shadeau_jed: treo 600 fixing that buzzing sound

shadeau_jed (

shadeau_jed) wrote,
@ 2005-05-17 23:23:00

treo 600 fixing that buzzing sound
my treo, like many others out there, would buzz when the battery level dropped. I found a fix for this problem, but it required that i take apart my treo, which makes me more than a little nervous. but there was a helpfull page on pdaparts.com that described replacing the battery. I thought that posting the pics of my expirence might help others.

sorry for the crummy quality pics.

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worksurface, aluminum foil, torx tool, treo 600

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plugs and screws removed (additional NOTE - as you pry the case apart the antena may "pop" out. Also there is a silver ring around the camera lens which is not secure)

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back removed

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The white wire harness

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removing the battery side of the conector.

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Here is the wire and the length of foil i used.

The wrapped wires. I also trimed a piece of clear tape to go around the foil to hold it all together and to insulate the foil.

I HIGHLY RECOMEND pre-bending and flattening of the wires before instalation

Then reassemble in reverse order

There you have it!
Pretty easy huh?!

just watch out for the antenna and remember BE GENTLE!

Good Luck!

Shadeau

(Post a new comment)

	regina_anne2001 2005-05-18 09:51 am UTC (link)
	you make a post once every... 7 months and it is about your phone... giggles you are too funny. (Reply to this)

	THANK YOU (Anonymous) 2005-06-08 04:03 pm UTC (link)
	Thankyou for the info on fixing the buzzing on Treo600 I have spent all afternoon on the phone trying to claim on my warranty, and Instead I have fixed it in 5 min with the use of your webpage. thankyou Ian www.malcomp.com (Reply to this) (Thread)

	Re: THANK YOU shadeau_jed 2005-06-08 06:49 pm UTC (link)
	YOU ARE VERY WELCOME! Tell your friends! I'm so happy that this helped you! the other sites i went to had crummy pics of old phones that didn't really apply to fixing the buzz. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	Re: THANK YOU shadeau_jed 2005-06-08 06:52 pm UTC (link)
	BTW how did you ever find my little live journal? Google? (Reply to this) (Parent)

	qwiki 2005-06-12 07:28 pm UTC (link)
	I'm going to try this. found it via a webforum.... (Reply to this)

	treo 600 gjg20 2005-06-16 04:32 pm UTC (link)
	shadeau_jed, thank you for the treo 600 fix, it worked great and only took a few minutes. remarkable (Reply to this)

Thanks!
(Anonymous)
2005-06-26 05:27 pm UTC (link)

Several months ago I attempted the fix and was put off when I had trouble snapping the case off. Got fed up and decided that I would get this fixed or trash the phonene in the process. Found your comment on mytreo.net and linked to the pix. It gave me the gumption to soldier on, and - off came the case and on went the foil! Seems to be working... I used a plastic coated foil starbucks bag.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

	Re: Thanks! shadeau_jed 2005-06-26 07:38 pm UTC (link)
	sweet! lemme know how that turns out! i'm not exactly sure of the required thickness of foil needed to stop the buzz, but i hope the starbucks bag works better than their coffee tastes! ZING :P (Reply to this) (Parent)

Thank you
(Anonymous)
2005-09-19 02:50 pm UTC (link)

My Treo 600 is like new again, no buzzing for callers and even at my end it is quieter and without a buzz to be heard. Great solution - power to the people who find these solutions. Amazing that the manufacturers kept handing out 'new' phones when this was what was needed.

By the way, a French site suggests twisting the wires. I id that and added the foil protection. Can't ask for more - thanks!

(Reply to this) (Thread)

	Re: Thank you shadeau_jed 2005-09-19 02:52 pm UTC (link)
	You are very welcome! (Reply to this) (Parent)

	Treo Not Turning Back on themodernage17 2005-09-22 09:48 pm UTC (link)
	Hey, my treo is not turning back on, any ideas? I'm scared..... (Reply to this) (Thread)

Re: Treo Not Turning Back on
(Anonymous)
2005-09-24 02:29 pm UTC (link)

Hi themodernage17,

Is your Treo completely dead, or does it look like the battery is powering the Treo (i.e., the LED on top of the phone lights up when the phone is in the cradle), but the screen is still black?

If it's the latter, it may be that the connection of the screen to the motherboard isn't making contact. If you look at the third picture that shadeau_jed posted, on the right side of the battery about half way down, you see a small (~1/2 inch) black rectangle. The underside of this rectangle is where the screen connects to the motherboard. When you put the phone back together, one of the rubber thingies on the other side of the case makes contact with this and appears to apply pressure so that the connector makes solid contact when the phone is back together.

