SE K750i - Broken? Tell me what you think

Linoge

The CPW have returned my phone Beyond Economical Repair.
Here is the pic. Can you tell if you think it is sufficient to stop the phone working (keypad is faulty) and was caused by moisture.
356553006523466.jpg

Thanks,

Cormac

Sam Vimes

that's not necessarily enough to stop it working but if its got that damage visible there's no telling what moisture damage is inside the chips invisible to the naked eye.

tbh if you kick up an almighty fuss and threaten the small claims court you'll probably get a new phone but not because the phones not damaged, just because you kicked up more fuss than the phone is worth

Urban Weigl

I wouldn't bother, and would just buy an upgrade phone tbh. What network are you on?

damo86

are you sure its your phone in the pic?if your convinced that the phone hasn't been in contact with water then id its just a way to get you to buy an new phone, 99% of the time when you put your phone to be repaired cpw will say thats it waterdamaged.anybody agree?nearly all my friends said their phone was "Waterdamaged"! are you insured?

damo

120_Minutes

damo86 wrote:

99% of the time when you put your phone to be repaired cpw will say thats it waterdamaged

damo

riiiiiiiiiiight. :rolleyes:

damo86

ok....maybe slight exaggeration :-P
they tend to use that excuse alot though!
as for the board not sure, weird question ..did you have the phone in the same room say, whilst showering etc? condensation would be a "silent killer" for phones.

Linoge

Urban Weigl wrote:

I wouldn't bother, and would just buy an upgrade phone tbh. What network are you on?

That is helpful how?

damo86 wrote:

ok....maybe slight exaggeration :-P
they tend to use that excuse alot though!
as for the board not sure, weird question ..did you have the phone in the same room say, whilst showering etc? condensation would be a "silent killer" for phones.

Phone was defo not exposed to moisture.

I think I might try a SE message board.

Pythia

Linoge wrote:

Phone was defo not exposed to moisture.

I think I might try a SE message board.

Are you sure you never

- used your phone outside in the rain

- used your phone near steam, ie cooking, bathroom

- put your phone down on a wet surface, ie table in pub?

People always seem to think moisture damage only happens when you drop it down the toilet or spill something on it.

Your warranty is voided if there's any moisture damage, whether it relates to the problem or not.

Linoge

Pythia wrote:

Are you sure you never

- used your phone outside in the rain

- used your phone near steam, ie cooking, bathroom

- put your phone down on a wet surface, ie table in pub?

People always seem to think moisture damage only happens when you drop it down the toilet or spill something on it.

Your warranty is voided if there's any moisture damage, whether it relates to the problem or not.

I really am at a much more advanced stage than wondering if I left it somewhere where it can be exposed to moisture. I am aware of everything you've said.

Maybe I've given too much detail in my original post. I am looking for someone with a background in electronics who could tell me what they see in the photo.

120_Minutes

damo86 wrote:

ok....maybe slight exaggeration :-P
they tend to use that excuse alot though!
QUOTE]


Its not an "excuse" when they send the phone away to be repaired, the engineer tests it and finds it water damaged.

Do you think the repair company picks a phone out of a batch at random and says "right, i'm gonna say this one is water damaged!"

They have no reason to make excuses.

I've seen children use their parents phones as soothers.....:rolleyes:

Sam Vimes

the repair company gets paid for repairing phones. if a phone is water damaged, they've paid the engineer to look at it but haven't been paid for fixing it and so they've made a loss. its not in their interests to say a phone is water damaged

damo86

im talking about cpw not the repair company, the repair company may of said yes we'll fix it etc, but cpw will try to get the consumer to by a new phone by saying its waterdamaged...quite easy to make a quick buck that way!

back on topic, linoge, why dont you bring the phone to a independant phone repair company (not part of cpw) to get say, "external assessement"?
Go to ipmart-forum.com, there are a few quite knowledgable users there that might give you their opinion.

damo

Ham'nd'egger

Same happened to my k750i last year, and it was a Meteor shop in this case who came back with the Water Damage line. They had included two pics to show the damage, so evidentally they had seen this issue come up a lot and needed some evidence to show as such.

Sam Vimes

damo86 wrote:

im talking about cpw not the repair company, the repair company may of said yes we'll fix it etc, but cpw will try to get the consumer to by a new phone by saying its waterdamaged...quite easy to make a quick buck that way!

take it from someone who works in the area, that does not happen. there is not some massive conspiracy involving every phone shop in the country to pretend people's phones are water damaged. its just very easy to unintentionally get moisture into a phone without employing a bucket of water. if i'm going to walk in the rain i put my phone into a plastic bag in my pocket. i know how easy it is to get moisture in it.

