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My kid dropped my first generation iPhone and now several parts of the display only show grey. Looks like some pixels died. There are no cracks on the screen and touch works in the areas that are grey.

What should I replace to fix this? I believe the screen is made up of different components (glass, LCD etc). Should I replace the whole display unit or can I just replace the part that is broken?

Which is the cheapest place online to get the replacement part?

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1 Answer

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It's unlikely that the pixels have died, but the edge connector of the screen may have become dislodged or damaged, or it could be that the connection to the logic board could be loose.

You can try following this ifixit guide to see if taking it apart and reassembling it will restore any bad connections that dropping it may have caused.

If that doesn't work, you can just replace the display, as on pre iPhone 4 models the screen/digitiser and display are separate components, so if that's the only damaged component then it should fix the problem.

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Alan: If the connector had come loose wouldnt the whole display go off? The grey areas on my phone are in non uniform patches. – Bobby Alexander May 9 '12 at 8:08
Not necessarily, I have seen laptops with loose connectors that display similar problems as the one you describe. Also, along the edges of the display there are many rows of connectors usually with a surface connector to the ribbon cable, this could have become dislodged so that it's only affecting certain areas of the display. – AlanJC May 9 '12 at 8:43
Ok. Opening up the iPhone is a pain. Maybe I will destroy the phone in the process. – Bobby Alexander May 9 '12 at 10:45

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