After doing a battery transplant on my Treo, this wasn't making contact and it looked like I had a $500 paperweight on my hands. I reopened the phone, gently bent the connector down a few extra millimeters toward the motherboard and, voila, even with the phone open, suddenly my screen came back to life.

Thanks to the poster at http://mytreo.net/forum/index.php/topic,11694.0.html for relating his or her experience.

Hope this helps for you.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

Thank You

(Anonymous)
2005-10-05 09:03 pm UTC (link)

Dear Shadeau,

Thank you so much for posting this information.

My wife's Treo recently started to buzz during conversations. Since the phone was out of warranty, she wanted to buy a new phone...either the Razr or the Treo 650. Well I wasn't about shell out over 500 bucks for another Treo when the 600 had so many technical problems. I wasn't going to get her a Razr. I have one and I wanted continue to have the coolest phone in our home. So my only option to appease my wife was to do a search on Yahoo on the Treo 600 buzzing problem...and here I am. I followed your instructions and the problem seems to be fixed. My wife is happy and I still have the coolest phone in our home.

Thank you so much.
-Ravi

(Reply to this)

	parisgarters 2005-11-02 02:39 am UTC (link)
	I've had my Treo 600 for less than 3 weeks, and the dreaded buzzing just started. In your opinion, should I try this first or should I try to get a replacement phone since it's still under warranty? PS - I'm from Dallas. (Reply to this) (Thread)

shadeau_jed
2005-11-02 03:24 am UTC (link)

well...if you get a new 600 it is still gonna develop this same problem. Who is your carier? the reason i ask is after i did the buzz fix my phone ended up die-ing for an unrelated reason so i took it back apart and removed the foil and got it back to normal and sent it in for a replacement (they sent me a 650!) That they took it back with out hassleing me about opening it up makes me think that, if done properly you can do the procedure in such a way as to not make it obvious that you voided your warranty....that said if you want any tips on doing this feel free to ask....hell if your nice enough and being in dallas i could help you in person!

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	parisgarters 2005-11-02 02:13 pm UTC (link)
	Well, I am nice enough, but I'm from Dallas and live in New York. I would appreciate some help, though. Where would I even get this teeny screwdriver? (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	shadeau_jed 2005-11-02 02:31 pm UTC (link)
	awwwww and i wanted to meet you...old 97's, buffy, geek....wow! i got mine at home depot it is a torx driver, no other will do... best advice...make a clean, brightly lit work area, and go slow. also watch out for the camera ring it likes to fall out and roll around. be sure to back up your treo first. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	Treo Replacement from T-Mobile (Anonymous) 2005-11-03 11:20 pm UTC (link)
	I was having this problem for a long time. I thought this is because I might have dropped it couple of times. Just now I found your post. My carrier is T-Mobile. I dont think they carry a warranty but I will ask them. Let me know if you have any idea about that. Thanks In Advance, Neeraj Sharma PS: I am from Dallas (actually Plano) (Reply to this) (Parent)

treo 600
(Anonymous)
2005-11-07 04:19 am UTC (link)

thanks for the tips, i also did the twisting and foiling you shared. The buzzing definitely disappeared according to some of my callers, but as days go by and sometimes when the battery goes down below 60%, the buzzing comes back. Do you have any suggestions about that problem im experiencing? if i foil the speakers, will it help decrease the buzzing sound? i saw this in some google site.

thanks and God bless

mike from the philippines

(Reply to this) (Thread)

Re: treo 600

shadeau_jed
2005-11-07 07:09 am UTC (link)

i also read about foiling the speaker but didn't find much supporting information on it so i passed on that little expiriment.

that said.... how much foil did you use..
in my pics the length of foil i show is actually how much i wrapped around the wires.. so it wrapped around about 10-12 times.

if you just used a sparce amount of foil i can see it not working so well.

when i did this fix it REALLY fixed the problem even when battery levels were critical (<20%) there was still no buzz.

hope this helps

and pass it on!

