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Repair guides and disassembly information for Google's Pixel 4 smartphone, released in October of 2019.

pixel 4 - what part likely broken?

i have an old pixel 4 that i have used as a secondary phone, so i don't always use it. i left it on a low wattage wireless charger for several days and came back to it completely bricked. I've left it for similar or longer before with no problems.

The phone doesn't do anything at all. pressing the button does nothing. no failed boot, or any activity at all. neither wireless nor wired charging does anything. I've tried leaving it unplugged for an extended period to let the battery drain then plugging it in again and still nothing.

i was going to just recycle it but then i thought it's a good opportunity to practice repairing it. but I'm not sure what is the most likely part is the fault.

realistically I'm only going to try it once, if it's not fixed I'm not going to try other parts since i don't actually need to fix it, just using it as practice. but it's still nice if i do manage to fix it.

so i want to maximize the chance that i get my one shot right, and order the part that is most likely to be the culprit.

my first guess is that it's a power issue, both because of me leaving it on charging for periods at a time, and also because it having no activity whatsoever. and also it's probably the best likelihood-to-cost ratio

but i see that ifixit sells both the battery and the usb charging board. i can't decide between the two. on one hand, neither wired nor wireless charges, which suggest something common between the two. on the other hand, if it's only the battery i would expect that it at least boots up while plugged in and just doesn't charge up.

or maybe it's neither of those at all?

anyone have suggestions about the most likely part that is broken in this scenario?

thanks!!!

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Harry's probably on the right track here, but let me add to this an experience I had with my niece's Pixel 4 XL. Similar to yours, it appeared 100% d-e-a-d. Here's the thread where we discussed it.

Diagnose Pixel 4 XL not booting - Google Pixel 4 XL - iFixit

The TL;DR version is the only thing I did to this phone was unplug the battery for a half hour; when I plugged it back in, it started working again like nothing was ever wrong with it.

My suggestion here if it was mine is I would go ahead and buy a new battery and swap it out. Just leave it unplugged for a good half hour total, then plug the display back in and see if it works.

Google Pixel 4 Battery Replacement - iFixit Repair Guide

Let us know what happens; if the battery replacement doesn't do it we'll try and figure out what your next step should be.

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Thank you both for your detailed analyses, yeah I'm trying to figure out what's more likely to be broken - the battery or the usb charging circuit. if it's something more fundamental it's not gonna be worth the cost to fix anyway.

i did try all sorts of combinations of leaving it unplugged for lengthy periods and then leaving it plugged in or on the wireless charger for a period, alternately, and nothing makes the phone do anything at all.

Do you know if wireless charging also goes through the charging assembly? if it does, then both it and the battery are likely candidates, but if it does not and i know that neither wireless nor wired charging works, then it tilts it in favour of the battery.

if both are likely, would you say the battery is the better gamble if i only pick one part? unfortunately, i don't have the tools on hand to try to diagnose the hardware before buying a part.

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Under normal circumstances you can have a failed charge port and still charge wirelessly unless there’s an issue with the wireless charging circuit or the battery is faulty and incapable of taking or holding charge.

Best option to take is as @dadibrokeit suggested.

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Hi,

Great that you’re having an interest in having a crack at repairing and learning about your phone.

First thing I would do is disconnect the battery and do a voltage check on the battery.

Next I would do a voltage check on the output of the onboard battery connector.

If you have voltage output on the connector then your charging port is working.

If the battery has low or no voltage it may be unable to take or hold enough charge to power the the phone.

You can try to put it on charge for an hour and then see if you can get to the recovery screen with the button combinations (volume up & power) until you see the android logo then release.

If you’re not sure about this, there’s heaps of videos on YouTube to check, just search for Pixel 4 won’t boot or Pixel 4 dead no boot.

If you make it to the recovery screen you can try selecting “wipe cache” an see if it restarts with a display.

I’ve found that Androids are fairly hardy as far as the mainboards go unless they’ve been water damaged.

One area to consider is the flex cables from the port to the mainboard.

Most of the above is only going to cost you some valuable learning time.

If you’re lucky, the $ value may only cost you the price of a battery.

Keep an eye (or ear) out for any signs of life as your display may be dead.

If you find that there is some vibration but no screen you can attach it HDMI on your TV to see if it is actually on.

Hope this helps

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