So it seems my phone has become a shiny paperweight. The thing is, I don't really understand why it happened. I've been reading how other people arrived at the same situation and although some symptoms are similar, I didn't do any of those things. I wasn't flashing anything, I didn't drop the phone etc
This is what happened: about 24 hours ago, I was using my phone as a GPS (google maps and waze) when it froze. No biggie, it had happened a few times before so I pulled out the battery, waited a few minutes, put the battery back and pressed the power button. The phone started as usual, it got past the HTC splash screen, the boot animation started. A few seconds (maybe 5) into the boot animation, out of reflex, I pressed the power button to turn off the screen. Don't ask why, dunno. As I've said, reflex. So the screen went black. And it stayed that way.
Since then I've been trying to bring it back to life. No luck yet. Here's the status of the phone:
Battery is not empty - when my phone froze yesterday it was about 80% full. I tried a different battery, no change
When I plug in the USB cable to charge it, the orange/green LED that usually lights up, well... doesn't
When I press the power button, the screen backlight turns on for 2 - 3 seconds, then turns off. Pressing VolDown+PWR does the same thing. I know it seems like a battery issue, but I'm pretty sure it isn't
The computer does not see the phone anymore when connected through an USB cable. 'adb devices' doesn't return anything and I don't see anything in the Device Manager (I was hoping for a QHSUSB_DLOAD but no such luck...)
The phone is a HTC Sensation 4G, HBOOT 1.17 (I think), S-OFF, rooted, was running InsertCoin 3.4.6/Android 2.3.5. As I've mentioned, I wasn't doing any of the things that usually lead to a bricked phone like trying to S-OFF/S-ON, flash a ROM etc. I'm currently reading the internets in an attempt to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it. These are the questions I'm trying to get an answer for:
When the phone boots, is it not in read only mode? At least when it gets to the boot animation part.... And if so, even if the power button is pressed... shouldn't the phone just turn off and that's it?
Since the phone seems to be as responsive as a... well, brick... If I send the phone to HTC to repair it, will they be able to tell it was S-OFF and all that?
Does this sound like something that JTAG could fix?
Thanks in advance for any help or info.
stealth.kid said:
So it seems my phone has become a shiny paperweight. The thing is, I don't really understand why it happened. I've been reading how other people arrived at the same situation and although some symptoms are similar, I didn't do any of those things. I wasn't flashing anything, I didn't drop the phone etc
This is what happened: about 24 hours ago, I was using my phone as a GPS (google maps and waze) when it froze. No biggie, it had happened a few times before so I pulled out the battery, waited a few minutes, put the battery back and pressed the power button. The phone started as usual, it got past the HTC splash screen, the boot animation started. A few seconds (maybe 5) into the boot animation, out of reflex, I pressed the power button to turn off the screen. Don't ask why, dunno. As I've said, reflex. So the screen went black. And it stayed that way.
Since then I've been trying to bring it back to life. No luck yet. Here's the status of the phone:
Battery is not empty - when my phone froze yesterday it was about 80% full. I tried a different battery, no change
When I plug in the USB cable to charge it, the orange/green LED that usually lights up, well... doesn't
When I press the power button, the screen backlight turns on for 2 - 3 seconds, then turns off. Pressing VolDown+PWR does the same thing. I know it seems like a battery issue, but I'm pretty sure it isn't
The computer does not see the phone anymore when connected through an USB cable. 'adb devices' doesn't return anything and I don't see anything in the Device Manager (I was hoping for a QHSUSB_DLOAD but no such luck...)
The phone is a HTC Sensation 4G, HBOOT 1.17 (I think), S-OFF, rooted, was running InsertCoin 3.4.6/Android 2.3.5. As I've mentioned, I wasn't doing any of the things that usually lead to a bricked phone like trying to S-OFF/S-ON, flash a ROM etc. I'm currently reading the internets in an attempt to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it. These are the questions I'm trying to get an answer for:
When the phone boots, is it not in read only mode? At least when it gets to the boot animation part.... And if so, even if the power button is pressed... shouldn't the phone just turn off and that's it?
Since the phone seems to be as responsive as a... well, brick... If I send the phone to HTC to repair it, will they be able to tell it was S-OFF and all that?
Does this sound like something that JTAG could fix?
