I had never fixed a broken screen on a phone before so I thought, there`s no better place to start then with the ever so popular IPhone….
Front view of the broken IPhone 4 screen.
Before disassembling I made sure it was powered off and that there was no SIM inside. I then removed the two “Pentalobe” screws which were located at the bottom of the phone, on either side of the dock connector.
Once these screws were removed I was able to slide the back cover upwards about 2 mm and lift the panel away from the phone.
Back of phone with no rear cover and battery connector removed
Now with the rear cover off i was able to remove the 1.5 mm Philips screw that was securing the battery connector to the logic board. Then with a plastic pry tool i was able to pry the connector up from its socket.
The next step of removing the battery was just a case of pulling up on the exposed clear plastic tab to peel the battery from the adhesive which was securing it to the phone.
With the battery out of the way I removed a number of different components. These included the dock connector which was held in place with 1.8 mm Philips screws along with the speaker enclosure which had 2.4 mm screws and the aerial which was removed using the plastic spudger.
Battery removed along with dock connector screws. With aerial and speaker enclosure highlighted
Dock connector, speaker enclosure and aerial all removed
Before I started the next step of removing the Wifi- antenna i had to do alot of research
The Wi-Fi antenna which is located at the top of the phone is secured to the logic board with a variety of different screws.
I had to ensure that there was no mix-up of the screws because the 4.8 mm Philips (Green) would render the LCD and digitizer useless if put in the wrong position due to its sheer length. The 4.8 mm screw also acts as the ground for the Wi-Fi antenna and is often the culprit of bad reception if not reassembled correctly.
Location of Wi-Fi antenna screws
- One 2.3 mm Philips (Red)
- Two 1.6 mm Philips (Orange)
- One 1.4 mm Philips (Yellow)
- One 4.8 mm Philips (Green)
Once all the screws were removed and labeled i used my plastic spudger to slightly lift the top edge of the Wi-Fi antenna away from the logic board. I then continued my way around the antenna removing all the retaining clips away from the inner frame. After all the clips were undone the antenna lifted up and underneath was the main logic board of the phone.
Sidewards view of the logic board.
There was a number of flex cables that had to be removed from the logic board along with a few more screws before the board could be removed. These connectors ranged from the rear camera to LCD all of which are labeled and shown in the above diagram.
Location of remaining screws and a view of the phone without the logic board.
Now with all screws and flex cable connectors disconnected, the logic board could be removed .The final step was to remove four 1.5 mm screws from each of the four corners along with six 1.5 mm screws with washers along each side of the phone. Once these were removed the screen could be lifted away from the steel frame with a suction cup.
Location of the remaining screws and washers.
The new screen was then inserted and all screws, connectors and components were re-inserted. The picture below shows the phone fully assembled and working.
Broken screen alongside fixed phone
CurrentBits 