HTC One M7 screen and housing swap - WIN

OK - the burning question many people have had has been answered - Can I replace my screen?

The answer is yes, but it is not for the fainthearted.

My poor HTC One came to grief recently hitting a marble floor and while useable came off second best.

Investigation with local phone repairers yielded little. I could only find one company in Melbourne that wanted $295 to fix the screen on a $700 phone.

Looking around online I could only find teardown clips and the ifixit rating of 1 which isn't terribly confidence inspiring.

So this left me with a three options

1. Cut my losses and by a new phone
2. Cough up for a repairer
3. Have a crack at it myself

I started off searching for replacement screens on e-bay and after a bit more searching came across etradesupply.

Not only did they have all the parts they also gave me an idea, if I am changing screen, why not colour? I always liked the black one a bit more but was too impatient and bought the silver one.

So I went for it and ordered the screen and digitizer as an assembly
etradesupply.com/oem-htc-one-lcd-screen-and-digitizer-assembly-with-front-housing.html[/url]
and new rear housing
etradesupply.com/oem-htc-one-rear-housing-black-with-htc-and-beatsaudio-logo.html[/url]

I also ordered a few tools and about 5 days later my parts arrived.

Over this period I watched the youtube tear down clips and also reviewed the iFixit guide and wondered what had I got myself in for.

So I decided tonight was the night to go for it.

I started by trying to pry off the bottom speaker with the intent of working around the old housing. My delusions of grandeur of an elegant fix disappeared quickly as the zero gap was an impenetrable fortress that could not be penetrated until I hacked the base off breaking the bottom off where the polycarbonate seam is.

After a good half an hour of hacking and prying my case was off showing off the sheer complexity of the interior.

THIS WAS NOT LOOKING PROMISING

So as I looked over this and thought ok, lets start unscrewing and this is where I hit my first obstacle. My precision screwdrivers were not precise enough so a quick trip to the local hardware store and I was in business.

I decided to try and take the path of least tear down. Looking at the clips I felt I could achieve the outcome without a complete tear down. My advice to anyone else thinking the same is DO NOT DO THIS.

While I got there in the end, the antennas are fragile and any tension will snap them as I discovered. Not a big deal as a few seconds with the soldering iron fixed it, but it is easier to simply detach and re-attach them.

So after taking off various bits of tape, screws, ribbons and prying the battery out of the case which is well glued with adhesive I was almost there. If you watch the tear down clip, be prepared to rip every last item out and disassemble as per the clip. All the way down to the vibration motor.

It was about here I was ready to abandon all hope, I had disassembled and had thought I had reassembled and when I did a test boot, nothing....

I pushed, prodded, poked and tested all the connections and still nothing.

I disassembled and ensured every tricky little ribbon was connected and like a patient in a medical drama when it has had two shocks with the defibrillator, when I tried again it kicked in to life.

Screen works - Yes
Wi-Fi works - Yes
Bluetooth works - Yes
Audio works - Yes
3G/HSDPA works - Yes
Test call works - Yes

All of a sudden when I thought I was off to buy a new handset my HTC One had kicked back in to life. My transplant had patient was alive but still critical.

So I started the process of taping up the ribbons, screwing in all the screws and getting it in shape for the final part - attaching the rear housing.

I lowered the rear housing on to the exposed wires like Darth Vader's mask lowering on to Anakin at the end of Revenge of The Sith and just as I thought victory was mine there was a moment of dread.... it didn't fit

I delicately pried off the housing and took a look, the convoluted assembly around the charger socket was the culprit. After some re-evaluation and re-organisation of the plate, the rear housing was secured and the death star, oops no the HTC One M7 in black was fully operational

So about 3 hours after I started my task is complete, black is a much nicer look, however, the zero gap isn't as zero as it was before but will do.

I think if I were to do it again I would do it in under two hours, but the repairer estimates of 3 hours isn't outlandish.

If you cracked your screen and want to replace it, then I would say go for it and buy the assembly and housing as I did.

If you simply want to change colours for no other reason that you want to, I would caution against this. The work is serious and has risks. It is a repair of last resort.

one minor thing to point out, the Sim Card Tray ships seperate so anyone thinking of a colour transplant will need to add that to the list.

Showed off my repaired One today, my workmates who are all in IT were mighty impressed, thought I had no chance of getting it done after looking at the tear down on iFixit

dsan45 said:

thanks for the writing.
I was hoping to take apart the top and bottom speaker grill so I can close the gap.
How are they put together? Is it as simple as adhesive tape? or screwed?

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Good Question, the answer is a definite no.

With a serious amount of heating the adhesive will yield, however, the top grill is also used as a mounting point for one of the screws. I would also be concerned that the amount of heat needed to break the bond would get to damaging levels for some components such as the speakers which sit underneath.

