I am pretty sure, I spent about 16 hours combined working on this Samsung S21 Plus.
It came to me for Data Recovery.
It started bootlooping out of nowhere & customer needed all their pics & vids.
I went through my normal BDS workflow to solve the common bootlooping problem, but this one was different. Nothing I did changed the behavior.
UFS reballed, no change
UFS health was checked and was good, so we proceed to work on it
Then did RAM reball, but no change.
Then CPU & RAM Reball (they're stacked on top of each other) and same results.
At this point, customer approved a CPU Swap and oh boy, was that fun.
First step was to do the full CPU/RAM/UFS swap onto my working donor to see if it boots and it was no power. After some troubleshooting & replacing RAM, it finally booted...
Turns out, this phone had no pin code, but because Samsung started pairing a small IC to the phone (staring on S21 series), so it needed the "pin code IC" to be swapped as well.
The problem is that the pin code IC is inside the sandwich, so I figured i'd to the swap to see if i can get it boot first, then deal with the sandwich issues/pin code IC.
So even though this phone has no pin code, it will still not let me access the user data. It was forever in the "The phone is starting...." screen & nothing would load.
I can browse the settings, but couldn't really do much. None of the menu options were opening.
So this tells me, the pin code IC is needed, even if the phone has no pin code.
That's when I proceeded to split the sandwich on both boards, so I could transplant the small pin code IC
But that's when I ran into a problem...
After much troubleshooting, I got it booting and user data finally loaded! But it was restarting & overheating. I tried different methods to cool it but it would not change anything.
I reballed the sandwich again & it stopped over heating, but still restarting.
Tried reballing CPU, RAM, UFS, pin code IC and sandwich, but same results.
Finally, I decided to try another donor board..
And that did it! It finally booted up and stayed on fine. It didn't overheat either.
Looking back to all the steps I took, I definitely learned a lot. I also feel that maybe i could have resolved this in the beginning with just a new RAM chip.
I recently had another S21 that was no power & detected in "QDLoader mode" that ended up just being a bad RAM chip.
So although I spent a ton of time on this one, I have learned from this whole experience & I'm confident I'll be able to quickly solve future Android data jobs, thanks to the time I invested in this one.
So if you need your data recovered, send me a PM for a quote. B2B discounted pricing is available 🔥
If you have a Seek Thermal Cam, you're missing out if you don't have a VCC Seek Stand: https://www.vccboardrepairs.com/buy-seek-stand
Injured Gadgets just got these back in stock, so get them while you can!
It can take us a while to build these out sometimes, so they're sometimes out of stock for a while, but we're working towards always having inventory ready to build more as they sell out.
This stand makes using a thermal cam so easy. So much better than any other thermal solution on the market.
It allows you to get real close up (using my Macro Lens), and easily find where the short is coming from.
Plus it's hard free, so you can have your hands free to try to boot the device from DCPS, while having an image that is in focus & not moving around.
You can even record a video through the app, while you inject voltage into the short, so you can go back & see exactly which component was it that was heating up.
Save yourself lots of time by getting a Seek Cam, Stand & Macro Lens! ...
Anyone who is doing game console repairs, knows how many screws you need to remove to access the motherboard.
Especially the PS5, with the 5,000 screws or so.
If you don't already have an electric screwdriver, GET ONE ASAP.
🌟 Cordless Screwdriver with T9 Bit: https://amzn.to/3E5duCj
🌟Extended T9 Bit: https://amzn.to/3c4YJac
It's rechargeable through micro USB and allows you to easily swap the tips out. You can also fold it to be straight or L shape.
Let me know below if you are already using an electric screwdriver 👇👇
In case you haven't heard, I will be moving from Las Vegas, NV to Star, ID.
In my Las Vegas office, I had fully custom built workbenches for myself & my employee(s). But now it's time to go & tear everything down.
I'm really sad since these benches felt like the perfect layout! Or maybe I just got used to them.
I've attached some pics of what it looked like before & now that's all gone.
I do have some good news tho.... I recorded a detailed video of my office for youtube! I'll be posting that video soon!
Like this post if you want to see that video!
Hey guys! I'm so glad to finally get here. Thank you Jesse for the encouragement. Took me a minute but I'm here. I'm so eager to learn and grow. I have some experience with soldering etc, I can treat with obvious issues but there's something about diagnosing issues (especially with iPhones) that I have trouble with. I'm hoping this community can help with that.
Currently I have two iPhone 13 devices that need repair. One is stuck in recovery mode. A flash was attempted but there was an error during the process (Error 4013).
The other 13 does not boot or charge. It pulls 0.02A on the ammeter and I can feel both the back getting really hot. I tried this with two batteries. I also noticed that the wireless charging IC also gets very hot (338S00817) even when using a wired charger.
Remember I'm a noob so please....be gentle. Any help greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!
A funny example of why board repair are still very human skills.
Someone posted in my Facebook group asking for help identifying a ripped pad on a PS5 fan connector. The connector had been torn off the board, and they wanted to know what signal the missing middle pad belonged to so they could run a jumper.
A commenter decided to let AI handle it.
They fed the photo into ChatGPT and got back a nice-looking annotated diagram showing all the pin functions. The problem?
It was completely wrong.
The AI labeled the missing pad as the TACH signal when in reality that pad is ground.
The scary part is that if you didn't already know the answer, the diagram looks convincing. It has arrows, labels, colors, callouts, and all the confidence in the world. Yet it still gave bad information that could send someone down the wrong path.
This is one of the reasons I don't lose sleep over AI replacing board repair technicians.
AI is incredibly good at summarizing information that already exists publicly. But in...