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	Re: treo 600 (Anonymous) 2005-11-13 01:42 am UTC (link)
	hi, its me again mike fr philippines, i will do what you advised, foiling the wire 10-12 times, but for the meantime, the last time i wrapped the wire, the buzzing disappeared, probably after the buzzing will appear again, that is the time i will wrap it 10 times, thanks for the advise again.. God bless.. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

Re: treo 600
(Anonymous)
2005-11-21 04:03 am UTC (link)

i am having this problem and am also hearing a clicking sound out of the back speaker when i'm not connected to the charger. is this somehow related to the "network search" issue? Anyhow, even though this is out of warranty shouldn't palm replace these since it a known issue? I have replaced the battery once and this seemed to solve the problem, but now 6 months later it is occuring again. it is very annoying that i paid this much for this device and now this is clearly a known issue and they won't replace these phones.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

foiling the speaker Re: treo 600
(Anonymous)
2006-06-04 11:00 pm UTC (link)

I have applied the fix to both power cable (so small and cute!) and also to the speaker. I found the fix to the cable might have improved things a little ... but not much :( SO I opened everything up again and sheilded the speaker as well. There are instructions and pics here: (though I missed the bit about the speaker first time round)

http://mytreo.net/treofaq/BuzzFix

That person has said that their phone already had a "gasket on the speaker". gasket!? :) Because it was from Orange in the UK. The phone I have was also from Orange in the UK and the speaker back seemed to be foil so I thought it might have been sheilded already. But not enough as it turns out. Some origami is done on the foil to make it octagonal. I decided it would not do any harm if the foil went down over the plastic around the speaker .... might even shield something vital lying in that direction a bit better. So less origami and some sticky tape later and buzzing is eliminated. Very happy. Hopefully it will not come back!

With my (or rather my wife's) phone the buzzing was heard only by the other person. I'm not sure if the problem is a bit different for different phones.
Sheilding the speaker seems to have been the best thing for this phone.
I was a bit surprised as the problem went away if the phone was put on mute
(i.e. turn off the microphone) ... *shrug*

Funny to be continuing a thread so much later but you'd never know, this might prove useful to someone.
Thanks everyone for discussion and for posting up instructions.

Here is another link I found, a company that do the fix for the wusses amongst you:
http://www.atxpowersupplies.com/treo-600-buzzing-noise.htm
I don't know are they good/bad, if they still exist or not etc. etc.
Their instructions don't mention the speaker so I guess they don't do that?

(Reply to this) (Parent)

	Ran into problems - disabled unit (Anonymous) 2005-12-10 05:13 pm UTC (link)
	I tried to wrap the wires in the foil and add the piece for the speaker. When I put it back together, the unit does not recognize the SIM card and it does not work on battery alone. It tells me that there 100% battery, but when I unplug it it dies. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	Re: Ran into problems - disabled unit (Anonymous) 2005-12-10 05:56 pm UTC (link)
	i would try to undo the foiling and see it it goes back to normal. you may be causing a short with the speaker foil, since it is near the simcard i would try getting rid of that first. i would also check to see that the battery wires are reseated properly. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	Re: Ran into problems - disabled unit shadeau_jed 2005-12-10 05:58 pm UTC (link)
	i would try to undo the foiling and see it it goes back to normal. you may be causing a short with the speaker foil, since it is near the simcard i would try getting rid of that first. i would also check to see that the battery wires are reseated properly. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	Re: Ran into problems - disabled unit (Anonymous) 2005-12-10 06:43 pm UTC (link)
	I appreciate your help and quick reply. I did actually remove all foil, and repluged the speaker wire a few times, for some reason it does not help. I might have loosened up a connection, I wonder. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	renniekins 2005-12-12 05:42 am UTC (link)
	Cool, thanks. I just tried it on mine...hope it helps! :) (Reply to this)

Good stuff here..

baalpeteor
2005-12-24 10:03 pm UTC (link)

so im guessin it only buzzes when ur battery is below half? mine is though and I heard buzzing when im close to a monitor.. like touching it to like ... 5 yards or more away :-p . my other fone ( razr im about to sell, had since june) doesn't do this though..

so will that compromise that buzzing, or do u guys get a differ type of buzzing?

my fone was t mobile. I did some sort of upgrade to unlock it ( found here: http://mytreo.net/forum/index.php?topic=26134.msg214914#msg214914)
i didn't do the firmware upgrade, but perhaps the person who owned it prior did (doubt it), but it did unlock it from t-mobile, and now I can use my cingular in it...

the only problem though now is that sometimes it doesn't dial out or probably accept calls. When I dial it just goes back to the keypad. This is when i first enable wireless mode and sometimes does this for hours. Sometimes though when I call it will call. perhaps the monitors or something in my house is interferring, or the battery is low ? ( i never had it even half charged since I got it, but im charging now in a car).
the only other thing it can be is since i didn't do the firmware upgrade ( dont have cable! and they dont make the .prc files to put it on ur sd flash like the thing I did). what do u think?

