iPhone 5S Blue Screen, Bootloop & Restore Error 14 or Error 9

It has been awhile since we did a blog post however we wanted to share some information regarding a problem some individuals doing their own iPhone 5S screen repair have had and in fact some shops have also had. The mistake is easy to make however, the problem it creates is rather immense. The problem occurs when replacing the 4 screws that hold down the plate over the screen connectors. If the screws get swapped and one of the longer screws is placed in the hole for the shorter it will damage the logic board. The phone will boot loop, displaying a blue screen at the end of the boot loop and if a restore is attempted it will fail giving an error 14 or error 9 in iTunes. Here is a photo demonstrating which screw is causing the issue:

iPhone5S bluescreen, bootloop, error 14 9 cause.

We were recently brought a phone that had this error made during reassembly and took it under a microscope to see what could be done to repair it. Here are a few photos with captions detailing what we found.

After desoldering the screw nut from the board, the outlook is not pretty. For reference, the dark circle inside the shiny ring is 1mm.

After cleaning the surface it is easy to see the circular cut in the board made by the too long screw.

As we begin to remove the top layer of the circuit board you can just start to see one of the 7 traces that runs through that circle

A few more traces start to emerge as the board removal continues. The width of these copper traces is 50 microns (a little narrower than a human hair.)

We stop removing board material at this point (hence the dark spot in the middle of the circle) because we had uncovered all the traces that were damaged.

Finally, we are able to repair the severed traces.

Needless to say this is a repair that requires the right equipment and significant board level repair experience. If you made this mistake yourself or took your phone to a shop that made this mistake and damaged your phone please send us a message or give us a call and we would be glad to help get your phone back up and running.

http://www.irepairnational.com/iphone-5s-blue-screen-boot-loop-restore-error-14-or-error-9-repair-service/