Thanks in advance for any help or info.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It reminds me Desire S problem - fried emmc chip... If your phone has no valid warranty, I'm suggesting to see phone's internals and inspect emmc chip.
The phone still has warranty, I will try to have it repaired/replaced. The only thing I'm concerned about is the fact that it was S-OFF and running a custom ROM... And I don't have the knowledge or equipment to try to take it apart and fix it myself
If you have warranty just use it they won't be able to ckeck if phone was unlocked or not since it can't boot up.
Related
Hi guys,
My girlfriend somehow has borked her phone.
From what she's explained, she used Task 29 to wipe her phone, or something to that degree, and then tried to flash a GSM ROM to it. However she in on Sprint, so I assume it's a CDMA phone.
As of right now, the phone appears off. If you hold the power down, nothing. If you take the battery out, put it back in, and hold Vol Down it'll boot into the bootloader (I believe that's what it is, the colorful background thing) however the bootloader soon goes away and back to the black screen.
Sometimes the phone will randomly boot up to the HTC logo, and then back to blackness.
Does anyone have any idea what she's supposed to do at this point? Or what I should do to get a ROM on there? I have 0 experience with Windows Mobile roms, so I don't know what happened or what to do next. Guidance of what happened and what to do next would be appreciated so I can solve this issue and understand the situation past 'is it borked'
Thanks everyone
EDIT UPDATE: I figured it out. Her battery was dead lol however USB charging wouldn't work. I happen to have an external charger hah so I saved the day. I was now able to boot into the bootloader, have it stay there, and put a ROM on there. Easy Peasy.
Hi guys,
I have had my Sensation rooted with ARHD for about 4-5 weeks and everything has been smooth till now, when yesterday I was just reading an text message and my phone's screen went black but still lit up. I replaced the battery, SIM, SD and tried rebooting but it would still just appear as a black screen with the backlight on, but the keys are not lit up. Occasionally, the HTC splash screen would appear after taking the battery out and restarting, but then would again, go to the black screen. I can't go into Boot Loader either (i think i had my phone set to fast-boot cause I need to frequently switch my phone off).
Anyone have any ideas as to what I should do?
Cheers in advance
Try the taking out the SD card and then booting with the power/vol dn combo to see if you can get to the bootloader. If successful, may have to reload your firmware (P58IMG) and possibly ROM.
Just fyi fastboot has absolutely nothing to do with how fast your phone turns on lol.
Kevc44485 said:
Just fyi fastboot has absolutely nothing to do with how fast your phone turns on lol.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Enable fastboot in settings, power off your phone and then power it back up again (without taking out the battery).
Your phone will boot in a jiffy. This more of a Sleep-Wake than a Power Off & power On, but yes, enabling the fastboot option will boot up the phone faster.
nabbyboii said:
Hi guys,
I have had my Sensation rooted with ARHD for about 4-5 weeks and everything has been smooth till now, when yesterday I was just reading an text message and my phone's screen went black but still lit up. I replaced the battery, SIM, SD and tried rebooting but it would still just appear as a black screen with the backlight on, but the keys are not lit up. Occasionally, the HTC splash screen would appear after taking the battery out and restarting, but then would again, go to the black screen. I can't go into Boot Loader either (i think i had my phone set to fast-boot cause I need to frequently switch my phone off).
Anyone have any ideas as to what I should do?
Cheers in advance
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There were threads a few weeks ago simiar to this with Sensations randomly dying.
What version of ARHD were you running, kernel, and firmware?
gustav30 said:
What version of ARHD were you running, kernel, and firmware?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm running ARHD 6.5.5 with 3.32.401.5 (can't remember anything after 5) and selected the Sebastian kernel when I installed the ROM ...
Kevc44485 said:
Just fyi fastboot has absolutely nothing to do with how fast your phone turns on lol.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
He means the feature that just suspends your phone instead of powering off. Ironically, both methods don't fully turn the phone off. Coincidentally, it's also called Fast Boot. You're thinking of that set of bootloader tools.
As per OPs issue, I have no idea. It sounds hardware related, but intermittent. Perhaps crack it open and see if there are any loose ribbon connectors or anything? I'm thinking the ribbon responsible for the screen may be loose. If it's loose but still kind of in place, the pins responsible for power might still be in contact but the ones responsible for sending data to the LCD might not. That could be why it turns on but it's only solid black. Pulling the battery and putting it back in might just coincidentally be "helping" because the angle of the phone is affecting a loose ribbon. Mind you, this is all speculation, and it might not be hardware at all, but that's my best guess.
