April 3, 2008

Repairing my Nokia N80 – Part 1

by Asif Hamza

Filed under: Hardware Hacks Tags: , ,

I’ve been using my Nokia N80 for more than a year now and been fairly happy with it.

So it was it a bit of a surprise when it started acting up last week. For some reason, if anyone called me, I could only hear them if I switched the sound to the loudspeaker.

As you can imagine, using the loadspeaker does not go down well in a crowded office environment.

Strangely enough, three other people with Nokia N80’s experienced the same problem.

Also, trying to use the front camera, caused a “hardware failure” message to appear.The defective N80 flex cable

A little research with Google revealed these problems to be symptoms of a faulty flex cable. Thats the cable that connects the two halves of the N80 together.

At this point I had three options

  1. Have the phone repaired at an official repair centre
  2. Have the phone repaired at and un-official repair centre for R500 (approximately $70)
  3. Fix it myself

Since I had installed modded firmware on my N80, I was pretty sure my warranty was voided. So option 1 was a no-no. Paying R500 for a no guarantee repair was also out.

So that left repairing it myself. An option that became even more appealing once I found out a flex cable costs only R10.

In Part 2, I’ll start the repair attempt

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4 Comments

  1. Fil, January 10, 2009:

    Hei!i changed the flex to the N80 today and everything works very good now!I follow a lit bit your instructions and a lit bit my my instinct.now my N80 work as good as before and i bought the flex for 5 euro on ebay.that s all.

  2. Andrew, July 26, 2009:

    Hi there,

    Im having the same issue with mine.

    Are you from South Africa?

    I see you said the ribbon cable was only R10, where did you find it?

    Any help would be much appreciated as I can fix it myself with the help of your guide!

    Thanks!

  3. AsifHamza, July 27, 2009:

    Yes I am. Johannesburg in fact. The cable was R10 at that time but 6 months later it was selling for R25. Probably due to an increase in broken N80’s. I bought mine from a shop in the Oriental Plaza but I’ve seen it sold in the flea markets as well. Some people have reported issues with the quality of these cables but the one I bought has had no issues.

  4. Andrew, August 5, 2009:

    I went to the Oriental Plaza and found one there! Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

    I bought two, each for R25. Still, R100 is nothing compared to what would have been charged had I taken it to a repair centre.

    Thanks!

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