They SERIOUSLY made this phone as lowest self service as possible. The pics from my old grill's show this.

I would also think you would need something more serious than adhesive tape to bond to the plastic.

View attachment 2159676

dsan45 said:

thanks for the writing.
I was hoping to take apart the top and bottom speaker grill so I can close the gap.
How are they put together? Is it as simple as adhesive tape? or screwed?

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Thinking about your question a bit more, if you are trying to close a gap by taking a component off and reattaching then I think you would be doomed to fail.

Without knowing where the gap is I'll assume it is in one of two spots, either between the rear housing and the grill or the screen and the grill. If this is the case then i'll try to explain what is occurring, a likely cause and why fixing is unlikely to work.

The design of the One M7 is basically a front assembly which is a chassis that the components screw on to. The back of the case is simply a shell that clips in to place.

If the gap is like this:

View attachment 2160617

It is a gap between the chassis and the back of the device. With the chassis being between the rear case and the grill all you would be doing is reattaching the grill to the chassis and not closing the gap and would almost certainly make the gap bigger not smaller as you would be adding more substance between the grill and the chassis/midframe

If the gap is like this:

View attachment 2160618

Then this is more likely to be the screen being pushed up from within the device itself. A likely cause is the battery sitting underneath is out by a mm or less and is pushing the screen up. The battery sits underneath the screen and there is literally no margin whatsoever between the screen, battery, motherboard and midframe so if something is out by a few μm to mm then the path of least resistance is for the screen to push up.

I know this from having completed not just a tear down but also a reassembly how fine the margins are. After my repair there is a very small gap in the screen and bottom grill which I just have to live with. Overall with a new case and a repaired screen I am much better off but it is not quite as good as something from plant. The repair process requires removing tape and disrupting some of the foil and all this increases the margins ever so slightly

I think HTC may have got themselves in to trouble with the marketing of this as Zero gap, it is pretty damn good, but Zero Gap means that a consumer will tolerate nothing less than Zero gap and thus we have an expectation problem. I have a lot of respect for what HTC have done with this device and still think it is a magnificent device but perhaps it is a bit too ambitious and the yields are killing them.

One final comment, a number of people have stated that their "Cracked Screen" was replaced with a new device. I personally believe it is nigh on impossible to remove the screen without some form of damage to the back of the case. The amount of pressure required to separate the front assembly loose would mark it with the amount of adhesive between the two plus the lack of margins mean that the repair is effectively what I did (i.e. a new front and rear assembly with a contents transfer)

Knowing what I know now, if I were to severely scratch or damage the grills I wouldn't entertain replacing them, it will only make the matter worse. I also know I could possibly open mine up and remove the internal pressure that is the likely cause of the gaps but again would risk making it worse for a small aesthetic gain.

bwhinnen said:

I saw this thread on whirlpool as well, but the images here really give us a better look at the work you did. I also looked over the iFixit tear down and I have to say what an amazing job! You really did well, definitely not for the faint hearted!

Does this now mean that we can send you our broken One's for a repair job?!?

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hehe not quitting my day job just yet.

Best not to break it in the first place. I've got the HTC cover on order!

dsan45 said:

wow thank you for your thoughtful answer.
It sounds like you are in this business!
My gap is the first example you posted where their is a slight opening at the top. It seems like more I try to do 'anything' it is
most likely that I will ruin this device.

I tried fitting in my double sided tape inside the gap but really.. it woudnt get in there. So I guess it is best where it is now.

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No problem, I hope it saved you the grief of making something minor worse. Even though my repair job has a slight gap it isn't noticeable in black compared to Silver/white which is unforgiving.

While I am no phone repairer, I've always liked taking things apart and trying to fix them. The HTC One is possibly one of the fiddliest things I have taken on. I guess I didn't take it on by choice, only by bad luck and a hard floor!

pradeepvizz said:

oh wow, just in time... i have a cracked HTC One and my parts from e trade supply came only today.. ETS parts look very promising and came neatly packed .. very neatly and properly packed.. gonna do my playing with the phone tomorrow, wish me luck

@op, thanks for your post.. have not read it fully .. was so excited to see a DIY fix thread

---------- Post added at 12:20 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:01 AM ----------

ok so i did do the same order as you, the front panel and the back case .. choose silver and have silver.. thanks for your writing.. its exciting, hopefully i will share my experience here soon.

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Best of luck. The parts from etrade supply seem to be OEM, the items marked as b-stock are seconds by the looks of things (probably screens with dead pixels etc)

If you go through it methodically you should be OK, make sure you have all the right tools such as screwdrivers, prying tools etc.