Hamndegger wrote:

Same happened to my k750i last year, and it was a Meteor shop in this case who came back with the Water Damage line. They had included two pics to show the damage, so evidentally they had seen this issue come up a lot and needed some evidence to show as such.

perhaps they needed to show evidence because of people such as the OP who refuse to believe it even with said evidence

BreadBoard

@Commander Vimes

I see you work in this area, have you ever head of a phone that was deemed BER by water damage or whatever and been brought to a 3rd party repair company and been fixed?

Pythia

BreadBoard wrote:

@Commander Vimes

I see you work in this area, have you ever head of a phone that was deemed BER by water damage or whatever and been brought to a 3rd party repair company and been fixed?

I have never seen this happen.

copacetic

did they say it was water damaged? this looks to be a decoupling cap hanging off the STmicro chip - not sure what this part is but looks like there was some kind of short via the cap to ground. chances are that the silver ST part which looks like a BGA (type of IC package) is blown. Replacing them is not easy and needs specialist equipment, certainly well beyond CPWs capability.

tbh it doesn't look like it could be fixed to me, whether water damaged caused the issue or not is a totally different thing..

Linoge

daveym wrote:

did they say it was water damaged? this looks to be a decoupling cap hanging off the STmicro chip - not sure what this part is but looks like there was some kind of short via the cap to ground. chances are that the silver ST part which looks like a BGA (type of IC package) is blown. Replacing them is not easy and needs specialist equipment, certainly well beyond CPWs capability.

tbh it doesn't look like it could be fixed to me, whether water damaged caused the issue or not is a totally different thing..

Thanks for the in depth reply Davey. They have said that it was moisture damage.

This happened overnight while sitting on my dresser. I've heard of phone shops even stating that moisture damage could be caused by sweaty palms:rolleyes: CPW customer service have also informed me previously (during converstaion) that they have sent phones back for a 2nd look and and they turn out not to be BEP.

I know the keyboard blowing has been a common problem with the K750, which is why I imagine some tech guy in MPRC saying, "I've seen this before, its moisture damage", when it isn't.

@ Commander Vimes
Its not unreasonable to expect some sort of evidence showing that your E200 phone is actually broken.

Sam Vimes

BreadBoard wrote:

@Commander Vimes

I see you work in this area, have you ever head of a phone that was deemed BER by water damage or whatever and been brought to a 3rd party repair company and been fixed?

it probably has. the first thing the engineers look for is water damage. if they find it they stop working because water damage voids the warranty and the manufacturer won't pay them for fixing it. it could be that the water damage is incidental and the problem lies elsewhere. in that case it could be fixed but that will never happen when someone sends their phone back through the shop they bought it from. if they were paying the repair company themselves it could happen

pyramuid man

The only thing I would recommend is that Sony Ericsson should have a repair service. Go through them directly maybe?

neilled

[QUOTE=Commander V
imes]the repair company gets paid for repairing phones. if a phone is water damaged, they've paid the engineer to look at it but haven't been paid for fixing it and so they've made a loss. its not in their interests to say a phone is water damaged[/QUOTE]

I agreee with vimes on this. I worked for a phone company as well that wasnt the cpw ( i no longer worked for them) and would suggest that there was no conspiracy. Water damage can take time to manifest itself as it slowly corrodes circuts on the phones main board. 99.9% of the time the repairers are right when they say its water damaged..........

The charge that CPW would do this is also off the wall, all those pictures are individually taken and staff in a phone shop would be the first to cop on if something was amiss (the same pic being reused).....and the risk that would be involved in forging faulty pics is beyond belief.

It doesnt matter if that water caused the fault or not once water touches the board your warranty is gone as you've breached the terms of it. Now as has been said before a second party would do the job for you but theres no gurantee of the repair lasting - as i said earlier corrosion causes damage over time and you could have forked out money for nothing.

neilled

pyramuid man wrote:

The only thing I would recommend is that Sony Ericsson should have a repair service. Go through them directly maybe?

Nope, sony ericsson have a number of authorised repairers.... and they are all the places that the phone shops use like anovo, the mprc etc. The days of a manufacturer service centre are long gone.

120_Minutes

damo86 wrote:

im talking about cpw not the repair company, the repair company may of said yes we'll fix it etc, but cpw will try to get the consumer to by a new phone by saying its waterdamaged...quite easy to make a quick buck that way!

