AT&T Fuze screen issue - bottom menu-area of screen is flickering almost constantly
(Forgive me for the length of this post. I am just trying to provide as much information as possible! If anyone has encountered this same or similar issue, your help is greatly appreciated).
I need help! (professional and otherwise) ...with my AT&T Fuze (rebranded Touch Pro).
I am developing a game for Windows Mobile called Scrobble (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=3206316&posted=1), and I left it running overnight.
My screen is set to turn off after 1 minute, and my device set to sleep after 5 minutes when plugged in to external power.
I had the Fuze plugged into wall outlet power to recharge. I left it lying, like I always do, face down on a black soft-leather CD case (so the glowing charging light doesn't bother me).
I left it alone for the 7.5 or so hours I was asleep. When I woke up in the morning and picked it up, the screen was on. It usually is not on, and I don't think I pressed the button to activate the screen.
When I looked at the screen, the Scrobble program was still running, and the bottom menu portion of the screen was flickering. Scrobble has two menu buttons at the bottom -- "Turn" and "Game" -- with a SIP keyboard icon in between them (same as nearly all WM apps).
In any other program, or the Today screen, the menu portion of the screen flickers (the brightness constantly and rapidly fluctuates consistently... like a fluorescent light that is on its last leg).
I did a full power off and power on, and during the "world phone" screen and the the AT&T 3G "power up" animation, the flicker was -not- there. But as soon the Windows Mobile loading/splash screen appeared, the flicker returned, in the exact same spot.
And I can see the ghost "Turn -- [SIP] -- Game" menu in the flicker. But I don't think it's burnt into the display, because it's not there during the first two loading/splash screens.
Currently I have the battery completely removed from the device and will leave it out for a while. If that doesn't work I will do a hard reset.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!! (This device is about 2 months old -- does HTC provide any support for it directly?).
Fixed
Phew! My screen flicker issue is no more.
I'm not sure if it's because I took the battery out and let it sit and think about what it had done for ~22 hours, or if it's because it just went away after a while (with the battery out for 22hrs). But either way, my Fuze is back to normal!
So if anyone leaves theirs on overnight and wakes up in the morning to a flickering ghost of a menu at the bottom, my suggestion is to fully reboot it, then take the battery out and leave it out overnight!
(It's kind of nice going a full day without any phone calls!!).
good for you.. you dont need a new phone giving you damage issues already... glad to hear that its gone
Thanks you for this post. I am going through the same thing with my ATT Fuze. This time it is Tomtom that I left running overnight with the screen turning on and off. I can add that the flicker and ghost is there the second the phone powers on. I have already hard reset and took the battery out for a few mins, but the flickering still there. Now I will take the battery out for several hours and hopefully it will be normal again.
I had a similar issue this week. I was using the phone all day, getting emails and phone calls, no problems. I get home and go to charge my phone and it doesn't appear to be charging. I flip on the screen and the whole screen is flickering on and off like it's not getting enough power. I charged the device over night, hard reset, pulled battery for 24 hours and still it won't go away. I just got the device thru amazon so I already reordered a replacement.
I've never left my screen on for hours at a time and I sometimes run into that same issue. The bottom of the screen flickers, and I can see a ghost image of my left and right soft keys when doing things that pull up a dark grey or black screen, like adjusting the volume. I usually try a few soft resets, and if that doesn't work I turn it off and take the battery out for a while. From what I am reading it seems to be correlated with extended periods of screen usage, but my screen has rarely been kept on for more than 30 minutes at a time.
Not to beat a dead horse or anything, but I was just having the same problem with my Fuze: the bottom quarter of the screen was flickering, but without the ghosting you spoke of. Out of curiosity, I went into my "Power Settings" menu, and for some reason the "auto adjust backlight" was unchecked, and the brightness settings were maxed out. I checked "auto adjust backlight" and the flickering stopped. Not sure why, but thought I'd add it to the thread.
kart_racer3 said:
Not to beat a dead horse or anything, but I was just having the same problem with my Fuze: the bottom quarter of the screen was flickering, but without the ghosting you spoke of. Out of curiosity, I went into my "Power Settings" menu, and for some reason the "auto adjust backlight" was unchecked, and the brightness settings were maxed out. I checked "auto adjust backlight" and the flickering stopped. Not sure why, but thought I'd add it to the thread.
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Yeah I did notice that it's only really noticeable when the screen is set to max brightness. Setting it on auto adjust cleared it up for me also.
proj3ktpat said:
Yeah I did notice that it's only really noticeable when the screen is set to max brightness. Setting it on auto adjust cleared it up for me also.
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thx guys...helped me out too...
Just sent my unit in for repair (under warrenty) due to the screen flicker issue, lets see what happens when it comes back.
I just started to experience the flicker today. Has be somewhat concerned. The device is only two weeks old.
However, it seems to have stopped by itself while I was searching the forums for an answer. If it returns, I'll try the 'remove battery' method and see if that helps.
