Hardware Bricked Bold N1 Tip Fix - Blu Bold N1 Guides, News, & Discussion

A few months ago, I got a Bold N1 off an amazon return pallet at an old job. It didn't charge or power on at all. Got the chance to take it apart today and run some tests to see if it was a true brick or something simple
While pulling it apart, I first checked battery voltage and noticed it was very dead, but then I put power supply probes to the positive/negative on the main board. Device turned on for a moment
I then tried putting the battery back and put a ton of pressure on the battery cable when plugging it in... That worked.
If your device doesn't turn on, follow these potential steps
1.) Take the back off
2.) Take the plastic shield off the top of the phone
3.) Put a thick piece of foam tape on top of the battery plug
4.) Screw the back plastic back on and plug it in
It should start charging. Seems the battery plug on the board sucks

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[Q] NT won't charge or boot

Hey Y'all,
I helped a friend of mine root his NT awhile back, and it was working fine for months. I showed him CM7 running off of the SD card and he liked it, so I set it up for him on Friday. I did a factory restore on the NT, and he reentered his BN account info. I then booted off the SD card and everything was working fine as I could tell.
He brought it to me this morning and it won't charge. The "n" is always green when plugged up to the wall and it never goes orange to indicate it is charging. But when I attempt to power it on, it is always displaying the low power message and says to plug in the charger.
What I have tried:
-I removed the SD card, and it still won't charge... (not that it would matter).
-I have 3 chargers and my own NT. When I plug a charger up to my NT it works fine and the "n" goes to orange. But when I plug the same charger into my friends NT, the "n" is green and I can't get past the low batter warning.
-I have had my friends NT connected to a wall charger for about 3 hours this morning and I still can't get it to boot.
Any ideas on what might be wrong and how to fix it?
Thanks for your time.
I found this thread and tried both of the suggestions and my friends NT still won't charge or boot.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=23444675
The same thing happened to my wife's nook this evening. I think the battery is completely run down, but won't receive a charge for some reason. Her charger showed green also.
I tried, removing and reinserting the SD card and also holding power for 20 seconds. I finally was able to hold down the power and the N button down for about 20 seconds. This did the trick. It showed that the battery was too low to turn on. After about 10 minutes, it booted.
Hmm, I get the battery is too low to power on every time I hold down the power button and the "n" is always green on the charger.
strandedinar, did you have the power cord hooked up when you held the power button and "n" button down for 20 seconds?
So connecting the STOCK charger and the STOCK cable and leaving it alone for an hour or so isn't doing the trick? That's really the most that many of us have had to do... No "n" button needed either.
ansar99 said:
Hmm, I get the battery is too low to power on every time I hold down the power button and the "n" is always green on the charger.
strandedinar, did you have the power cord hooked up when you held the power button and "n" button down for 20 seconds?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes. The nook was plugged in and the "n" was green. The Nook wouldn't power on - My wife was convinced it was my fault for rooting it...
I left it plugged in like that for 20 minutes, but nothing happened when I tried to start it. The charging light was green. I finally tried the power + N button trick and then I received the notice that the power was too low to turn on. This was the first time I received this message. After this, the color of the charging light changed from green to red/orange and I could tell that it was receiving the charge. After 10-15, it power on and has worked normally since.
I tried every thing I could think of and google and nothing worked. I took it to BandN yesterday. They thought it was a typical issue that they see a lot of, but after 3 folks at the store couldn't figure it out, they called 1800 support. Support said it was a bad usb port and swapped it out for a refurbished model.
I still think I could have fixed it, but after a couple of days my friend was getting antsy for it.
Thanks for all of the responses.
strandedinar said:
The same thing happened to my wife's nook this evening. I think the battery is completely run down, but won't receive a charge for some reason. Her charger showed green also.
I tried, removing and reinserting the SD card and also holding power for 20 seconds. I finally was able to hold down the power and the N button down for about 20 seconds. This did the trick. It showed that the battery was too low to turn on. After about 10 minutes, it booted.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How did you do that? I was trying to hold the buttons and never got anything.
My NT has no juice to boot, but when I plug in a power cord (stock), plugged into stock power charger, it tries to boot up. Power indicator does turn orange, but then it runs out of power once it starts booting and turns off. After a few second it turns back on, and repeats same cycle again. It never boots to the point where it can actually sleep, seems that boot-up process takes more energy than charges could give it.
