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Last year, I purchased a new Verizon fascinate to replace my aging first gen iPhone. Not having a lot of experience with Samsung hardware, I decided to purchase a warranty from Squaretrade.

A few months ago, I noticed my sch-i500 was starting to exhibit some odd behavior. The screen would randomly fill up with colored lines, or refuse to light up. The digitizer was still accepting input (ie I could unlock the phone by drawing the correct pattern on the messed up display), but the only way to get the display back was (shouldn’t be a surprise to the readers of this blog) tapping the phone on a hard surface.

So I filed a claim with squaretrade and sent my phone of to be repaired. Getting the claim generated was easy, and they provided pre paid next day air to and from the hardware repair depot they deal with in LA.

However, when I got my phone back, as soon as I turned it on, the screen immediately started to show the same ugly lines. They look like what you used to get on an old CRT monitor when the VGA connector on a PC was loose.

Curious, and aggravated, I took apart the phone and made sure the ribbon connector for the display/digitizer was correctly seated, to no avail.

I have noticed the problem is worse after the phone has been in my pocket for a while, perhaps its over heating.

Anyway, since I now voided the warranty, I installed cyanogen 7.1 on my fascinate and it has completely changed my phone experience for the better. Since I have 5 more months since my contract is up with verizon with a phone whose display comes and goes, I might as well enjoy a well put together rom, free of Verizon bloat and with the latest version on android.