HTC Rhyme Take Apart Repair Guide

repairsuniverse · May 29th, 2012, 04:09 PM

If you want to repair the damaged screen of your HTC Rhyme, follow this step by step written repair guide and your phone will get back to new again.

This guide is aimed at helping you replace the following HTC Rhyme parts:

HTC Rhyme Touch Screen Replacement
HTC Rhyme LCD Screen Replacement

Tools:

Safe Open Pry Tool
Small Phillips Screwdriver
T5 Torx Screwdriver

Steps:

First, remove the bottom back battery cover. Use a hair dryer or heat gun to warm the adhesive holding the upper cover in place.
Next, use safe pry tool and gently pry along the outside edges of the upper cover and fully remove the cover.
Using a T5 Torx Screwdriver, remove the seven (7) screws and using a small Phillips screwdriver to remove remaining one (1) screw as shown at figure 1.
The battery sticker can now be removed using a safe pry tool.

Figure 1

Use a safe pry tool to remove the lower back housing.
With the motherboard exposed you can now remove the two (2) small Phillip screws.
Begin releasing all connections on the lower motherboard. This will include two (2) wire antennas, two (2) pop connectors, and a single "jaw" connector as shown in figure 2.
Once the connections are all released, you can now remove the motherboard using a safe pry tool.

Figure 2

Flip the upper motherboard down using a safe pry tool. It will reveal two (2) jaw connector that need to be release. Be careful as these are very delicate cables.

Figure 3

Now, using a flat pry tool, begin releasing some adhesive holding the housing to the battery. Then begin pushing through screen assembly and battery from the front housing. Note that there still a large amount of adhesive holding the battery in place.
Next, use a safe pry tool to release volume button flex ribbon cable from the housing. Then start peeling the way the motherboard from the housing. Be cautious as the adhesive is very strong.
You can now totally remove the volume button from the housing.
Next, use safe pry tool to lift away the touch screen flex cable from the back housing.
Using a heat gun or hair dryer, warm the outside edges of the screen assembly including the back screen assembly to soften the adhesive.
Use safe pry tool to release the adhesive holding the screen assembly to front housing. Work your way through all the slot on the housing releasing as much adhesive as possible. Reheat if necessary.
Separate the front housing from the screen assembly. The screen assembly can now be replaced.

Figure 4

Reverse the instructions above to reassembly your phone.

mthguy · June 28th, 2012, 09:45 AM

I am about to replace the digitizer for my wife, and I have done that before on my old Atrix 4g, but that phone had absolutely no glue or tape, this on appears to have copious amounts of both. so first question is, should I replace all of the glue/tape, and with what? and secondly, the two jaw connectors where the motherboard flips up to disconnect, is there a trick to reconnecting those on reassembly, it seems like that could prove infuriating.

any advice would be appreciated.

mthguy · June 29th, 2012, 11:40 AM

any ideas? good adhesives/ double sided tapes or tips/tricks of the trade on connected those hard to reach JAW connectors?

repairsuniverse · June 29th, 2012, 04:32 PM

The jaw connectors are opened using a pry tool and closed going in a downward motion carefully.

repairsuniverse · June 30th, 2012, 01:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mthguy

any ideas? good adhesives/ double sided tapes or tips/tricks of the trade on connected those hard to reach JAW connectors?

We recommend the adhesive strips here - Adhesive Strips

For the jaw connectors use a pry tool to gently to lift the tab.

palmickey · July 6th, 2012, 12:09 PM

Is there a point, in the take-apart process, where one could remove the battery?
I am curious if the phone will just become useless when the battery wears out, or if a qualified person could replace it.

I am also curious if this phone really has no sim card or if it is just not accessible.
If someone has taken it apart, to the level shown in these instructions, they are likely to know if there is a sim card in there somewhere.

I am baffled that there are instructions online, that claim to be instructions to remove the sim card, but are bogus (unless there is another version of the HTC Rhyme that matches up to the picture the instructions show).
According to the email I received from HTC, the HTC Rhyme has no sim card.