I would also perhaps recommend trimming the plastic cover on the battery, this seems to unstick and I think cause some bulging my .5mm when you reassemble. It is a bit like trying to re-wrap a present after you have unwrapped the paper, you can do it but it is never a perfect fit.

pradeepvizz said:

Thanks for the refit instructions, this is probably the first tread which talks about fitting it back. I got the A Stock items, did not choose the b stock. I went through the video and blog of ets and ordered every tool that they used in it

Sent from my HTC One using XDA Premium HD app

---------- Post added at 01:33 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:30 AM ----------

And my phone already had the bulging of the screen little in the front.. I mean the top speaker and screen were not flay, Which probably was also a reason why it broke easy.


Sent from my HTC One using XDA Premium HD app

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Cool, one last thing, make sure you have some good tweezers that are flat and not sharp. There is a ribbon which I think can only go in with tweezers and requires a bit of pressure to go in. You will also need them to assist re-attaching your antennas.

fluxthesky said:

But could you just place a little glue at the gap and squeeze it shut, instead of taking out the whole grill and reapplying?

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Perhaps these pictures may help, the grills do not attach to the rear housing, they attach to the midplane of the phone so the only way to close the gap is between the rear shell/housing and the midplane.



Trying to glue the midplane tighter to the rear housing is not something that I think would work nor would I recommend it. The types of glue required would potentially damage components that sit close to the edges and would cause complications if there was a screen crack later down the track. There is also potential if the wrong glue is used to damage the plastic housing. As you can see, if you were trying to close the top gap with glue there is the camera, speaker, light sensor and power switch which are all very close to the edges and would not benefit from a strong solvent based glue

View attachment 2170276

As commented in a previous post, the upward pressure is going to be where components meet the rear of the case, I've tried to highlight this in this picture. Any attempt to close the gap will be due to trying to flex/bend the edge to glue/adhere to the edge. A contact adhesive or tape will simply not win in the long term and a solvent based glue might stand a chance but the amount required risks gluing components. I'd rather have a small gap than damage something like the power switch.

If someone wants to give it a try, feel free to post results, but having gone through a re-build I wouldn't do it if I were faced with a small gap knowing what I know.

paul_59 said:

xdaforums.com/showthread.php?p=43334075

HTC One Teardown (Really not that bad)

Don't know if you have read this earlier thread from 7 July on HTC one dismantle process

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Yes, I don't think there was a post on any forum anywhere on the subject that I hadn't read prior to my dismantle.

I guess the big difference between my post and this post is my post is about creating a repaired working phone as opposed to a tear down which is treated as a one way ticket.

I did entertain heavy duty heating, however, since I as not saving the case I opted to spare my components any unnecessary heat stress. Also most tear down's seem to put a lot of flex on the mainboard which is also something I wanted to avoid.

To my knowledge I don't think I have seen anyone else post an actual repair, just a tear down.

pradeepvizz said:

ok so my phone is now in a busted state!

i opened the front & the back fine, took quite an effort to pry up and separate the front and the back case, i took it out without any breakage. I started with the bottom speaker grill, heated & took of the bottom speaker grill and then pry'ed in the gap between back case & the front panel. The hard part was the move the separator from the bottom to the sides, in other words, starting to separate the side was hard, once a gap is created on the sides it was pretty easy to take the phone out by moving the separator around the phone.

one mistake i did was to not take out the sim card & sim card tray before starting to separate.

I then started with removing the components from the motherboard - i wanted to do a front panel replacement (essential screen replacement).

when removing the LCD connector cable, i broke the lock/connector which is on the motherboard. i was trying to release the lock to take out the connector and pressed hard on the connector itself rather than the lock - attaching a pic to make it clear - i broke the black part marked red, the lock was supposed to be removed by pulling up the part marked green.

I have assembled back everything with the new front housing and phone is semi partially working - i have almost removed and reconnected everything 4 times.

The vibrator kicks in action when i put the phone on but nothing on the display(broken display port to blame). One time i heard the phone boot (speaker sound) and that was when i tried to put it back in my old front panel to check.

Other than that the phone is identified as HTC Android USB phone in the device manager when connected but does not show on my computer as a portable device. It charges. heats when i try to put it on.

So to conclude the phone is dead now, don't have much of ideas to get it back working - but have a hope that it would if i replace quite some parts

Any advise is welcome!

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Bad Luck, to get so close.....

The ribbon you are referring to simply pulls out and doesn't have the same clasp, this is the one that is also the hardest to re-insert. Have you got a good picture of what your the socket now? you should be able to push it in unless it is completely smashed.

When I was doing mine I just pulled the ribbons out without realising some are meant to lift open. To me if you are getting to boot and device recognition you got most of the way there.

The mainboard is about the only item that is non replaceable via OEM. I can only assume it is things like IMEI etc that would stop this. My only suggestion is to keep an eye out for someone selling a broken M7 and see if you can swap mainboards.