Also, if you can get it resolved, never use HTC's Fast Boot. It's convenient, but tends to be a major pain when you have legitimate issues.
I have been having similar issues. My phone will be fine and all of a sudden it will turn off. Receiving calls, changing tracks from the lockscreen or playing games. Sometimes just unlocking my phone to use it will cause it to crash. Then getting it to boot again can be a royal pain in the behind. Anywhere from the first bootsplash to first unlock / loading the UI can make it crash and it's usually a pull of the battery SIM and SD to get it to boot.
Age of the ROM is something I have noticed to be a factor, the older the ROM, the more likely it is to do this but wiping cache and Dalvik from 4EXT has no real effect on stopping it from happening for any noticeable length of time.
Also to note, battery life seems to be very jumpy when this happens. I have had 4% battery life for hours, listened to music (at volume) and it's remained at 4%. Hardware LED isn't lit and it's just the OS with it's UI warning me so every so often, with the battery indicator staying at the 4%. It'll change again if the phone crashes again. Either to an accurate reading or to another fixed percentage, but it seems to like the 4%.
Not sure if it's the ROM, or firmware, but my previous ROM's have been using Bricked Kernel. I don't know it that's a deciding factor or not.
Sorry for hijacking the thread, but I too have stability issues and been wanting to say something on here for a while.
I'll post version details later on as I'm just about to get ready for a road trip.
Mark
kgs1992 said:
Enable fastboot in settings, power off your phone and then power it back up again (without taking out the battery).
Your phone will boot in a jiffy. This more of a Sleep-Wake than a Power Off & power On, but yes, enabling the fastboot option will boot up the phone faster.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
fastboot has nothing to do with how fast your phone boots up. take your battery out and put it back in then start it and see if it starts up fast. you're thinking of quick start from basically hibernate
http://android-dls.com/wiki/index.php?title=Fastboot
Hey I have a sensation 4g. All has been well until today. I was at work and got an email. Went to check it but the screen wouldnt turn on. This has happend several times since using Viper rom, which is why I switched to energy. I pulled the battery and went to turn it back on.
Since than all I get out of it is a brief lighting of the screen followed by a boot vibration. After that the screen stays off and it "boot vibrates" at regular intervals never displaying anything. Attempts to get into the boot loader for recovery are met with the same.
If I plug a charger into it the charge indicater lights for about 15 seconds than turns off. Occasionally I can see a red light in the upper left hand corner.
I have used a htc g2 battery held against the pins as a known good battery so I have eliminated my battery as bad.
It is rooted, was running ICS Energy rom.
adb does not detect the device nor does linux or windows, but thats not too unusual since it technically doesnt turn on.
I am assuming that the thing is totally dead for whatever reason, but on the off chance someone has any ideas Im all ears, I love this phone.
azethoth said:
Hey I have a sensation 4g. All has been well until today. I was at work and got an email. Went to check it but the screen wouldnt turn on. This has happend several times since using Viper rom, which is why I switched to energy. I pulled the battery and went to turn it back on.
Since than all I get out of it is a brief lighting of the screen followed by a boot vibration. After that the screen stays off and it "boot vibrates" at regular intervals never displaying anything. Attempts to get into the boot loader for recovery are met with the same.
If I plug a charger into it the charge indicater lights for about 15 seconds than turns off. Occasionally I can see a red light in the upper left hand corner.
I have used a htc g2 battery held against the pins as a known good battery so I have eliminated my battery as bad.
It is rooted, was running ICS Energy rom.
adb does not detect the device nor does linux or windows, but thats not too unusual since it technically doesnt turn on.
I am assuming that the thing is totally dead for whatever reason, but on the off chance someone has any ideas Im all ears, I love this phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe it was a hardware failure. how many times does it vibrate? there is something called qualcomm diagnostic mode that htc phones sometimes get happens when the hboot gets corrputed/damaged. depending how many vibrations you get some people have had luck attempting to blind boot a pc58img.zip to the bootloader to flash a ruu. but since your phone isnt being recognised by the pc as anything i wouldnt hold out to much hope how many vibes do you get?
