
A dark spot appeared on that screen as well, but this time it was in the top right corner.Īfter searching for advice online, I decided to check the cable connections and reboot the phone.
#Game boy dmg glass screen crack#
In an effort to troubleshoot, I reconnected the old display, which despite its crack had been in working order. It was alive! The camera still worked, as did the touch screen, home button, and microphones.Īnd then I noticed what looked like a dark shadow in the top left corner of the screen. My before-lunch project had officially stretched into a multi-day slog.Īfter I finished transferring over all those little components, I replaced the tiny screws and snapped into place the cables that connected the new screen to my phone.īefore screwing the phone’s outer shell back together, I reconnected the battery and fired it up. So between the screws destroyed in the removal process and the handful I lost on the floor, I ended up ordering a replacement screw set, which cost $4.50 on Amazon and put me behind schedule. In fact, while trying to do just that, I managed to stab myself in the finger with a screwdriver.Īnd I sent more than one screw flying to the floor, never to be seen again. And often, once I did, the screwdriver would pull it out before I had a chance to actually screw it in. It takes some effort to get such a tiny screw in a tiny hole.

This was a big help, but it also made it trickier to put them back in. I can tell you that the iPhone screen replacement kits I used came with magnetized screwdrivers that sucked the screws from their receptacles once they were loosened. I wish I had a foolproof tip to make the job easier for you, but I don't. It took a lot of effort, a pair of tiny pliers we had in our lab, and some help from co-workers (including one of our test engineers, who was chuckling into his sleeve), but I eventually got all the screws out. You'd be surprised by the number of YouTube videos out there extolling tricks for extracting stripped smartphone screws. But the company says it recognizes that iPhone users increasingly want to do their own repairs, so it’s working on making future devices more DIY-friendly.īut for now, I needed to turn to the internet for help. If you wear reading glasses, you may want to get yourself a magnifying glass.Īnd, boy, there sure are a lot of screws in a smartphone.Īpple tells us that iPhones' specialized screws are designed to make the device more durable. I have great vision and found them tough to see. When they’re so tiny you can’t see the crossmarks on the head, and it's downright infuriating. In a phone, it's even worse because many of the screws are the size of a pinhead. That's bad enough in an engine cover or doorjamb. The thing that set me back time and again was the familiar nemesis of any mechanic or handyman: stripped screws. The video instructions for the kits were fairly easy to follow. The glue on the home button's cable attached to the new screen without a problem, and cables for other components snapped into place. Next, I had to transfer those components to the new phone. So far, so good-I figured I'd be done with the project by lunch. The button and its cable popped right off. This made me a little nervous, but the trick worked quite well. iCracked advises using a hair dryer to gently soften it. There’s also adhesive involved, holding the home button in place. 1: Some of these components are tiny and very fragile, and it takes a decent amount of pressure to pry them out.

#Game boy dmg glass screen install#
The iPhone 6 isn’t designed to be watertight like more recent iPhone models, and its outer shell is basically held together with a few screws.Īn iPhone's home button, front-facing camera, sensors, and microphone are all attached to the screen, so I had to remove those components from the broken iPhone and install them on the new one. The phone opened up without much trouble. (The company also makes house calls to fix iPhones for about $80 and up depending on your phone model and location.)Īfter watching a 30-minute demonstration video, I set to work. I started with a $50 kit from a smartphone repair company called iCracked.
