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hpr_transcripts/hpr2220.txt

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+Episode: 2220
+Title: HPR2220: Taking apart a tablet
+Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr2220/hpr2220.mp3
+Transcribed: 2025-10-18 15:51:14
+
+---
+
+This is HPR episode 2,220 entitled, taking a part a tablet.
+It is hosted by India and in about 29 minutes long, and Karima Cleanflag.
+The summary is, in which I fail to discover or correct the problem with my son's tablet.
+This episode of HPR is brought to you by Ananasthos.com.
+Get 15% discount on all shared hosting with the offer code HPR15, that's HPR15.
+Better web hosting that's honest and fair, at Ananasthos.com.
+Hey everybody, land here, got a little soundseeing to refer you.
+A few months ago, I purchased a couple of tablets for my twin boys.
+And the other day, one of them said his wouldn't charge and wouldn't turn on after he tried it on a different charger.
+Now, he did say it since has showed the charging screen against when it's powered off.
+But it still won't turn on, so I'm going to see if I can figure out anything that's going on with it.
+I've already tried the usual things of making sure it's fully charged.
+I'm trying to turn it on, trying to turn it on while it's plugged in.
+So at this point, I am going to take a shot at cracking it open.
+Now this was a pretty cheap tablet from Best Buy.
+And I really have no idea where to begin cracking it open.
+I'm really hoping it's not glued.
+But I am going to take a shot at it.
+I've taken a few different pieces of electronics apart now.
+Couple game consoles, a couple phones, another broken tablet that I couldn't fix because the USB port had broken away from the circuit board.
+It was surface mount soldered.
+And I just wasn't comfortable trying to reattach it.
+And I'm not even sure I could have probably could have been fixed in replace.
+But again, that was another cheap tablet and didn't really want to spend the time on it.
+So let me describe.
+I've got kind of a kit here that I use pretty regularly on final electronics.
+We had a Nintendo Wii that the DVD drive stopped working on.
+And Nintendo consoles and even the old games, if you don't know, have...
+I'm sorry, just the consoles.
+Use a specialty screw that has three wings.
+And so I needed a tri-wing screwdriver to be able to open it up.
+So my wife was at the local hardware store and she found a game console repair set.
+So it's a screwdriver with a magnetic socket on it to accept a bunch of different bits.
+And it comes with several different ones.
+Most importantly, those tri-wing drivers that I needed.
+Also, there's like a reverse star bit, which is needed to open the old Nintendo cartridges.
+Some star bits with a circle cut out in the center.
+A couple small hex bits and various slotted and Phillips bits as well.
+One thing it did not come with is what's known as a spudger.
+A spudger is a small plastic or metal pry tool that's used to release those clips that are very, very, very common in electronics these days.
+I seem to have stumbled upon a pretty decent alternative.
+And that is just plain guitar picks.
+I don't know what exactly they're made of if it's just a some kind of a plastic or a vinyl.
+But you can get them in various thicknesses and either more flexible or more rigid.
+And they seem to work pretty well.
+So just looking at this tablet, I'm not noticing any kind of a obvious battery compartment or any externally visible screws.
+There is one seam that appears to run all the way around the outside.
+Fortunately, it doesn't line up with any of the various ports.
+As you got in this thing, there seems to be something in the microSD card slot.
+Can't tell what it is.
+There it went flying.
+Looks like hard candy.
+Like dissolved and re-dried sugar.
+I don't think that's the problem, though.
+Anyway, so I'm going to see if I can get this seam to open up.
+Like I said, I really hope it's not glued.
+Seems to be a small circular spot here.
+Looks like it might have a sticker over it.
+I can't quite get it.
+My finest guitar pick seems to be just a little too thick to be able to work it into this seam.
+Oh, there we go.
+Just slipped it in.
+So other things I've got handy.
+Several sheets of blank white paper.
+I'm just working in the living room of our home on the coffee table.
+So the paper does a few things.
+One, it provides a little bit of a surface to set the device on.
+If I need to set it screen down, so there's a little less risk of scratching the screen.
+Just talking as I work this, try to work the guitar pick around that seam.
+I might have to wedge another one in here to keep it from closing back up on me.
+The other thing that the paper is nice for is it gives a little bit better visibility if I'm setting those screws down.
+If I know I have a lot of screws to keep track of, I've got like one of those clear plastic tackle box container with a bunch of separate small compartments in it.
+About the nice thing about working with a sheet of paper is you can just take a pen, which I also have in me.
+And you can sketch out a picture of the device you're working on and mark the position where the screws go.
+And you can make several drawings as you go along and put the screws from each step along with the drawing of that step.
+Alright, I've got a second guitar pick in here now.
+And I'm trying to work my way around this one corner.
+I get those clips to release.
+I quite got it.
+Oh, there we go.
+Just had to go in from the side.
+Alright.
+It's the most way down one side.
+All the way down the other.
+A few more to go.
+Here we are.
+Okay.
+Just the one end left, if I can get that to release the back cover should come off.
+Now I'm always terrified.
+I'm going to snap one of these little plastic clips, but so far I've had pretty good luck.
+There we go.
+The back cover is off.
+There's a little speaker there by a port in the back cover.
+That little magnet seems to be just sticks right to the little metal shield they have on it.
+And a pretty big battery says 2700 milliamp hours.
+Some yellow plastic tape over some of the wires.
+Battery connection seems to be soldered directly to the board.
+So no little socket that could be loose.
+You definitely got something in this SD card slot.
+Like I said, it looks like kind of dried on sugar, so I don't know if it was some kind of juice or what it was exactly.
+But it does not look good.
+This might explain the discoloration of the screen that he was seeing before it stopped turning on all together.
+So there's some kind of clear yellow plastic tape over some of these connectors.
