Galaxy S23 charging port replacement: interactive 3D teardown

All 8 steps

1. 1Power off and take the SIM tray out

   Hold the side key and volume down together, choose Power off and unplug any cable. Push the SIM eject tool straight into the pinhole at the end of the SIM tray, in the bottom edge beside the USB-C port, until the tray springs out, then pull it out and lay it aside with the card in it. Samsung’s charging-port self-repair page, written for earlier Galaxy S phones, starts the same way and warns that taking the phone apart with the tray in can damage it: on the S23 the tray sits in a reader on the underside of the sub-board. Then turn the phone over onto its screen.

2. 2Warm the edges of the back

   Lay the warm heat pad along each edge of the glass back in turn, about two minutes an edge: the right edge first, as you look at the back, then the bottom, the left and the top, where it rests on the camera rings. The warmth softens the adhesive under the rim of the glass. Keep the pad at 65 °C or below, the limit Samsung sets for its own heating pad: the battery lies just under the glass.

3. 3Open a gap and cut round the adhesive trap

   Press the suction cup onto the glass as near the middle of the right edge as it will sit and pull up steadily until a thin gap opens, then slip a pick in. Slide it down the right edge, round the bottom, up the left edge and along the top, keeping only its tip in: no deeper than 4 mm. Last, a separate patch of adhesive holds the glass under the flash: slide a pick in under the top edge in line with the flash until it shows through the cutout, and keep it clear of the camera lenses. Avoid this trap: Once the first gap opens it is tempting to push the pick in deep and lever. On the Galaxy S23 the charging coil and NFC antenna are a thin sheet lying over the battery just under the glass, with an interconnect flex beside it, a few millimetres past the rim of the right edge. Push the pick in past the rim and its edge rides over the flex and cuts into the sheet: wireless charging, reverse charging and NFC payments stop working, and the coil is a part of its own to buy. Samsung’s self-repair page says to put only the tip of the pick in, never all of it: keep it within 4 mm and let it cut the adhesive, not what lies under it.

4. 4Lift the back off

   Lift the glass at the right edge with the suction cup, only a few millimetres at first, and look under it: a flex lying beside the charging coil can be stuck to the glass, and lifting further would tear it. Free it with a pick if it is. Then lift the back off and lay it on the mat outside up, so that its camera rings take no weight. No cable joins the back to the phone: on the Galaxy S23 the charging coil stays in the phone.

5. 5Unplug the coil and remove thirteen screws

   Lever the wireless charging coil’s press connector up off the main board with the point of the spudger, at its top right. Then turn out the thirteen Phillips #00 screws, all 3.5 mm long: the six round the coil’s plastic frame over the main board into well 1, and the seven round the loudspeaker at the bottom into well 2.

6. 6Lift out the coil and loudspeaker together

   Put the point of the spudger in the notch at the loudspeaker’s top left corner and pry up to unclip it from the frame. Lift the loudspeaker with your fingers, and the charging coil and NFC antenna come with it: the two are stuck together, and iFixit takes them out as one so as not to break that adhesive. Lay them on the mat.

7. 7Disconnect the battery, then both interconnects trap

   Lever the battery’s press connector off the main board first and fold its flex back so it cannot spring back on: nothing in the phone is live now. Then unplug the two interconnect cables that run down the battery from the main board to the sub-board: both at the sub-board, then both at the main board. Slide the flat end of the spudger under each plug’s own edge, at the end away from its cable, and lift it straight up. Lift both cables out. Avoid this trap: An interconnect’s plug is held in its socket by friction alone, and the socket is soldered to the board by dozens of tiny pads. Come at it from the side with the spudger’s point under the socket rather than the plug, and lever, and the plug does not come straight up: the force goes into the socket, which tilts and tears off its pads, or bends its rows of pins. On the old sub-board that would not matter, but this end sits on the main board: a torn socket there means micro-soldering, or a new main board. Slide the flat end under the plug’s own edge, away from the cable, and lift straight up.

8. 8Unscrew and lift out the old sub-board trap

   Turn out the sub-board’s three Phillips screws, 3.5 mm long like the rest, into well 3. Slide the point of the spudger under the board’s top right corner and pry up against the frame, never against the battery, until it unclips. Lift the board at that corner, draw the USB-C port back out of its recess in the bottom edge and lay the old board on the mat. The new one waits beside it: press Reassemble to fit it and close the phone. Avoid this trap: Step 1 is easy to skip, because the tray is out of sight once the phone is face down. But its far end sits in the SIM reader on the underside of the sub-board, and its outer end is held in the frame’s slot. Pry the board up with the tray still in and the reader lifts the tray’s far end while the frame holds the other: the tray bends at the slot, and the SIM card in it bends with it and can crack, which means a trip to the carrier for a new one. Forced harder, the frame’s slot is sprung open or the reader is torn off, which matters on a good board you only meant to lift. Samsung’s self-repair page for earlier Galaxy S phones takes the tray out before anything else.

What you need

• SIM eject tool · or a straightened paper clip
• Heat pad or hair dryer · no hotter than 65 °C
• Suction cup lifter and plastic opening picks · picks marked at 4 mm
• Phillips #00 screwdriver · for sixteen 3.5 mm screws
• Nylon spudger and ESD-safe tweezers · no metal near the battery
• A magnetic screw tray · the coil’s, the loudspeaker’s and the board’s screws apart
• A new sub-board for your model and a die-cut back adhesive · with isopropyl alcohol, 90% or stronger

Questions

Safety

Run the battery down below 25% and power the phone off before you start, and take the SIM tray out first. Keep the heat to 65 °C or below, never pry, bend or pierce the battery or use metal near it, and lever the battery connector off before any other cable.

