Screen dying already?

[marcih]

UPDATE July 7:
The delamination has spread over the last 3 months and has gotten to the point where large chunks of the screen stopped responding to touch input and I'm no longer able to unlock my SIM card (the bottom left part of the screen where you switch between letters and numbers on the OSK isn't responding).

I'm packing and sending my phone off to PINE64 for an RMA as we speak after contacting them via their ticketing system. Here's what the support representative told me after receiving photos of the screen upon their request:

As per the LCD screen issue, you are required to ship the PinePhone without battery and accessories to the below address. As our engineer would like to find the root cause of the issue.

If you've encountered the issue as well, feel free to let others know in this thread but please also contact PINE64 support with photos of your screen, it'll likely be helpful if they receive more reports and faulty screens to investigate.

ORIGINAL POST:

I have had the Manjaro CE since November and have been using it as a daily driver pretty much the whole time I've had it. Unfortunately, my screen has recently been getting these deformations(?) around the edges, see photos:
   
   
   
   

They've suddenly appeared one day, starting with the bar of rectangles on the top and spread to the sides in the span of around a week, although it seems like it's stopped now. It's only visible when I shine a light on the screen, i.e. can't be seen in the dark with just the backlight shining. It doesn't look like it's damage to the screen protector or the glass, the artifacts look like they're below the glass. Is the screen permanently damaged? What could have been the cause of this? Damage by heat? Water (air moisture)? Pressure? If I replace the screen, what can I do to avoid this in the future?

[rocket2nfinity]

I have had the Manjaro CE since November and have been using it as a daily driver pretty much the whole time I've had it. Unfortunately, my screen has recently been getting these deformations(?) around the edges, see photos:





They've suddenly appeared one day, starting with the bar of rectangles on the top and spread to the sides in the span of around a week, although it seems like it's stopped now. It's only visible when I shine a light on the screen, i.e. can't be seen in the dark with just the backlight shining. It doesn't look like it's damage to the screen protector or the glass, the artifacts look like they're below the glass. Is the screen permanently damaged? What could have been the cause of this? Damage by heat? Water (air moisture)? Pressure? If I replace the screen, what can I do to avoid this in the future?

That is unfortunately the screen separating, likely due to pressure. The glues are usually alcohol based solvents so it's likely not water. You could continue to use it, but it will need to be replaced at some point.

[marcih]

That is unfortunately the screen separating, likely due to pressure. The glues are usually alcohol based solvents so it's likely not water. You could continue to use it, but it will need to be replaced at some point.

Well that's unfortunate. If you say it's likely from pressure, so how could I avoid this next time? How much pressure is needed for this to happen? Phone-in-tight-front-pocket kind of pressure? Phone-under-pillow-overnight kind of pressure? Sitting-on-your-phone kind of pressure?

I also recently wiped the phone with an alcohol-based screen cleaner on a piece of cloth, and sice you say they glue is usually an alcohol-based solvent, that probably didn't help much either... Oh well, you live and you learn.

[MtnSk8]

KDE CE 3GB. It never was dropped and never got wet and never sat on never cleaned with alcohol. Also I never used that screen protector that it shipped with.

[marcih]

KDE CE 3GB. It never was dropped and never got wet and never sat on never cleaned with alcohol.  Also I never used that screen protector that it shipped with.

Thanks for the report MtnSk8. I haven't exactly been abusing my phone (never dropped it or sat on it either, just to clarify ), so it sounds like a general screen defect.

[rocket2nfinity]

This is something to bring to Pine64s attention, as it could be a defect. I doubt it was the alcohol wipe. You would really have to soak it to do that. @Luke

[Fish]

I have the same problem with my daily user, the manjaro 3GB CE. I will post a picture of it later today.

Picture:     

[dsimic]

This could be easily caused by the heat generated by the A64 SoC.  Based on the photos in this thread, the defects seem to be appearing at the upper half of the screen, and the A64 SoC is underneath that part of the screen.  Based on my experience, the upper third of the screen gets particularly hot.

As a preventative measure, I'd suggest that everybody enables thermal throttling of the A64 SoC on their PinePhones.

[MtnSk8]

This could be easily caused by the heat generated by the A64 SoC.  Based on the photos in this thread, the defects seem to be appearing at the upper half of the screen, and the A64 SoC is underneath that part of the screen.  Based on my experience, the upper third of the screen gets particularly hot.

As a preventative measure, I'd suggest that everybody enables thermal throttling of the A64 SoC on their PinePhones.

This is the best explanation so far. My Pine Pocket Heater was super nice this winter but as summer approaches I'll be interested in "enabling thermal throttling".
How do I do that?

Thanks!

[dsimic]

It's rather simple.  First, you can check the default thresholds (i.e. default trip points) and associated trip point types for CPU thermal throttling on a PinePhone using the following commands (see the end of this post for more information on different trip point types):

Code:

grep . /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone0/trip_point_*_temp
grep . /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone0/trip_point_*_type

The default thresholds are also available in the A64 device tree.  Needless to say, the default thresholds allow the CPU and the upper third of the screen to become very hot even under light CPU load.  You can use the following commands to configure more restrictive CPU thermal throttling:

Code:

echo 45000  > /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone0/trip_point_0_temp   # passive
echo 65000  > /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone0/trip_point_1_temp   # hot
echo 100000 > /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone0/trip_point_2_temp   # critical

The unit for all numeric values is millidegree Celsius.  You can execute those commands either manually, from a shell script, or you can configure some sysctl rules to perform the settings upon each boot.

Of course, you can tweak those thresholds and see how do you like the results.  However, make sure not to set values higher than 110000 (i.e. 110 degrees Celsius, which is the default value) for the third threshold, as it may cause damage to the phone.

Current CPU temperature can be checked using the following command:

Code:

cat /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone0/temp

Further information can be found in these documents from the Linux kenel source:

• Documentation/thermal/sysfs-api.txt
  
• Documentation/hwmon/sysfs-interface
  
• Documentation/devicetree/bindings/thermal/thermal.txt
  

All this is important information for all PinePhone owners, so I went ahead and added this information to the wiki page.

Edit: The possible names and associated meanings for the trip point types are the following:

• "active" - a trip point to enable active cooling
  
• "passive" - a trip point to enable passive cooling
  
• "hot" - a trip point to notify emergency
  
• "critical" - hardware not reliable