I bricked my SGS i9000 - Need someone with soldering skills to help me fix it!

[Tiny3001]

Howzit guys,

I've got a SGS i9000, which I have flashed dozens of times before, with ICS roms, Gingerbread roms, themes, radios and who knows what.

Yesterday, I tried to flash the Team ICSSGS RC4.2 rom. It kept bootlooping, so I kept reverting to stock XXJVU, flashing it again, lather, rinse, repeat. Then I found a thread that said I "must flash a GB bootloader". Haven't flashed a bootloader before, but I found the zip file, booted into download mode, started up Odin and flashed the bootloader file.

Admittedly, I never checked the MD5 hash of the download, so I don't know whether it was the actual bootloader or a bad download that bricked my phone.

But it is hard-bricked. I've fixed a soft-brick before (many times), but this is it. No power, no backlight switching on, no 3-button download mode, no 3-button recovery mode, not even a charging animation when I plug the USB in. It's good and solidly bricked. Yes, I have bricked the phone that most guys claim are unbrickable.

So I start reading up on the problem, and there are guys who have unbricked the SGS i9000.

2 Methods:

1) Create a home-made microUSB 'jig'. This involves cutting open a microUSB cable, and bridging a 300k resistor to pins 4 and 5. Plugging in the jig while the phone is on the battery, will then force the phone into download mode. Unfortunately, I don't think this will solve my problem, as my software bootloader (SBL) is well and truly stuffed and probably cannot even boot into download mode.

2) Apply the hardware-based 'Unbrickable mod'. See: http://forum.xda-developers.com/show....php?t=1330491
This involves switching some resistors directly on the processor of the phones board, either with a magnet wire or actually moving the resistors around. This effectively tells the board to skip loading from the SBL and try to load a bootloader directly over USB or UART. Then there is an amazing piece of software you run that basically forces the phone into download mode from the hardware bootloader that was just delivered over USB. At which point you can recover your phone.

So, who out there (in the JHB area) has the soldering skills and electronics know-how that I need?

My contract expires in September, so it's not a biggie, but I would love to get the phone back up and running again.

Anyone up for the challenge? Of course, I'm willing to pay for your time

[TobyK]

I've made a few jigs. If you're in Joburg/Pretoria you can pick it up from house4hack or else order it on the store: http://www.house4hack.co.za/shop

[DaDon]

Howzit guys,

I've got a SGS i9000, which I have flashed dozens of times before, with ICS roms, Gingerbread roms, themes, radios and who knows what.

Yesterday, I tried to flash the Team ICSSGS RC4.2 rom. It kept bootlooping, so I kept reverting to stock XXJVU, flashing it again, lather, rinse, repeat. Then I found a thread that said I "must flash a GB bootloader". Haven't flashed a bootloader before, but I found the zip file, booted into download mode, started up Odin and flashed the bootloader file.

Admittedly, I never checked the MD5 hash of the download, so I don't know whether it was the actual bootloader or a bad download that bricked my phone.

But it is hard-bricked. I've fixed a soft-brick before (many times), but this is it. No power, no backlight switching on, no 3-button download mode, no 3-button recovery mode, not even a charging animation when I plug the USB in. It's good and solidly bricked. Yes, I have bricked the phone that most guys claim are unbrickable.

So I start reading up on the problem, and there are guys who have unbricked the SGS i9000.

2 Methods:

1) Create a home-made microUSB 'jig'. This involves cutting open a microUSB cable, and bridging a 300k resistor to pins 4 and 5. Plugging in the jig while the phone is on the battery, will then force the phone into download mode. Unfortunately, I don't think this will solve my problem, as my software bootloader (SBL) is well and truly stuffed and probably cannot even boot into download mode.

2) Apply the hardware-based 'Unbrickable mod'. See: http://forum.xda-developers.com/show....php?t=1330491
This involves switching some resistors directly on the processor of the phones board, either with a magnet wire or actually moving the resistors around. This effectively tells the board to skip loading from the SBL and try to load a bootloader directly over USB or UART. Then there is an amazing piece of software you run that basically forces the phone into download mode from the hardware bootloader that was just delivered over USB. At which point you can recover your phone.

So, who out there (in the JHB area) has the soldering skills and electronics know-how that I need?

My contract expires in September, so it's not a biggie, but I would love to get the phone back up and running again.

Anyone up for the challenge? Of course, I'm willing to pay for your time

I just went through with this experience with my SGS2, not a pleasant experience

No.1 wont work as I have an usb jig and it didnt work, dont know about the SGS, but definetly doesnt work on the SGS2...
No.2 umm, might work, I just couldnt take the time to research this method / look for ppl with this type of skills...

What did work is, seeing as my SGS2 was under warranty... took it to a repair centre last Saturday, they booked it it, said I would have gotten it back same day if I had brought it in earlier... anyways, phone was ready Monday morning, they had to replace the pcb mainboard, reset and upgraded the OS...

Wish you luck on this as I know its not a good feeling...

Cheers
D

[Tiny3001]

I just went through with this experience with my SGS2, not a pleasant experience

No.1 wont work as I have an usb jig and it didnt work, dont know about the SGS, but definetly doesnt work on the SGS2...
No.2 umm, might work, I just couldnt take the time to research this method / look for ppl with this type of skills...

What did work is, seeing as my SGS2 was under warranty... took it to a repair centre last Saturday, they booked it it, said I would have gotten it back same day if I had brought it in earlier... anyways, phone was ready Monday morning, they had to replace the pcb mainboard, reset and upgraded the OS...

Wish you luck on this as I know its not a good feeling...

Cheers
D

Would you be able to point me to the correct repair centre? Number, address?

[DaDon]

Would you be able to point me to the correct repair centre? Number, address?

Hi there,

Sorry for the late reply, had a hectic day...
Just call MTN and ask them for the nearest High Volume Repair Centre ( HVRC ) thats closest to you.
Mine was the MTN Allandale, address as follows:

201 Richards Drive
Halfway house
Allandale

Cheers
D

[AntiThesis]

If it's the i9000, the Jig will work perfectly and is ridiculously easy to make.

301k resistors + microUSB and you're sorted. You don't even (technically) need to solder them together, just don't make contact with your skin