Fairphone 3 sudden death or so

[ysaintlary]

Hi!
Last month, my FP3 stopped to work and shut down.
Tried to charge it, nothing happened (charging led didn’t light).
Simply bought a new battery. But when I tried it, nothing happened, the phone wouldn’t start.
I have been looking for a solution on Internet, Fairphone support and on this forum. It looks like a “sudden death” and a motherboard issue. Maybe the bottom module. I think the phone should have started with the new battery if it was the bottom module.
My main concern is I haven’t backup my data. And I really want to recover three years of pictures and videos stuck on this memory. So I am looking for a recommandation on how to achieve this. Anyone knows a reliable company in France I can send my phone to recover my data? Or someone freelance knows how to do that?
Thanks for your help!
Yves

[OldRoutard]

@ysaintlary

a motherboard issue

Likely, unfortunately, from what I’ve seen. Could be a component on the motherboard that’s come loose. You might try reflowing as described here:

Fairphone 3+, Dead in 3 years

Hey @Vange I can totally understand your frustration. The same happend to the motherboard of my FP3 two weeks ago. I already had an Idea why this happened (which I will elaborate on below) and tried to reflow the motherboard as explained here for the FP2 and tadaaa - after I put the motherboard in my oven at approx. 200°C for 10-15 min. it worked again But here comes the sad part of the story: A week later my beloved FP3 fell out of my pocket from ~10cm to the ground, and was …

but I’ve no idea of what happens to the data when you do that.
Maybe @HolosericaCaligo could tell us.

Otherwise look for a dexterous expert with a soldering iron.

[@yvmuell you might want to move this thread to here, or similar, leave that decision with you ]

[AndreasChris]

@OldRoutard

You might try reflowing as described here: (…) but I’ve no idea of what happens to the data when you do that.

If it works nothing should happen to the data. After all you don’t swap any of the hardware and make no changes to the software in the process. The idea of reflowing is basically fixing faulty tiny soldering connections that you cannot reach with a soldering iron. However, there is no guarantee that it does work and there’s always a chance to break further stuff in the process of attempting a reflow.

Of course if you get it working that way the first thing you should do is perform a backup. There’s a reasonably high chance that it’ll break again after some time.

[HolosericaCaligo]

@OldRoutard

but I’ve no idea of what happens to the data when you do that.
Maybe @HolosericaCaligo could tell us.

Yes, all my data was still there, everything worked as before - at least for a few days
But since I sync and backup all my data with my Nextcloud instance, I didn’t need to worry about losing any data anyway.

If you are trying to reflow the core module, it is very important not to move or otherwise jiggle the core module once the can has become liquid.
And don’t forget to put the code module in the oven with all the connections facing up.