I’ve had my Nokia 7610 a long time now (about 4 years) – I seem to remember it set me back about £200. In fact I’ve had it so long that Nokia have gone full circle and produced a new Nokia 7610 called the Nokia 7610 Supernova. Unfortunately I would never buy one because it runs the inferior S40 OS, unlike the old phone which runs the brilliant S60 OS. Besides, the old one looks better.
Anyway, todays tutorial is going to focus on fixing the 7610 keypad. My keypad became almost impossible to use and I’d never bothered to investigate the the problem. The keys had to be pressed with an almighty force to produce a keypress. I’d almost comitted the phone to bin, but it was worth a look first.
First I removed the battery, front fascia and plastic keypad. From here on a T6 Torx Screwdriver is required. There are 6 torx screws, but only the bottom 4 need to be removed to get the PCB keypad free.
Once you have these 4 torx screws out, the PCB keypad can be levered up at the bottom and gently slid downwards and removed. This is a delicate piece of kit so you need to take care. The keypad consists of a PCB with a white sticky label (membrane) on top, which holds the bubble contacts in place. Gently peel back the white sticky label, but don’t remove it from the PCB entirely (otherwise you’ll have to realign it later).
This is where I noticed the contacts on the membrane side were badly corroded. The contacts should be nice and shiny but mine had black spots dotted around. I used a mixture of Brasso metal polish and a small screwdriver and cotton bud to remove the dirt and polish the contacts. I also cleaned the PCB contacts before sticking the membrane back on to the PCB.
Having refitted the torx scews I fired up the phone and the origional keypress feel was restored. Result!
What were they thinking with that new design?! I wish Nokia would keep up!