Display requiring disassembly every now and then

Every now and then, my display just stays black (including the LED). Disassembling and re-assembling it always helped so far. This is quite annoying and makes the phone quite unreliable.
What’s your advice to make the display connection more reliable?
Obviously I do not always have a screwdriver with me, but need to have my phone usable.

Welcome to the community forum.

What doesn’t “fit the picture” here and makes advice tricky is that your LED is also affected. Everything else you write suggests a contact issue between display and core module, but the LED is on the core module and just shines through a little window in the display.

Anyway, to not hold back advice even though the LED problem doesn’t fit in: Short of a full assembly, you might want to first just have a look at the seam between display and core module on the slim sides of the phone. If you spot gaps there, it might suffice to just gently press them together until you hear the plastic clamps (that hold together display and core module in addition to the screws) clicking into place again.

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I have this problem too and it seems quite a common fault with FairPhones, the display contacts just aren’t up to the job and never have been in any generation of the phone. I’ve had my phone - FP3+ - about 8 months and so far I’ve sent it back to be repaired once and repaired it twice myself by taking the screen off and cleaning the contacts. Other threads on this topic are:

https://forum.fairphone.com/t/coloured-pixels-screen/81908

https://forum.fairphone.com/t/rainbow-pixelised-screen/55995

https://forum.fairphone.com/t/fp3-display-freezes-display-noise-issue/55277

There are probably more, this really is a major flaw in the design.

My phone is showing the same fault again so I’m coming up to my 4th dismantling in less than a year. This is not good. Has anyone come up with a fix for this problem that lasts longer than 2 months? I’m also aware that the display retention screws go into plastic, so will wear out, I expect the fault will become unfixable after a few more goes round because the screws won’t hold any more.

I have not dismantled mine since 4 month or more and when I did it was not due to any contact problems and for fun…for sure modularity has disadvantages as well, as things can loosen easier, however I dont think thats something that is in general happening that often as you describe it, so there might be bigger problems with your phone

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I’ve had my FP3+ for 21 months and never had to dismantle
I’ve inherited my daughters FP3+ after she had dropped it down the toilet some 16 months ago. It was dismantled to dry and since there has been no problem.

There are other threads that have been created by users with a similar problem, you note three such, and there may be multiple users in each thread that have used it. Even if there were ten to each thread some 30 cases out of 200,000 sold doesn’t equate to ‘aren’t fit for the job’, Even if that was 200 that’s 0.1% etc.

However my use is very sedentary and if I was jogger or used it in a more volatile environment I may have experienced that.

All the best

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While I agree, I also think this is a kind of “You’re holding it wrong.” assuming most users with the issue don’t do anything really unusual.

Without a recognisable way of finding out what’s triggering the issue for some while others didn’t have this trouble so far (me included with a Fairphone 2 and a Fairphone 3), it leaves a bit of a bitter taste pointing back to affected users, even if making a sound argument.

(Edit: I’m not criticising you, I’m just describing why I started a post along the very same line before yours, but in the end didn’t finish it.)

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Yes I agree and have replaced the last paragraph :blush:

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