Following a fall in water, my FP4 power button seems to be triggered randomly and repeatedly.
Sometimes the problem won’t appear for half an hour. But when it appears, it comes every second. Making the phone unusable.
Most of the time the phone seems to be stuck in a boot loop. When it manages to boot, the screen asking me if I want to power off or reboot, is being shown every second frequently. Often, after less than a minute, the screen goes black and the phone is back in a boot loop.
It is unclear to me if the phone restarting is due to the power button being detected as pressed continuously or if it is another problem.
The fall in water was shallow and quick (in a sink), but because of the IP rating of the Fairphone, I did not take it seriously and did not remove the battery/power off the phone. When it started misbehaving a couple of hours later, I opened it and found some water inside. This is probably due to a bump in the corner of the phone due to an old fall.
I have disassembled the phone, following ifixit tutorials, but found no visible damage or corrosion.
Can anybody suggest a way to improve the situation (other than buying a new phone :/) ?
Is there a software way to disable/workaround the power button ?
Can it be fixed ? Is Fairphone selling the spare part I would need ?
Probably irrelevant info about my phone:
version 256 GB
runs calyx 4.9.0 (based on Android 13, and Fairphone FP4.SP25.B.058.20230318)
Hi Kask and welcome to the community and the forum
Hard luck. See #waterdamage . In all cases of water ingress, the phone needs to be dismantled. Clean the contacts with isopropyl alcohol using a cotton bud and leave everything to dry at room temperature, if possible with some flow of air, for a couple of days. Lay the pieces out on a clean surface and support them on bits of matchstick just to improve air circulation and/or turn over from time to time.
It sounds to me as though the power button requires special attention, though these boot-loops may in part, be due to a poor contact elsewhere as well. I’m not aware of any way to disable the power button, though there are means of reducing its use, such as the KinScreen app.
While water ingress will presumably have voided the warranty (only Fairphone official support can advise on that, see #contactsupport ), that doesn’t preclude sending the device in for repair, or even taking it to a local repair shop of good repute.
Thanks for your help and kind words in such an unpleasant time.
I will try to dismantle again and clean it with alcohol.
My warranty is indeed void, in addition to the water damage, there is a scratch on the case, and the calyx OS rom that I can´t flash away (due to the power button issue).
But it is still good to read that Fairphone provides Out of warranty (paid) repairs. Thanks for letting me know. I will probably contact them if cleaning fails.
I ended up buying another fairphone 4 (the “cheaper” version) and swapping the cases. Not the cheapest option, nor the most ecological one, I know…
For the record, this worked surprisingly well, and allowed me to keep the motherboard with more RAM, and avoid the need to transfer backups to the new motherboard.
