Minho

Alright, seeing as how I am always answering questions here, I thought I'd reverse the roles here for a bit of fun. I have...

Hello Mac Experts (@mayer, @danj , @reecee and others) I have an iMac 27", Late 2012 that is not booting properly. It is...

This iPad has a dead zone on the left edge of the digitizer, about 5 mm from the edge. I proceeded to do a standard...

Hello Mac Guru's (talking to you @mayer, @danj, @reecee)! I have another MacBook Air A1466, this one an early 2015. The...

Hi everyone. This is a follow-up to my MacBook Air 13” (2014) – Water Damage, will not power on. Thanks to everyone who...

Hi everyone. I have a water damaged (tea) MacBook Air that was dead as a doorknob. No light on the MagSafe, no fan or...

The iPhone 7/8 series have a very inconvenient bend on the Home Button flex. It’s really easy to tear the flex, either near the logic board connector or at the 90 degree bend before it sneaks underneath the LCD heat shield. You have to be careful when you lift the screen off the first time but also anytime the flexes are connected and you have the device open. The other area that is easily damaged is the connector on the Home Button itself and the opposite connector on the short flex that runs underneath the heat shield. The long and short of it is that there are multiple failure points. You will need to carefully inspect the Home Button and flex to see if there is any damage. Magnification here will help.  Look for tears to the flex or any physical signs of damage. You should also check the connector to insure none of the pins are damage or that there isn’t any debris. Unfortunately, there is no real DIY way to fix a Home Button, only Apple can replace it if Touch ID is required. There are now some...

When doing a housing replacement, a lot of things can go wrong and it can be hard to figure out what is causing the issue. You need to reduce the number of variables. I would start by testing a bare-bones setup. Start by disconnecting the battery first (always!). Then disconnect the digitizer, LCD, charging coil, front camera, rear camera and home button extension flex. Now re-connect the battery; you should only have the battery and Lightning Dock flex connected. Connect a known-good, preferably Apple-original Lightning cable to an iTunes enabled computer. Does iTunes recognize your phone? If so, then you should re-connect one flex at a time until the phone stops working. I would start with the charging coil, then the Home button flex, then add the rear camera, LCD & Digitizer. If the bare-bones setup does not get recognized by iTunes, then you most likely have a logic board issue. You could send it (or find a local) to a repair shop that specializes in micro-soldering repair.

Is it for data recovery purposes only or are you trying to make a workable phone out of this? I think the first question you want to answer here is just how much time and effort you want to put into an iPhone 4S. Below you will find the schematic and boardview of the battery connector.

I’ve never tried this experimentally but none of the major wholesalers show any compatibility between the iPhone 7 Sim card tray with any other device. Apple has a tendency to make things unique from one model to another, even those as similar as the 6/6S/7/8 series. I’ve never really understood this from a BOM/manufacturing point of view but they aren’t targeting the low cost segment so I guess they can get away with this and still maintain high marins.

I don’t know about being scammed but low cost screens do have higher failure rates than higher quality screens (which is why they are cheaper ;-). If you have to wonder aloud if the screen is legit, then it probably isn’t. If you did buy it from a reputable supplier <cough, iFixit, cough>, they will stand behind their products and help you out. If you bought it on eBay or Amazon, check what recourse you have for a replacement or refund. Either way, the first step to take is to try another screen seeing as how your original screen works.

A bit of background info on what happened to the iPad leading up to this issue would be helpful. Was it repaired, dropped or came into contact with water…or did it “die” out of the blue. Sometimes using “cheapo” chargers can cause similar symptoms as well. As for the problem, assuming it happened out of the blue, the normal troubleshooting is battery, charge port, charge circuit (on the logic board). If it is logic board related, then it would be a Tristar or PMIC issue and neither of those is a DIY repair by any stretch. If the iPad was dropped, repaired or got wet, then it could be anything. Your best bet is to have it looked at by a shop that does micro-soldering repairs. The 10.5 is difficult to repair as there isn’t much technical info available.

The mini has a really poor quality Touch FPC connector and it’s quite normal for a few pins to lift when disconnecting the flex. That said, an FPC replacement is usually all that is needed. Continuity testing the pins is a good step but I also like to do a “push test”, meaning that I push on the leg (that is soldered to the pad) very lightly with a fine tip probe to see if there is any movement. If there is, you may have a weak connection and this could be causing issues. I would also check the surrounding components as one may have been fully or partially dislodged. Finally, I would probe the pins in diode mode and compare to a known-good connector (the mini 3 digitizer FPC has a different configuration to than the mini 2 so you can’t use that). Beyond that, it could be a Touch IC or Touch Power issue.

The connector has to be replaced via a micro-soldering repair.

The Tristar Tester does give false positives so take a step back and try to determine what the original problem was and why the other shop used a Tristar tester in the first place. Often times, we can get fooled by other people’s (or tools) troubleshooting conclusion. Always ask for the original problem, do the troubleshooting yourself and then see if that matches the conclusion of the customer or referring shop. Don’t forget, they are coming to see you because YOU are the expert, not them.

Doing a back glass removal without emptying the housing is a recipe for disaster. So much could be wrong it’s hard to know where to start. I would start by testing a bare-bones setup. Start by disconnecting the battery first (always!). Then disconnect the digitizer, LCD, charging coil, front camera, rear camera and home button extension flex. Now re-connect the battery; you should only have the battery and Lightning Dock flex connected. Connect a known-good, preferably Apple-original Lightning cable to an iTunes enabled computer. Does iTunes recognize your phone? If so, then you should re-connect one flex at a time until the phone stops working. I would start with the charging coil, then the Home button flex, then add the rear camera, LCD & Digitizer. If the bare-bones setup does not get recognized by iTunes, then you most likely have a logic board issue. You could send it (or find a local) to a repair shop that specializes in micro-soldering repair.