My Mobile Phone Works on Toilet Paper

Yes, you read that correctly. A few weeks ago, as I was checking my mobile phone for e-mails, after punching in the password, the screen slowly faded away. I'd never seen it do that before.

So, I tried to power it up again, but to no avail. The screen wouldn't even light up. At that point, I gave up for a couple of hours, tried it again, got through the password and the screen faded out again.

This procedure kept happening though the weekend. It was the only thing I could do at the time, since I was at the campground where cell service, wi-fi and internet are non-existent.

My immediate thought was that the battery probably was on its last legs. Makes sense, right? When I returned home, I changed out the battery with a spare I had lying around, and charged it up before trying to power up the phone again.

Guess what. The battery was not the issue. What to do now? Do a search on the internet, of course. The internet has all the answers! It appears that even though my phone is only about 3 years old, it's considered ancient by today's standards.

Anyway, I found several threads about mobile phone screens fading out like mine. Many didn't help, but one had an interesting video on how to fix it...with toilet paper. Or at least temporarily, as some comments indicated below the video.

Basically, the instructions were to take the back off the phone, take out the battery, take the U-shaped cover off (containing thirteen tiny screws) located near the phone's camera. Then, take a very small piece of toilet paper, fold it several times (to about the size of a pinky finger) in a square, and place it on top of some sort of electronic part next to the phone's camera.

Then put back the cover with the thirteen screws, the battery, and finally the main cover. Power up the phone and all would be good. This must be a joke, I thought. How the hell will a wad of toilet paper fix my phone? Well, it did. No lie. It's now been about a month, and my phone still works.

I don't know how or why, (and I have had a couple instances where the phone started to act up again) but otherwise, the phone is working. Is it possible the toilet paper is preventing electronic parts from touching and causing an issue? I'm sure there is a logical explanation that I don't know, and frankly, don't care as long as the phone continues to work.