[Q] n4 is completely unresponsive (dead) - Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

So this is what happened:
the phone discharged fully and i connected it to charge. then i got a flashing red led. seeing this as a bad omen i tried to turn my device on - no luck - it wasn't responding.
i unplugged the charger and plugged it back in and again the same result, then again..... and i got a solid red light. so after a few times of messing about with it , trying out a few sources of power and such i got it charging (the battery logo appeared). The charging lasted for ~30 sec and it went black.
So after that the n4 is completely unresponsive. No flashing leds no backlight on screen, NOTHING.i tried out a few chargers and cables and beside those i used a genuine n4 charger (it's 100% working - i tried to charge another device). i left it there for the whole day to charge thinking that maaaaaby the battery ran to a complete 0 and i just need to give it time, as you probably guessed it, that did nothing.
In fact, i think the phone is not charging at all. The reason i think so is because the wall charger is emitting a faint high-pitch squeal regardless of the fact that the phone is connected (it should be squealing only when it's plugged into socket and the phone is not plugged in it)
so TL DR:
n4 is completely dead, no signs of life. The things that were tried:
a handful of chargers and cables that are 100% working on other devices
trying to boot with a combination of volume buttons pressed
holding the power button for 60 sec. while plugged in
prolonged charging (~7 hours)
verbal threatening to sell the damned thing if it's a serious problem
so that's that. i should get my tools back from a friend on monday. i'll try to take it apart, maby there's a loose connector here or there or something. Any ideas what i could try before that?

Some searching around the forums wouldn't hurt. Try this for example.

kalopop said:
Some searching around the forums wouldn't hurt. Try this for example.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks for the link, that seems to be worth a shot.... i'll be able to take the phone apart on monday, that's the earliest i will be able to try it. i was wondering if there is anything i can do until then to remedy the situation. I mean i'm really getting a kick out of my old sony erricson k300 but i kinda prefer the nexus and would prefer to fix it asap.

ok i fixed it
i used a 3v source and held the contacts manually for 5 min. that returned it to the red blinking led state and after leaving it to charge for 5 min it returned to the battery icon on screen. thanks for the info again.

Related

8125 died, now is acting strange. Red light shows charging, but isnt.?

