Why does my LG G3 screen flicker and fades to darkness?

[lweeter]

Ok, so I tried it (well, my husband did it since he's the computer guy) and so far so good! For the hour+ before doing this I could not get the screen to light up at all.

You have to take the back cover off then unscrew the cover to the circuits, etc. Just to the left of the camera is a small square with brown-ish ribbon connector attached to it. My husband put the paper on the black square that is likely plugged in to the circuit board below it. He also put a piece of folded paper on the silver cover just below the camera, which seems to be where the on/off button would connect/touch.

This is what I received as a reply from bishopx26 via email but for some reason I don't see it here in the forum:

(There's a photo I can't post because I haven't posted enough)

in this photo its explained where is the camera connector.. its number 1.. u try make a the small folded paper to fit perfectly between there without blocking the autolaser.... i put some folded paper at pic number 2 to be sure lol..... the feedback its pretty impressive....it changed a lot the way how it works.. it used to flicker everytime i tried to work with my phone now i open every program without flickering.. just today it flickered a bit ...seems like when it gets pretty hot gives problems..but u wait few seconds and its back to normal.. i would suggest everyone this method.. maybe it doesnt solve completely the problem but it really recoveres it like 70%....anybody who tried this its welcome to tell me if u got anymore flickers.

Good luck. I'll update in a few days (or sooner if it stops working again).

Thanks for the tip!

 

[promosrus]

Just so you know, i did not unscrew anything. I just took the back battery cover off and folded a piece of paper enough so that when i put the cover back on it pushes down on the motherboard.

 

[migooow]

I just sent my phone to the service center earlier today. They said it needs to a mboard replacement for Php12000. HAHA. Good thing I haven't paid yet. I'll get my phone back and try the fix first. HEHEHEH

 

[Ryche]

Had a similar screen issue that ended up being a hardware problem and AT&T replaced the phone under warranty.

 

[bishopx26]

did they say what was extaly the problem ?

 

[bishopx26]

guys did anybody tried to replace the battery ? can somebody answer please

 

[Big_Rob_B]

in this photo its explained where is the camera connector.. its number 1.. u try make a the small folded paper to fit perfectly between there without blocking the autolaser.... i put some folded paper at pic number 2 to be sure lol..... the feedback its pretty impressive....it changed a lot the way how it works.. it used to flicker everytime i tried to work with my phone now i open every program without flickering.. just today it flickered a bit ...seems like when it gets pretty hot gives problems..but u wait few seconds and its back to normal.. i would suggest everyone this method.. maybe it doesnt solve completely the problem but it really recoveres it like 70%....anybody who tried this its welcome to tell me if u got anymore flickers.

I followed these instructions and after a few hours I haven't seen any problems. The top of the screen flickers a little but it never fades to black and it's not very noticeable, definitely an upgrade. I'll keep updated.

 

[USA0794]

Bishopx26 - I tried replacing batteries with backup factory ones that I had. It made no difference.

Like Promosrus, I did not unscrew anything. I just took the phone back cover off & placed a folded a piece of paper between the camera & IR sensor & made it thick enough so that when i put the cover back on it pushes down on the motherboard.
I have not had any flickering for 3 days since I did this fix.

 

[bishopx26]

Like Promosrus, I did not unscrew anything. I just took the phone back cover off & placed a folded a piece of paper between the camera & IR sensor & made it thick enough so that when i put the cover back on it pushes down on the motherboard.
I have not had any flickering for 3 days since I did this fix.

i have flicker only when i open snapchat and sometimes google too.... i dont know but that flicker hasnt gone completely..

 

[lweeter]

Like Promosrus, I did not unscrew anything. I just took the phone back cover off & placed a folded a piece of paper between the camera & IR sensor & made it thick enough so that when i put the cover back on it pushes down on the motherboard.
I have not had any flickering for 3 days since I did this fix.

In order to see what is seen in bishopx26's photo I had to unscrew a cover. It has helped but I still have issues intermittently. It is still an improvement.

 

[Christopher Brodale]

I was having the same issue out of the blue a day ago and I believe I figured out the root of the problem while playing around with the cover off - the battery-to-phone connection from the handset is going bad, becoming loose, or just not holding up against the battery leads sufficiently enough any more.

With the cover off, I was holding the phone in landscape mode while playing a game, hoping to have the screen go out again and then attempt to troubleshoot what was going when...nothing happened. When the slow death problem started yesterday, I couldn't go 5 minutes without it fading to black, but with the cover off and my hand against the battery, I played my game for 30+ minutes without issue, which was not normal.

So, all I did was cut out a piece of 3 x 5 card stock (thicker than paper) the size of the battery, put that over the battery itself, and then put the cover back on. Now, the cover barely snapped back into place, but I have had no issues since then. Which, after I thought about it, made sense since the death issue happened more frequently if I had the phone in a lay down stance or moved around a bit, both causing the battery to jiggle or angle enough from the power connection to stop sufficient juice from powering the hungry screen but still allowed all other things requiring less power to keep functioning.

