While opening up my iPhone 5s to replace the screen, I ripped this ribbon that was stuck to the LCD shield plate and I was wondering what it's called and what it's function is?
IPhone – What does this ribbon on the iPhone 5s LCD shield plate do
iphone
Related Solutions
They are called Pentalobe screws and look similar to this picture from Wikipedia:
You can find compatible screwdrivers on iFixit or Amazon. If you do go with Amazon, though, make sure you read the reviews before you buy anything, since many of them are filled with complaints about the product not working.
There's even a guide which will show you how to replace the screws with normal phillips ones.
It's unlikely that the pixels have died, but the edge connector of the screen may have become dislodged or damaged, or it could be that the connection to the logic board could be loose.
You can try following this ifixit guide to see if taking it apart and reassembling it will restore any bad connections that dropping it may have caused.
If that doesn't work, you can just replace the display, as on pre iPhone 4 models the screen/digitiser and display are separate components, so if that's the only damaged component then it should fix the problem.
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Best Answer
It's the grounding plane. Basically it reduces electrical noise and interference. Replacing it would be ideal but, if it's a very small rip, you should be okay. Very small being 1mm or less. It may function with a bigger rip but I'm not sure how that will affect the performance of your device.