That statement is utter crap, and no phone shop works that way.

Pythia

A lot of the repairs CPW can't do are sent to MPRC who certainly aren't in the 'conspiracy'. AFAIK, CPW is only a level 2 repair centre, so a lot of the harder stuff has to be sent away.

People like the idea that water damage is all a big conspiracy so they can shift the blame from themselves onto someone else.

damo86

pythia is prob right, eventhough its hasn't happen to me its happen to a lot of people i know (all claimed to be waterdamaged)...it just got me thinking thats all! wasn't aware how you have different level of repair centres etc.since i've heard from people who work in the industry and say this does not happen, i accept and move on, apologies for being ignorant etc etc. being a interesting and informative thread.
as for the op..your phones waterdamaged, move on!

regards
damo

pyramuid man

Pythia wrote:

A lot of the repairs CPW can't do are sent to MPRC who certainly aren't in the 'conspiracy'. AFAIK, CPW is only a level 2 repair centre, so a lot of the harder stuff has to be sent away.

People like the idea that water damage is all a big conspiracy so they can shift the blame from themselves onto someone else.

I could not agree more. I used to work for Samsung and the amount of people I spoke to that would not accept this was unreal. There is no conspiracy

Linoge

Conspiracy is a word best reserved for people who who believe in aliens. It was Damo86 (who I can guess is 20 years old) who was entering into all kinds of ideas on how CPW make money (so you can see how I enjoyed his quip on how I should "move on"). Although... I certainly am surprised at some of the posters here pure faith that companies uphold a strong moral code (Krups, Mercedes, BASF anyone???).

Can I just point out that I waited 10 weeks for this picture, which I had to request. They do not supply it with a repair. When they did finally supply the photo, it did not come with any explanation of the damage shown. MPRC say on their website that they are ISO certified, can anyone here tell me if this report sounds like it is to a specified standard (or even "a" standard).

Independent of that, CPW have no quality checks in place to make sure that the repairs made by MPRC are up to standard.

Overall the point I am trying to make is that it is not acceptable to receive a one sentence report "BEP due to water damage" to tell you that your E200 phone should be thrown in the bin. A photo and a summary explanation is not too much to expect. The phone is moisture damaged and that is fine. Why should I have to wait 10 weeks for a photo, have to post that photo on a message board and then have Daveym tell me what is wrong with it??!

BreadBoard

Linoge wrote:

Why should I have to wait 10 weeks for a photo, have to post that photo on a message board and then have Daveym tell me what is wrong with it??!

Because these companies don't give a ****, they're too busy making money, hence the term BER;

Beyond Economical Repair = Where not going to bother fixing your phone because it costs too much time to repair and time is money, now feck off.

pyramuid man

While I understand where you are coming from. The fact of the matter is that repair centers make more for repairing a handset than turning it away due to it being BEP. If a repair center orders parts for a repair that is BEP and repairs the phone, its contracter may ask for evidence that the repair is due to a manufacturing fault, and the repair center cannot provide evidence, they are liable for the repair cost. Therefore it is more favourable for them to repair only handsets with manufacturing faults rather than those that are BER.

BreadBoard

Linoge sorry if I missed it in the thread but is the phone dead? or is it just the keypad that is not working?

Edit;

Doh, sorry read your first post again...

damo86

it was just an idea and i was proved wrong! tbh i not really into conspiracy theories before you judge what kind person i am.
was hoping you enjoy my "move on" quote..was going to edit it but thought...nah!

one thing i dont understand why aren't you the owner of the phone let decide to repair it or not, whats the % of value of the phone must it exceed to regard as ber?

Doctor DooM

The reason they dont offer a repair for a water damaged phone is that the corrosion may reoccur as the moisture may still be in the phone despite the best efforts of the repair company, thus leading to a worhtless repair when your phone breaks down for a second time.

Urban Weigl

It should really be called "moisture damage" rather than "water damage", as it can happen over time, for example if you use the phone outside when air humidity is high (like is often the case on this green isle!), or have it in the same room with you when you shower.

Like has been already suggested, try taking the phone to a different repair centre for a second opinion. And/or just buy a new phone.

neilled

Linoge wrote:

Conspiracy is a word best reserved for people who who believe in aliens. It was Damo86 (who I can guess is 20 years old) who was entering into all kinds of ideas on how CPW make money (so you can see how I enjoyed his quip on how I should "move on"). Although... I certainly am surprised at some of the posters here pure faith that companies uphold a strong moral code (Krups, Mercedes, BASF anyone???).

