[Gta04-owner] I dropped my GTA04 :-(

[Benjamin Deering]

Hello everyone,

Yesterday I dropped my gta04 from my desk while connected to usb.  After 
that it stopped charging.  When I opened the phone I found that the 
front pads and the data lines had ripped off from the connector.  A 
couple hours with the soldering iron and some urethane glue got the 
connector back on.  If you get your GTA04 and are planning to put it in 
a freerunner case, I recommend using a toothpick to put a little strong 
epoxy under the usb connecter (only where it won't interfere with fit) 
and letting it dry before installing it.

The external gps antenna connector came off as well, but I don't think I 
will put it back.  It would just be for looks as I have no way of 
reconnecting the signal wire and only needing to clear the usb connector 
will make putting it back in the case easier.

Now with the connector back on, I see some strange behavior.  The red 
led comes on as soon as I put in a battery, or a second after I connect 
USB.  When I connect a battery, the phone boots.  I see tux,  the green 
led lights (but the red led stays lit), and usually I don't get to the 
next phase of boot (nand/mmc/1/2).  Once when I did, I connected usb and 
verified that the phone is detected as cdc_ether and pinged it from my 
laptop.  Even after it boots, the screen could go black at any time and 
the red led will stay lit, blinking occasionally.  Is the red led 
blinking some sort of low level debug?  It doesn't look like 'loose 
connection' blinking.

Pictures are here: 
http://www.jeepingben.net/zen/zenphoto/2012/broken_gta04/, the last 3 
are probably the most useful. The fibers in the pictures are cotton from 
wiping off flux.

The schematics in the manual are pictures, so  I can't search for 
components to see what I worked near and what might cause this.  It is 
almost like the power button is down, but I didn't work near there and 
the button feels good.

Thanks for any help,

Ben