AT&T Tilt broken screen

[jbradt]

My sister's boyfriend gave me his Tilt because he bought a Blackberry. Long story, he broke the first Tilt, they replaced it for him and he broke it again and he was told it would cost $500 to repair... so he bought the new phone and gave me the Tilt for free. So here's the deal: it will charge and turn on.. but only stays on for a few seconds. The LCD is cracked... pretty obvious. However, I was wondering if there was another problem since the phone won't stay on or if it's typical for it to turn off with just a broken screen. This is basically the sequence of events:
Hit the power button, a green LED on the left of the ear piece lights up and the phone vibrates for a second.
The screen then lights up but doesn't display anything obviously... other then the black liquid and white back lighting.
The screen stays on for about 15 seconds, shuts off, the keyboard lights up for a VERY quick second and then that's it... nothing else.
I'm wondering if I should try and find a replacement screen or if there is something else wrong with it. I saw the screen on phoneystore.com a while back but the site has said it's down for maintenance every other time I checked.

Other Info - I took the back cover off and above and slightly to the right of the camera is a black dot that says "VOID".

Any help is appreciated.
Thanks.

[MikeChannon]

Normally you only get the vibrate if you are turning on from the completely off position.

From the completely off position you have to long press the on/off button - is this what you are doing?

In any case, it's difficult to tell if there are any other problems. You could try tracking down on this site, one of thoses applications that lets you see / control the device from your PC.

That $500 figure is I assume for someone to do the repair for you, 'osc the screen would not cost anything like that.

Mike

[Mactroy]

Also that "void" dot you see I think is just over a screw and if you go inside your tilt you'd have to poke through that and it would void your warranty. So thats not because the screen is broken.

[jbradt]

well, i don't have to hold it long before the green LED comes on and the phone vibrates... then the screen shuts off and i have to turn it back on again. it doesn't seem like it's staying on.

the $500 was from AT&T to have them fix it... so yes.

and thanks for the reply on the "VOID" - i thought it maybe had something to do with water damage or the cracked screen.

[PsyOpWarlord]

Have you tried turning it on with the wall charger plugged in? I thought I had seen my sons just shut down like that when his battery was pretty much dead and I was trying to turn it on.

[jbradt]

Well, i was bored waiting for work this morning so i decided to put the SIM from my phone into the Tilt... I turned it on with my SIM in and it stayed on for longer... then I heard a little tick and kind of "whooosh" sound which I'm assuming is the start-up sound. Then nothing for a few seconds... then there is this "kerplunk" noise.. then the amber LED on the left of the ear piece starts flashing and then the phone starts vibrating and making a high pitch ring... the vibrating seems to be in a patter. Then I hear what sounds like it may be a shutdown noise and the phone is off again. However, the back light on the screen remained on the entire time. It might that with the SIM in it works, but the battery is dead so it turns right off? I have the wall charger here somewhere so I will have to try that after work. I will let you know the results.

[krntiger]

most likely the sounds that your hearing are just an alarm clock going off. my guess is that the screen is the only thing that is really damaged. you can look online at ebay and get replacement screens with the tools necessary to replace the screen for under 100 bucks. i think that would be a good deal for you... keep us updated on the status

[ChInEsE ChIcKeN]

if possible if you are going to replace the screen from ebay you should take piectures. it would make a very nice guide for the noobs

[jbradt]

yeah... i will definitely take pictures when i do it. i hope it's just the screen. i don't know why it won't stay on tho... i'm still trying to find the charger for it. i don't remember where i put it. i will keep you posted tho.

[murf62]

You can charge it with any USB mini type B lead plugged into a PC. You probably have one somewhere for a camera or other phone.

Don't be fooled by the shape of the socket on the bottom of the phone, it still fits.

[jbradt]

mikechannon - do you know the name of any of these apps? i'm not able to find anything..

good news tho.. the phone now stays on and i am able to receive phone calls. i found a screen w/ tools for $70 shipped on e-bay. i want to try what you mentioned mike, hook it up to the pc. i just want to make sure everything seems okay before i buy a screen.