(Reply to this)

	*update* baalpeteor 2005-12-24 10:25 pm UTC (link)
	I think it mighta been my battery, being below half it couldn't dial out really or find the server. i dunno. I just put my sim back in my fone ( charging in car), and as soon as I turned wireless mode on ( a few secs after) I dialed a few people and it worked! I hope this is the only problem. If so I will be a very happy teen now :-D lol (Reply to this)

my experience

baalpeteor
2005-12-25 05:53 am UTC (link)

here's my experience that might help u guys....

first lets state that no one but like one person has had problems with this, but its fixed. so that means if u try there's like 1% chance it will fail, and i doubt that unless ur really rough...

ok on to my experience..
I started by prying off the back, and undid it and after trying many sizes of aluminum and tape around it, and bending the power wire over 10 times (so u know its durable), and trying it 3 times, it didn't work. after a while I put it back together again and so on and didn't work. what was the problem? well the female receiver on the battery for the plug (has 4 pins) had a bent pen! how did I fix? i took a little needle ( for sewing. thx to my mom sewing business!) and tediously and not so slowly b ent it back up. another was bent so I lined them all up correctly and voila! plugged it in and it works like a beauty! called my house and so far no static. thx alot!

just one question... is there a way to talk better into the mic so they hear ya? i'd love a program that could raise the gain of the mic ( its in the back of the fone correct?) so it picks up more.. but aww heck, ima prob use speakerfone mostly as to watch out for those huge palm treo producing radiation waves! lol

(Reply to this)

	Treo 600 buzz fix (Anonymous) 2005-12-31 12:35 am UTC (link)
	Just tried the fix. so far so good...thanks for the instructions as I wouldn't have touched it otherwise. It is a little tricky to put the phone back together so I got the wire shaped correctly first and then wrapped it with the foil. If it doesn't work, I'll post a note. Thanks for everyones' words of encouragement. Otherwise this is a near perfect phone. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	Re: Treo 600 buzz fix (Anonymous) 2005-12-31 12:47 am UTC (link)
	i'm so glad this helped you! ...if you think the 600 is near perfect...wait till you get the 650! My wife now has a 600 so don't you go thinking i'm out of the 600 buisness yet! as always i'm here to help, with questions about the treo 600 and now the treo 650. (Reply to this) (Parent)

Thank You
(Anonymous)
2006-01-04 07:27 pm UTC (link)

As I was driving home from an appointment my phone once again started buzzing and I couldn't get rid of it. Certainly not the first time but I was at my wits end with this darn phone. I just assumed all this time that it was me. In a bad cell, mountains in the way, whatever. Then I found this site and salvation! I admit I was nervous because I am technically challenged but I charged ahead, went out and got the Torx and worked slowly thru the process you outline. Within 10 minutes my phone was back together and since has been working perfectly. No background noise and not a buzz since I did this. Thank you so much!

(Reply to this) (Thread)

	Re: Thank You (Anonymous) 2006-01-04 08:24 pm UTC (link)
	you are very welcome! Another happy customer! glad i could help! pass it on to other 600 users! (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	Re: Thank You (Anonymous) 2006-01-24 06:40 pm UTC (link)
	Can this fix also help to rid the mic "muffling" or the fading in and out of the voice, which the person hears on the other end? This also seems to be a known T600 issue that I am experiencing. Thanks! (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

Re: Thank You
(Anonymous)
2006-02-15 10:20 pm UTC (link)

THANK YOU!!! this worked beautifully. Funny, when i asked our IT person if they had a Torx driver (T5, T6) i told him my plan and he was a bit skeptical. He said that he would upgrade my phone to a 650. I told him I was going to do it anyway. He is still getting me the 650. Unbielavble how well it worked! I used it today at about 10 - 20% battery charge in my house where I normally can barely use the phone at all (i have a wireless network that i thought was the cause of the interference). anyway, ABSOLUTELTY NO PROBLEMS! Note, I only needed a T6 torx driver. Also, i wrapped the foil (Reynolds heavy duty - it's all i had) 12 times. pre-bent it and reassembled. Question: does anyone know if i will need to do this to the 650? if so, same procedure?
THANKS!!

(Reply to this) (Parent)

YES!!!!!
(Anonymous)
2006-02-22 05:35 pm UTC (link)

My 600 started developing the buzzing noise, even on a full charge. was just about to ugrade to a 650 so i decided to try this out. it works perfect now NO BUZZING. thanks for the info!!!

heres some things i found out:

1. Prying open the case is a lil tricky you just need to slide a thin piece of plastic down the crack and it will open easily.

