I just removed my display and noticed that only 2 out of the 8 screws had Loctite (blue “glue” that prevents screws from coming lose) on them. Some of the screws were lose and even partially out. Probably due to vibrations (and the missing Loctite).
I suppose this has caused the pressure on the connector to decrease.
Has anyone of you observed something similar during disassembly?
I will for now not add extra padding on top of the display connector and just reassemble with Loctite on all screws. I’ll let you know about the result.
After tightening the screws, I cannot trigger ghost inputs anymore by mechanically stressing the phone (squeezing, twisting, knocking on the back) which previously always caused ghost inputs. Seems like this could have fixed the issue for me. We’ll see.
this solution also worked quite well for me. I tightened the screws and then everything was good. And that was a few months ago. Until today, no problems.
Hi everyone. I had ghost touches that began a couple of months after I bought the device and got gradually worse. Eventually I found this thread and contacted Fairphone support about the issue.
To be honest, it wasn’t a very impressive experience - they wouldn’t give me any information about the ghost touch problem or acknowledge that it was a significant issue. After making me jump through a few hoops, they offered to repair the phone at their service centre in France. They would only use UPS shipping, and they made me drive half an hour to drop it off at a UPS service point because they refused to pay for a pick-up. In general there wasn’t much goodwill on their side, considering they’d recently charged me nearly £600 for a defective phone.
Anyway, I spent ten days without a phone, but the good news is that I’ve had the phone back for several weeks now and the repair seems to have worked. The repair docket says that they replaced the display and installed a preventive software update.
So yes, going through the support process is time-consuming and inconvenient, but it does appear to have solved the problem. I’m mainly just a bit disappointed that Fairphone haven’t been more honest and transparent about the issue – but they’re a small company trying to do a good thing, and I’m inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt.
The customer service person I spoke to did say that they’re working to improve their repairs process, and to be fair, most of the delay was in the shipping time (I’m in the UK, which of course now means the phone has to get through customs). The actual repair centre completed the repair within 24 hours of receiving the phone.
For a phone where one of the main draws is the reparability, I think support should propose how you can fix the phone yourself. Either by tightening the screws or by swapping the screen if the former doesn’t work. Sending the phone in for repairs should be a last resort only.
I thought that. It would have been much cheaper and more environmentally friendly (not to mention vastly more convenient for everyone concerned) just to send me a new screen and let me fit it myself. It looks from the paperwork like there was a software fix too, but you’d have thought that could be done remotely.
It seems really inefficient, but I wondered if perhaps they wanted it sending to the repair centre so they could gather more information about the faulty device. Fair enough if so.
Thats how it was in the past for the FP2 and is no longer since the FP3…and to do that you must be sure what the root cause is else you will create a lot electronic “waste” and might run out of stock earlier then planned (as it happened with the FP2 Bottom Module).
I bought a new screen myself to fix the ghost touch issue but that did not help. the new screen also has ghost touches.
Then i sent in my FP4 for repair with the new screen and according to the invoice this screen was replaced. and i didn’t have ghost touches since. (4 weeks)
I contacted support to get my money back for first faulty screen. but support would not do that since the cool of period had passed.
Then i said that i would like to exchange my first faulty screen for a new one under warranty
That also was not possible according to support as the said, i quote: “this issue was related to the software and not the hardware”
They did however offer me a 50euro gift voucher, and advised me to sell the original screen or keep it as backup
I guess the ultimate test now is to place this original screen back in the FP4 and see if the issue stays away.
ps. i run custom ROM so i wonder what software has been updated ? must be a very low level driver
So I guess what they rather meant was: custom rom is the root cause… Are you sure they installed another screen, or did they just reflash FPOS tested it without issues and send it back, indicating software, however meant Custom ROM?
Normally you dont get help telling them you have a custom rom installed and you have to re-install FPOS and test before sending in…
No the Custom ROM is not the root cause. That would only be possible if everyone having this issue runs a Custom ROM. Also customer service told me that the Custom ROM was not the cause.
So it def cant be software else everyone would have the issue running FPOS, which is not the case…so either way the explanation provided does not at all sound reasonable to me with the information currently available.
Just remember that not all software has to sit on the main flash memory. There are probably lots of NOR or other low-level firmware storages on the board.
