Digitizer not working after replacement (Galaxy Note 10.1)

[Spork Schivago]

Hello,

My wife replaces broken screens and digitizers for tablets because she's kinda got this gift at doing it and is real good at it. I handle the electrical problems, she handles the screens / digitizers. We got a Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet (model #: GT-N8013EAYXAR Deep Gray) that had a cracked digitizer.

My wife removed the broken one and she went and installed the new one, the only problem is it's not working properly and we're trying to figure out if it's the actual digitizer that's broke, if we're doing something wrong, or if the tablet itself is damaged more than we realized.

Originally, the owner showed us him swiping the tablet with the broken digitizer. However, when we received it, it wouldn't swipe properly at all. The new one has the same symptoms. If we try really hard and swipe maybe 10 times or so, it'll register as a swipe. When we try, it's almost like it's not fully registering our fingers, new digitizer or old. Tapping to open programs, etc, doesn't really work.

I'm wondering if there's some sort of calibration that must be done or is the tablet's PCB damaged or something? Any ideas or suggestions? Thank you!

[ozzy214]

Re: Digitizer not working after replacement (Galaxy Note 10.1)

On a laptop convertible I had the same issue. I fixed it for my girlfriend. What a bitch job it was. I was picking broken glass out of my fingers for hours lol. But wouldnt work properly. My girl comes around and finds the calibration program in windows 7 and calibrated. Perfect after that. Only downfall is the chip set would not install vid drivers, so I guess it needs to reballed. But still works good without video acceleration!

So my answer to your question, is, yes there is a calibration somewhere on it. There has to be in case you dont get the digitizer perfectly lined up to the mm.

I dont know much about tablets, but I assume you might have to put it into service mode and there should be a option there for it.

I think with android its hold volume down and power at same time while starting up and it will go to the recvoery / service menu! Google can answer more than me!

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Digitizer not working after replacement (Galaxy Note 10.1)

Thanks for the response Ozzy214. Yeah, I've been using google a lot trying to figure this out. I think I found the issue.

From what I've read, these Galaxy Note tablets have some auto-calibration, however, the ribbon cable is almost always at fault here. People seem to say hey, the problem turned out to be the ribbon cable wasn't properly seated!

Here comes the bad news. I went to reseat the ribbon cable for my wife. She's at work, and low and behold, there's no lock for the ribbon cable. The youtube videos show a lock. The other ribbon cables have a lock. And guess what I found down in the corner of the board? A broken lock! I'm guessing it might have broken during the fall but I've never seen something like that before. I called my wife and asked her, she said there wasn't one. She just pulled the old cable out. She said she thought that was odd.

So, now the question is how do I fix this. I think replacing the connector would be a very difficult job. I remember some laptops have lockless ribbon cables. They have this hard blue (or white or whatever) coloured plastic on top of the ribbon cable that keeps the ribbon cable taught inside the connector. I'm thinking if I could find one the right size or bigger and just cut it down to size, we can just glue it to the ribbon cable and use that to put some pressure on the actual cable so the pads are making better contact with the connector.

What a mess!

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Digitizer not working after replacement (Galaxy Note 10.1)

I think we fixed this. We put a little blue tab behind the flat flex cable or whatever it's called. The digitizer appears to work now!

[ozzy214]

Re: Digitizer not working after replacement (Galaxy Note 10.1)

Can use packing tape like box tape or hot glue....i use packing tape a lot to hold in cables and ribbons on laptops with broken locks.

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Digitizer not working after replacement (Galaxy Note 10.1)

Thanks! We'll remember that next time.

One thing we noticed though, there's a problem we think with the LCD flex cable. We noticed a black area on the screen, flickering, going out, stuff like that. When we touch the flex cable, it comes back on. Hopefully it's not the actual connector. This tablet is in a bit worse condition than we originally realized.