Dropped Phone on Pavement, No Longer Registers Charge

[Doctor_Fruitbat]

Hi all. So, a couple of days ago I dropped my Acer Liquid Express on the pavement, and the impact caused it to shut off, and stay off.

If I plug it into a charger (wall or PC) the screen lights up and it shows itself to be charging as usual, so there's still some sort of life in it, but it won't register a charge in the battery (it was on at least 50% when I dropped it). It also won't respond to any button presses, meaning I can't turn it on, perform a hard reset or access it from PC. I've tried the usual tricks, taking out the battery and sim card, holding the power button for x amount of time, and I'm currently leaving it on to charge for a couple of days to see if it wakes up.

My question is, is my phone salvageable or would I be better off throwing in the towel and replacing it? Is it possible a replacement battery would kick it back into life? It isn't completely dead, as it displays the charging animation when I plug it in, but I'm really not sure what can be done with it at the moment.

 

[Devinator]

I'd say bring it to a store for your carrier and see if they can figure anything out. If the charging screen comes up, that is a good sign, perhaps the power button just isn't working. But, I would think they'd have a better idea at a store what is going on. Do you have insurance?

 

[Doctor_Fruitbat]

Thanks for the reply - I don't have insurance, but I've bought a new battery to see if I can overcome the charging problem, since it seems pretty clear I'll need to replace it anyway - if that works I'll look into booting the thing somehow and let you all know how I get on. Worst comes to the worst I've found a sub-?100 phone that scored well and seems at least on par with my current phone, so if I can't repair this one I'll bite the bullet and get a replacement.

 

[Devinator]

Alright, cool. Good luck!!

 

[Rukbat]

Sounds to me as if the printed circuit board is cracked. That means a new phone, unless you can find a dealer who has the same phone, maybe with a destroyed screen, who is willing to do a parts swap for you.

As far as the battery is concerned, I doubt that it's bad, but it never hurts to have a spare battery. Swap them every month (or whenever you run one down to nothing) and you'll get better life.

 

[Doctor_Fruitbat]

Success! After a day of charging with a new battery, I tried hitting some more buttons and I've got it booted into recovery mode. The buttons clearly still work, so physically my phone appears to be fine.

I've hit another road block now, in that I can move between 'reboot system' and 'factory reset', but I can't seem to actually select either of them. Windows seemed to recognise the phone when I plugged it in to my PC and it installed the USB drivers (although I can't access the phone through Explorer) and I can get files on and off the sd card using my tablet, so I'm going to try a few guides and whatnot I've found about the web to see what I can do.

 

[Devinator]

Are you sure you are pressing the correct button to select the option? Can you select any other options, just not those two?

 

[Doctor_Fruitbat]

Nope, those are the only two, and while it quite happily lets me highlight either one with the volume buttons, no button or combination thereof will select it. I can't put it down to a busted power button either, as I couldn't enter recovery in the first place without it.

 

[Devinator]

Well, that's all I got then, lol. Maybe bring it in to a store and let them look at it.

 

[Doctor_Fruitbat]

All fixed - it seems the power button IS busted, so I've had to use ButtonRemapper to reassign the power button to the volume up button, but I managed to get into USB fastboot and found this software, which had it up and running in seconds.

I don't think the reassigned button works until the phone is on, so I still need to get the power button fixed, or or just try to not to turn it off.

 

[Devinator]

I knew it.

I don't feel like reading back, I know I asked about insurance, but, did you say your phone is out of warranty? If not, get it replaced. If it is, let me think about it some.

Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using Android Central Forums

 

[Doctor_Fruitbat]

I've rooted it and installed a custom rom, so I imagine my warranty is officially expired. I can't even return it to its original state, because the Acer E320 is one of those awkward devices where you can't find stock roms anywhere, and any pleas on forums such as these are met with either 'I dunno' or deafening silence. I probably should have thought of that before rooting, but hey ho!

I wonder if the power button has simply got 'stuck' rather than being broken, even though it clicks up and down - like I say, I got the phone into recovery, which requires the power button to be pressed, but if it was stuck down somehow, like something got knocked inside the phone, then that would explain why I can get into recovery and fastboot but not register individual power button presses.

 

[Devinator]

I wonder if the power button has simply got 'stuck' rather than being broken, even though it clicks up and down - like I say, I got the phone into recovery, which requires the power button to be pressed, but if it was stuck down somehow, like something got knocked inside the phone, then that would explain why I can get into recovery and fastboot but not register individual power button presses.

Yea, I mean, that has happened to me in the past. Twice actually. Had several buttons break on two different X2s. The buttons still physically pressed, but, they didn't do anything. One of them was definitely behaving like it was permanently stuck down as well.

 

[Cmarx]

Re: Dropped Phone on Pavement, the screen is black with a red line

Sounds to me as if the printed circuit board is cracked. That means a new phone, unless you can find a dealer who has the same phone, maybe with a destroyed screen, who is willing to do a parts swap for you.

As far as the battery is concerned, I doubt that it's bad, but it never hurts to have a spare battery. Swap them every month (or whenever you run one down to nothing) and you'll get better life.

.

This response is helpful but, it doesn't accurately describe the same thing on the screen, no indicqtion the battery is charging, no apps displayed and no sound. Now what?