You might be in diag mode, as heavy_metal_man said.
Does QHSUSB_DLOAD come up in Device Manager?
neither windows nor linux recognize the device at all.
as far as the vibration. I call it a boot vibration, as it is the same intensity and duration of the normal boot vibrate you get on power up.
Its a single vibration of about one second. After that every about 30 seconds it vibrates again.
I did try to shove a P58IMG.zip onto the sd card but I figured that was a long shot anyway and of course nothing happened.
Just out of curiosity have you tired another battery? I know you did check it but one time I was charging my device with a perfectly good battery, it wasn't low, and my device made a weird noise like a high pitch noise then went black. I had no charging light, no life what so ever. I thought I was completely screwed thinking something fried my device. Out of desperation I put another fully charged battery in. Then my device sprang back to life and I haven't had any trouble since. I never figured out what happened. But I was so Glad it worked. So just for curiosity do try another battery. It can't hurt to try it. In my weird case it worked. Like I said earlier the weird part was my battery was good! Not dead! So it won't hurt to just try. You have nothing to lose. I do hope it helps. Good luck and best wishes!
Sent from my HTC Sensation using xda premium
sadly I have no other battery, I have a g2 battery that I can hold in as a substitute but still the same result. I will try to throw that img back on the sd card and see if I can blind install it.
Appreciate the help guys.
Yesterday, I was using the Navigation app on my phone. It was a busy day, so I think I had left the app running. In my previous experiences with the app, it stays on until I exit the app. Previously, I remember the phone running really hot.
Anyhow, yesterday sometime in the afternoon, I took my phone out and found the screen off. Pushing the power button didn't do anything. So I figure it probably had a drained battery and I plugged it in the wall to charge. About three or four hours later, I pushed the power button again - just to turn on my phone and see if I had any missed texts/calls. Nothing - the screen didn't turn on, but the red LED light was on. So I left it charging through the wall adapter, and went to go do some research about the problem.
Next morning the red LED was flashing. I tried the power button again, but nothing happened. Then I got a little panicky and tried the different button configurations I had read about: holding down the power button for x amount of seconds, holding down the power button and volume down button simultaneously - but again, nothing happened.
Fast forward to tonight - I'm not sure if my phone is charging or not, or if something else sinister is happening to it. I pushed the power button down about a half hour ago, and the red LED turned off. I then, plugged my phone into my computer, and I got a dialog pop-up that said "Device driver was not properly installed" with the driver name "qhsusb_dload".
Any idea what this issue is? Or could you point me to further info somewhere?
Any help is much appreciated!
PS. I got my HTC One X just about 2 and a half months ago at the end of November. My phone isn't rooted, and the most "advanced" thing I did with it was put ADWLauncher on it.
intellectualese said:
Yesterday, I was using the Navigation app on my phone. It was a busy day, so I think I had left the app running. In my previous experiences with the app, it stays on until I exit the app. Previously, I remember the phone running really hot.
Anyhow, yesterday sometime in the afternoon, I took my phone out and found the screen off. Pushing the power button didn't do anything. So I figure it probably had a drained battery and I plugged it in the wall to charge. About three or four hours later, I pushed the power button again - just to turn on my phone and see if I had any missed texts/calls. Nothing - the screen didn't turn on, but the red LED light was on. So I left it charging through the wall adapter, and went to go do some research about the problem.
Next morning the red LED was flashing. I tried the power button again, but nothing happened. Then I got a little panicky and tried the different button configurations I had read about: holding down the power button for x amount of seconds, holding down the power button and volume down button simultaneously - but again, nothing happened.
Fast forward to tonight - I'm not sure if my phone is charging or not, or if something else sinister is happening to it. I pushed the power button down about a half hour ago, and the red LED turned off. I then, plugged my phone into my computer, and I got a dialog pop-up that said "Device driver was not properly installed" with the driver name "qhsusb_dload".
Any idea what this issue is? Or could you point me to further info somewhere?
Any help is much appreciated!
PS. I got my HTC One X just about 2 and a half months ago at the end of November. My phone isn't rooted, and the most "advanced" thing I did with it was put ADWLauncher on it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
qhsusb_dload usually indicates a hard brick. take it for warranty repair. given what you've described most likely you've had a hardware failure of some sort.
