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The second generation HTC One—dubbed the HTC One (M8)—features a dual flash and the new Sense 6 UI, and was released March 25, 2014.

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Dropped phone, no boot, orange light when charging, internet is silent

Hello - long time fixer, first time forumer.

The internet usually come to the rescue with even the most obscure technical problems, write in the symptoms, phrase it right and ta da etc. However, for this simple (well at least obvious) problem I've found no answer apart from send off it for repair - boring! So hopefully someone on this forum will help the web save face:

PROBLEM: HTC one M8 dropped (one of quite a few occasions in its short life) onto tiled kitchen floor after it's owners consumption of gin. No power up or sign of any life at all, apart from a solid orange light when plugged in. The phone looks fine and there is no cracked screen etc.

SO FAR: Have tried all the various power / volume key combinations (included the stressful 2 minute hold). Left it on for 8 hour charge. Attempted to drop it in the same place and at the same speed to see if it could reverse the problem.

SOLUTION: Happy to try anything really, been wanting to get inside this thing for a while now.

Thanks for the help!

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Ah thank you for your help BurnieG. Very helpful and I think that you were right! After tearing it down and and reseating connectors etc I put it back together and it turned on! However through the process I think I may have created another 2 problems (although there's a chance they were created from the initial drop).

1) The touch response is not working on the screen - web tells me that I could have broken connectors - however I was fairly careful and think that I might've missed something.

2) The phone is perpetually turning on (for about 3 minutes) and then restarting, and so on and so on and so on.

My method when inside is one of sequence and guided pictures. I've little idea what each connection means etc and I think this is hindering / helping causes problems. Feeling a bit lost. Recommendations?

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Remove the back case of the phone and check the battery cable for damage such as a tear or a poor connection to the motherboard. You can use the HTC one M8 guides on this site to help disassemble the phone. If no damage is present to the cable then try reseating the battery's cable connection on the motherboard. The solid orange light is an indicator the battery is not communicating with the phone properly. This is why I say to check the battery's flex cable and its connection to the logic board. Also look for any other damage to the mother board and daughter board and cables. Hope this may help you out. Best of luck.

Updated answer:

Glad to hear you have gotten it to turn on after reseating the cable. So it will turn on and then restart after about three minutes. Does it actually boot into the operating system or does it just hang during boot until it restarts again? Are you able to plug your charger in now and have a solid red LED charge light indicator or does it flash and is it still orange or is it red? Trying to figure out if the battery may have been slightly damaged or if their may be an issue elsewhere which is causing the phone to restart every 3 minutes or so. Have you tried any of the button combinations after you were able to get the phone to power up? Such as power button + down volume to enter the boot menu were you can perform a factory reset. As far as the digitizer, you may want to look over the cable for tears, as well as look at the connection on the motherboard with some magnification to make sure there are no damaged pins. If the digitizers connection looks good then try reseating the cable to see if this may help regain the touch function.

I have supplied you with a picture of the motherboard with its connections marked to tell you what the connections are responsible for. I have never been able to locate any schematic diagrams to show me what parts tie in to the connections on the motherboard. I am just assuming especially on the two connections that connect the motherboard and daughterboard. This might help to give you an idea of what cables are responsible for some of the major components.

Let me know if this helps or if you have any questions and hopefully I can help you out some more.

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Are you sure that the port you labeled with sim card/volume goes to the sim card? Curious because it seems it goes to volume and then the SD card reader but the sim card is on the other side of the phone. I sliced my SD card cable accidentally during a repair and now the sim reader isn't working

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I am not 100% certain as I stated in my posted updated answer. I believe I meant to put micro SD card instead of sim in the picture I posted. I know the sim reader and SD card reader are separate connections on the daughterboard. I am curious if the two tie in together on the daughterboards circuitry maybe reaching the motherboard through the SD card/volume flex cable which attaches to the motherboard. I too have worked on an m8 with a torn flex cable that runs from the sdcard reader to the motherboard. The sim card was not being detected either. I replaced the micro SD card reader/volume flex and the sim reader was working again. Maybe it was a coincidence. I did do a bunch of testing with a multimeter on a water damaged HTC m8 that was given to me over a year ago. I was trying to figure out the circuits in the phone especially the daughterboard. I can not for the life of me remember if that is why I have the picture labeled with the sim card instead of the micro SD card.

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Thank you SO much for adding your own experience. I went ahead and ordered a new frame with the new microSD reader/flex cable and sim reader/flex cable rather than trying to replace just the flex cable. More confident it will fix it now. It seems very likely that the microSD and sim are connected somehow because everything else that connects to the daughterboard still works for me, just not the Sim card reader. At least now I know to be more careful taking off the rear cover.

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Good choice to replace the frame. As it is not much fun lifting the display to access the readers. When you get the new frame would you be willing to do a test to see if the two readers are indeed tied to the same circuit on the daughterboard? Try just unplugging the small micro SD card reader flex connection on the daughterboard itself while leaving the sim reader connected to the daughterboard and the flex cable from the SD card reader to the motherboard connected. I am curious if the sim reader ties into the micro SD card connection on the daughterboard. There seems to be to many pins on the sdcard connection for just the sdcard. Seems to be just the right amount of pins for both the sdcard reader and sim reader. So if the sim reader does not work with the daughterboards sdcard connection unplugged then we know that the sim reader does tie in with the sdcard connection on the daughterboard. If you have time to do this it may help others in the future.

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I will gladly do this small test. The frame is supposed to arrive Monday so hopefully I have enough time to do the repair that day. I will make sure to keep you posted on the results. You obviously have a much greater presence in the community than me so I'm sure you can help more people with this information than I could!

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