here the post of the user who replaced the faulty chip
and ifixit should have details which one it is in pictures (step 10)
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Indeed! Most of @emmanuel81 's questions should be answered in that post regarding solder, flux and temperature.
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Thanks for your answers, yvmuell and mde, I found indeed nearly evrything in the ifixit teardown.
What I did not find is, on the multipin side of the motherboard, how to remove the metal plate on the right, which covers the supposed faulty circuits I want to heat / reflow.
Should I just āunclipā them by aplying force with a mediator or small lever, or is it glued so that I should heat the plate to remove it ?
One user asked the question in a comment to step 9 in the ifixit teardown page, but got no answer.
I am a bit over cautious here, but I really want to take every precaution so that maybe I can use the phone again.
Emmanuel
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Well, it did not work, neither with the hot air nor in the oven, it is still dead.
I still think Fairphone should make an effort on this subject.
I acknowledge the good work Fairphone does on the ethical side to source materials and components, but on the long term solidity, there is still work to be done.
I have yet to decide what to do:
- spend 300 EUR to repair it,
- spend 500 on a Fairphone 4
- spend 700 on a Fairphone 5
Right now, I use a nine year old Samsung I was given to temporarily replace my broken FP3, a bit slow and lacking battery life but it still works.
I might be better off buying a 200 EUR reconditionned Samsung S20 ā¦
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Hello, very sorry to hear about your phone.
Itās not proper consolation but wanted to mention the current offer for FP3 owners, you can get 40 euros discount for recycling and I believe also 20% discount, please check Fairphone Promotions and Offers - Fairphone, as I am typing from the phone and might get the details off.
Edit. You could also try selling some parts via the forum.
I wouldnāt spend money in a FP3, except if there are 2 years of warranty.
Did you get the 20% off voucher via email? If not, ask the support if there is something possible if you buy a FP4 or FP5.
Same here. I tried Reflow. After First time, it went at least on, but I was caught in a Boot loop with the remark, that my system is corrupted, for that no system boot possibleā¦ Tried reflowing again, that killed the mainboard after all. Took it to a Repairshop, he told me , its dead for good.
I wont buy a new mainboard for appr. 240 ā¬. I will buy a Fairphone 4 and be happy to have 5 Years of Warranty.
In the case to get 2 years warranty on the mainbvoard i would think about it, because in the end, i am totally happy with the performance of fairphone 3.
Nokia G22 or G45 for example have the same characteristics that you quoted and its very cheap !
obviously different specifications and no mention of fair trade
On my recommendation and not long are the model was first released, a friend ( Shep ) bought himself a Fairphone 3. Heās not on this Forum. First problem he encountered was the power button stopped working. It was still within the warranty, but on enquiring about purchasing a new module he was told the only way to repair it was to send the whole phone to the Cordon repair centre in France. The power button being a non user replaceable part.
Seeing as the FP3 is prone to moisture and Cordon use water ingress as a reason to invalidate warranties, I didnāt try to persuade him otherwise when he chose to live with the problem. The fact Cordon charge for return postage if they decide the warranty terms have been breached I find quite appalling. I hope moisture ingress is less of an issue for the FP5 with its IP55 rating?
Anyway, on Friday Shep reported that his phone showed no signs of life (LED, buzzer, screen all blank / quiet). He tried his spare battery and charger to no avail. If anyone is keeping count of FP3 sudden deathās, please add this to your list.
As far as a replacement goes, heās bought himself a new Moto for less than Ā£100 with pretty similar specs to the FP3, though it has no notification LED. He stated that he likes the idea of Fairphone but feels a little cheated on the repairability and longevity front. He considered purchasing a FP5 until he saw the Ā£600 price tag.
I hope to meet up with Shep within the next couple of months, when I do, I will relieve him of his dead FP3 and fast roast itās mobo for 15? minutes at 220? degrees hoping all the solder blobs reconnect where they should. If the board is getting so hot it melts the solder to start with, I doubt the fix (should it work) be long term. I have noticed lately that my own FP3 can get very hot at times for no apparent reason.
Does anyone know if Fairphone (the company) have investigated / provided an official diagnosis on the spate of sudden deaths? The only phones Iāve read about failing in this way have been out of warranty so I would guess not.