Try it out - I'll come back if I have any issues but as of now rebooting, powering down, or just using the phone is normalized...thankfully.

 

[mng6885]

Okay, as kooky as this sounded, I folded a small thin piece of cardboard and placed it in the general area bishopx26 stated. This was in my son's LG3 and voila! He's going on his third day of NO problems.

 

[Jaws876]

You guys are the best. The folded paper inside phone and battery cover has been working for me for the last 5 days.

 

[dahallowe]

Yup. I'm having the problem just as described, 16 month old phone. Had a horrible experience with LG customer service (company doesn't give a frogs-wind about customers), so I resorted to my own Maker ingenuity and the glory of You Tube. Installed a $60 replacement myself after about 2 hours of meticulous adhesive slicing. Proud of my phone's pristine new look, I booted up to discover that the LCD screen does not appear to be the manufacturing defect. It seems like there are enough of these here on in this thread to look into a class-action lawsuit. I have some lawyer friends I'm going to consult. In the meantime, if there is a solution, I hope someone shares it.

 

[rafabe]

I was having the same issue for the last 3 days, I tried disassembling and assembling again my phone, but didn't work. Now, I have disable the "Auto brigthness" feature, leaving the brightness constant, and my phone is working fine again for the last two hours... Still testing, but it looks promising

 

[rafabe]

Hi, do you have the Auto Brightness feature enabled? I disabled it and mine is working fine for the las 4-5 hours. I guess the issue is the ambient light sensor which is probably damaged... So the screen is trying to adjust brightness using a faulty sensor...

 

[lweeter]

I did the folded paper by the camera and sensor and it worked ok but not great. I took it to the Verizon store and they recommended going to a phone repair place instead of paying the $199 deductible for a new replacement phone covered by insurance. Ugh. Took it to the repair guy and he said he disconnected the ribbon cable, cleaned the connection and put it back together. Worked for him for a bit. I got there and before I could drive out of the mall parking lot it was acting up again. Fortunately, he didn't charge me anything. Said to call if it didn't work and a new screen would be $130. Figured that wouldn't work so didn't bother.

I went and got a replacement through the Verizon store today. When they went to get me a new WHITE LG G3 phone they turned it on and the screen was doing something similar! It didn't fade to black but didn't bother to wait to see if it would happen. I now have a new charcoal LG G3. I came home and just tried to replace the paper and so far it hasn't been successful. *sigh* Oh well. I've paid the money for the new phone now... now to cancel my rip-off insurance!

 

[Lucas Augusto Machado]

Ok, so the sim card trick stopped working after a while... now I'm off to try this cardboard thing.
Any updates?
Also, for those of you who tried and didn't unscrew the phone, how did you do it? Could you send a picture?
I tried placing one over the battery and didn't quite do the trick... I can se differences, such as "the pattern" and the frequency of the flickering (yeah, it came to a point where I am able to identify patterns now, urgh) but still not working as you guys described it.
I've been thinking a lot about paying the (approx.) 180 dollars and risk it, since I'll only have 3 months warranty and it's not guaranteed it will continue to work after that, or buying a Galaxy S5 Neo for about 300 dollars with one year warranty. Since the economy here is kind of bad now and I'm short on money (just so you know, the minimum wage here is around 210 dollars, so paying almost that for a repair that is not fail-proof is A LOT). But also, paying 300 dollars AND completely giving up on a once top-of-the-line-smartphone seems just... wrong. Especially because I really liked my G3 (despite the laggy interface and the terrible battery life). The fact that I heard that LG is now starting to release the android 6 is making me crazy!

Really don't know what to do guys... about 3 months without a phone... right now I'm just hoping this cardboard thing magically works lol

 

[Kimberly T]

Been following this thread for about a month, tried the paper between the laser and camera thing and it worked great for a couple of weeks. Now, it's doing the flickering and fading to black again, tried changing the paper multiple times, different thickness and works great for 2-3 days, but then it starts all over. Thinking of paying off what's left and just getting a new phone, because this is just honestly so annoying . I'll keep trying the paper thing meanwhile, I guess.

 

[dwight1234]

I am from the Philippines and I feel so relieved finding this thread.

I have tried the GPU and disabling solution discussed above and it seemed to be working out fine for now at least. I just want to ask everyone if they noticed the same problem that I had regarding the battery because I noticed it slightly expanded and pushes the screen forward a little bit.

I was about to pay a lot of money to the technician who said I needed to replace the LCD of my Phones screen luckily I found this thread. if the problem persists I will try the cardboard/paper solution LOL.

Thanks for this thread and pls update me about your phones progress!