Swapping motherboards to get my bluetooth working

[Android Central Question]

I have a samsung galaxy s4 and i am wondering if i swap the motherboard out for a new one will it break the phone or any important data be lost like contacts
I am currently using an sd card for my photos.

I am wanting to swap it out because my bluetooth and wifi dont work anymore. I try turning them both on but and they just stay blanked out and non responsive so i beleive it to be a hardware issue.

Any advice otherwise would be appreciated

 

[belodion]

I’m not a repairer, but I believe that everything on the phone will be lost if you replace the motherboard, so what is not backed up will be gone.
A competently-done replacement of the existing motherboard by a good new one will not break the phone. Whether it would fix your problems I don’t know. It would surely be worth trying a backup and factory reset first.

 

[Rukbat]

I have a samsung galaxy s4 and i am wondering if i swap the motherboard out for a new one will it break the phone or any important data be lost like contacts

You'll lose everything not on the SD card - contacts, apps, music - they're all on the motherboard.

Any advice otherwise would be appreciated

One word of advice. Unless you've had a lot of experience in repairing small electronic devices. don't try to do it yourself. It's cheaper, in the long run, to pay a repair shop like uBreakiFix (if you're in the US) to do it for you. If you do it wrong, you'll break something else. (I keep an old LG G3 that someone tried to fix - it's never going to work again unless I replace more parts than the phone originally sold for.)

 

[hallux]

Here's my take on this.

BACK UP EVERYTHING, including the stuff on the SD card. Too many times people have had their SD card encrypted and lost the data that was on the card after resetting their device. Why? Because the key to unlock the card is lost with the device reset.

Second - yes, the device will be effectively reset by swapping the board as the storage is soldered to the board. One thing to be cautious of here is if it's a used board there's the chance you'll get blocked by Factory Reset Protection - http://www.androidcentral.com/factory-reset-protection-what-you-need-know If so, the new board (and repaired phone) is useless.

As @belodion noted, since you'll effectively be resetting the device, you should try this first, after backing up everything including the SD card.

All this said, when you're done repairing the device you still have a 5 year-old phone that is soon to have apps no longer supporting the installed OS. How much is it going to save you to attempt to repair this phone (and possibly end up with an unusable device still) vs. buying a more recent device from the get-go and be able to keep it longer?

If you need additional help or have more questions or details to share, please join the site so you can reply in this thread. See this link for instructions on how to join Android Central.