, I'd recommend replacing the LCD, as that sounds to me the most likely point of failure in this particular situation.

Your best bet for buffing out the dent/scratches is a small dremel, or similar device, with an attachment to grind down and smooth the metal out. It will take the color off, but with a bit of nail polish, and a clear epoxy topcoat should be able to cover that up and be relatively resilient. As to the gold iPhone 5S, I haven't gotten to play with one yet (obviously), but I suspect the gold coloring is only as deep as the white/black colorings go. If I get a chance to scratch one up, I'll update this with more information, but it'll be a few months, I suspect.

If there is enough water damage that there was visible corrosion on the board, it is likely that there is similar corrosion under the EMI shields. Removing these shields is not a good idea, as you will likely break the logic board in the process. Your best bet may be an ultrasonic cleaner. These are often sold as jewelry cleaners, but when used with a high purity isopropyl, will ensure that every microscopic bit of water vapor, and often the corrosion that goes with it, will be scrubbed away. These can be a bit on the expensive side to get the high quality ones, but if they work, almost all of them are less expensive than a new phone. Worth noting that I never suggest using these except as a last resort. While they can sometimes work miracles with phones that no longer work, they can just as easily ruin a phone that simply needed to be carefully dabbed out, and put into a bag of rice. Hope this helps. I chose to invest in an ultrasonic cleaner for my cell phone repair shop, if there is a local tech repair...

Worth noting, is that as the frame is the only part of the display assembly that is different, it is possible to move glass from one phone into the frame of the other phone. This is, however, a much more difficult job, involving removing the broken glass from the frame that it's glued into, without damaging the lcd. If you can get all the glass out of the frame, and get your friend's glass out of the frame without breaking it, you should be able to glue (I've heard E6000 recommended as the adhesive of choice for this) the good screen into the correct frame. You should have a heat gun for this, and take it very slowly. It's a difficult, tedious, and dangerous process, but it can be done. Edit: Also, be aware that if there is water damage to your friend's phone, the digitizer may be compromised. So there is always the chance that you do everything right, and it still won't work. Good luck!

It may have been mentioned in step 20 at some point, but it isn't anymore. The phillips head screw that's mentioned in step 20 is the one holding the grounding finger to the rear-facing camera corner of the motherboard.

That said, my concerns about step 16 have since been rectified, so I suppose step 20 could've been fixed at the same time.

Between steps 7 and 8, there are a number of steps missing, including the removal of the camera, and the removal of the speaker assembly.

These can be found on the "Mother Board" repair manual, back on the device page.

~Desmond

This has been changed several times on the iphone 4 logic board manual, and the changes are always being reverted. There _IS_ a screw in step 16, but someone seems intent on not having it mentioned in the manual. Dunno why...