[Q] Blinking red led, no boot when plugged in

blinking red led

GrIc said:

Hi all,
My Nexus 4 just shut down after going really hot. I cannot turn it on anymore, when I press the On/Off button with our without the volume buttons nothing happens, except if it is plugged in.
In that case, after about 15 sec I have a blinking red led.

I think the problem is material, but I don't know if the problem comes from the battery or something else. I don't want to buy a new battery if my Nexus 4 is dead... So I am trying to figure out if the problem is about the battery or not. I think not because even when plugged in, nothing shows on the screen when I try to turn it on.

What do you think ?

Thanks very much for your help,
Guillaume.

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When you get the blinking red led while on the charger, how many time does it flashes ?

Is it the same as this:
"
By red flashing light, I mean: Hold power for 12 secs with good charger connected gives flashing red light: one short, pause circa 2 sec, 11 flashes at one per sec, pause under 1/4 sec, one short dim flash, pause c. 2 sec, repeat. This is the notification LED directly above the USB socket.
"

I had a similar problem. The phone will not start and when you put the red light blinking loaded several times. My Solving: I opened the phone and pulled the battery pins. I connected the battery and the phone started normally.

anetgrup said:

I had a similar problem. The phone will not start and when you put the red light blinking loaded several times. My Solving: I opened the phone and pulled the battery pins. I connected the battery and the phone started normally.

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*similar* but not the same I guess.

It seems like the IC that turns on and off the LED is the PMIC ("Power Management Integrated Circuit"). When something goes wrong, this IC has got some intelligence to give out some information about what is wrong (a bit like the bios on a PC). So 11 red LED flashes is an error code I guess. When the battery is disconnected it's 1 red LED flash (that error code probably means battery not present/worng) in my experience.

I know at least that with the 11 flashes issue, changing / reconnecting a charged battery does not solve this issue

Would anyone have information about what these codes mean ?

this just happened to me. Any solutions?

jimmy2823 said:

this just happened to me. Any solutions?

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I thought I should give some feedback on how I sorted out this problem:

After discussion with google after-sales, I sent it for repair to the official LG repair contractor in the UK (SBE Ltd, based in Ashford, UK).

I precisely chose to go through LG repair rather than google because google warned me they would replace the nexus4 so I would
1) loose my data
2) get a potentially worse phone(refurbished) than mine (which is really mint with outstanding battery life)

I sent the phone with instructions on what I think needed done : replacement of the PMIC and *not* a swap of motherboard. When the nexus4 was back, I noticed they ignored my message & swapped the motherboard .
They kept my housing but they also swapped the battery(was not required) and now the battery life is very poor ! I am still in communication with LG regarding the battery issue