2 days ago i had my cingular 8125 plugged into a charger . when i woke up it was off and dead, still plugged in?
now when i plug it in (to the stock charger) the red light comes on, but if i take the battery out, it stays on. if the battery is in, it is on. but i cant turn it on. ive left it for 15 hours now, and still nothing
even tried another battery.
when i first put the other battery in it turned on, was booting, but then died. probably cuz the battery was dead. but i had it plugged in as soon as i turned it on.
now the same thing happens.
any ideas?
i also thought i smelled something burnt. like if you have ever had a laptop that had a bad a/c connector and would heat up a bit, or even smoke!
dont know if it was my imagination or what?
thanks in advance
dan
T mobile MDA shows RED LED
that is strange that you post this today, because I just received T-mobile MDA unit from 3bay that has a similar problem.
-The phone does not turn on when I press the power button.
-It does not respond to a soft reset or a hard reset.
-With the battery in, I connect the AC charger to the phone and for about 1-3 seconds the charging LED color is RED. THe LED turns off and I can not get the same result if I reconnect the AC charger.
The only visible sign of life this MDA unit has is:
-with the battery out and the AC charger connected, when the USB is removed to the point where it is not connected to the MDA, the charging LED light flashes red for a split second and the screen flashes white for a split second as well. [I hope this is a sign that there's still life in this MDA, but i'm thinking my unit is truly a brick..]
From all the websites I've searched, this does not seem to be an issue, although for me it is a scary one! Anybody that can help would be much appreciated because I want a working MDA not a dead one
EDIT: It turns out my non-booting MDA was due to a faulty vibrator and flashlight MDA part. After removing these two pieces that are connected to the back cover of the MDA housing, the MDA booted up with no problem.
danrw84 said:
2 days ago i had my cingular 8125 plugged into a charger . when i woke up it was off and dead, still plugged in?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm in exactly the same position - left phone on charge overnight two days ago and in the morning it was completely dead. I have managed to get it to power on for about 2-3 seconds on one or two occasions but now it won't do a thing
Not sure if this will help, but have you tried to push that soft reset button that you have to to push with your stylus when it is plugged in?
Sounds stupid, but my power button is completely dead and I thats how I have to start mine up. I also have to pop out the SD card to get the screen to come out of sleep mode!
I might not work, but hey...worth a try.
Well, I eventually got back up and running. Turns out the battery was completely dead. I used the 9v battery trick and then used my USB charger to get the battery fully charged and all is well.
This leads me to query how do I now charge my phone when I don't have access to a PC? I was using a standard AC wall charger and the phone showed that it was charging but due to the fact that the display stays lit whilst on external power, this eventually killed the battery as the charge indicator appeared to be false.
*as posted verbatim in another thread*
WHAT IS THIS 9 VOLT TRICK YOU SPEAK OF?!?
funny...i'm having the same problem with 2, what were perfectly fine, wizards.
which is what brought me to this forum post.
These two devices were turned off and sat in my desk for months as they were not needed. They were perfectly good, successfully unlocked and upgraded from the advice/steps/tools provided here (thanks!). They were my primary personal and work devices until i was given the option to try a few iPAQs.
Now that I want to go back NEITHER device will boot. On the original chargers (both wall and usb) both devices will display the red light as shown in the pic above, will not boot normally, or via the 2 or 3 button methods common for these devices. The batteries do not get warm, which tells me that they are not getting current...which makes NO sense if i'm using 4 different stock charging options (2 wall and 2 usb) in different locations. One expect some variable would work to eliminate some oddity, but nothing is working.
something odd is going here. how can 2 perfectly good devices and charges suddenly crapout? I could really believe it's the battery, but one is grand spankin new (only used for a month)! Both have the main board die? Both not recognizable on any computer?
Is it possible that the backup battery is causing this? Can it me charged same as the standard if its drained? I know i'm grasping at straws here, but this odd a coincidence.
FOUND FIX
okay..this was too simple.
for some reason the USB will not provide enough"juice" to pop these out of their sleep.
I have been using this great little charging system made by good old Radio Shack that is a single plug with different adapters for all different devices...i've been using it for my iPAQ's, Blackjacks, BB's, ect. SO as a last resort i went and got the CORRECT adapter (as there are many mini usb adapters available) and SHAZAM!!! they boot right up!
don't ask me why the stock wall chargers will not work, but these RS iGo systems are the trick!
i'm going to link to the other similar issue in hopes any other folks having the same issue can benefit from this.