[XtreMe_G]

try my mobiler

[jbradt]

okay... so i put the new LCD in and it works.. to an extent. it displays the at&t splash screen, then the 3G animation, then gets to the windows mobile 6.0 splash screen and it hangs there for a few seconds then shuts off. i thought maybe it needed a new battery because it wouldn't stay on before so i ran to the store and got one and it's charging now. i'm going to wait a few hours and try again...

when i try and turn the phone on when it's plugged into the charger it seems to hang on the at&t screen... this doesn't seem normal.

also, when it's not plugged in and goes through the screens, on the at&T screen it looks like it's showing RGB values or something in red text in the bottom right corner of the screen. is this normal?

[MikeChannon]

Sorry, did not see your 3/22/08 post.

The RGD values in RED are normal (info about radio version etc) if you are starting from the off position or have just done a soft reset.

I'm not sure why it is hanging at the point it does. I am assuming you have done a hard reset? (you may have said - but I have not read back all the posts)

Mike

[jbradt]

nope... no hard reset.
when i turn it on while it's plugged in the amber LED on the ear piece goes out for a minute, the AT&T screen comes up then a few seconds later the amber LED comes back on and it just stays there.

i was able to get it to get past the windows mobile 6.0 splash screen but it says 6 new notifications/alarms, then starts buzzing and ringing and turns off. one time it said battery was critically low or something. i want to assume that it is charging because the amber LED comes on.. but who knows. i would hate to have to give up at this point.

[MikeChannon]

nope... no hard reset.
when i turn it on while it's plugged in the amber LED on the ear piece goes out for a minute, the AT&T screen comes up then a few seconds later the amber LED comes back on and it just stays there.

i was able to get it to get past the windows mobile 6.0 splash screen but it says 6 new notifications/alarms, then starts buzzing and ringing and turns off. one time it said battery was critically low or something. i want to assume that it is charging because the amber LED comes on.. but who knows. i would hate to have to give up at this point.


Actually that all sounds pretty normal. Yes expect to get a whole bunch of notifications that have accumulated and never been cancelled. When they come up try to cancel them quickly - just choose dismiss. Don't be surprised if there are so many that it crashes the device and you have to re-start possibly several times until eventually you get past all those notifications!! This also happens when you restore a backup - I have seen my device go absolutely bananas with many many notifications and a crash is not unexpected.

If the battery is not charged give it a good hour of charging before trying again. One thing that puzzles me is that if you have the amber light that shows charging (good) then why does it give you a message saying battery low?? Normally you will never get that notification whilst on charge.

Mike

[jbradt]

mike,
thanks for the replies. i was able to dismiss a few of them earlier and then the battery message came up and the phone turned off. it wasn't plugged in at the time. however, i left for the day and left it plugged in for probably 7 hours or more...turned completely off...and i came home and it got past the windows splash screen again and then said the main battery was critically low and turned off. can't get it to stay on now. i'm lost...
it seems like my only other option is to try a new charger.. but if the LED comes on it would seem as though it is working. i checked all of the contacts where the battery goes and like i said earlier, i bought a new battery this morning. i really don't want to take it apart again. while it was apart i did my best to clean the any dust or other build-up. i guess i could try and charge it on the computer.

[kaluman]

my phone does the same thing I accidently dunked about an inch of it the top of the phone into a cup, thought it was ok after i let it dry off and it would boot up but I still can't get the phone to really charge, the orange light will go on but the battery never charges and I used to get the red critical battery warning. Ive tried a bunch of different chargers but still nothing just gets to the second splash screen in duttys rom and turns off now. Hopefully you can get your up though, just wish i could get 30 minutes of battery to get it back to stock rom and everything so i could send it back as the bottom never got wet and the water check under the battery is still white.

[MikeChannon]

Mmmm. Well sounds like there is a hardware charging problem. Pity you don't have one of those chargers where you can dock a spare battery to charge it up. It would be a hassle though if that's the only way to charge the battery. There are ways to charge the battery by wiring the battery directly to a set of AA batteries or a charger, but that would not solve the problem in the long run.

There are companies that will replace the USB connection on the M/board but that would be to assume that is where the fault is - and I'm not convinced it is. The fact that the orange charge LED comes on suggests the USB connection may be ok and that it may be the battery connection block that has a broken connection. This is not easy to repair if at all. I have seen one reported case where that block with the gold connectors had broken connections and a repair company could not resolder all the connections.