+Some over solder joints.
+And then there are some more standard ribbon cable connectors.
+One on the right side here looks like it probably goes to the screen and comes up and connects on one corner of the main board.
+There's another one just above it.
+I can't see what that connects to.
+There's a little piece of like a foil mesh tape over it.
+Looks like the front camera, front facing camera.
+And then the rear facing camera is between those two.
+I'm not sure where that one's connected.
+It doesn't seem to be directly mounted to the board.
+Once we got that I can tell.
+There's another ribbon connector on the left-hand side.
+I can't see what that's connected to.
+Another piece of foil tape over that.
+That also looks like it wraps around to the front.
+I'm not sure if that goes to the screen as well.
+All right, I am going to take out a screwdriver and see if I can tear into this thing a little further.
+There are a couple small gauge Phillips screws with a very wide head.
+It looks like they're holding the corner of the screen on the left side.
+And it looks like it's just held by some plastic clips on the left side.
+I think if I take these two screws out and disconnect that ribbon cable on the left side,
+the whole thing may just lift right out.
+The top corner of the screen has a tiny little microphone that's direct solder to it.
+It looks like it's connected to the board.
+I wonder if it may have been some kind of juice.
+There's little deposits of it all along the left side, especially that SD card slot.
+That little piece of foil tape I mentioned and a spot on the battery as well.
+All right, I've got the one screw out in the upper left corner.
+I'm going to take out the one in the lower left.
+That came out just fine.
+Now, it looks like there's a little clip holding a wire that goes down to...
+There's a little black plastic film that the wire soldered directly to the back,
+but not sure what it is.
+Maybe some kind of a sensor.
+Anyway, I need to unhook that wire from that clip without...
+I'm running any strain on those solder joints if I can avoid it.
+Get a little pair of tweezers here.
+Not very good.
+Metal is a little too soft.
+They just sort of bend when you try to use them, but I think they'll be good enough to pry this wire out of here.
+Maybe if I pry up on that clip a little...
+I'm going to try that guitar pick again.
+I can definitely get under the clip.
+I'm just going to slip that wire out from underneath it.
+There we go.
+All right, and let me disconnect that ribbon cable.
+Now, if you haven't seen these connectors, it's like a flexible flat piece of plastic.
+And then the plastic usually goes right out to the end, but part of it is open to the side,
+so that for a connection.
+And then the slot that it fits into, the ribbon, the plastic just slides in to the contact...
+And then there's a little clamp that when you're opening it, you usually have to kind of flip it up.
+I'm trying to do that now with the guitar pick in here again.
+I never suspected that these would have been so useful as pry tools.
+The nice thing about them being plastic is you're a lot less likely to scratch or mar the plastic that you're working on.
+You also don't have to worry about shorting out contacts if you're in here, prying around.
+Okay, I have that little clamp flipped up now, and this cable should just slide right out.
+At least that's what's supposed to happen.
+I wonder if that juice or whatever is sort of glued it into place.
+There's tweezers to give a little more leverage on it.
+There we go.
+It was a little sticky there.
+Yeah, the contacts look a little discolored.
+All right.
+There's a little plastic socket that that microphone sitting in.
+You have to free it from that.
+Normally it would just lift out, but everything on this tablet seems to be a little stickier than normal.
+Looks like there's some sort of little rubber jacket over it that I don't want to disturb.
+Maybe it'll just lift up.
+I just accidentally removed a little plastic shield.
+It goes over some collection of chips.
+One of them is an Intel.
+I wonder what that's for.
+Stick that shield back down.
+See if I can get under the edge of the screen here.
+I suppose it's possible that that's glued in place too.
+You don't want to break anything.
+I suppose technically it is broken already, but...
+No sense making things worse than they already are.
+It just can't seem to get the screen to come free here.
+Like I said, I'm at least assuming that's the screen there we go.
+I managed to get the guitar pick under the edge of it.
+One corner free.
+Stick the other guitar pick under to hold that so it doesn't slide back in.
+I'm going to work the other one across until that side lifts free.
+Man, it's really in there.
+Maybe I need to remove a couple of other screws.
+There's two other black screws on the motherboard here.
+I wonder if they may go straight through into the front of the case.
+See if I can get those free.
+Here's one.
+And two.
+Is that the combination?
+I wonder if the screen was discolored because that juice actually got in between the screen and the glass.
+It could be totally stuck in there.
+But wait, there's one more screw here right under those microphone cables that's hiding.
+If I could just get enough pressure here to get it to come free.
+Seems to be turning.
+There we go.
+Let's try to lift that out of there.
+The microphone is slid free of its socket.
+It seems to be tipping up just fine now.
+Slide it out from under those plastic clips.
+And the whole thing is out.
+It does not seem to be any of that liquid on the inside of the glass.
+Nor on the front of the screen itself.
+Not really any more on the motherboard except as already mentioned on the back.
+No obvious showstoppers here.
+Although I'm sure whatever this liquid is could definitely have caused the damage.
+Let's see if I can get the power switch.
+Nothing on the screen.
+No little LEDs or anything to go off of.
+All of the contacts on the ports appear solid.
+Let's try plugging it in.
+Let's see if that works.
+All right.
+Let's look at the power and find that power button again.
+Still nothing.
+I am afraid this tablet has breathed its last or the damage has surpassed my level of technical ability for fixing.
+Hopefully by taking it apart I haven't avoided my replacement plan.
+Knowing that these kids can be kind of hard on electronics I went ahead and purchased the two-year replacement plan for a percentage of the initial price of the product.
+I don't think he'll be getting that one though I think that one of the replacement will become mine.
+We'll see how it goes.
+All right.
+Thanks for tuning in. Talk to you all next time.
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