2. There is NO need to disconnect the battery. I wrapped the wire while still plugged in with a folded 1/4 inch wide piece of foil. looping it under the center of the wire then wrapping over the top on both the left and right sides. Since this method doesnt disconnect the battery you dont have to re-install all your stuff.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

	Re: YES!!!!! shadeau_jed 2006-02-22 06:52 pm UTC (link)
	cool! good thinking... (Reply to this) (Parent)

THANKS FOR SAVING ME $300+
(Anonymous)
2006-02-28 04:30 am UTC (link)

I just wanted to thank you so much for posting this. The problem eventually got so bad on my phone that if I had a ten minute conversation, eight minutes were filled with static. It became so bad that the person on the other end could not even understand me.

I called Cingular Tech support, downloaded new upgrades, visited my local cingular store and nothing solved the problem. I was ready to ditch cingular and buy a blackberry for $300 - $400. I would also have to pay $175 for breaking the final 8 months of my contract. However, I was facing no other choice. What good is a cell phone that only works a minority of the time?

I stumbled upon this site followed the directions and the buzzing problem was completely eliminated. The solutions was a life saver! THANK YOU!

I was wondering if you sent this solution to Palm or Cingular. If so, did they have any response? It seems like every tech support rep should know about this.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

	Re: THANKS FOR SAVING ME $300+ shadeau_jed 2006-02-28 05:08 am UTC (link)
	well no i didn't tell palm or cingular about this, because opening the phone voids the warranty...so no..heh! but if you have any friends with a treo 600, point em in my direction! (Reply to this) (Parent)

To my surprise - It worked!!! But heed my caution...

helikyler
2006-03-29 04:25 am UTC (link)

Wow. Much to my surprise it worked like a charm. I just wanted to offer one caution to those out there attempting to do this process, and that is this:

When you are dealing with the plugs/connectors of the white battery wires, be very very careful and gentle. I managed to bend down one of the prongs on the battery's connector slot and could not figure out for a long time why the phone wouldn't power up. After making a trip to SavOn and getting a sewing kit, I used the needle to bend back that teeny little prong into its proper place and it worked. Also... BACKUP your data! I was dumb and didn't do this and now 9 days worth of stuff is gone. Oh well. Thanks for the wonderful info!

(Reply to this)

buzz fix
(Anonymous)
2006-04-06 03:54 pm UTC (link)

Bless the nerds of this world! I mean that in the nicest way lol. That foil trick works great. I just performed the fix and I didn't kill my phone. The buzz is gone! I was thinking about purchasing a new phone due to sound problems. People would always ask me if I was driving and I could hear it on my end too. I really like the flexibility of having a smartphone. Buying another expensive smartphone was not an option! I am not a user of LiveJournal but I plan to browse your site as I was linked to it from mytreo.net
Many Thanks!!!

(Reply to this) (Thread)

	Re: buzz fix shadeau_jed 2006-04-07 04:08 am UTC (link)
	mytreo.net is pimping me out? ROFL! (Reply to this) (Parent)

	"Buzzing Fix" worked great (Anonymous) 2006-04-24 02:54 am UTC (link)
	I just finished, took me about ten minutes, workes great, thanx (Reply to this)

	Worked!!! Thanks!! (Anonymous) 2006-10-27 01:02 am UTC (link)
	Worked for me too!! Saved me $400 by not having to buy a new phone. How did you discover this?? Thanks. (Reply to this) (Thread)

Where do I get a torx screw driver?
(Anonymous)
2006-11-15 11:27 pm UTC (link)

where do I get a torx screw driver and what's the cost?
Thanks for posting this fix. I was blaming myself, as I had dropped the phone. Yeah it's not my fault!

also, I had another problem that fixed itself after I dropped it again - anyone have an idea how to fix this if it happens again? or an idea if this hapened to anyone else?

After I dropped the phone, it would not ring. That is, when a call came in, or an alarm I had set popped up, the screen would come one, but no ring/sound/tone came out of the speaker to alert me to a call.

I added Vibrate to comeon when a call came in, but that only worked when the phone was on my person, not when it was in my purse.

What was wierd, is that if I happened to leave my earpiece/mic in my ear, I could hear the ring/alarm tones, but no through the speaker. but the speaker still seemed to work when I used it to talk with someone.

anyway, it fixed itself when I dropped the phone again. I'm still not used to the size of this phone, having upgraded from a smaller samsung/non smart phone.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	Re: Where do I get a torx screw driver? shadeau_jed 2006-11-16 02:14 am UTC (link)
	a torx driver is available at home depot or lowes. i think i got mine for like $15 and it has 8 tips. (Reply to this) (Parent)

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