there is a short story I have to tell and then I also ask for help. I’m happy with my Fairphone 2 for three years now. Actually, I don’t like phones so much. I just want them to work and I’m ready to pay a little more for a working, long lasting and sustain device. I’m running Fairphone Open on it and it took me some time to get the phone configured and my backup strategy working.
The fist problem occurred after a year, when the sd-card slot started to malfunction from time to time. I could send it in to Fairphone - ok, but what do I do without my phone? So I bought a second FP2 (my… sparephone) and copied one device to another using the TWRP NAND backup howeveritscalled plus a little script that copies my personal data.
So far so good, I got my phone back after a few weeks.
So… well… recently the microphone of one phone begin malfunctioning. The black plastic frame was broken every corner and so I switched to my sparephone. A few weeks later, the battery gets loaded only to 35 %. I have three batteries in total and change them from time to time to wear them equally, but now they all behave strange. Sometimes I can count from 15 % to “Power off” in seconds. Sometimes it doesn’t load the phone when under 20 %, as long it’s running. Yesterday, the display freezed multiple times so I had to remove the battery. Sometimes the camera only shows a black screen, when I want to make a photo…
I like my phone. And I like my setup. And I just wish that everything could stay like this, but these phones seem to die after a few years like any other. What can I do? Time went so short the last years with job and family and housebuilding. I thought of buying a refurbished FP3. Can I send the phones in to somewhere to repair? Should I give it a try to format the whole phone and reinstall Fairphone Open from scratch? I’d like to keep this sustain. I have two Fairphone 2s. Actually, I have to stick to them the double time of an average user. I’m somehow cornered by this, since I can’t be a turd throwing my phone in the bin and buying an iphone.
Just to make sure: You know you can replace the case? (it consists of two parts, the coloured main part and the black rim)
(BTW, the case accounts for less than 1% of the CO2 footprint of the FP2)
Again, to make sure: You know it is strongly recommended to keep (whenever possible) the battery charge between 30% and 70%? The battery lifetime expectancy suffers from letting it run all dry.
If the FP2 is under heavy load (i.e. heating up from its tasks), it might refuse to charge in order to avoid overheating (charging adds more heat).
HI Biomüll
ich habe ein noch sehr gut aussehendes und (selten aber manchmal) funktionierendes fp2 abzugeben.
Das Core-Modul hat wohl einen Schaden, das lohnt sich nicht mehr für mich. Das fp2 ist auf Werkseinstellungen zurückgesetzt. Kamera, Mikro, Display etc ist alles ok.
Beste Grüße
Hanno
Thanks for your advices. I’ll disassemble the phone and will try to clean it. If this solves errors like sudden reboots (did I mention that?), display freezes or the camera issue, I’ll give it another try and buy a new battery.
Danke Hanno für dein Angebot; aber was soll ich mit einem dritten kaputten Telefon?
Because my Fairphone 2 also become very slow and quickly uncharging I have dismantle my Fairphone 2 one week ago.
I found that 2 pins in the microphone module didn’t make enough contact.
So I used a spacer and very very gently pulled the pins a tiny bit higher. So that there was more contact with the back of the display.
I brushed the back of the display with a small copper brush.
Finally I cleaned all the contacts, pins with a cotton swab dipped in alcohol Ketonatus 96% or isopropyl alcohol.
And finally I did a kickstart (the second method) of the battery to reset the software of the battery.
I haven’t had 1 reboot over a week, which before happened at least one a day. Also the performance is much better and the battery lasts longer.
–
Da mein Fairphone 2 auch sehr langsam wird und sich schnell entlädt, habe ich mein Fairphone 2 vor einer Woche zerlegt.
Ich habe festgestellt, dass 2 Pins im Mikrofonmodul nicht genug Kontakt hatten.
Also habe ich einen Abstandshalter (antistatischer Spatel) benutzt und die Stifte ganz vorsichtig ein bisschen höher gezogen. So hatte ich mehr Kontakt mit der Rückseite des Displays.
Ich bürstete die Rückseite des Displays mit einer kleinen Kupferbürste.
Schließlich reinigte ich alle Kontakte und Stifte mit einem in Alkohol Ketonatus 96% or isopropyl alcohol getauchten Wattestäbchen.
Und zum Schluss habe ich einen Kickstart - leider auf Englisch (die zweite Methode) der Batterie durchgeführt, um die Software der Batterie zurückzusetzen.
Ich habe nicht 1 Neustart über eine Woche, die vor passiert mindestens ein pro Tag. Auch die Leistung ist viel besser und die Batterie hält länger.
I don’t know how often you swap them but it is thought to mix up the measurements of the battery. So after the kickstart suggested by Lidwien, you better stick to one battery for a longer period, I’d say.
A restart can also be forced by pressing the powerbutton for 10 seconds or so.
And in case reboots occur after the freezing of the screen: briefly push the power button when an app freezes, turning the screen off, then on again after a few seconds – may prevent a reboot.
Just small tips.
Perhaps you should try a factory reset (which I myself keep postponing but you seem to have a proper back-up method), or even installation from scratch.
Anyway, I hope you manage to keep those FP2s running!
[Mine just rebooted – miraculously, the message draft was still there]
I’ve read this a few times now already. In the rare cases when my phone freezes, pushing the power button doesn’t do anything. It just keeps freezing and then comes to the inevitable restart. Seems like there are different kinds of freezes.
Hello everybody. Thanks for all your hints and advices. Today i performed a complete disassembly of the device including this metal sheet and the antenna and cleaned everything with isopropyl alcohol and blow some contactspray in sim and sdcard slots. Now everything looks fine and work well. Maybe I can also try the battery kickstart today over night. I’ll report my future experiences with further issues. Best regards!
Ok - from 66 % to 0 % in about half an hour. Tried to update all my openstreet maps, that are about 7 GB. I didn’t make it. So it’s time for the “kick”.
So today I read, that my FP2 I recently dissembled, cleaned and reassembled and bought a new battery is from the 1st of March Cue the music a f***ing paperweight!?
A lot of Fairphone 2 users are running LineageOS or /e/OS or other OSes for a while already, so there’s a healthy user base having experience with this.
I use e/os/, much better than fairphone os. So it is the opportunity for you to improve even more your FP2 than what ypu thought first when repairing it
And remember : FP2 = patience to learn autonomy. Freedom is a fight !
As much as I support this idea I currently have the impression that more and more things of my daily life want me to have a “standard” phone with Google services and all that stuff, may it be for banking or for using all the shiny MS services that my employer requires. I know that for some of these apps there are good alternatives or they work in the alternative OSes, however some of them refuse to do so, I had to learn. Love it, change it or leave it, difficult decision…