Can I just point out that I waited 10 weeks for this picture, which I had to request. They do not supply it with a repair. When they did finally supply the photo, it did not come with any explanation of the damage shown. MPRC say on their website that they are ISO certified, can anyone here tell me if this report sounds like it is to a specified standard (or even "a" standard).

Independent of that, CPW have no quality checks in place to make sure that the repairs made by MPRC are up to standard.

Overall the point I am trying to make is that it is not acceptable to receive a one sentence report "BEP due to water damage" to tell you that your E200 phone should be thrown in the bin. A photo and a summary explanation is not too much to expect. The phone is moisture damaged and that is fine. Why should I have to wait 10 weeks for a photo, have to post that photo on a message board and then have Daveym tell me what is wrong with it??!

Whilst i can't comment on CPW, o2 have an online facility for seeing the repair status of a phone, what was wrong, what part was replaced, how much that part cost and the name of the tech that done it. I would have assumed that this is standard across the compeition as well.

Repair centers operate in accordance with the procedures laid down by a particular manufacturer like nokia or sony ericsson if they want to call themselves authorised service centers. These companies must ensure their devices conform to certain standards laid down by regulations as do repairs. So some sort of certification exists.

I too can have experiences (not referring to the op) when people would come in with phones that were water damaged and argue tooth and nail that they were not and it was all being made up.... despite to contact corrossion and the watermark stickers being activated!

120_Minutes

Linoge wrote:

Can I just point out that I waited 10 weeks for this picture, which I had to request. They do not supply it with a repair. When they did finally supply the photo, it did not come with any explanation of the damage
Independent of that, CPW have no quality checks in place to make sure that the repairs made by MPRC are up to standard.

Thats quite unusual, as ber moisture damage repairs from the CPW usually come back with a picture, highlighted showing the area moisture damaged.

with a discalimer: "while it may be possible to repair the handset, it may not operate to manufacturers standard" which is a nice way of saying theres no real point in repairing it.

copacetic

neilled wrote:

Water damage can take time to manifest itself as it slowly corrodes circuts on the phones main board. 99.9% of the time the repairers are right when they say its water damaged..........

thats rubbish, water doesn't erode ccts! the only damage water does to 'ccts' is form a conductivity path that can lead to shorts. so can loads of other things! the problem with all of
this is that there is no real way to tell what caused the damage like in the pictures but 'water damage' could be a cause and it is an easy one to tell the customer.. your statement should be 99.9% the repairers don't know anything except that they can't fix the problem so they say it is water damage.

neilled

Davey i used the term corrode because i opened up a phone that had been water damged once and its guts had started looking a rather discoloured... and lots of green gunk that had built up on the copper contacts. Now i'm not from an engineering background like you but thats what i would describe that as corrosion!

Your arguement that water damage doiagnosis is used because techs don't know what the problem is isn't relevant read the manufacturers warranty from any brand, once they find evidence of water inside your handset its game over, your warranty is void whether the water caused the problem or nt!

The 99.9 statement was a reply to a previous poster who seem to believe at the time that there was a vast conspiracy to say phones were water damaged when they were not so cpw could make extra sales.

copacetic

neilled wrote:

Davey i used the term corrode because i opened up a phone that had been water damged once and its guts had started looking a rather discoloured... and lots of green gunk that had built up on the copper contacts. Now i'm not from an engineering background like you but thats what i would describe that as corrosion!

Your arguement that water damage doiagnosis is used because techs don't know what the problem is isn't relevant read the manufacturers warranty from any brand, once they find evidence of water inside your handset its game over, your warranty is void whether the water caused the problem or nt!

The 99.9 statement was a reply to a previous poster who seem to believe at the time that there was a vast conspiracy to say phones were water damaged when they were not so cpw could make extra sales.

i certainly would agree that there isn't a mass conspiracy, but there is a tendency to say 'water damage' as a first port of call when there is any physical evidence of a problem on a cct board.

they fact that it may void your warranty is even more reason for them to actually prove 'water' damage. rather than some damage on a cct board that they believe to be moisture related but have no proof of.

eg for the op here, they opened his phone up saw a cct board problem and said 'water damage'. A million and one things could have caused that issue from bad components, bad manufacturing, esd etc etc. (maybe the most likely cause is moisture damage but that is all they could say). They just say it is water damage, send a pic and that is ok? Seems a bit off to me, but wouldn't pretend to be an expert of the legalities of it all..