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Just a brief recommendation that I have already made here and there before:
If you have a dead FP3 or FP3+, donāt hesitate to offer surviving parts in this forumās unofficial marketplace. I know it might not provide full solace for those affected, but parts like the camera module and also the rear module (not directly available otherwise and very easy to separate from the motherboard) often find demand, and the display module has at times been out of stock, too.
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If you scroll up to April, 16th you can answer the poll as a proxy for your friend:
Can I answer this twice? I had two FP3+ die before the two years were up.
As far as a replacement goes, heās bought himself a new Moto for less than Ā£100 with pretty similar specs to the FP3, though it has no notification LED. He stated that he likes the idea of Fairphone but feels a little cheated on the repairability and longevity front. He considered purchasing a FP5 until he saw the Ā£600 price tag.
Sometimes you can get the FP4 relatively cheap, and itās really quite nice, I picked one up for around ~300EUR. I canāt blame your friend for being disappointed/feeling cheated at the lack of repairability of a ārepairable phoneā though, that definitely leaves a bad impression. To me, thereās just no good climate and (relatively) thinker-friendly alternative though (other than maybe Motorola, theyāre pretty neat! The Pinephone is awesome too, but not quite ready for daily usage in some very āmodernā countries, sadly.)
Yes, multi choice is possible.
Yes, but I want to vote for the same option twice. I had two different devices experience sudden death, both of which were used for less than two years.
Thanks for all your replies.
@urs_lesse
Yes, I would offer parts up to others before consignment to landfill. The rear module houses the power button doesnāt it? That didnāt work on Sheps phone years before it committed Hari-kari
@Jens1
I saw the poll yesterday but didnāt fill it in. You reassured me it was okay to add for someone else, so I selected 1xFP3 alive>2 and 1x FP3 >2 dead. Hopefully I wonāt have to add my own FP3 to the list of corpses as there no way to do two of the same choice unless I ask someone without a FP3 to do it on my behalf.
@amiibo
Thanks for your FP4 suggestion. I see FP4 is on offer in the Fairphone shop for Ā£349 (Ā£150 off), though itās unlikely Shep will be looking for anything else this soon. Well unless he hates the Moto? Buying the second latest FP model does seem a bit risky longevity ways though. The FP4 was just over a year behind the FP3+ and some modules for FP3+ have already been discontinued. I know FP4 has a 5 year warranty and FP3 had 2, but sending phone to Cordon is really not an option Iād like to take if replaceable modules are discontinued. Despite saying that, had the FP4 met my specs (it doesnāt), Iād maybe have taken the chance at that reduced price.
Oh, I had no idea Motorola were a bit better than the others climate ways. I will look them up. Thanks.
A bit off topic :
When my FP3 becomes unusable, Iāll be stuck as the FP3(-+) is the last model that meets my requirements, likes and wants. The phone MUST be dual SIM with a dedicated SD card slot. Neither of my MVNOs support eSIM yet. (The UK is likely far behind the rest of Europe!) I would begrudge paying more than Ā£150 for a phone without a 3.5mm headphone jack. Iād also like notification LED or on-screen equivalent. With OLED it should be possible. I donāt know if the FP5 offers an on screen notification out of the box or not. The FP6 really ought to add that if not.
Fairphone seems to have moved away from a being social movement to a company attracting international investment. I read (what seems like ages ago) Invest-NL bought out the crowd funders and some other investors? I wonder what this means for the future? Hope the investment consortiums involved are the good guys (and gals) not the typical asset strippers you see here in the UK.
Reason for edit : prefixed user with @
Oh yes, I have no idea.
Off-topic: Written in this way, users you didnāt directly reply to will not get notified that you have mentioned them, and you will rely on chance or on them diligently reading every post in this topic to see this.
This is the way: @urs_lesse
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Oh, Iām not sure Motorala is better climate-wise, theyāre just very hackable 
(as in, modifiable, not insecure).
The lack of a headphone jack really is a slap in the face for consumers, but can be somewhat remedied by having a small bluetooth DAC itās worked fine for me both when my laptopās headphone jack port broke, but also now with the FP4.
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My FP3+ died suddenly yesterday.
The phone is less than three years old, it was shipped to me in September 2021.
I will contact support today but after reading the cases in this thread I donāt have high expectations.