1. adrenaline_x's Avatar
    How to fix your flush or lowered blackberry playbook power button.

    Background : I had to take apart one of our company playbooks after the playbook died after being on the charger all night. It wouldn't power one, show any leds, and couldn't be detected by the desktop manager. I put it on the rapid charging dock for an hour and nothing. I tried stack charging the playbook like i read in this forum and the blackberry knowledge base article. Nothing. So I took off the back cover of the playbook and unplugged the battery, waited a couple of minutes and plugged it back in.. That resolved the battery issue and the battery started charging.

    I've been wanting to take a playbook apart to look at the power button and this way my chance. I quickly found the issue with the power button being flush on this playbook. The plastic housing that backs the controller board for the power, and volume buttons wasn't uptight against the controller board. So when you push on the buttons the controller board would move back or inwards. Its a very simple fix. I took an antistatic bag that came with a hard drive and cut a strip out of it. I then folded it over a couple of times and then wedged it in behind the controller board on the power button side. Its raised the power button and made it extremely easy to push works as i beleived it was designed to do.

    I first used a strip off a post it note and folded it over for testing. Worked perfectly.. I've done this on two playbooks now.

    Pictures here with the post it note inserted. Sorry about the focus.. I took it with my 9900



    06-13-12 10:26 AM
  2. FF22's Avatar
    Thanks for sharing and posting the pics.
    06-13-12 10:50 AM
  3. Yankee495's Avatar
    Back in the days when a plain old mouse cost $70 we used to put a small piece of cardboard over the plastic peg that the circuit board fit on. It was like the pegs held it in place then a couple screws went in.

    When it started double clicking from just barley making contact this worked great (jack up the board a mm or so to make up for wear). This still works on some mice.

    My wife's 32GB PB has the taller button. It was mine before I got my 64 and it has the short button. I didn't think it would bother me, but it does.

    Someday I'll take it apart...Thanks for the info.
    06-13-12 11:35 AM
  4. Ninjatogo's Avatar
    This is great! Does it also raise the volume buttons so they click when pressed? Is it possible to remove ONLY the Playbook back, I don't want to screw anything else up when I do this.
    06-13-12 11:38 AM
  5. Chaddface's Avatar
    The last time I removed the back I stuck a piece of matchbook cover in there. It doesn't take much. I sent my wife's PB back to RIM for them to repair. I'm curious how they fixed it. I suspect they use a new button assembly with a larger post on the power button or a thicker membrane between the button and board.

    The info about the batteries is good for those of us past warranty. I haven't had the no charge issue but should it happen I will give it a try.

    Thanks for the post.
    06-13-12 11:41 AM
  6. adrenaline_x's Avatar
    No worries.

    You can just take off the back cover. I have a bunch of plastic pry tools that have shipped with blackberry and iphone screen replacement kits. I found it easiest to put a very small sloted screw driver (i mean small as in eye glass tool kit) and spread it in the bottom left corner enough to get the worn out plastic pry tool in the gap and slowly work my way around the case a couple of times. The case catches on the hdmi ports etc so take your time.

    As for the battery i figured since it was out of warranty i would open it up and see if could get it to turn on with a working battery. It would be alot of work to replace the battery so i disconnected it first to see if it that would resolve the issue.. It did. But you have to let it charge for a while after you pull the battery or it will not charge if you disconnect the power cord. You will have to pull the battery again and then plug it back in and then plug in the power. I couldn't find any replacement batteries online and was going to pull another one apart to swap batteries.



    It has been a week and the playbook is working as it should.
    06-13-12 11:49 AM
  7. Morten's Avatar
    How to fix your flush or lowered blackberry playbook power button.
    The powerbutton is also covered by RIM's 1 year warranty, and they grant repair/replacements. We have done so with several of the "early" devices, and all of them has been repaired without any cost for us... the "repaired" units seems to have a completely new button-module...

    just saying for those who don't want to open, and who still are within that first 1 year...
    Last edited by Lindstrom; 06-13-12 at 01:17 PM.
    06-13-12 01:14 PM
  8. mkelley65's Avatar
    I haven't touched that power button since I unboxed the Playbooks. lol
    jamesharmeling likes this.
    06-13-12 01:41 PM
  9. ptpete's Avatar
    Cool,

    Someone should post Playbook teardown videos/ pics.

    I love the solid feel of my PB. Wouldn't want to wreck it by opening it up. Does it close up tightly after mucking around inside?

    Also, do you think the battery could be replaced? (Is it accessible? Is it soldered in?)

    Thanks,
    06-13-12 02:44 PM
  10. Chaddface's Avatar
    Cool,

    Someone should post Playbook teardown videos/ pics.

    I love the solid feel of my PB. Wouldn't want to wreck it by opening it up. Does it close up tightly after mucking around inside?

    Also, do you think the battery could be replaced? (Is it accessible? Is it soldered in?)

    Thanks,


    I have opened mine a few times and the back is still tight. The batteries are not soldered and definitely replaceable assuming you could find new ones.
    06-13-12 03:00 PM
  11. adrenaline_x's Avatar
    The powerbutton is also covered by RIM's 1 year warranty, and they grant repair/replacements. We have done so with several of the "early" devices, and all of them has been repaired without any cost for us... the "repaired" units seems to have a completely new button-module...

    just saying for those who don't want to open, and who still are within that first 1 year...
    Agreed, This one was out of warranty (launch day purchase) and as i mentioned it was dead.

    I did have my playbook (launch day) replaced after wifi issues and the replacement came with a raised power button.
    06-13-12 03:15 PM
  12. FSeverino's Avatar
    This is a cool fix, but most people I know have the convertible case... and that fixes the problem without really needing to do anything.

    The convertible case has a little nub on the power button slot the pushes the button down further then your finger would. I have a PB with this problem but with the case I have never had any problem at all.
    06-13-12 04:01 PM
  13. Stewartj1's Avatar
    Great share adreneline_x!

    I love it when people focus on solutions.
    06-13-12 04:11 PM
  14. wvh3's Avatar
    Finally got frustrated enough with this issue I looked for a solution, and found this...
    Thank you so much adrenaline_x. And, I thought I'd include some helpful advice for others following along behind...



    Here you see the closeup of the Power Button inside the Playbook

    The "Slot" into which you need to insert the post-it (or static bag piece) is on the device itself, under the power button, and it's between the button green circuit board material and a plastic piece. I cut a strip of post-it to about 4mm in width, then folded it at about 8mm upon itself several times (I ended up folding 3 times, which means 4 thicknesses of paper) and it is possible to "over stuff" the slot, which resulted for me in the Power button being triggered just by holding the case along the edges. 4 thicknesses seemed to work perfectly though.



    I ended up leaving the extra strip in place, partly because I figured it'd be easier to fold another width that way if I hadn't boosted it enough, but also so I could remove it easily if I needed to. (unlike the first time I over stuffed it, when I had to get tweezers to remove the piece)



    Again, all credit to adrenaline_x for the idea, I just thought I'd add on
    Ninjatogo likes this.
    08-05-12 02:32 AM
LINK TO POST COPIED TO CLIPBOARD