Chosen Solution

I ordered and replaced a screen with iFixIt a week and a half ago and replaced my screen the day it came in. It was fine until an hour ago and the screen went all black. I’m still getting calls and text messages but no screen. In thinking maybe something happened with the screen I replaced? Things i tried:

  1. holding power and home button until an apple logo (that didn’t show up) comes up.
  2. pushing the back of the case under the camera to see if something got dislodged
  3. opening the device up and making sure the screen connections were still intact I’m starting to suspect that the screen I just got died…. Update (07/17/2019) Also, I can’t slide to answer anything on said dead screen. The phone rings and no amount of touches on the screen will answer it.

It’s possible the screen is defective. Ideally, if you could re-install the original cracked screen to see if the problem follows the screen or stays “with the phone”. If the problem stays with the phone (that is both screens have the same issue), then read the following: It’s very important to always disconnect the battery before disconnecting/reconnecting the screen assembly. The issue is that the LCD connector has pins that have high voltages (i.e. the backlight is ~20V) and ground in very close proximity. When you fumble around trying to line up the connector plug to the receptacle, you can short out the voltage rail and cause damage to the components in the backlight circuit. If you’re lucky, then only a backlight filter is damaged but other times, the entire circuit could be affected. Either way, this type of repair requires micro-soldering and isn’t really a DIY repair. To test for this, plug your device into a charger or an iTunes enabled computer. Then shine a bright flashlight on the screen. If you can see a dim image, then the backlight circuit has been damaged. If you can’t see an image at all, then it may be the LCD circuit that is damaged. You can connect the original, cracked screen to confirm this. If the original screen has the backlight on, then the replacement screen has an issue. If the original screen also doesn’t show the backlight, then the backlight circuit is blown.