****** THIS FIX WILL _NOT_ VOID YOUR WARRANTY AND IS NOW TOTALLY HARMLESS!!! ******
I'm leaving the old info here just for reference, enjoy. If you really don't want to read it all because you're lazy, then just skip to the part in red at the end of my post, BEFORE doing ANYTHING to your phone!!!
Well, on to my 4th handset, everything was going swimmingly up until 2 days ago. Slider wasn't wobbly, absolutely zero 'high pitched noise' being emitted from the phone, GPS locks in seconds from cold boot. I thought it was literally fourth time lucky.
Then I was sorely disappointed when I next got my phone out of my pocket whilst on my trip in Prague and found that the earpiece speaker had decided to give up the ghost, for no apparent reason. All I had been doing was taking pics and video, the last call I made was fine, then it just stopped working. Anyway, you all know the story if you've had this problem.
I had decided while I was over there, that as soon as I got back, I was going to attack my
N95 with a screwdriver, in the most polite way possible. Armed with a T5, I set to work.
After having 2 out of my 4 handsets do this to me, I've had enough. It's warranty voiding time.
Now before I start, here is the obligatory warning,
if you ruin your N95 when trying this, please dont blame me, you do this entirely at your own risk. With that out of the way, lets get started.
With some experience of this problem under my belt, in the sense that this is the 3rd time this has happened to me, I'd come to the conclusion that the speaker itself must be alright, but something had come loose and something was 'vibrating' in the earpiece. Was it the metal mesh that covers it, or something else? Turns out I was at least partially right, its vibrating metal, but not the mesh.
I unscrewed the front cover by removing the 4 screws that are accessible when the phone is extended both ways.
Two from the top:
Two from the bottom:
Be careful removing the front cover, on the underside, there are two metal clips on the inside of the cover about halfway up. These are plyable metal. Excessive bending bends them in such a way that the cover wont come off easily, and you'll end up breaking the plastic bit they clip on to, attached to the slider on the phone body, like I did. Spewing. Please learn from my mistake. ;)
With the front cover off, you will be able to see and remove the earpiece speaker, and you can then remove it from the cover, as this is the bit we are interested in. See below:
At this point, I was wondering if the speaker was vibrating against the metal mesh you see, and originally I was convinced this was the case. So I tried getting some thin felt stuff, (you know like the stuff that covers the keyboard of a new laptop when its brand new) and cut it to size (a few of them to bulk it out slightly) and place it between the mesh and the speaker to see if it would stop the two vibrating against each other. Wrong. Several iterations of this proved pointless. It was vibrating just as bad as ever.
So, that leaves only one culprit, the little speaker unit itself. I was pretty disappointed at this point, because as you can see below, the little speaker unit is a boxed up animal, no way in to operate, except maybe......
Those two little holes.
So naturally I got something that could fit into those holes so i could poke fun at them. A small paper clip or a pin will do the job nicely. You'll notice that when inserting said object into the holes, you will hear a click sound, and then when you remove the object, you will hear another click sound.
So, whats inside, is a very thin (but somewhat sturdy) metal film, that is convex in shape. It also 'bounces back' as I tried to describe, when you press against it.
So, what I did, was pressed on it, in both holes, several times, very carefully and lightly, (but with a small amount of force). Certainly not enough force to pierce a hole in it, but close as possible to. It's without a doubt, that this piece of thin metal has come loose, on the inside of the earpiece speaker and when noise comes out from the bit behind this thin sheet of metal it makes the annoying vibration/distortion sound. It would seem that pressing on it in this manner has 'put it back in it's place'.
Now my earpiece speaker vibration is gone, and voices coming through the phone sound as good as ever! Sure beats sending the phone back to Nokia, and is fun to do as well. Just remember to be careful as any visible signs of damage will void your warranty!
EDIT:
It has been pointed out that with a pin that is small enough, you can actually pierce through the mesh that covers the earpiece, you can get access to two holes from the outside of the phone without actually having to pull it apart! So it just became a 30 second fix. Enjoy!
EDIT AGAIN: This fix is now into it's 3rd generation! It's now been reported that all you have to do is put the earpiece to your mouth, and blow and then suck really hard in it. That's it. You'll know when you've done it right because the distortion will be gone. This must be the easiest fix to perform for an annoying problem, ever. Thanks to everyone else who contributed! Much respect!
Salada2k
Earpiece speaker distorted? Read here for the fix!
words. Thank you.
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