[Q] Hoping for some assistance... HD2 not charging/powering on properly

Ok, I'll try to make this short and sweet and we'll see what happens. I spent the last 2 hours scouring this forum (pretty much the Bible for the HD2) and some other places and I'm still kinda dead in the water.
Here's the situation:
I just grabbed a used HD2 in excellent cosmetic shape. It was from a pawn shop, for $100 cash, and the device would power up at the pawn shop into Windows Mobile 6.5 just long enough to see Sense starting to load, then the battery would complain (probably hadn't had a proper charge in a long time I'm suspecting), then it would go into the "Goodbye!" routine.
Fair enough. So I get it home, and they included the HD2 USB adapter/charger, and I have my own 100% working microUSB cable. I verified the charger works by attaching it to my microUSB cable and then plugging it into my current phone (a cheapy LG 900g on NET10) and it works fine, no issues for power or data connectivity.
So I unplug the cable from the LG, plug it into the HD2, and attach it to my Belkin USB hub (powered, with nothing else attached to it, no other USB devices) and after a few seconds I get the orange charging light on the HD2. Note, it's still off, I didn't turn it back on after it shut itself off. So I let it charge for a few minutes, then I realize I should probably be better off using the actual dedicated HD2 charger, so I unplug the USB end from the USB hub, the orange light obviously goes out since it's now without that source of juice, then plug it into the HTC USB charger and...
Nothing. Absolutely nothing. No orange charging light, no response when trying to power the HD2 up, absolutely nada. So now I'm frustrated. I disconnect the USB cable from the HD2, take off the back cover, remove the battery, wait about 1 minute, reinsert the battery (leaving the back cover off), attempt to power it up, no luck.
Plug the charger back in, and I can feel]/i] the tiny vibration motor just kinda "tick" ever few seconds; there's something going on in there, I'm certain. Repeat the unplug/remove battery/wait a minute/put it back together/plug it back in a few times, and then I get something:
The HD2 will vibrate and the screen will light up with the "Stick Together" graphic, for about 1/2 second. Then it's off again. Then it's on again, and off, and on, and off. It's a loop of some kind, but it's random. Sometimes the on/off happens every few seconds, sometimes it's 10, 15, 30, sometimes a full minute goes by before it'll "flash" then nothing again.
Now, the whole time this occurs, the orange charging light never ever comes back on again - it has not come on again regardless of whether I'm plugged into the USB hub or the HTC charger, it just doesn't light up anymore, so my current suspicion is that the battery itself is simply so "dead" it won't accept a charge of any kind - at least that's my current hope, as odd as that sounds. I can get a new battery, of course, it'll just take a few days to get one (ain't paying full price here in Vegas, will order something online).
I'm stumped. I check the contacts, they're fine, they were very very slightly bent but they're ok now. I don't know what else to do since it does seem like the battery could be the culprit. It'll sit here and just flash every so often - it's been plugged into the HTC charger for the past 30 minutes straight but, I'm not even seeing the flashes anymore (the past few minutes I've been typing this post).
Maybe the battery is to blame, I don't know, but I'm hoping that someone can say "Yes, that sounds like a completely toasted battery to me, get a new one" or whatever.
Any opinions? Anyone seen this particular behavior before? I do a search for "reboot loop" and what I find are people with HD2's that get stuck at the "Stick Together" screen and, well, that's not what's happening here - it shows that, for a 1/2 to 1 second on occasion, then nothing. The vibration motor kicks in when the flashes occur, as well.
It's like it wants to fire up but just doesn't have the power to do it - and since the charging circuit isn't kicking in (no orange light), well... that's my guess.
That's about it. If anyone has any advice, I'm reading.
Thanks, and have fun, always...
br0adband said:
Ok, I'll try to make this short and sweet and we'll see what happens. I spent the last 2 hours scouring this forum (pretty much the Bible for the HD2) and some other places and I'm still kinda dead in the water.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do you know what short means? p joking, just next time don't make it too long)
You won't get replies if your question is too long, because they won't bother reading it .
Anyway, back to topic.
Your battery has no juice, and for some reason the HD2 automatically boots when (no juice in battery and plugged into charger) .. you need to unplug cable, remove battery, plug in cable, wait for a minute or so, insert battery .
Firstly try the above which should stop the phone trying to start,, but two other things, firstly the battery pins bend real easily, so since you've been doing a few battery pulls, keep checking them. Second, a really REALLY discharged battery may have so little juice it wont start charging , in which case you can try the 'bare wire USB Lead charging method, where you get an old mini /micro USB lead, cut end off, bare red and black ,red to + black to - on the battery, into wall charger for around a minute, back into phone, real USB lead in, and hopefully it now has enough chrge to start booting and charging properly.
Turned out to be the battery itself - went back to the pawn shop, took the battery from the one I purchased and placed it into a known working HD2 still on the shelf (another as-is item) and attached the microUSB cable and charger, no dice: same exact issue.
Took the battery from the second HD2, put it into my HD2 that I purchased, attached the microUSB cable and charger, wham bam we're cookin' with fire now.
So I paid the guy $10 to let me swap the batteries and keep it hush-hush (I'm in there all the time buying used busted stuff anyway), came home, gave it a full night's charge and so far so good. Got NexusHD2-Gingerbread V3.0 NAND by tytung on it in about 10 minutes, and it's smooth as silk so far.
I appreciate the responses, thanks.

