Introduction
It’s common sense that going for the cheapest repair store isn’t likely to get the most time or expertise spent on your smartphone or tablet. (For similar reasons, the same applies to “no fix, no fee” businesses).
However, you might be tempted to give our rivals a chance anyway. After all, if they fail, you still have the option of bringing it to us… right?
Unfortunately, this doesn’t account for the fact that an incompetent repair can turn something that might have been fixable in more skilled hands into a complete write-off, regardless of how good the next technician is.
Why It’s a Bad Idea to Let Someone Else “Have a Go”
We do a lot of board-level repairs for other stores and get varying numbers of cases where they’ve tried- and failed- to fix a phone or tablet themselves before passing it on.
We love doing business with those who don’t “have a go” before bringing the repair straight to us! Why? Simple- we have the highest success rate fixing their repairs because we can diagnose the fault accurately and don’t need to clean up their mess.
The stores who have a go themselves do so to try and save the cost of outsourcing the repair. These customers are making our work harder, and usually they misdiagnose the fault and cause more damage than needed.
For instance, we’ve seen customers put the whole board in an oven to “reflow” all the components when there is no touch or display. This doesn’t work because most of the ICs on iPhones have underfill around them. When you heat these chips up they can’t float on top of the solder and are held down by the underfill. The result is the solder balls from underneath the chip are forced out causing shorts all over the board.
Even though we tell them this doesn’t work they continue to do it because they’ve fixed the odd board this way. They haven’t taken into consideration the amount of boards they’ve broken beyond economical repair by using this method. They don’t care about your data, how long their repair will last or if they make it worse, they’re just looking for a “quick fix” to get paid. Their warranty is so short that their repair only needs to last 7-14 days. If you do come back because it has failed they’ll tell you your phone is water damaged!
Whether the original repair shop subcontracts us to fix your device after they messed it up further, or whether you bring it to us after they failed with it, the principle remains the same- an incompetent techician can turn a simple, repairable fault into a write-off beyond economical repair.
Do you want to risk it?
The Important Points
- Letting a cheap repair centre “have a go” is often a bad idea.
- The damage caused by someone who doesn’t know- or care- what they’re doing can turn a simple fault into something far worse.
- At best, clearing up the mess caused by someone else’s failed repair attempt- before we can get to work on the original fault- will increase the total cost of the repair for you.
- At worst, your device can be turned into a complete writeoff– something we’d have been able to fix if we’d been given it first has already been damaged beyond economic repair before we’ve even seen it.
- Spending a few more pounds on a competent repair service in the first place could save you hundreds on the cost of a written-off phone or tablet.
Real-Life Example
This iPhone 6S is a perfect example of how one technician’s “quick fix” attempt can turn a simple fault into a rabbit hole for the next. We were sent it by another store with the diagnosis of “dead”. They informed us that they had changed the LCD a long time ago and it was working but the customer returned it to them because it wouldn’t turn on.
We connected the iPhone to an ammeter to find it wasn’t drawing any power. Usually, this is a sign of the Tristar IC being faulty- typically the result of using a non-MFi certified cable. We replaced the Tristar IC and when we connected power there was a puff of smoke from the motherboard!
We put the motherboard back under the microscope to find the whole backlight circuit had gone. It’s impossible for this to have been caused by a Tristar replacement alone, so we knew something else was wrong. Looking over the backlight circuit, the backlight IC had a hole in it, both diodes were gone and the coil had a crack in it.
A complete mess- holes can be seen in two of the chips, another component is lifted and yet another is cracked.
Jumpered filter component
The initial removal of the Tristar chip
Closer look at the removal of the Tristar chip
After the jumper and filter have been removed.
Damage caused by either melting or localised explosion underneath the chip.
View of the circuit after cleanup
The cause? Someone had put solder over the backlight filters and joined them together causing a dead short. We’re not sure if the filters had gone during the initial screen replacement and they bridged them to get it working again, or if they diagnosed the “dead” iPhone as having a backlight issue and bridged them at that point. Either way, bridging the filters is not a fix and represents very bad workmanship. The filters are there to protect the circuit and if they do go you should replace them with the same component.
If the fuse went in the wall plug for something in your house, you wouldn’t put foil around it to get it working. So why do these so-called professionals consider it acceptable to do much the same thing to the backlight circuit? In a final attempt to repair this device we removed the backlight IC… only to find there was now a hole in the motherboard and this was beyond economical repair.
We’d have stood a good chance of repairing the original fault if we’d been given the phone in the first place. If the original technician hadn’t made such a hash of it, we might have been able to fix their mess before getting started on the repair itself. However, there’s no prospect of that here- it’s a write-off.
This is an example of why you should be careful where you take your device to get repaired. It’s possible that this customer took their phone in for a routine screen replacement and the store damaged the backlight so bridged the filters to get it working. It’s also possible that the screen replacement had gone okay- or so it might have seemed to the customer- and that having had such “good” service they returned to the same store when it wasn’t turning on.
Regardless, it’s clear that during one of the customer’s visits, this store bridged the backlight filters and caused irreparable damage to the phone. The customer will never know this because they’ll be handed the phone back with an excuse along the lines of “sorry we couldn’t fix it- the motherboard is gone”.
What a waste.
