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rkahr

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 28, 2023
1
0
Having a problem with the mute switch on a 2022 SE where the physical switch 'slips' into silent mode. I couldn't find much when searching, but the closest alignment seems with this single-post thread from last September:


What's developed with my SE is the switch immediately slides into the muted position as soon as finger pressure is removed from flipping the switch into the un-mute position. I tried clearing any obstructions from the switch's travel path and that didn't resolve the problem. As can be seen in the attached photos from my cheap USB microscope the switch appears free from external obstructions:

IMG_057.JPG


IMG_058.JPG


For scale, the opening in the frame for this switch is about 2 mm tall. The picture with the orange bar visible is the muted position shows the switch's bar rests tightly against the phone's outer frame. In the un-muted position the bar does not have the same contact with the frame which I am correlating to the "loose" description from the September 2022 thread I linked. This pictured un-muted position is better than it was pre-cleaning but the software bounces to silent mode in this position.

Anyway, the phone and I went to visit the genius bar yesterday. This behavior was 'new' to the resident geniuses. The recommended fix was for an entire frame replacement for about 3/4 the cost of a replacement or, capture a trade-in value of $160 and replace the 374 day old phone (turns out I bought this phone one year and 9 days ago).

Curious to find good ideas on how to deal with this - Here's what I've come up with:

- I've looked at teardown videos but none I've found focus on this switch; generally though opening this thing and disassembling to the point of accessing the switch seems very difficult (open phone, remove about 10 layers of cables/assemblies, maybe dislodge a cause, and then reassemble).

- Clean more I guess could be an option, but it hasn't been fruitful so far and the switch looks pretty clean under magnification. So far I've used 99% IPA and a fine brush.

- A software work-around could be ok if it can override the switch defaulting to mute.

I created an account and posted this after searching discovered almost nothing relevant.
 
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