One of my friends had this lens cleaner for glasses, but I decided to try it on my BlackBerry and it actually made the surface of the screen worse as if it was etched with rocks or something. Looked really dirty. When the screen was on you couldn’t really notice anything, but when it was off, it looked terrible.
Blackberry Torch with the screen turned on.
Damaged BlackBerry digitizer with the Screen off.
That’s when I ordered a new touch screen digitizer on eBay for the BlackBerry Torch 9800. Swapping it out was very difficult so I’m making a tutorial here today on how to change the touch screen and the disassembly/teardown of the torch.
First remove battery plate, extract the battery, mirco sd card and sim card.
Remove the four T6 Screws that are visible. One of them will be under a blue sticker, not sure if that's a water sensor or what, but your warranty will be voided as soon as that's removed or broken.
After removing the bottom two T6 screws, you should be able to start prying off the bezel which is weaved around the phone. After removing the bezel, there will be two more T6 screws which were previously hidden by the bezel. Removes those screws, then pry off the back plate. Use a plastic screwdriver to help you along the way. Plastic screwdriver allows you to pry it all apart without damaging or scratching the housing.
After doing the above steps you should be left with everything at this point.
Next remove the three ribbon cables connected on top of the main printed circuit board (PCB). One part is stuck on like a sticker, slowly peel it off. Remove the black antenna wire on the reverse side of the PCB as well.
Remove the black sticker on the back of the BlackBerry where the battery usually goes. Underneath you will find 6 hidden screws which are of size T2. Remove them.
You should be able to separate the two halves of the blackberry from this point and it should look like this.
Remove even more screws, some might be T4 while others might be even smaller like T3 or T2. You might need to slide the slider up or down to get some screws visible. After this, you should be able to remove the slider assembly.
Pry off the touch screen digitizer slowly without breaking the LCD screen below it. Also do not pull it all the way off as there is still a ribbon cable you have to disconnect carefully on the reverse side.
on the other side of the LCD you will find the ribbon cable for the touch screen which loops around. Remove the brown tape that covers it and lift the clip upwards 90 degrees shown at 30 degrees in the photo. This allows you to pull the ribbon outwards. The ribbon cable is also stuck on like a sticky. Slowly peel it off.
When sticking back on the new digitizer make sure there is no dust or fingerprints on the side that will be closed up permanently because you will never be able to clean it up unless you open the BlackBerry again. Also when putting back the ribbon cable for the digitizer make sure the white line on the ribbon is fully pushed against the connector and flush, it may even be invisible if fully inserted, then push the clip down to hold in in place and stick it on with the sticky. Also during the whole process do not remove the call/end/menu/back buttons as this will be hard or impossible to put back later properly.
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Hi, I dropped my torch on its face and the glass is broken but everything still works perfectly, can I replace the screen? Will it be okay?
@Dee laubscher
Just to let you know, I can’t be responsible for any damage that you may do to your phone. But the “screen” is actually in 3 layers. Their is the backlight, then the LCD, then the touch screen. If it appears to be shattered like glass on the inside, its most likely the LCD screen. You’re best bet is to open up the phone and see. Its better if you’re experienced with this stuff, or your likely to damage the phone even more. Definitely make a backup of your mobile phone before doing any work on it so you don’t lose phone numbers, notes or other data.
Hey I put my new screen on and it looks great but now my phone wont come on at all. What did I do wrong?
Hi
i recently ripped my curve 3g antenna sticker now i want to know its replaceable or not and how much its cost
@Sarah, I can’t tell. Try disassembling your mobile and putting it back together.
@Vikash, you can search on ebay for the sticker, not sure if they would have it. If not, you can fix the broken trace or even draw a new one by using this circuit pen writer which has a conductive ink.
I have a 9800 every time i put a white touch the proximity sensor is permanently actiated, go back to black, and it works fine. Please help?
I have a blackberry torch 9800. There is sand in between the LCD screen and the touch screen. Can I only remove the touch screen and clean it? Or do I have to disassemble the whole phone? Once I remove the touch screen, will it just glue back again or will I have to put something in between?
@Mark WGF
Not sure, is the proximity sensor clean? Is it obstructed? What do you mean by white touch?
@Johnny Andrade
I’m not 100% sure, as I haven’t opened this phone for a while, but from what I remember, there are no screws holding the touch screen to the phone. In that case, you would only need to split it to pieces to get to the ribbon cable on the reverse side of the LCD to remove the touch screen. Since you don’t need to remove it, It should be fine for you to separate them by prying apart using a plastic screwdriver probably starting from the speaker area and working your way around. Just don’t separate too much since the ribbon cable is still attached. The adhesive seems to remain sticky enough that you can just stick it back on as long as the adhesive doesn’t get dirty.
Hi, I have a BB Torch 9800 and I just replaced the housing. Everything went fine but when I was removing the LCD screen I had to push pretty hard to remove it from the plate because of the sticker and I broke it. I bought a new display and installed it. I put the phone back together witho no problem and it works pretty good, except that the digitizr screen seems to be extremely sensitive. It’s like if something is making a little contact between the lcd screen and the digitizer, but I cleaned it perfectly a couple of times and nothing. Still the same problem. Do you know what could it be?
@Matt
You may have bought some cheap or imitation junk from China. However, I think the sensitivity of the touch screen has to do with certain external components surrounding that chip on that flex cable. Thats the capacitive touch controller. The capacitor next to it, if it touches any other metal, it could potentially short circuit, rendering it unless or having unpredictable results. One way those components could short circuit is if you didn’t put the tape back on where it was supposed to be. Look at the last photograph in this article, see the teflon tape? That was supposed to cover the touch screen controller and surrounding components. Make sure that tape goes back on before reassembling.
well i have a torch 9810 , its touch is messed up like if i press 1 on touch screen smthing else gets pressed ?:S like i press 5 nd 3 is pressed
can this be fixed :S?
@Saif
Try going through the blackberry setting first and recalibrating the touchscreen. If I recall, there is a setting that allows you to recalibrate it.
Hi Steven,
Do you have any video document or step-by-step document so I can follow your step ?
By the way, great article…
Thx.
Hey I just the torch 98OO a month back . And yesterday a friend of m mine drop my phone and its working fine however the top on the le left side on the edge got chipped and the lock btn is out of. P place and the sliver rim is alil bent so the btn won’t go back in place . Is their anyway I can replace these parts?
@jerome, you can find a new housing on ebay for your mobile phone. However for the torch its very difficult to replace the housing. You will have to separate the lcd screen from the housing and that is somewhat glued on. The lcd screen is very fragile as it is made up of very thin glass components which shatter easily. There are methods though involving a heat gun.
@Sandi, try just doing a quick search on youtube for Blackberry Torch Teardown.