Try charging it from your computer. Just as suggestion not sure if it will help.
Sent from Nook Tablet 8GB with CM10.1 iamafanof's build.
galets said:
How did you do that? I was trying to hold the buttons and never got anything.
My NT has no juice to boot, but when I plug in a power cord (stock), plugged into stock power charger, it tries to boot up. Power indicator does turn orange, but then it runs out of power once it starts booting and turns off. After a few second it turns back on, and repeats same cycle again. It never boots to the point where it can actually sleep, seems that boot-up process takes more energy than charges could give it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hello Galets, did you manage to finally charge your Nook? I have the same problem as you have - when stock cable and charger are plugged in - device tries to boot and screen shows up but due to lack of power in accum it turns off and in a few seconds the cycle repeats.
I hardly understand - how it is possible that having mains power plugged it - there is not enough energy to charge and do other necessary things...
---------------
UPDATE: problem solved. In order to solve it, I had to disassemble the tablet and unplug the screen cord, then I put the power cable in, battery charged up for about an hour or so, then I plugged screen cord back in and turned it on without a problem. The down side of early charge attempts is that tablet decided that I had 10 failed boots and it reset my previously rooted device. Now I have fresh and clean stock 1.4.2 version.
PepeladZ said:
Hello Galets, did you manage to finally charge your Nook? I have the same problem as you have - when stock cable and charger are plugged in - device tries to boot and screen shows up but due to lack of power in accum it turns off and in a few seconds the cycle repeats.
I hardly understand - how it is possible that having mains power plugged it - there is not enough energy to charge and do other necessary things...
---------------
UPDATE: problem solved. In order to solve it, I had to disassemble the tablet and unplug the screen cord, then I put the power cable in, battery charged up for about an hour or so, then I plugged screen cord back in and turned it on without a problem. The down side of early charge attempts is that tablet decided that I had 10 failed boots and it reset my previously rooted device. Now I have fresh and clean stock 1.4.2 version.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
how did you unplug the screen cord? I've looked up how to take apart the nook, but I'm not sure which one would the the screen cord. Did you follow a tutorial somewhere, or was it easy to figure out once you opened it up?
ACL3 said:
how did you unplug the screen cord? I've looked up how to take apart the nook, but I'm not sure which one would the the screen cord. Did you follow a tutorial somewhere, or was it easy to figure out once you opened it up?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ACL3, check this link: http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Installing+Nook+Tablet+Display/11148/1.
I did not really follow the guide. I was looking for first two bolts to unscrew. The rest was quite simple but challenging - i don't usually disassemble things.
I did not pull out any of the buttons or battery from where they are and simply unplugged their connectors too - you will see 3 small foam rubber black box-like pieces (in step 9 they only marked one of them). There are plastic connectors under foam rubber pieces.
Be careful not to short-circuit anything with metallic tools.
On the attached image I marked the screen connector. I unplugged it by gently hooking it with two small screwdrivers. When putting it back I gently pressed it until I heard a click. And make sure those small slots on connector match with corresponding ones on motherboard.
Also, when finishing assembly I ran into a small problem with corner flap (which covers sdcard) - it did not want to smoothly slide in and out. So, pull it off completely and after putting plastic cover in place and screwing last two bolts, put it back - some small help of small screwdriver will be needed.
Hope my explanation was helpful
PepeladZ said:
ACL3, check this link: http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Installing+Nook+Tablet+Display/11148/1.
I did not really follow the guide. I was looking for first two bolts to unscrew. The rest was quite simple but challenging - i don't usually disassemble things.
I did not pull out any of the buttons or battery from where they are and simply unplugged their connectors too - you will see 3 small foam rubber black box-like pieces (in step 9 they only marked one of them). There are plastic connectors under foam rubber pieces.
Be careful not to short-circuit anything with metallic tools.
On the attached image I marked the screen connector. I unplugged it by gently hooking it with two small screwdrivers. When putting it back I gently pressed it until I heard a click. And make sure those small slots on connector match with corresponding ones on motherboard.
Also, when finishing assembly I ran into a small problem with corner flap (which covers sdcard) - it did not want to smoothly slide in and out. So, pull it off completely and after putting plastic cover in place and screwing last two bolts, put it back - some small help of small screwdriver will be needed.
Hope my explanation was helpful
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks, looks cool. I've never taken anything apart before and I'm afraid of short circuiting something. I think I might try this.

