I recently got a Fairphone 2 from a friend who said it’s broken and he cannot make it work again. When I got it it wouldn’t turn on. Since he suspected the battery was broken I tried it with another friends’ Fairphone 2 battery. The phone turned on, but was not able to load more than the boot screen.
At home I charged the phone completely. After a while it came to life and showed the charging screen. When the LED was green I tried to turn it on and came into the login screen. Since I didn’t have more time that day I turned it off and set it aside and came back three days later.
At this time the battery was completely empty again. As soon as I tried to charge the phone, it would enter a boot loop - vibrating, showing the boot screen, turning off, immediately starting over. This was the same even after removing the cover and the battery.
I suspect the power switch is broken. I found this instructions to swap it with the camera switch but wasn’t able to follow them: Slim Case - Reboots and Button-Issues
I think I don’t have a slim cover, but the old one. Can I still swap the buttons?
I also tried to follow this guide: ✏ A little Guide to... Random Reboots
However, since I can’t even reach recovery or anything else, I could not follow any of the advices.
I contacted the support but they wouldn’t help me in troubleshooting and finding out if the power button was the culprit, but instead suggested sending the phone in and replacing the core module.
Do you have any tips in finding out if the problem is the button or the module and how to change in button in that case? Please let me know if you need additional information. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
As long as you make sure that the battery stays in place, you can just try to boot the FP2 with the case taken off. Indeed, the buttons cannot be interchanged in the old “regular case”, but the issue you might have read about (blocked power button) only affected a batch of the newer “slim cases”. So most likely your reboots are not about the power button, but trying as described cannot hurt.
If I were you and there was a Fairphone Angel nearby, that’s whom I would contact. Have a look at the map or the list of them here:
A Fairphone Angel can test (together with you) if any of your FP2’s modules do not work, e.g. the bottom module which includes the USB (charging + data) port.
The phone enters the boot loop with and without cover, with and without battery. The tip about the Fairphone Angel is good, I will try to contact them!
If anybody else has a good tip how to find out where the problem comes from feel free to post as well
The problem got solved with the help of the friendly Fairphone angels from Hannover. They suspected it was just the battery, and indeed, with a working battery the phone works just fine. Thanks for all the help!
