If you own a Blackberry device and you like to play with things, like ringtones or wallpapers, or games, or if you develop software for Blackberry devices like I do then listen up! That’s right, put your ear next to your web browser and listen! There’s a new threat for computer hardware and it effects you Blackberry users. It’s the white screen of death and it manifests as an infinite rebooting sequence. It’s scary as all heck, especially if you’re about to release Beta and have 160 manhours of testing to complete in the next day and a half and a strict policy on company issued Blackberrys that mandate you are not allowed to crack open the casing and tickle the electrons on the circuit board. (I know, what a dumb policy, right?) Here’s the solution I found while frantically scouring the web. The short answer is to use the application loader to perform a device wipe. You have to connect while the thing is on the white screen I think. However I kinda don’t think it matters because my (BB) screen went dark right after I entered my password, leaving me wondering what in the world the application loader was actually connected to since the phone was obviously dead. I would never have figured this out in a million years. I was going about it all wrong. In my dumb brain I thought, “Why not hook up to the backup and restore console in the Desktop manager? Because I wanna restore my Blackberry, right? I’m not trying to load applications, I wanna remove everything and start from scratch!” Well for what it’s worth hook up to the Desktop Manager application loader to fix a constantly rebooting Blackberry.
(Oh and here’s the best part! Right after I finally got it to start the wipe sequence a coworker asked me a question causing me to rotate my chair clockwise while the USB cord was threaded through the armrest resulting in a catastrophy that ended with the yoinking of my device from the desktop hitting the floor, and disconnecting the cable. I’m not sure what this is going to do to the restore because it’s still restoring as I update this post but I’m sure its not a good thing to disconnect the USB cord on an OS restore to an already malfunctioning device. It can’t be much better to rebound said device off of the floor.)
+10 Mobile Development Voodoo Points
By: Matt on April 29, 2008
at 12:04 pm
I think I have a fix for anyone with a completely white screen (no hourglass) and wanted to put this here because this is the first site that comes up when searching for “blackberry white screen”. I’ll explain what I did and please let me know if it works for you.
The problem: A completely, with an emphasis on completely, blank white screen. Occasionally, the phone appears slightly fuzzy, or glitchy. Also, the phone occasionally appears completely normal. The phone, in my case, worked fine despite the screen problems.
The fix: I found a thread about someone claiming that the four solder points behind the mini usb port somehow created a short behind the screen. The guide said to, first, completely disassemble your blackberry (sorry I don’t have the guide here…could look for it today and send it to anyone that requests) After disassembled down to being able to see the green motherboard with the small screen attached, slightly and carefully peel the left side of the screen (the side that contains the mini usb port) a bit upwards until you can see the four solder points. For the laymen, these solder points are simply 4 grayish/silver spots. While taking care to not lift the screen excessively and leaving the majority still attached to the motherboard, take a piece of electrical tape, or any insulator and carefully put it over those four solder points.
Then, push screen back into position, reassemble, and test.
Please let me know if this works for you. My problem was solved instantly.
As for a second major problem of blackberry owners: if your phone will not sync with your computer and you have a bad mini usb port on your blackberry, it is probably because of the mini usb female port of your phone. A replacement of the port is the only solution I know of for this problem
As for a white screen with an hourglass: I think this is probably going to, usually, be a software problem and requires a reload of the operating system using your blackberry software on cd, or software directly from blackberry.com
-Philip
By: philip on March 9, 2009
at 3:13 pm
Great tip Philip! For those who really need to go this far I posted some video tutorials on disassembly.
By: Cliff on March 15, 2009
at 9:19 am
Hello Philip,
That definitely brought it back to life.
I have been unscrewing the BB9000, pulling the board with the screen out, unplugging the screen connector and plugging it back, several times.
It worked a few times in the past, but would go out again. Then that stopped helping.
Putting the insulating tape on the solder points and putting it back has revived it. I hope that it stays put this time.
Thanks for your help,
Best Regards,
gaxm26.
By: gaxm26 on November 17, 2009
at 5:55 am
[...] To Disassemble your Blackberry In response to a response to my white screen of death post I give you detailed visual directions on how to properly void your warranty, or if you have a [...]
By: How To Disassemble your Blackberry « Can’t see nothing but the source code on March 15, 2009
at 9:18 am
I removed the screen however I could not get to the circuit board there is a metal plate , how do I remove the metal plate ?
By: nick on October 26, 2009
at 8:43 pm
Thank you very much philip!!!!!!!!!
Now my bold works so great!
By: pinkmama on November 1, 2009
at 3:22 am