Motorola Moto X4 Motherboard Replacement

Written By: Nick Wolfe

Comments: 21

Motorola Moto X4 Motherboard Replacement

Difficulty

Moderate

Steps

Time Required

40 minutes - 1 hour

Introduction

Follow this guide to remove the motherboard on the Motorola Moto X4.

Before you begin, download the Rescue and Smart Assistant app to backup your device and diagnose whether your problem is software or hardware related.

Tools

Parts

Moto X4 Display Adhesive

Step 1

Insert a SIM card eject tool, bit, or a straightened paperclip into the small hole in the SIM card tray, located at the top left edge of the phone.
Press to eject the tray.
Remove the tray from the phone.

Step 2

Before you begin, turn off your phone.
Heat an iOpener and apply it to the left edge of the phone for two minutes.
You may need to reheat and reapply the iOpener several times to get the phone warm enough. Follow the iOpener instructions to avoid overheating.
A hair dryer, heat gun, or hot plate may also be used, but be careful not to overheat the phone—the display and internal battery are both susceptible to heat damage.
As you wait, take note of the the following areas:
Display cable—be careful not to slice too deeply near the edge here, or you may damage the display cable.
Fingerprint sensor cable—be careful not to slice too deeply near the edge here, or you may damage the fingerprint sensor cable.

Complete novice. Getting old screen off was time consuming! I was too afraid of ruining something by overheating. Spent many hours trying to use iopener, afraid to risk bursting it in microwave. Read many comments in the iopener use guide; a guy said to get the screen temp up to 120-130F. Saw several youtube videos esp. Witrig one on replacing Moto x4 screen, they used heat gun 100C=212F so I got braver and put my phone on kitchen hot plate. Measured temperature by laying stem of candy thermometer on the surface. When hot plate got to 150-160F I finally got a pick under phone ‘s glass edge & got the screen off. Hot plate temp. not stable, guess phone was there a few minutes. May have damaged display but was replacing it anyway. Now new screen installed everything working properly! I’m not sure I was using the suction cup when I finally was able to push the pick under the edge.

Nahariyah Mosenkis - 08/06/20

Step 3

Apply a suction cup to the screen, as close to the heated edge as possible.
Pull on the suction cup with strong, steady force to create a gap in the seam.
Insert the point of an opening pick into the gap.
Depending on the age of your phone, this may be difficult. If you are having trouble, apply heat to the edge and try again.

On the left side it is a very thin strip of adhesive—but there are other places where there is alot more adhesive—If you look at the black part of the new adhesive-if you have the phone specific adhesive thing—you will get an idea what you might be trying to push through at any given spot on the phone. orient the new one over the old screen to line up holes etc-to understand where the adhesive is.

Nahariyah Mosenkis - 08/06/20

Step 4

Slide the opening pick along the edge to slice through the adhesive.
Leave an opening pick in the seam to prevent the adhesive from re-sealing.

Step 5

Heat the top edge of the phone with an iOpener.
Carefully slice around the corner and through the top edge to separate the adhesive.

Step 6

Heat the screen's right edge with an iOpener.
Be careful not to slice too deeply near the cables to avoid damaging them.
Use an opening pick to slice along the right edge to separate the adhesive.

Step 7

Repeat the previous steps to heat and slice the bottom edge of the phone.

Step 8

Do not try to remove the screen yet—it is still attached to the phone by delicate flex cables.
Carefully lift up the left edge of the screen and cut away remaining adhesives with an opening pick.

Step 9

Swing open the screen and prop it up with a small box as you work on disconnecting the flex cables.
During reassembly, this is a good time to power on your phone and test all functions before sealing it up. Be sure to power your phone back down completely before you continue working.

Step 10

Slide the point of a spudger underneath the fingerprint sensor cable and gently pry up to loosen the cable from the phone.
Do not pull on the cable. It is still attached to the phone by a delicate ZIF socket.

Step 11

Use the point of a spudger to flip up the lock bar on the fingerprint sensor's ZIF socket, near the bottom right of the phone.
Use tweezers to carefully slide the fingerprint sensor cable out of the socket.

Step 12

Use an opening tool to flip up the wide lock bar on the display cable's ZIF socket, near the top right of the phone.
Use tweezers to carefully slide the display cable out of the ZIF socket.

Step 13

Remove the screen.
During reassembly, follow this guide to clean the existing adhesive off and install custom-cut adhesives for your phone.

I found that the subsequent steps will be smoother if you spend a little time at this point cleaning out the old adhesive pieces. The picture above shows pulling off some of the old glue strips, but the bullet points don’t mention it. Removing the mid-frame and other steps is easier if the old adhesive has been cleaned out.