[Q] Nexus 7 dead?

I was on my computer when i remembered i has something written in my tablet's notes that was important. I took it out of my bag and noticed it wouldn't turn on, it was out of battery (hadn't touched it for about a week). I just plugged it in the proper asus charger and put it down and went straight back on my computer.
I decide to check on it after 2 hours thinking it would be near or fully charged. I pick it up and noticed it was on a blank back lit screen. I unplugged it and then the screen turned straight off. Wondering if it didn't charge at all i re-plugged it in. There was no google logo (rooted), instead it turn on with a lit black screen and off and repeating a few times and then small thin artifact pixels run across the screen (red, blue and yellowy colours) and then stay at a black lit screen like when i first picked it up. I had just noticed a small buzzing sound while this was happening and still does so when stuck at the screen. I'm pretty sure it was buzzing when i had found it.
I redid what i had done (unplug, replug) and watch to see if it did the same thing. It did. I tried to power it off while it was at the black screen and it did, but then it would turn back on and etc. Same if i tried to enter boot loader or any key combinations.
I've tried disconnecting the battery and reconnecting and same effect (tried it without battery attached also)
I have a feeling it is dead now and i have no other ideas (checked many forums but got nothing).
Any help would be appreciated.
yvgamer94 said:
I have a feeling it is dead now and i have no other ideas (checked many forums but got nothing).
Any help would be appreciated.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's surely hardware failure, have take some humidity or something like that?
Try press power for 60 seconds, if you wont see any Google logo there's some hardware failure you need to RMA ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Return_merchandise_authorization )
found the fix
I found away to fix my nexus 7. You could be right how it might have a minor hardware fault, live in australia in the high hot tropics (high humidity). I decide just to plug it into my computer usb charger instead of the proper charger since it had a lower max amp output. Against my ear, a much fainter buzzing is still heard but this time, there was nothing. No power, no back lit black screen, just a very faint buzzing. Decided to let it sit just to see what happens. After an hour or so, i decided to press the power button and noticed there was a battery charging signal. To my delight, I'm sure it was in working order now so i powered it on and oh how relieved i was.
I determined that my device might have had a small hardware fault that made it draw to much power from the 2 amp original charger and thus why the tablet could not boot up properly (from battery depletion). Either that or my charger could be bugged to. But the thing is, since it charged to slow from the usb, i plugged in the proper charger and it worked fine. Just have to try not deplete my battery i guess.
Thanks.

[Q] Nexus 4 bricked? Tried everything.

