What is a phone's ESN tied to?

[Hokiefyd]

I have my dad's Samsung Galaxy S3; it went through the washing machine. The phone powers up and sort of runs. It's not very responsive, though it does seem to find 4G and Wi-Fi. Upon disassembly, it appears that a lot of solder joints on the main board were damaged by heat. The LCD and digitizer seem to work. The battery seems to work, though it discharges quite rapidly. The lower part of the phone runs very hot (where the CPU is), so I figure something's awry on the main board, rather than with the battery itself.

I see a number of these phones on eBay for parts and with a "bad ESN". Am I correct in presuming that the ESN is tied to hardware on the main board, so that if I swap a "bad ESN" main board into this phone, it'll retain that "bad ESN"?

With that said, the phone should still power-up and connect to Wi-Fi I would think. I'm thinking of buying a phone with a bad ESN, swapping the main board into this one, and giving it to my daughter as a Wi-Fi only device, like an iPod Touch.

Cobbling parts together to get something that works interests me greatly, though I certainly don't want to waste money on a non-starter from the beginning. Phone experts...please let me know what the paths forward with the least amount of risk here are.

 

[dparm]

ESN is probably burned into the main board or radio of the phone since it gets transmitted any time you are trying to connect to a network.

You should only buy a "bad ESN" device if you need parts OTHER than the main board/radio, such as a screen, case, keyboard, etc. Bad ESN means the phone was probably stolen/lost, or the person failed to pay their bills and it got disabled.

In your case, you need something with a GOOD ESN.

 

[JJ717]

As I understand it, the ESN is part of the phone's firmware. A quick web search found a few methods to edit the ESN/MEID in the S3, so you could swap the main board and use your old, good ESN with the new hardware.

However, if you don't plan to use the phone on any cellular networks, the ESN is irrelevant.

 

[dparm]

The law is very vague on whether or not changing the ESN is legal, even if its your own device. I would not want to get into that situation, honestly.

 

[Hokiefyd]

Originally Posted By: JJ717
However, if you don't plan to use the phone on any cellular networks, the ESN is irrelevant.


Thanks; this was my suspicion.

I don't know, however, if I'm okay with buying what is presumably a stolen phone. On principle. Is me buying a random (but perhaps stolen) main board supporting the stolen phone industry? Not by itself, I guess, but they all add up, right?

 

[Rand]

many times the phone isnt stolen,

its people who canceled service and didnt pay their ETF

although I'm sure some stolen are out there.