Also, I love Scrobble! Shame it doesn't work on QVGA displays. Or, at least, didn't on my Wizard...
Related thread
Hey guys there's a thread with the same exact issue and a screenshot on the first post.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=535099
Seems to be something related to the Hardware 3D Acceleration driver for Windows Mobile, I get this problem only once 3d has been activated.
If Sense/TF3D is turned off, I never see this problem. It only comes up once a game or Sense has been launched.
I can also boot into Android without 3D activated and not have this problem, but if I run Sense then go into Android I get the flicker from a Windows Mobile screen while in Android.
protwitness: That doesn't seem to be the case (for me, at least.) I don't run TF3D and it still happens. I can't really discern what the trigger is, but I have a feeling it has something to do with the screen brightness auto adjustment. (Sometimes, I'll turn my phone on when it's dark and it jumps to full day-light brightness for some reason.)
I've adjusted to it and it doesn't really bother me any more.
My friend smashed the screen on his nexus 5 and gave it to some shady repair shop. They replaced his screen (with a white one, on a black phone btw, now it has a white dot on top) and he paid a lot of money for it, but now his display won't work, so he gave it to me to fix, as I have some experience with fixing phones and he has no money left. The repair shop refused to take it back and he doesn't want to start a legal battle. As far as I've tested, the phone shows three behaviours. The first is that the phone boots normally, but without displaying anything. I can still hear it getting notifications and can connect it to a computer, it's just not displaying anything. The second behaviour is identical to the first, except instead of a black screen the phone shows colorful static which seems to correspond to screen-on time (when I lock the phone it goes black and vice versa). The third behaviour, which is the weirdest, is that the display works, but everything displayed is glitching. The google logo maybe has the top 20% moved down a bit, the boot animation may be choppy or distorted, the recovery menu may be divided into blocks which are moved around a bit. In this 'mode', I have never gotten it past the boot animation. The reason I wrote 'may' is because it's different every time, but eventually it always just goes black and stops responding until i disconnect and reconnect the battery.
I opened the phone and fiddled with the connectors a bit and found out that pressing the usb board connector to the mainboard seems to cause the phone to switch between these behaviours. I took a small piece of paper, folded it over a few times and put it on top of the connector and then screwed the cover back on to hold the connector firmly in place. That seemed to put the phone into constant behaviour 3 (graphical glitching).
What could be the problem? I know that the static indicates that the usb board or more probably its connector is faulty, but I'm more concerned about the glitching. It seems to me that the graphical processor is malfunctioning, but I have very little knowledge about graphical processing and displaying so I really don't know. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
UPDATE: the phone just did something weird, when I turned it on it displayed static, but then it started drawing the boot animation slowly from top to bottom. And then proceeded with behaviour 3 as usual, the animation ran at about 3fps and just went blank after 10s.
Okay, I have located the exact location of the fault, the USB board ribbon cable that goes over the battery was bent at a sharp angle and then apparently straightened again. If I press it in that point, the screen switches between static and nothing. I have not been able to recreate the glitching since I cleaned all the parts of the phone with isopropyl alcohol. Still, I'm interested in an explanation to avoid further problems with glitching
now it's behaving even more strangely. When I turn it on, it slowly fades from grey to bright white screen and then goes black and starts blinking a red light. What does this mean? Please help
anyone?
After replacing my screen, each time I wake up my phone from standby, the location I tap the screen and the pointer location are displaced in y-direction; each time differently. I think there is an issue in recalibrating the screen after waking it up. did I buy a malfunctioning screen or did i mess up the replacement?
Also in the first screen on time after a full restart the touchscreen works as it should. So is there a possibility to restart the touchscreen driver like on a reboot?
Hi guys,
This problem has me stumped, so I figured I'd consult the hive mind.
The touchscreen works fine after the phone is turned on - be that for a continuous period of 30 seconds or 30 minutes. However, if/when it goes to sleep, the touchscreen becomes completely unresponsive on wake up. The screen turns on, rotates, and the physical buttons work fine. I figure no touch input is acknowledged, because if I tap the screen after it dims nothing happens; but if I press a physical button, then full brightness is restored.
I have been looking around for a solution for some time, but none of the three I found appear to be working, ie:
- Ensuring the Wi-Fi's set to be permanently on (no change on any of the settings)
- Changing the ROM (problem appeared in stock ROM, it now sports LineageOS)
- Changing the digitizer (problem is the same on old or salvaged screen)
At this point, I am not sure what else I can try. Any ideas would be most welcome.
Maybe charger? Some cables/chargers make touch panel go crazy (it used to happen to me with bad chargers) so try to change charger and USB cable.
Screen appears to have died.
First it started with a vertical line of wrong colour pixels, it was this way for a few months. Then half the screen went white and later that day the screen died.
It flickers white and pink for a split second in the top right corner when you wake it, but then goes off. Otherwise the phone works as screenshots and apps respond, and responds to touch.
Don't suppose anyone knows any dirty tricks for fixing it that don't require taking it apart? Like heating it or something?