Phone's power button and charging port broken.. help!

[Hunter Evans]

Recently my Nexus S's charging port stopped charging all together, this was a small issue so I went and bought an external battery charger. But today, the power button stopped working, both batteries I have are fully charged. How can I turn my phone back on?

 

[Anas Kadri]

Hey,

I just broke my power button and charging port just last night and well being a freak I stayed up til 5am tweaking around with the hardware of the phone. (I know I'm a freak)

You will have to tamper with the hardware and there is some software work you can do that can help.

The power button

For me it wasn't water damage if it is. you will have to replace the power flex for $8 I suggest you go through Amazon not Ebay.. but for me it was a simple conductivity issue so I peeled off the white adhesive holding the metal piece that presses on the circuit to signal to the phone to turn on and well I used scotch tape to put it back on at the right spot. By using an exacto knife I managed to fashion out a piece of small tape to hold the metal piece onto the flex. I cut out a box in the middle thinking it is important for the plastic button to touch the actual metal piece I don't know if that's a must do but it worked for me... Or again if the flex is water damaged you're gonna need to replace the entire thing. You could try cleaning out the burnt residue and hope the circuit isn't cut and it still could send out a signal to the phone.. That's probably a long shot.

Charging Port:

Water damaged.. So I opened it up and cleaned out the burnt stuff carved out into it to make sure some sort of conductivity is going on and nothing is getting in the way to cause more burning to happen.. (I warned you.. I'm a freak) closed everything back up and gave it a shot and it worked it managed to power the device.. but when I tried to connect it to the computer it started to heat up again so I pulled it out right away.. I managed to boot up the device by putting it on the charger taking out the battery and putting it back in. but I had no way to get my files on the computer I installed Airdroid on the phone you can move files through your wifi network it proved to be very effective I moved around 5gb worth of Data... I just downloaded all the files as a Zip file and went to sleep while it's doing so.. When I woke up it was all done and I had a fully charged phone for the day but no way to turn it on other than pressing really hard on the power button in a specific way.. and has a port that might burn down my house any second.. so I made my way out to the my local cell parts store and got myself a new charge port I found one on Amazon for also around $7 I went to the office took the phone apart replaced the port and it is working like a charm. Unfortunately the local store didn't have the power flex button I was looking for so I'm stuck with the broken one. So I decided to root my phone and use an app to turn on my phone through volume buttons Still didn't find a very reliable app yet..

Helpful Tips that might help out:

- When plugging in the charger try pressing it down (backwards). This pushes the metal pieces deeper up into where they are supposed to be touching to charge the phone.

- Don't be shy in pressing really hard on the power button nothing will happen to the phone or the flex the flex is resting on a sturdy frame and nothing important on the inside and the flex itself is nothing but a metal circuit connected to the motherboard.. I mean really friggin hard! GIve it all u got I use my nail till it started hurting than I started using an edge of a pen or something plastic don't use metal it will put a dent on your button. Sometimes it's not about how hard you press on it just the way you press or the direction..

- Don't panic about opening the Galaxy Nexus it is by far the easiest phone to take apart that I've ever come across I can take this thing apart in less than 10 mins blind folded (probably not )

- To boot up the phone without the power button working you can plug in your phone to charge till you get that white battery on your screen. take out the battery and put it back in and it should boot up. It never worked for me but it seems to work for everyone else.

- Be very careful with your charge port if you manage to tweak around with your broken charge port and get it to work. don't leave your phone charging unattended that thing will catch fire. I was cleaning out the Charge port with a metal piece while the battery was in and i noticed little sparks coming out and the frame of the charge port started heating up. Meaning if the part that is connected to the batter touches the metal frame that holds the micro USB there is a good chance your phone might catch fire. So it isn't just a fire hazard while it's on the charger.

I suggest to change the sleep settings make them 2 mins instead of one and to put your phone on daydream mode while charging. This way all you have to do is touch the screen to turn it on while the phone is on the charge. This feature saves a lot of hassle at night it's amazing it dims out the screen so at night you can see the time without having to go through any trouble of turning on the screen and blinding yourself.

Also along side with the volume rocker you might want to download another app for taking screenshots.. It's Impossible to take screenshots with my power button..

Long post but hey I'm just passing on what I learned in the past two days. I ordered a power button flex it's on it's way..

If you're not as big of a freak like me you'd just order the port and the flex wait till they come replace both and turn a useless piece of plastic into a fully functioning phone for around $15.. Or you could take it to a shop where you multiply that price tag by 10 or more.. honestly all you need is a small Phillips screw driver and long nails or a plastic piece to pry the screen off the case the rest is a walk in the park..

First time I took my phone apart I did it in around an hour full process.. Now I do it when I feel some dust got in there and I wanna clean it up after hitting up camping or doing some heavy sports..

Cheers let me know how it goes.

 

[Anas Kadri]

I just noticed you have the Nexus S not the Galaxy Nexus but really they're pretty much exactly the same... The Nexus S might be different to open up..