OK so history. My friend purchased a second-hand iPhone 7 (A1660), reinstalled iOS and used it for a week. After day 3 he started to get 'No service' message randomly which was fixed after the restart or unplug/plug in of the SIM card. He thought this could be a faulty iOS installation and decided to reinstall iOS one more time and set up as new.
During this reinstall (approximately on 60%) he received Error (-1) in iTunes. Tried to help him as this is his first iOS device (seems he's damn lucky) but no go. Here's what we've tried so far:
- Restart, software update, change cord.
- DFU mode reinstall 4 times.
- Reinstalling with erasing all content through iMazing (fails on 'updating baseband' or similar).
After code search and the error message in iMazing I was able to find an Apple article about faulty baseband chips on iPhone 7 and a weird workaround for the reinstall, so questions:
- Any chance that it's not a baseband chip (yeah, I still needed to ask this even if I'm alost sure it's the chip).
- Do you know if Apple program for fixing faulty A1660 with 'No Service' is worldwide or only for US/China (he's in Europe and they don't even have an Apple store in their country, only Authorized service)?
- I found a workaround with heating up the device during iOS reinstall on youtube (should work with a hairdryer) that allows to somehow bypass this error, but don't know if this can damage something...
Also, if someone had this trouble and fixed with cleaning/replacing the chip, what should he be aware of and what he shouldn't do when visiting the service center?
During this reinstall (approximately on 60%) he received Error (-1) in iTunes. Tried to help him as this is his first iOS device (seems he's damn lucky) but no go. Here's what we've tried so far:
- Restart, software update, change cord.
- DFU mode reinstall 4 times.
- Reinstalling with erasing all content through iMazing (fails on 'updating baseband' or similar).
After code search and the error message in iMazing I was able to find an Apple article about faulty baseband chips on iPhone 7 and a weird workaround for the reinstall, so questions:
- Any chance that it's not a baseband chip (yeah, I still needed to ask this even if I'm alost sure it's the chip).
- Do you know if Apple program for fixing faulty A1660 with 'No Service' is worldwide or only for US/China (he's in Europe and they don't even have an Apple store in their country, only Authorized service)?
- I found a workaround with heating up the device during iOS reinstall on youtube (should work with a hairdryer) that allows to somehow bypass this error, but don't know if this can damage something...
Also, if someone had this trouble and fixed with cleaning/replacing the chip, what should he be aware of and what he shouldn't do when visiting the service center?