Gordon Bolt - 19/07/20

Good point Gordon! I’ve adjusted the wording on the second bullet to point people in the right direction.

Arthur Shi - 20/07/20

I’d already used the free form adhesives to glue the screen back on before I realized the kit came with a ready-to-go adhesive sheet. It’d be nice if this were mentioned (or pictured) here.

Paul Ferrell - 23/12/20

The provided replacement screen does not have the black plastic film w/ 5 x 3 holes in it

photo to illustrate: top is replacement screen. Bottom is old screen, w/ black film w/ holes

Not sure how to proceed here.

Etienne Grossmann -

Follow-up:

the black holey plastic sheet can be removed w/ the hot glue-softening iOpener

and can kinda be placed on the new screen's metal surface

Etienne Grossmann -

Step 14

Remove the following twenty screws securing the midframe:
Eleven silver 2.7 mm-long T3 screws
Nine black 3.6 mm-long T4 screws
The midframe is still held in place by clips.

For some reason, my brand new T4 screwdriver didn’t fit the 9 designated T4 screws very well—it seemed a little large. So I carefully tried the T3 screwdriver and it worked perfectly! Not sure if the head has changed sizes on those longer screws in some assemblies….

Kenneth Lassman - 11/11/20

Hi Kenneth! I’m glad the T3 worked! There have been many instances with Moto phones where the screw tolerances are quite variable—they normally shows up in the T3-T4 range.

Arthur Shi - 12/11/20

Step 15

The next few steps show how to loosen the midframe clips.
Insert the flat end of a spudger under the right edge of the metal midframe and pry up to loosen the midframe.
Insert an opening pick in the edge to hold the midframe in place.

Step 16

Insert the flat end of a spudger under the lower right edge of the midframe and pry up to release the midframe clip.

Step 17

Grasp the lower edge of the midframe and pull the edge slightly to the right, to clear the metal midframe clip.

Step 18

Insert the point of an opening pick under the top left corner of the midframe and twist slightly to release the top clip.

Step 19

Remove the midframe.
To reinstall the midframe:
Align the the midframe's top edge to the phone and press it into position.
Shift the bottom edge slightly to the left, to maneuver the left metal midframe clip underneath the phone edge.
Press the midframe's bottom edge into position.

Step 20

Insert the point of a spudger underneath the top edge of the battery connector.
Be careful not to dislodge the small surface-mounted components surrounding the socket.
Gently pry up the connector to disconnect the battery.

Step 21

To re-connect the battery, align the connector on top of the socket, and press it down with your finger or a spudger.

After disconnecting the battery, there is 1x T3 (near the camera) and 2xT4 screws (near the headphone jack and usb port) that had to be removed, then the camera clips flipped up, then that board carefully removed (after ejecting the sim/memory cards) before being able to get to the two screws for the camera module.

For reassembly, the camera cables had to be carefully held back while the board was repositioned.

Steve Welander - 04/04/20

Hi Steve,

Thanks for the feedback! What you are describing sounds like the steps found in this guide. Can you see if anything is missing there? Thanks!

Arthur Shi - 06/04/20

Hi Arthur, I am doing this repair right now, and yes, this guide should have steps 21-25 from the linked guide inserted after step 20. Getting to the Rear Camera requires removing the motherboard, and indeed you can see in the pictures in what is currently Step 21 of this guide that the motherboard is removed (note the missing large silver rectangle in the upper-left, which is the SIM card tray, for instance, or any electronics in the upper-right)

Joel Bradshaw - 03/06/21

Although notably, the vibrating motor doesn’t have to be unplugged from the socket, just removed from the case along with the motherboard. I advise that, as the motor’s connection is very small and fragile.

Joel Bradshaw - 03/06/21

Step 22

Remove the T3 screw that is holding in the motherboard.

Step 23

Use flat edge of the spudger to pry up the two blue connectors near the top of the device.

Step 24

Use flat side of spudger to pry up connector near the bottom of the device.

Step 25

Using a pair of tweezers disconnect the vibrating motors connector near the bottom of the device.
Caution: these wires are very delicate!
Also note that while it may not look the same, this connector also lifts up, similar to the camera and battery connectors, and does not slide out.
Alternatively, you can also leave the connector plugged in and simply remove the vibration motor from the frame and keep it together with the motherboard as you remove it, being careful to not dangle it from the small wires.

Step 26

Carefully pry up the motherboard using the spudger.
The previously disconnected wires may have to be held back in order to easily remove the motherboard.