12.
Not everything my friend
Just charge the battery for some HOURS or over the night. All the described symptoms indicate a low battery to me.
cheers
UPDATE:
Just managed to unlock a bootloader in that short period of time i can get to fastboot. But still no change, phone wont stay in fastboot.
greg17477 said:
Not everything my friend
Just charge the battery for some HOURS or over the night. All the described symptoms indicate a low battery to me.
cheers
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, i actaully tried to leave it plugged over night. But i think it stops charging right after the red light dissapears, which happens after 15mins or so after plugging. Btw, i mentioned earlier that battery shows 3.7V when measured with multimeter, so the battery doesn't seem to be the culprit... or does it...?
12
your battery is drained below safe line....to 0%. They warn you NOT to update it with less than 60% battery FOR A REASON!!
Friends case she managed to charge ger asus 7 memopad with non-removable bat to 60% after 8 HOURS, because of a bloatware wakelock drainage to 0% after a factory reset....
If that doesn't work you have to either recharge the battery manually (something like car batteries, you have to unsolder the battery connector because the battery doesnt have 2 gold squares that touch the gold pins like the removable ones, or get a new battery.
Li-Po batteries should never be discharged to 0%, and can make problems if they are not removable (Nexus 4)
Mashed_Potatoes said:
your battery is drained below safe line....to 0%. They warn you NOT to update it with less than 60% battery FOR A REASON!!
Friends case she managed to charge ger asus 7 memopad with non-removable bat to 60% after 8 HOURS, because of a bloatware wakelock drainage to 0% after a factory reset....
If that doesn't work you have to either recharge the battery manually (something like car batteries, you have to unsolder the battery connector because the battery doesnt have 2 gold squares that touch the gold pins like the removable ones, or get a new battery.
Li-Po batteries should never be discharged to 0%, and can make problems if they are not removable (Nexus 4)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I did manage to charge it manually with two small wires and an old Nokia charger, when checking battery with multimeter after a few minutes of charging seems to increase voltage. But i guess if the chip on battery is fried there is nothing more i can do.
I will try to leave the phone on charger all night once again, see if that makes a difference, and update if anything changes.
take off the back, disconnect the battery connector wire and connect it again, put it on charger and see if things change
UPDATE:
Leaving it to charge overnight didn't have any effect. Any other suggestions than changing a battery?
Nah, sorry, but i am out of ideas. You basically tried it all :/
Darkis said:
I know there is a lot of threads about bricked N4's, and i can assure you that I have viewed each and every one of them, but i still can't resolve my broblem.
This whole brick situation happened after trying to update to Android 4.3 OTA update, the phone didn't complete the process and turned off, where red light of death happened.
So the scenario goes like this:
If i hold POWER button for ~30s when phone is off charger i only get a Google logo for 2 sec, and phone instantly restarts
Holding PWR+VOL-DOWN buttons when phone is off charger doesn't do anything
Plugging phone to charge (socket or PC) results in solid red light
Holding PWR+VOL-DOWN or PWR+VOL-DOWN+VOL-UP for ~15s makes the red light blink at a steady rate
While continuing to hold the respective buttons and pluging the charger off, and on again gets me to bootloader or download mode (depending on button combo) for ~2s and phone restarts.
I tried removing and inserting the battery 3 times. One time i got blinking red light when plugged the charger in. Second time i got solid red light and third time got solid red light again
I tried charging the battery directly for 15 minutes with old Nokia charger, and it resulted in something different(when i assembled the phone and tried to turn it on with PWR+VOL-DOWN buttons when charger was plugged off, i got to bootloader for 2seconds before phone restarted, i tried to boot second time and the same thing happened, but when i tried it third time i got nothing, just like before) so this was the first time i got into bootloader while not charging a phone.
*My PC seems to pick up the phone for a brief moment when it is in bootloader and starts installing the drivers. Drivers gets installed when i'm in download mode for that brief moment too.
**Phone doesn't get to the white or red battery icon while plugged to charge.
***Solid red light dissapears after charging for ~10mins, but phone won't do anything.
****When measured with a multimeter battery shows 3.7V
I hope someone will be able to help me with this, as it is frustrating as f*ck. I don't have a working warranty, so fixing the N4 isn't an option, and where i live phone repair prices are over the roof (ex. motherboard change for N4 costs ~270$ ).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had the same problem. Kept it on the charger for a whole day and still only the Red Light.
Took it to a local shop and they said there is a short circuit in the antenna
Took it to the LG Service center and they said my motherboard is gone.
Both were costing a bomb to repair and still there was no guarantee.
IMHO, get a new phone.
Sorry
Have you tried charging it with a wireless charging pad? I got mine to boot after I did that. Your battery is drained and it doesn't have enough juice to charge itself.
12
Don't fall for the motherboard dead trick. Just a way to steal your money.... change the battery and never let it go to 1%
12

