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Here’s a post for anyone having trouble with buttons not working on a Samsung SGH-D600 phone.  The short version is that it may just be caused by a damaged internal ribbon cable.

The buttons on my SHG-D600 stopped working and I searched the web for answers to what might be the problem but only found unanswered questions similar to mine, so I thought I’d describe how I fixed my phone, for anyone with a phone in a similar condition who might land here via web search:

First of all only the top control buttons on my phone stopped working, on the top sliding part, not the dial buttons on the lower part.  Initially I thought the phone only needed internal cleaning and though I’m not much of a DIYer I thought it might be worth ripping the phone apart to see if there would be anything simple enough for me to fix, and if not then I would just throw it away having spent about an hour doing an unusually nerdy exercise.

So I borrowed a couple of tiny star screwdrivers and watched a video showing disassembly of a Samsung SGH-D600 to get some idea of what I was doing.  Once the phone was disassembled it was obvious that dirt couldn’t be causing the dysfunctional buttons as that mechanism is in a mould where dirt wouldn’t get in.  But I saw the most likely cause:  The ribbon cable connecting the two sliding parts had some damage, was a little crushed, due to wear it seems.  And that was indeed the case.  On the web it was easy to find spare ribbon cables for this model (but actually a local repair shop gave me a broken SGH-D600 to use for spare parts) and replacing the worn cable was enough to get the phone in good order again.

A damaged ribbon cable in the SGH-D600 would also cause a dysfunctional display.

So, this was an unusually nerdy DIY exercise for me and was actually somewhat enjoyable and hopefully I’ve placed enough keywords in this post to land a Samsung SGH-D600 owner having dysfunctional buttons in search for a solution  : )