One thing to try regarding the battery connector block. With the luck of the Gods it might just be that one or more pins is not making a good batter contact. Try cleaning the pins and battery contacts. (A bit of a forlorn hope though)

Mike

[jbradt]

well, good news!
i left it plugged into the computer all night and turned it on this morning and it went through all of the alarms... i dismissed them all. it then stayed on!!! so i went to the system settings and looked at the battery life and it said it was at 100%. perhaps it was the charger... which would be odd. now when it's plugged into the PC the amber LED comes on for a second then switches to green. i'm going to try and use it for the day and make sure i can turn it on and off without any problems. the AT&T store is closed here today so i'll have to get a charger one day during the week. i will post back at the end of the day.

[MikeChannon]

well, good news!
i left it plugged into the computer all night and turned it on this morning and it went through all of the alarms... i dismissed them all. it then stayed on!!! so i went to the system settings and looked at the battery life and it said it was at 100%. perhaps it was the charger... which would be odd. now when it's plugged into the PC the amber LED comes on for a second then switches to green. i'm going to try and use it for the day and make sure i can turn it on and off without any problems. the AT&T store is closed here today so i'll have to get a charger one day during the week. i will post back at the end of the day.

Good news indeed:)

Interesting because another member has a similar problem:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=2091163&posted=1#post2091163


The conclusion, to me at least is that the charging circuit is getting bamboozled (very much like the red light of death RLOD issue) and can randomly come good or with a bit of fiddling seems to re-set itself.

So I would not make any assumptions about the charger.

Good news anyway.

Mike

[jbradt]

hmm.. well, i was playing with it a little while ago and ran into the same issue again. it said the battery was critically low and would turn off. i went to radioshack and got some contact cleaner and compressed air and started taking the phone apart again. i used some cotton swabs dipped in the contact cleaner to clean every contact i could see. i then sprayed every part with compressed air and repeated this 2 or 3 times then let it sit for a few to make sure it was completely dry. it seems to have done the trick for now but we shall see. it charges back up fine.. at 95% i plugged it back in (to the wall charger) and it is now back at 100%. so far i have concluded that it is not the wall charger and maybe not even the battery. i'm going to give it some time and see how it works out. the only issue i have now is that it says it can't initialize the camera. i'll worry about that later tho. i will also reference this in the other post.. maybe it will help the other guy.

[svcglobal]

I didn't have my phone in this situation of accelerated battery drain but being in work with hardware since 1970, so let me post my 2 cents.

Really I didn't know exactly the hardware/software of this phone but someone skilled could analyze better this situation and give some light over this issue:

Can a SMS or even a MMS message received by the phone, even not already displayed on screen, put the CPU and its chipset in a condition of full CPU utilization (100%) constantly, bringing the current flow above 500mA, without any warnings to the user?

Fixed 500mA or even more can put the battery down in a matter of few hours from full capacity. Moreover this high current during all that time (2-4 hours) can burn the charging circuit since all current must pass through the same components, the same PCB tiny tracks and creating a destructive huge heat dissipation on the charging micro circuit. Some owners also reported a strong smell of burning things coming from the phone.

Therefore, if this condition of destructive message could exist, a simple SMS sent with this virus, worm, or anything like, will destroy the phone.

Another point is the fact that a very high reports of RLOD occurred at this New Year - I saw (didn't count) many RLOD post sent in the same period of time. This is not normal - statistically, can NOT exist such probability of simultaneous hardware failure without the presence/interference of man.

Am I crazy or what??

[jbradt]

i got the latest AT&T update from the HTC site and it got to the point where it says it will customize my device in 3 seconds (after the flash/reboot was complete) and it looks like it starts running through a series of tasks but then the phone shuts off maybe 10% (guesstimate) through... found that strange.
so i did the whole hardSPL and flashed it with another ROM to see the result and the same thing happened. as far as i know there is no way to get it to try and run through this sequence again. maybe it has something to do with the camera not working either?

can make and receive calls
can send and receive texts
wi-fi works
don't have a data plan so i don't want to browse the web w/o wi-fi
have yet to try bluetooth and GPS

[MikeChannon]

i got the latest AT&T update from the HTC site and it got to the point where it says it will customize my device in 3 seconds (after the flash/reboot was complete) and it looks like it starts running through a series of tasks but then the phone shuts off maybe 10% (guesstimate) through... found that strange.
so i did the whole hardSPL and flashed it with another ROM to see the result and the same thing happened. as far as i know there is no way to get it to try and run through this sequence again. maybe it has something to do with the camera not working either?

can make and receive calls
can send and receive texts
wi-fi works
don't have a data plan so i don't want to browse the web w/o wi-fi
have yet to try bluetooth and GPS

Well the camera islikely just a loose push in connector. but are you still getting the critical battery warning? All the things you tell us are working ok - are they on battery power or with charger plugged in?


