Help The Definitive Guide to the Dead Screen Issue

[cconover]

I'm creating this thread as a way for us to track people's experiences with the Droid's dead screen problem & hopefully come up with some reliable fixes for it.

For those that aren't familiar with what I'm talking about, there is an issue with the Droid (and perhaps other phones too, I'm not sure) where, if the phone is dropped, the screen will appear to go dead but all other functions on the phone are working to include the touch sensor & usually the backlight as well. Basically, the phone is working totally normally, but it just won't show a picture on the screen.

Most of the threads I've seen either get responses saying the person's phone needs to be replaced & isn't fixable, or they never get a resolution at all. I can say from multiple occurrences of this issue on my phone (4 at the time I'm writing this) that it is fixable & does not mean the phone is physically damaged and therefore unable to be fixed.

So, if you have experienced this issue with your phone or have familiarity with it & can share what you did to resolve the problem, please post here so we can start to compile a definitive solution guide.

 

[Fearless]

Ouch. This just happened to me, too. Any suggestions?

 

[cconover]

So this happened to me twice inside of the past two weeks. I was able to fix it the same way both times, which due to the way I fixed it leads me to believe it is a hardware issue after all.

In both situations, neither the display or the backlight for the display & touch buttons would work. The front of the phone looked like the power was off even when it was fully booted.

Holding the phone about 2 feet from the floor (hardwood in my case, so I put down a towel), I dropped the phone on the floor head first, meaning that the top edge of the phone would impact the ground. This way the battery cover would be less likely to pop off so the phone would stay on, and also because I thought that since the battery cover had popped off when the problem started it may have hit the ground bottom edge first, so I was trying to do the opposite. Sure enough, after I dropped it the backlight turned on behind the buttons & the display, but no picture on the screen yet.

At this point I removed the battery to shut the phone off immediately. I then put the battery back in, and powered up the phone into recovery mode (hold the X key on the keyboard while pressing the power button). The first time I used this technique the screen still didn't light up, so I removed the battery again & booted it normally & the screen came on. The second time the recovery mode did the trick.

This seems to be a reliable method of fixing this issue. That said, I claim absolutely no responsibility for any additional damage to your device if you try it & something goes wrong.

If you do try it, please post a reply as to whether or not it worked for you.

 

[EarlyMon]

When you pull your battery - do you leave it out for 60 seconds give or take?

You may be right about recovery, etc - but it might be just a function of time to discharge (or multiple pulls to complete a discharge).

Your info strongly suggests that when dropped, the device shorted somewhere momentarily - triggering either protection - or more likely, leading to a latch-up. (That's when some normally-switching part of a semiconductor goes into a constant, unintended state.)

The basic reason that a battery pull tends to fix so many things is that the removal of power, along with a brief waiting period before re-installing, gives time for any charge to simply dissipate (thereby removing latch-up (unless the device is finally broken)).

I mentioning this not to argue, but to ask that you try it if this happens again - then we'll know with more certainty the steps for recovery - this can be really helpful to a LOT of people.

BTW - please don't drop your phone to test my idea. Way above semiconductor theory is a thing called Murphy's Law!

Great thread, btw!

 

[cconover]

When you pull your battery - do you leave it out for 60 seconds give or take?

You may be right about recovery, etc - but it might be just a function of time to discharge (or multiple pulls to complete a discharge).

Your info strongly suggests that when dropped, the device shorted somewhere momentarily - triggering either protection - or more likely, leading to a latch-up. (That's when some normally-switching part of a semiconductor goes into a constant, unintended state.)

The basic reason that a battery pull tends to fix so many things is that the removal of power, along with a brief waiting period before re-installing, gives time for any charge to simply dissipate (thereby removing latch-up (unless the device is finally broken)).

I mentioning this not to argue, but to ask that you try it if this happens again - then we'll know with more certainty the steps for recovery - this can be really helpful to a LOT of people.

BTW - please don't drop your phone to test my idea. Way above semiconductor theory is a thing called Murphy's Law!

Great thread, btw!

I did try on many occassions to leave the battery out for as much as 10 minutes at a time, with no success. That was part of what led me to try dropping it on the opposite end from what I thought had caused the problem in the first place.

However, what I cannot attest to is whether the problem was originally caused by the phone actually hitting the floor, the battery popping out, or the combination thereof.