End of the road for my PlayBook? Touch screen is unresponsive.
FIXED - see this post.
After serving me for about a year and a half, my PlayBook seems to have finally given up the ghost. The device in question is the PlayBook 4G LTE 32GB with the 1.5GHz CPU.
It's no suprise, I knew from the moment liquid entered the headphone jack, that probably set a ticking timebomb. I'm not sure the small amount of liquid entering the headphone jack is the sole cause of this, but it's possible.
About a couple of weeks ago, I stopped using my PlayBook. However, two weeks later, the battery is completely dead, and after charging, the device booted up, but the touchscreen would not respond to any taps, swipes, gestures etc., rendering it useless. It's stuck on a "Enter email account password" screen which I obviously can't get rid of. It hasn't been dropped (that I know of) or anything...
The volume � buttons do bring up the speaker volume bar, and the power button does bring up the power options menu, but obviously, I can't click on anything.
I've tried hard resetting the device which didn't work because after it rebooted, I ended up on the same screen, and the touchscreen still wasn't working.
I also tried a complete OS reload using BlackBerry Link which also didn't work because the touchscreen still isn't working, and now I'm stuck on the language select screen.
Ugh, seems there's a lot of similar threads around these forums, but they're all dead-end threads. Rather worrying that this must be a common issue.
Is it time to toss it (I don't want to do this because the speakers in the PlayBook were bangin') and pick up a Microsoft Surface Pro or iPad on the cheap? Could I repair it, and if so, is it difficult to replace the digitizer assembly?
Or is there anything else that I can try as a last hope of resuscitating my PlayBook?
4 Attachment(s)
Cracking open my PlayBook...
Well guys, over the weekend, I finally gained enough courage to crack open my PlayBook, in order to see if I could find out why the touchscreen wasn't functioning.
So out came the iPhone repair kit...
Getting the back off was a very difficult task, but when I finally got it off, the gorgeous guts of my PlayBook were exposed.
But unfortunately, I had to immediately stop what I was doing because of this...
Attachment 385181
Haha, as if that was going to stop me!
With a little help from iFixIt, I was able to quickly identify which flex cable was running to the digitizer panel...
Attachment 385184
... only to find that it has somehow become disconnected! It all makes sense now, no suprise that the touchscreen wasn't working! How on earth does that become disconnected overnight anyway? Was it poorly connected at the factory, and had only become looser over time?
Attachment 385185
I plugged that back in, it didn't take very much force which makes me concerned about whether this will happen again, then closed the back of the PlayBook up.
And behold, my PlayBook is working again! :D :D :D
I'm so proud of actually being able to repair this myself, because a shop would have probably charged around �60 just to plug a cable in... :mad:
A little annoyed that I chipped the frame when I was attempting to get the back cover off! :eek:
Attachment 385186
So, all is well and my PlayBook is now back in use. Restoring the backup took ages, but the wait was worth it, playing music on the built-in speakers is amazing. Also, suprisingly, the PlayBook was able to connect to our uber-secure WPA2-Enterprise Wi-Fi without any problems, whereas iPhone/iPad/iPod have had a few issues with this.
Originally Posted by
Rustybronco If you decide you don't want to, or it can't be fixed, let me know what you would like to have for what's left of it.
Sorry, but not this time! :cool:
This topic was titled "End of the road...", but it is now a whole new journey!