Gtab won't charge

:crying: So this is the first time in a while I have posted here. But annoyingly enough my Gtab (for the second time) has not been taking charge. It will turn on when plugged it (but no red light) so I assume its the battery that won't take a charge. The last time this happened I formatted it, then nvflashed it, and let it sit for 24 hrs before charging. I will try that again but any help or input is appreciated
One of my Gtabs doesn't charge very well either. The charging pin is messed up and will only charge when I plug it in and prop it in a certain way. Sometimes the red light turns off, sometimes it stays on but still doesn't charge. Eventually I will have to re-solder the connection, but have been putting it off. If you cannot fix it by other means (try a different charging cable? reflash as you suggested?) here is a good set of instructions on how to do this.
Gtab Charging Pin Repair
Good luck and I hope it doesn't come to this. You could also buy a charging dock if you don't want to tear apart and solder your tablet. Also, here is some info on battery replacement if that turns out to be your problem.
Info on Gtab Battery
Gtab Battery Ebay (not advertising, just trying to help)
+1 to DaggerDave's suggestion.
From my research the Gtabs power plug is very VERY flimsy. I've had to solder mine back on (and a hefty amounts of glue) and now it works fine, though I treat it very delicately. The dock is going at around $50 on fleabay (search malata/gtab dock)
YAY
DaggerDave said:
One of my Gtabs doesn't charge very well either. The charging pin is messed up and will only charge when I plug it in and prop it in a certain way. Sometimes the red light turns off, sometimes it stays on but still doesn't charge. Eventually I will have to re-solder the connection, but have been putting it off. If you cannot fix it by other means (try a different charging cable? reflash as you suggested?) here is a good set of instructions on how to do this.
Gtab Charging Pin Repair
Good luck and I hope it doesn't come to this. You could also buy a charging dock if you don't want to tear apart and solder your tablet. Also, here is some info on battery replacement if that turns out to be your problem.
Info on Gtab Battery
Gtab Battery Ebay (not advertising, just trying to help)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
tthats really good information thanks! :laugh:
but i did get it to work. I opened up my tablet and checked to make sure the battery was plugged in its socket thing. Guess what. it wasnt.
It probably became loose when i had to open it up to fix my screen. So all i did was reattach it and put a small piece of electrical tape over it, just in case.
:laugh:

[Q] Water Damage

This may be useful for people with go's that refuse to charge. My background is that i dropped my go in water with both waterproofing doors ripped off so water got into the charging port. Now the reason i know the device is functional is because i have removed the battery and force charged it with a torn apart usb cable. (The pin layout on the battery is (V+, ID, V-) Red goes to V+ or positive (different models of this phone have different indications of + and - but generally the red wire must always be on the + and black wire on the -). With this i have successfully charged the battery numerous times however the devices's usb port is completely dead. The rest of the devices works flawlessly once the battery is holding a charge. (Powers on, tested almost everything and its fine). I was wondering if there were any mods possible to get qi charging on this little thing to avoid using the usb slot? Or perhaps other methods. Yes this is quite a far cry but this device is too interesting to trash just like that. Gotta get this thing into useable condition (able to charge itself somehow).
Thanks to anyone who gives advice in advance!

[Q] Evo 3D won't charge, only buttons light up - dead?

