Phone became unresponsive, then died, screaming in rage, followed by a blinking red light

[sonicresidue]

My N4 is stock, and recently received the 5.1 update. Ever since Android 5.0 came out, my phone has, at least once or twice a week, locked up, or exhibited strange behavior, which generally resulted in it rebooting itself, and would then be fine for several days. Not sure what has caused this, and i hoped the 5.1 update would fix it, but it has not.

This afternoon, I was in the car, put the phone on the charger, with about 60% battery left. Then a text message came in and the phone froze again, then the screen turned white, and started emitting a LOUD high pitched whine, almost like the phone was screaming, and shut off However, it did not reboot, and would not turn on with any combination of buttons.

When it is on the car charger or the original charger and cord, if I hold the power down, I get a blinking red light. Off the charger, I get nothing. . Plug it in to my computer, and the computer makes the sound it always does when something is plugged in to or out of the USB port. This time, solid red light. Pull the plug, and the light goes off. Still unresponsive.

I followed the instructions in this thread: http://forums.androidcentral.com/google-nexus-4/312151-solved-nexus-4-won-t-turn-charge.html and after three attempts nothing has happened.

From what I can tell, this is what happens when the battery is severely depleted, but it showed a healthy charge. But, I will leave it plugged in and see what happens.

The only issue I can think of - When I had an old iPhone 3g, if I put it on and off the charger several times to charge partially during the day, it would sometimes show a full charge even though it was being depleted and die. I wonder if it's the same issue here?

 

[sonicresidue]

Well, I think Im screwed. I was going to disconnect and reconnect the battery as other posts have suggested. But, even though I have the right size torx driver, one of the screwheads stripped out somehow.

Any ideas on how to get it out?

 

[CoMoNexus]

Any ideas on how to get it out?

Try Crazy Gluing the driver into the wallowed-out hole. Just make sure not to put in so much glue that it overflows the hole. That might give you enough grip to start backing the screw out before the glue fails. When you're done, nail polish remover and a toothpick or pin should remove the glue from the driver tip.

Good luck.

 

[sonicresidue]

Thanks! Someone else suggested I do the same, will try that, and hopefully pulling the battery will work. If not, I may try replacing the battery. Hopefully I can salvage this phone, as it's been good for the last 2 1/2 years.

Since I use my phone for work constantly, I bought an HTC One M9 today. A lot of money, but it's also a tax-write off I really wanted the Nexus 6, but it was just too big for me. Would love to keep the N4 as a backup device.

 

[sonicresidue]

The glue trick did not work. I tried very very gently drilling the screw out but did not want to get too aggressive. When I tried removing the back it ended up cracking. I did get it open without damaging anything else though and disconnected and reconnected the battery but no luck. Whatever happened I think it is permanently dead. Which really sucks because I really love this phone.