Sounds like you've ended up in qualcom download mode somehow. When you held down power and volume down, was you're phone plugged in? I think I accidentally made it to qdl mode once when my phone was plugged into the wall. Try unplugging power, and press and holding power and volume down, see what happens.. Otherwise you may be able to get help from 18th.abn who seems to know quite a bit about the qualcom download mode. Good luck.
Sent from my One X using xda app-developers app
It pains me to read your post because I had the same exact thing months ago. The phone turned off while using navigation and never turned on again. At the time JET didn't exist so there was nothing I could do about it.
Look here and see if it might help your situation and maybe avoid a warranty repair
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1982442
I've seen this type of post a few times and makes me think that there's definitely something wrong with the evita that's bricking these phones all on their own. Maybe hardware like someone else suggested so maybe warranty repair might be safer.
Best of luck. :thumbup:
Thank you all for your help and suggestions. It appears my phone is dead, completely. I had high hopes, but now I think I'm wasting energy. I called HTC and they said they'd send me an email with ticket info to return it so they could fix it. But they never sent the email. Now I must chase after them and try to get them to fix my phone. Sigh. I would try JET, but I don't run Linux and don't think I'm as tech savvy as I should be to set it up.
Thanks again!
intellectualese said:
Sigh. I would try JET, but I don't run Linux and don't think I'm as tech savvy as I should be to set it up.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
IMO, if you are bone stock (sounds like you are) its not worth it to mess with JET. Just send the phone to HTC (or your carrier, if they handle warranty matters - they are often easier to deal with than HTC). It may well be a hardware issue, that JET won't fix.
redpoint73 said:
IMO, if you are bone stock (sounds like you are) its not worth it to mess with JET. Just send the phone to HTC (or your carrier, if they handle warranty matters - they are often easier to deal with than HTC). It may well be a hardware issue, that JET won't fix.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yea... if you are in qdl download.. sounds like a hardware failure..sending it back to HTC might be the only way to go..
Up and running again, but w/ new phone
Yup, I took it to my carrier (ATT) yesterday and they couldn't do anything with it, so they gave me new phone right there and then, which was great news. Bad news is I have to start from scratch. But at least I've learned to back up early and often.
Not sure if you could have done anything about this as it seems to be a hardware failure
My phone: Nexus S, 16Gb, Rom CM11, Android 4.4.4 (List of updates: https://download.cyanogenmod.org/?device=crespo)
My story
Yesterday, (about 9.00pm 13/12/2015) my phone got some laggy, so I powered him off. I left it there, 15 minutes later I came back, and I forgot that he had been powered off, so I thought it was just sleeping. I picked him up and press PowerButton. Nothing happended!
Then I got a look at CM rom, found that interesting is my Rom just got a new update at 2.00pm 13/12/2015. I think that my phone has auto-updated!!
In the past, sometime he behaved the same: PowerButton not respond. So, after that 1st press, about 5 sec later, I started to press the PowerButton repeatedly and rapidly, hopefully the phone would wake up.
But no, the reality was that he was being off. There were about 6-7 presses, I will describe slowly below (assume between each press is 0.2 sec):
1st and 2nd press: nothing happened
3rd press: the phone vibrated, and Google logo appeared
4th press: (I had no mean to continue pressing, but it was too fast, I couldn't stop) suddenly, the Google logo disappeared (so the logo stayed on screen just for about 0.2 sec; while normally, it should stay there for atleast 5 sec)
5th and 6th press: nothing happened!
And from then on, no more, anything happened.
What I tried
Hold PowerButton for even 1 minute: nothing happen!
Hold PowerButton + VolumeUP for even 1 minute: none!
Hold PowerButton + VolumeUPandDOWN for even 1 minute: none too!
Connect to charger (wall or pc): no Battery Animation show up! BUT the phone and Battery get warming up!
Take out the Battery for even 15 minutes, then put it back, and PowerButton: nothing!
And the phone not get recognized by PC too.
Sumary
No display
No vigration
No recognized by PC (because of this, I can not follow this method: http://forum.xda-developers.com/oneplus-one/general/guide-unbrick-oneplus-one-t3013732
More Information
In the past, the VolumeDOWN sometimes seems get stucked, cause the phone silent and auto boot to safemode, after many try to press and reboot, the phone may get out of safemode (because VolumeDOWN back to normal)
PowerButton sometimes not respond.