Hi there, XDA folks!
Mario here with some phone problems..
I have a CDMA Evo 3D running on the stock ROM.
The phone's charging cable was shorting out ever since I bought it (got it 2nd hand). I had to wiggle it in order to get the phone charging.
I gave it to my girlfriend to use it for taking pictures n whatnot while outside of town. She returned it kinda Rambo-ish; the front of the phone basically fell apart.. the front metal grill surrounding it, at least.
Phone worked fine, except for the cable shorting out even more. My laptop shut down every time that happened, so I'm quite sure that's not what caused the problem I'll be explaining later on in this thread.
So let's get to the point, shall we?
My phone was really low on battery, something within the range of 2-5%. I tried charging it, but the wires shorted out again and the laptop died on me.. again, and again, and again..
I couldn't really bother with fiddling around with it until it starts, so I just unplugged it and left it that way.
The phone sat for a few days, my (main) laptop broke, so I decided to give the good ol' Facebook Messenger a go.. sadly, the phone would not turn on or start charging.
I removed the shrink-like wrap around the wires of the USB cable, cut the bad parts and twisted the color-matching wires in order. Sadly, the phone would still not charge.
I tried with another (self-made) USB cable... no luck whatsoever. Just to clarify; the blue wire on the one the phone comes with is ground, right? If not that could of caused the problem, since I connected the blue wire on the mini-usb to the black one on a standard USB plug.
I tried juicing the phone up a tad bit by running 5V on the battery for 15 minutes or so.. didn't really bother going for more, since it's kinda hard to keep 2 wires pressed against the battery for more than that. The phone powered up, but the display did not. There was the low battery sound, volume keys were functional, vibrating feedback was okay.. hell, the phone even took a screenshot when I pressed power button + volume down!
Sadly, that didn't solve anything.. even turned on, it would not charge. The 15-minute charge is good for a minute of red blinking light and fancy glowing buttons, nothing more.
Is the phone dead, or should I give it a hour charge directly and see how that goes?
Thanks in advance to everyone who replies!
i think it'll be good if you buy a universal battery charger for phone. so you can charge your battery without plugged to the phone
apinghed said:
i think it'll be good if you buy a universal battery charger for phone. so you can charge your battery without plugged to the phone
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am looking for more opinions before I spend cash I don't have on chargers that may not work.
If you or someone else is positive about the display not working because of not enough battery juice, then I'll manually charge the battery for an hour, even though it's uncomfortable as hell to hold 2 wires on the pins for that long.
What's bugging me is that it's not charging once it has just enough juice to power up everything, no display either. I'd like to know if it's doing that, because the battery is too dead to actually start charging up via the phone and whether the display just doesn't work or there's not enough juice for it.
Edit; I bought a chinese charger that charges the battery directly (2pins). The display still does not work and the phone will still not charge via the cable. Could it be a bad cable (and a dead display..)? It seems like the phone itself is responsive - I unlock it, press the "search" button and when I type on the keyboard (that I don't see), it vibrates with every pressed key.
Also, I can hear it taking a screenshot and the volume down/up buttons seem to be working fine.
Dontrememberusername said:
Edit; I bought a chinese charger that charges the battery directly (2pins). The display still does not work and the phone will still not charge via the cable. Could it be a bad cable (and a dead display..)? It seems like the phone itself is responsive - I unlock it, press the "search" button and when I type on the keyboard (that I don't see), it vibrates with every pressed key.
Also, I can hear it taking a screenshot and the volume down/up buttons seem to be working fine.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
this is exactly what's been going on with my phone as of a few days ago.
checked the time while it was plugged in, unplugged it...screen froze.
hasn't turned back on since.
the buttons on bottom light up, though.
i can take calls, use my unlock pattern (it takes me a few tries now that i can't see anything) and press the search key for google now.
for all intents and purposes...phone's fully functional...except i can't see anything going on.
i brought my phone into a sprint corp store, they changed the top housing for me screen and all for free.
it was really nice.
but, that didn't change anything.
screen still doesn't change anything.
they said the board probably shorted on screen lead.
have you figured anything out?
cipher77 said:
this is exactly what's been going on with my phone as of a few days ago.
checked the time while it was plugged in, unplugged it...screen froze.
hasn't turned back on since.
the buttons on bottom light up, though.
i can take calls, use my unlock pattern (it takes me a few tries now that i can't see anything) and press the search key for google now.
for all intents and purposes...phone's fully functional...except i can't see anything going on.
i brought my phone into a sprint corp store, they changed the top housing for me screen and all for free.
it was really nice.
but, that didn't change anything.
screen still doesn't change anything.
they said the board probably shorted on screen lead.
have you figured anything out?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nope, I'm still in the same situation.
Does yours charge?
My phone isn't recognized by my laptop at all, so I'm guessing something is indeed fried. I don't have the appropriate screwdrivers to open it up and inspect the board, otherwise I'd open it up and check it out.
If you have Torx T5 & T3 screwdrivers you should give it a go - post some decent-res pics over here and I'll at least visually inspect it.
I genuinely don't feel like spending more money for tools n whatnot for a phone that may be permanently dead.. planning on getting a second-hand S4 anyways. Waiting on a student loan and smashing this phone to pieces as soon as I get the cash for a new one. Can try and help out for yours if you manage to open it, though. Could be something as simple as a dead resistor that shouldn't be too hard to replace.
I tried the hillbilly method and hit my phone a few times against a wooden bench, that didn't seem to fix it. Pretty positive something's fried, but I'm also guessing it isn't a viable component, having in mind the phone functions normally, even though the display & usb port don't work.. hell, my phone woke me up at 3AM today, 'cause the alarm went off, lol!

