FP3 Display freezes! Display noise issue

[pixelphone]

Yesterday, my Fairphone 3 with /e/ OS installed on it fell down and showed the same colourful noise image. I was unable to fix this by taking out the battery, which is why I followed the advice of multiple people here to take the screen out and clean the golden contact pins with alcohol.

After putting the screen back in, it worked fine again!

Also, I agree 100% with this theory:

@corvuscorax

Unlike most other phones on the market, Fairphones are meant to be disassembled easily. As this, contacts between components are “less solid” than in more integrated phones - where components are hard soldered together or using tight connectors.

In FP3 the motherboard is connected to the screen through a number of metal pads unto which springs press the counter-contacts. This, by design, is a setup that is vulnerable to having occasionally bad connections.

Over time the contacts will form a thin residue layer from dust that got into the device, moisture (not actual water but just the moisture that is normally in the air) and oxides that formed on the metal or on metal-metal interface. Some of this might already be there from manufacturing.

If then anything disturbs the contacts - for example the phone falling down, but just vibrations (getting a call), changes in temperature, or just normal handling, the contacts shift ever so slightly - from the spot where they had always been to a section of the pad that doesn’t conduct as well anymore.

I don’t know how long the fix will last but I’m just happy that it works for now and that this happened on a Fairphone, since any other phone could most likely not have been repaired (at least that easily).