My Battery is not good, sometimes it drops too much! Eg: having 50%, after reboot, dropped to 3%, and start to increase slowly, max around 30% and become normally.
Hope you guys have some ideas! I still can't do anything, when the phone is not regconized by PC!!
Thanks for reading!
Thank you!
Hey,
2 things come to mind and I bet are both the problems. First off you need a new battery and you seem to know this, very cheap now a days but still buy a good one as cheap knock offs are abundant and don't support the power they say, try mugen, anker or stock oem
Also you need to replace power button, this phone was always notorious with bad ones, a new one is cheap but many often found just a loose connection so if you open up the phone, check the ribbon connections and then throw in that new battery all should be well, hopefully
Best of luck!
demkantor said:
Hey,
2 things come to mind and I bet are both the problems. First off you need a new battery and you seem to know this, very cheap now a days but still buy a good one as cheap knock offs are abundant and don't support the power they say, try mugen, anker or stock oem
Also you need to replace power button, this phone was always notorious with bad ones, a new one is cheap but many often found just a loose connection so if you open up the phone, check the ribbon connections and then throw in that new battery all should be well, hopefully
Best of luck!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you. I'll try your suggest ASAP.
But I'm wondering, that do you think that CM Update maybe also a reason?
I kind of doubt it as that should only effect the software, if you were getting a bootloop or anything to that extant yeah, but being it won't power on at all I doubt it
thank you
Nope, I've seen these symptoms before - exactly the same thing. Dude, I think your phone is Superbricked.
I've got a stack of 3 Nexus S 4G's that have exactly the same problem - the eMMC card is trashed by a buggy "secure erase" implementation. See: https://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/EMMC_Bugs
My "working" one was working great, even set it up to sell on eBay, when I went to wipe its data with a factory-reset from the settings menus. When it shut down to reboot, I pulled the battery. That's what bricked it - because the eMMC was halfway through a background erase/rewrite procedure, it wiped out the boot loader somehow and completely bricked the phone. It now does precisely, exactly the same thing you describe - absolutely nothing, except when it's plugged in, it warms up after a while.
Best I can tell, the only way out from here is to use a JTAG device to reflash the chip, but even then, the eMMC itself might be "unbootable" (i.e. can't start up, can't be read or written, can't be reformatted/restored).
I just called it "end of life" for those phones and now they're just a sour reminder on my shelf
FalconFour said:
Nope, I've seen these symptoms before - exactly the same thing. Dude, I think your phone is Superbricked.
I've got a stack of 3 Nexus S 4G's that have exactly the same problem - the eMMC card is trashed by a buggy "secure erase" implementation. See:
My "working" one was working great, even set it up to sell on eBay, when I went to wipe its data with a factory-reset from the settings menus. When it shut down to reboot, I pulled the battery. That's what bricked it - because the eMMC was halfway through a background erase/rewrite procedure, it wiped out the boot loader somehow and completely bricked the phone. It now does precisely, exactly the same thing you describe - absolutely nothing, except when it's plugged in, it warms up after a while.
Best I can tell, the only way out from here is to use a JTAG device[/URL] to reflash the chip, but even then, the eMMC itself might be "unbootable" (i.e. can't start up, can't be read or written, can't be reformatted/restored).
I just called it "end of life" for those phones and now they're just a sour reminder on my shelf
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thank you!!
my heart just stop breathing :'( :'(
God, I wish there were a solution to it. I'd really like to donate a phone to anyone that thinks they have the tools or skills to make a "how I did it" explanation - involving whatever tools/software are necessary - to bring these phones back and help us all. I bought 2 of those 3 phones as "for parts" on eBay, and it turned out that both of those phones appeared to have exactly this same issue (though one also had a cracked glass). I even verified the issue by swapping in my good phone's eMMC (at least on the NS4G, it's a swappable card module), and the boards booted up. I only needed the one for the good screen (as I had a good board but completely destroyed display panel) - and that's how I got my one working again.
Then, in the end, I accidentally stumbled upon the method by which the previous two phones were bricked - and now there are three. It seems like a fairly common problem. :/