[Q] NEXUS 4 WATER DAMAGED? PLease Help

Hello everyone,
I was going for a swim in the pool three days ago and have forgotten to put my Nexus 4 in my duffel bag. The phone was submerge along with my swimming short for over 30 seconds :crying:. I dried off the phone, opened it up to removed the battery, and dried it off with a hair blow dryer for five minutes continuously. Then I put my phone in a bowl of rice. Its been two days hoping that the moisture is gone, I plugged it to a wall charger and have gotten the "blinking red light of death". Next, I removed the battery and charge the phone with out it, giving me a boot loader screen with the green android and the Google logo. But putting the battery back and turning it on only giving me that annoying blinking red light. I hope all the phone component is still good. So at this stage can you guys tell me if the battery is dead and would purchasing a new battery resolve this issue? Any input to resolve this red blinking light would be helpful, thank you for reading.
This worked for me:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/nexus-4/general/final-fix-nexus-4-red-light-death-t2250454
tommyga said:
This worked for me:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/nexus-4/general/final-fix-nexus-4-red-light-death-t2250454
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have charge twice and installed the battery back and still get the blinking red light. As you have done this before, how did you go about doing it? Was the battery suppose to be "hot" when its being charge? Did you soldered the charging cable "hot and neutral" to the battery positive (+) negative (-) as shown in step 7?
dante510 said:
I have charge twice and installed the battery back and still get the blinking red light. As you have done this before, how did you go about doing it? Was the battery suppose to be "hot" when its being charge? Did you soldered the charging cable "hot and neutral" to the battery positive (+) negative (-) as shown in step 7?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not sure the battery was hot during the process #7..
I took some old phone charger, cut the two wires apart (the positive and negative), and just made them touch the relevant spots on the battery (no soldering was made).
Did you wait more than 15 minutes during this charging?
tommyga said:
I'm not sure the battery was hot during the process #7..
I took some old phone charger, cut the two wires apart (the positive and negative), and just made them touch the relevant spots on the battery (no soldering was made).
Did you wait more than 15 minutes during this charging?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for your reply. I also used an old lg charge with the right amount of Voltage ouput. I think it was 5 Volt or something and just split the cable, made it touch the relevant spots and used it electrical tape to secure the the charging charging cable making sure that the wire made contact with the positive and negative spot. Im not sure which cable was positive or negative, so I had to swap cable around and recharge every 15 minutes trial. I know my connection looks messy but thats the best i could do to make sure the make contact at the charging point on the battery. Is this how you do it? lol
[/ATTACH][/ATTACH][/ATTACH]
Basically it seems fine.
There are two more things I recommend trying:
1. Try charging it for 30 minutes.
2. When plugging the battery back, just plug it, and don't screw the two screws of the battery.
Try these two things - and keep updating if the red light still shows
tommyga said:
Basically it seems fine.
There are two more things I recommend trying:
1. Try charging it for 30 minutes.
2. When plugging the battery back, just plug it, and don't screw the two screws of the battery.
Try these two things - and keep updating if the red light still shows
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have tried charging twice with 30 minutes cycle on each attempt, and have installed the battery back to the phone without the screw of the battery. I tried turning the phone on by holding down the power button for 10 seconds, but there was no Google logo splash screen. The same thing happen on my second attempt, no Google or boot-loader screen. I plugged in the wall charger and let it sit for over two hour and still cant turn it on, only the blinking red light. Removing the battery, charging directly from the cable, and holding the power volume button down at the same time gave me a boot-loader screen and Google logo but the phone immediately shut off. Any ideas what else I could try? Could you tell me about where my phone is damage base on the picture from my earlier post?
If you see Google's logo, your phone can run fine. The problem is probably the dead battery. Consider replacing it with a new one.
sky0165 said:
If you see Google's logo, your phone can run fine. The problem is probably the dead battery. Consider replacing it with a new one.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks i just order a new one yesterday, just thought I give it a shot instead of buying a new phone. Lets hope its as you say. Thanks for your input.
Ordered a new battery, and it booted up fine. The important thing is that the blinking red light of death is gone so far.. thank goodness! Looks like the battery shorted out when my phone was submerge in the water. There is one small yellow streak line on the bottom right of the screen now but I can live with that. Glad nothing else is damage Thank you for all of your help! Cheers!

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