Deep cycled battery won't charge

Hi,
I had a Sony Z5 compact in a drawer for about 2 years, where the battery already was weak. I'd like to use it as a smarthome button panel where the bad battery won't matter, but I can't get it to turn on anymore.
When I first plugged it, the status LED switched to constant red. I unplugged it a couple hours later, just to find, that the LED stayed on even when unplugged. The device still was cold, so I don't think, that it really charged.
Since there was no reaction on the power button, I tried the "OFF"-button in the SIM slot. After reading on the internet, I held that button for 2 minutes. The phone vibrated every 15s, so it seemed alive. I then plugged in the charger, again the status LED turned constant red. This time the device got warm, seemingly charging.
After a couple of hours I tried starting it, but still, theres no reaction on the Power button. I again tried the OFF button, with no reaction whatsoever, not even vibrating anymore. Also the status LED shows no more reaction on plugging it in.
Is the device dead now? Anything I can try to get it working again? I don't need the battery anymore, Its supposed to spend its second life permanently plugged in.
best regards,
RockNLol
The usual advice is to make sure it is off (Hold power and vol-downup until it vibrates 3x / if really dead, just wait ~20s), and then leave it on a charger for a few hours. If that doesn't do it, your battery is toast.
Even if it is revivable, there is a chance that it is so weak that it will make the phone crash - the battery is used like a buffer even when on the charger, and if the phone needs high peak current, it will try to take it from the battery. If the battery is too weak, voltage will drop and the phone will crash.
In any way, I would not want a battery that is potentially damaged to be at the charger 24/7. If you deep-discharge a battery, it can form tiny little short circuits, and if you charge it, it can become a fire hazard. As in, burn your house down and release lots of toxic fumes while doing so.
If you are familiar with soldering, the best solution would be to open the phone, remove the battery, and replace it with a fake battery circuit. Obviously, don't do this if you aren't comfortable doing this kind of stuff, and always have a plan for what to do if the battery decides to light on fire.
For that, after you removed the battery, try to pry off the yellow tape on it, and get to the battery protection PCB near the connector. Carefully cut the leads to the actual battery and remove it (this is the most dangerous part). Then, solder a large capacitor across the battery leads and a connector for a power supply that can provide around 4V at, idk, 2-3A. There aren't many 4V power supplies, but a 5V one and a (silicon) diode in series work well (make sure the diode can survive a couple amps). Then, plug the fake battery back into the mainboard, fix everything in place using tape or glue, and see if it boots.
1ggn3 said:
The usual advice is to make sure it is off (Hold power and vol-down until it vibrates 3x / if really dead, just wait ~20s),
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Power and Volume-Up?
Sure, one of the two
Power + Volume-down starts TWRP when the device is not running.
When the device is running, it takes a screenshot.

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