[Razer Phone 2 Questions & Answers] Need4Sneed:
I have a Razer Phone 2 that I'm refurbing for a client, and the USB-C port was in bad shape, so not only no data transfer, but she could only be charged via wireless. No worries though, at least in the case of this specific Razer 2, the problem was the flex cable that attaches the female type-c pin housing to the daughter-board. My theory, again, at least for this specific Razer 2, is because the 2 screws securing the port had come loose, the port was not secured, and was driven deeper inside the chassis when the owner went to plug it in. Since said flex is pretty wimpy, the movement back and forth probably fatigued the traces and the coating of the ribbon, more than likely damaging/breaking several traces.

My solution ended up being similar to the 2017 Retina MacBook Pro ‘Flexgate’ issue, where a very poor design choice created an LCD flex that had a spring/tension/rolling mechanism, which would pull out/extended the flex cable to accommodate the MB being opened, and retract to its resting position when closed. Unfortunately, the short length of the flex, along with a lack of robustness, meant that every opening and closing caused more and more fatigue, and eventually traces became severed and/or shorted out. This manifests as a 'stage light effect' that gets worse the further you open the lid, or in some cases, the 'stage light' effect is absent, however opening the lid past ~45 degrees causes the screen to shut off.

Apple did correct this the following year by replacing the flex with one 6mm longer that was more rigid than the previous year’s problematic flex. However, before the replacements were available (the 6mm extended flex worked a treat to fix the 2017’s issues, and it saved SO MUCH MONEY! A $10 flex cable as opposed to a ~$500 top housing assembly! So a $150 repair, as it is kinda labor intensive, not to mention if you’re not careful you’ll damage the LCD while removing it), a solution was needed to prevent clients from having to pay the ~$500 for a new display (which, OF CORSE, Apple refused to sell the LCD panel by itself (which are made by 2 suppliers, LG Display & Samsung Display, and Apple’s manufacturing contracts prevent both companies from selling any panels as replacement parts. Sometimes they’ll be a few here and there, but it’s rare), forcing people to buy the entire top case, which, of corse, STILL HAD THE PROBLEMATIC FLEX CABLE, meaning that the replacements would also eventually fail.

The solution to both the Razer 2 & 2017 MBP Retina's flex woes is to cut the offending flex just below where the fatigue is visible, or in the case of my client's Razer 2, where a visible kink was. Since the flex has 2mm or so of slack, you can then scrape (or VERY CAREFULLY use a fine tip soldering iron) to expose the tips of the traces, and using nanowire, bridge the two halves together with low-temp solder after aligning and stacking them, with one overlapping by ~0.25mm. Shielded nanowire isn't a common thing most people who don't do repair have laying around, so a workaround is to use twisted copper wire, which you then can un-twist, giving you very thin strands that are perfect for this. Just MAKE SURE THAT YOU EITHER APPLY SOME LIQUID ELECTRICAL TAPE OR UV CURABLE LIQUID INSULATION, since the strands wont be individually insulated or shielded. You should do this regardless of the type of nanowire you use, not only to prevent potential shorts, but also to reinforce the flex just in case it gets moved around again. This will make it more resistant to kinking up and/or breaking if it does experience any movement/bending. Louis Rossman of Rossman Repair Group has a great video that goes through the flex bridge technique in extreme detail.

One more interesting thing. I originally had ordered a replacement daughter-board/USB-C port from a 3rd party that I knew was used, but worth a shot. Unfortunately, it took about 2 months to arrive, so I got impatient and did the flex repair described above. After it eventually arrived, I installed it to see if it worked but found it was also defective . . but for a different reason than the one in my client's Razer 2. The control chip on the board (a 40-pin QFP, pin arrangement=12x8x12x8) needed to be removed, cleaned, and reinstalled, and voila, she lived again! I noticed some people saying their device was really hot by the port, and bad solder joints can create poor connections to their respective pads, and poor connections can cause increased resistance, which creates heat. Also, I think that specific charger control chip also has a pass-through for the mic that's on the board, so if your port AND mic are both not working or working intermittently, that might be the cause. I could be mistaken about the pass-through, I need to look at the data sheet again, as it's been a minute since I worked on said Razer 2, as the owner was out of the country for months on business. I actually finished refurbing it about 6 months or so ago.

I recorded the entire process, replacing the display assembly, battery, removing the old (and IMHO inferior) thermal putty and replacing it with Thermal Grizzly’s Kryonaut (reducing thermals by ~10C under load), and have EXTREMELY DETAILED footage of the repair from my USB microscope. I've been kinda lazy with editing it, but I just finished editing another refurb (an EVGA 660 Ti SC that needed a complete refurb, along with replacing 2 cooked MOSFETs. It has sentimental value to the owner, so yeah, a VERY COOL GPU that’s back at 100%), so I'm gonna start on the Razer 2 refurb video tomorrow. I’ll post a link here as soon as I upload it to YT and it’s published.

BTW, the fact that the charge ports are so hard to find new is kinda strange, and maybe suggest a much smaller production run of the Razer 2 than I had originally presumed. I repair devices every day, and my parts distributor can usually get ANYTHING, the guy and his business are amazing. He was able to get me an OEM display assembly and a brand-new sealed replacement OEM battery no problem. When it came to the charge port though, he couldn't find any new units, which is strange, especially since the battery was available as a newer, sealed replacement part. Charge ports and batteries are parts that usually get an additional limited production run for replacement part/repair purposes, since batteries will definitely need to be replaced after a few years, and charge ports USUALLY need to be replaced, unless a person is EXTREMELY GENTLE when they plug & unplug their devices. Unfortunately, all I've been able to find for charge port & mic daughter-boards are pulls from devices, and ya never know what a part has been through when it's not new.

Anyway, the guy who owns the Razer 2 just got back from the UK. and asked me to flash TWRP, LineageOS, etc., and when I opened the Razer 2 forum home page, this was the first thread I saw.

Hopefully this info can help someone out. Maybe someone can get something out of my experience with this specific device and part. And as I mentioned above, as soon as I post the refurb video on YT I'll post a link here. I think that’ll help out, if not because of the same issue, then maybe it can help rule out the issues I ran into.

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.