• Lithium-ion batteries: never bend, puncture or pry a battery with metal. A damaged cell can go into thermal runaway: it smokes, catches fire and can explode. Discharge it below 25% first; if it swells, hisses, smokes or gets hot, stop and move it somewhere safe.
• Static (ESD): work on an anti-static mat with a grounded wrist strap; a spark you cannot feel can kill a chip.
• Power off: switch the device off and unplug its charger before you open it, and disconnect the battery before touching anything else inside.

About this teardown

3D Spatial Reconstruction: Models are engineered from factual hardware measurements to visualize internal layouts, screw lengths, and hidden cable traps before you open your device. Always verify cable routing on your specific hardware revision.

This is the Samsung Galaxy S23, the base model, modelled at Samsung’s published 146.3 × 70.9 × 7.6 mm: flat aluminium sides, a flat screen, a flat glass back with three plain camera rings and no markings, and the USB-C port, the SIM tray and the loudspeaker in its bottom edge. It comes apart the way iFixit’s Galaxy S23 USB-C port and daughterboard guide takes it apart, and the way Samsung’s own charging-port self-repair page, written for the Galaxy S20 to S22, begins: the SIM tray first; the back’s adhesive warmed edge by edge and cut with only a pick’s tip, starting at the right edge, and the patch under the flash; the coil’s connector and thirteen 3.5 mm Phillips #00 screws, six for the coil and seven for the loudspeaker; the coil and loudspeaker out as one; the battery connector; both interconnects at the sub-board and then at the main board; and the sub-board’s three 3.5 mm screws, the board pried up at its top right corner against the frame and its port drawn out of its recess.

Which phone: the brief named the Galaxy S23 and S24. We built the S23, whose iFixit port guide starts with the SIM tray and whose sub-board is sold with its SIM reader on it. The S24 (147.0 × 70.6 × 7.6 mm, 4,000 mAh against the S23’s 3,900) opens the same way, with the same thirteen 3.5 mm screws for its coil and loudspeaker and two interconnects; iFixit’s S24 guide gives its sub-board’s three screws as 3.4 mm, finds its loudspeaker’s notch on its left edge rather than its top left corner and its interconnect plugs labelled SUB, takes it as 1 to 2 hours, and leaves out the SIM tray step, which is worth doing anyway.

Where the brief differed from the phone, the phone decided. Its trap of bending “the SIM ejector pin inside” is not what happens: the ejector pin is a tool used from outside and never left in the phone. What is at risk if the tray stays in is the tray, the SIM card in it and the frame’s slot, because the tray’s far end sits in the SIM reader on the underside of the sub-board; Samsung warns that taking the phone apart with the tray in may damage it. The coil is not glued to the glass, as an iPhone’s is: it is screwed in over the battery and the main board, and the danger is a pick pushed in all the way, which Samsung’s page forbids. The brief’s straight-up rule for the connectors is right, as iFixit words it: under the plug’s own edge, never under the socket. And to its four tools we add the SIM eject tool, a heat pad, a nylon spudger and tweezers, and a new back adhesive for the refit.

Our estimates, not measured figures: the positions and sizes of the parts inside, the screws’ places, the clips and the pinhole, read off repair photos; the 4 mm pick depth is the figure iFixit gives for the S24’s back. The 65 °C limit is Samsung’s, for its own heating bag. The 3D runs faster than real hands do: allow 30 to 45 minutes, iFixit’s time for the S23.

Sources: iFixit: Samsung Galaxy S23 USB-C Port and Daughterboard Replacement (the order, 3 × 3.5 mm screws, the top right corner), iFixit: Samsung Galaxy S23 SIM Card Tray Replacement (the pinhole, the microphone hole), iFixit: Samsung Galaxy S23 Back Cover Replacement (heat, the right edge first, the flash patch, the flex stuck to the glass), iFixit: Galaxy S23 Wireless Charging Coil and Loudspeaker Removal (13 × 3.5 mm screws, the notch, out together), iFixit: Galaxy S23 Battery Disconnection, iFixit: Samsung Galaxy S23 Interconnect Cable Removal (at the daughterboard, then the motherboard), iFixit: Samsung Galaxy S24 USB-C Port and Daughterboard Replacement (3 × 3.4 mm screws, plugs labelled SUB), iFixit: Samsung Galaxy S24 Back Cover Replacement (picks no deeper than 4 mm), iFixit: Samsung Galaxy S24 Wireless Charging Coil and Loudspeaker Removal (the notch on its left edge), iFixit: First Time Opening an iPhone (press connectors: pry under the plug straight up, not under the socket), Samsung UK: how to self-repair your charging port (the SIM tray first, 65 °C, only the pick’s tip), VRM24: Galaxy S23 disassembly (the SIM tray out first, the sub-board’s port, microphone and SIM connector), iFixit Answers: Galaxy S23 sub-board part numbers, with the SIM reader, GSMArena: Galaxy S23 size, weight and 3,900 mAh battery, GSMArena: Galaxy S24 size and 4,000 mAh battery, Price source: Parts4Repair, Galaxy S23 (SM-S911U) charging board with its port and SIM reader, $15.90 (October 2026), Price source: FixStop, Orlando, Galaxy S23 charging port replacement from $80 (October 2026), Price source: JCD Repair, Seattle, Galaxy S23 charging port repair $99.99 with parts and labour (October 2026).

The 3D models, drawings and text are our own. Samsung and Galaxy are trademarks of their owners, named only to say which device this teardown is for; iTakeApart is not affiliated with them.