Mike

[belize2004]

I got a Replacement LCD for my TILT for $69 at WWW.HTCLCD.COM

[jbradt]

nope, no more battery warning. everything mentioned above was working on battery power.. GPS and bluetooth were also tested. i went outside and used the Google software. no issues.

i still can't understand why it crashes when it gets to the "custimaztion" point after a fresh install... maybe because it is trying to do something with the camera and like you said it is a loose connection...? the message would indicate that the camera was never properly configured so it might not be a bad guess. however, sunday night TV is about to start and i'm pretty satisfied with my progress for today haha.

thanks for your help mikechannon. i will take it apart again maybe tomorrow evening after work to check the connection with the camera. i wouldn't be surprised if that was the issue because i was fiddling with it when i had things apart.

[jbradt]

Well, I took the phone apart again and made sure all connections were tight and I cleaned everything quick... re-assembled and still no camera. I did a hard reset to get it to run the customization again and it still crashes very shortly into the process... phone just turns off. When I turn it back on I have to go to the comm manager and turn the phone on manually. I think this is due to the customization failure. However, still no camera but everything else seems to be working fine. Maybe there is some very mild hardware damage. I might just purchase a new Tilt since I like it so much and use this one for testing... I wish I could get everything working.

[otheruser]

Good news for repair-savvy members looking to make a quick $100 bucks:

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Best LCD Installation Video or Blog with Descriptions and Photos.

Winner Receives $100 Prepaid Visa Card

Deadline for Entries Ends July 15.

Rules: Video must be less than 30 minutes installation time.
Broadcast quality of video must be clear (not dark, easy to see)

A winner will be chosen for Phone Models.

At&t Tilt Kaiser
Tmobile Dash
Tmobile Wing
Cingular / HTC 8125/8525 or MDA

Winner will receive Prize be chosen no later than July 20th

Rules are subject to change.

All entries become sole property of Fonlogix - Blackberry8100parts.com
We reserve the right to post videos during the contest for visitors to view.
Winning Entry will be posted on our website for viewing

[zeezee]

Ok, so now is instructions on how to safely replace your LCD: http://www.mindsofwisemen.com/fileso/other/ReplacingTheLCDonaKaiser.pdf

[wastedyeti]

Hope its not too late to post this. I broke my screen and was wondering if this item (http://cgi.ebay.com/LCD-Screen-FOR-HTC-P4550-8925-Tilt-TYTN-II-Digitizer_W0QQitemZ370221034455QQcmdZViewItemQQptZ PDA_Accessories?hash=item5632e4abd7&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14) off ebay would do? The phone works fine but I cracked the screen pretty bad.

http://jpaterson.googlepages.com/brokenphone.jpg

[jbradt]

Yep... that should do it. That's a good price too.

[JugglerLKR]

it will do, but considering price - quality will be low, and digitizer will have low resolution.

[wastedyeti]

it will do, but considering price - quality will be low, and digitizer will have low resolution.

Really? When you say low resolution, do you mean it will actually lower the resolution of the screen? Is there anything to look out for in a digitizer?

[JugglerLKR]

Really? When you say low resolution, do you mean it will actually lower the resolution of the screen? Is there anything to look out for in a digitizer?

i mean that lcd will be dark, but with correct resolution. but digitizer part will have low resolution...

[wastedyeti]

Huh... so i guess I don't understand the digitizer? What does it do?

[JugglerLKR]

pda display consists of two parts - lcd panel and touch surface (aka digitizer).

[wastedyeti]

Oh. So when you say the digitizer will have lower resolution you mean touching things on the screen will be less accurate?

[JugglerLKR]

Oh. So when you say the digitizer will have lower resolution you mean touching things on the screen will be less accurate?

exactly! :(