Hello everyone,
I bought a water damaged
(what the hell was I thinking??) iphone 3G off craigslist, with everything working except for the camera. I replaced the camera module myself. During replacing process, I did notice visible water stains at the bottom half of the phone. A few pins of connector cable # 4 were rusty due to water residue. I cleaned'em, and performed a thorough visual inspection of the logic board itself. I found two or three tiny resistors at various locations on the board with green rust like stuff accumulated around them!
The data connector flex cable module enclosure also seemed to have taken a hit due to water, but I did not bother opening it and inspecting, as phone was functional.
I cleaned everything and reassembled the phone. After that I used the phone for four months without any problem. Everything worked perfectly, including camera!
Two days ago in the morning, as part of my daily routine, I plugged a fully functional iphone to the usb port of my PC laptop and turned the laptop on, so that the phone gets fully charged, by the time I get get ready for the office. Charging screen appeared with 90% or so charge in it and I left the room.
After a few minutes,I incidentally saw the phone rebooting itself with white apple logo. While still connected to the pc, I waited for a while for it to restart, but it never did and turned itself off after a while. After that, it never turned on when it was not connected with a power supply.
I then resorted to restore its firmware using itunes 8.0, 8.1, 7.7 and on two pcs by installing fresh windows xp and then fresh itunes!..I know this whole effort is a pain.... I used all the firmwares out there, in both recovery and DFU modes, but was never able to restore any firmware.
Almost every time, I encountered the following typical sequence of events;
When I connect the iphone to PC itunes,
1) Phone would turn itself on showing apply white logo and then goes to recovery mode with typical "connect to iTunes logo" screen. iTunes would recognize it and ask to restore it with latest firmware. When I select either restore for the latest firmware or shift restore for an older firmware (e.g. 2.2, 2.1, 2.0.1, 2.0.2), itunes would extract the firmware software and then would immediately show an error "iphone "iphone" could not be restored. An unknown error occurred (23).
When I put iphone in DFU mode (switch off, press power button for 5 seconds, power and home button for 10 seconds, release power button but keep holding home button till itunes recognizes it in DFU mode and the phone display stays blank)
At restore attempt, all of the above happens except for one difference, after itunes extracts the software, iphone display changes to bright white and itunes shows "preparing iphone for restore", after a while iphone disconnects and restarts with white apple logo and then turns off.
First I thought its a software issue, but after trying all the above, I suspect it to be a hardware one. Either Logic board finally gave way, due to above mentioned tiny resistors having been impacted by water, i guess? OR, data connector flex cable, which seems to carry circuitry of it's own finally got corrupted, due to water damage?
So what should I do? Should I replace the data flex cable to see if the phone comes to life.
OR, am I way out of line, and it still is a software issue?
Any help from any of tech gurus is greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
manz73
I bought a water damaged
(what the hell was I thinking??) iphone 3G off craigslist, with everything working except for the camera. I replaced the camera module myself. During replacing process, I did notice visible water stains at the bottom half of the phone. A few pins of connector cable # 4 were rusty due to water residue. I cleaned'em, and performed a thorough visual inspection of the logic board itself. I found two or three tiny resistors at various locations on the board with green rust like stuff accumulated around them!The data connector flex cable module enclosure also seemed to have taken a hit due to water, but I did not bother opening it and inspecting, as phone was functional.
I cleaned everything and reassembled the phone. After that I used the phone for four months without any problem. Everything worked perfectly, including camera!
Two days ago in the morning, as part of my daily routine, I plugged a fully functional iphone to the usb port of my PC laptop and turned the laptop on, so that the phone gets fully charged, by the time I get get ready for the office. Charging screen appeared with 90% or so charge in it and I left the room.
After a few minutes,I incidentally saw the phone rebooting itself with white apple logo. While still connected to the pc, I waited for a while for it to restart, but it never did and turned itself off after a while. After that, it never turned on when it was not connected with a power supply.
I then resorted to restore its firmware using itunes 8.0, 8.1, 7.7 and on two pcs by installing fresh windows xp and then fresh itunes!..I know this whole effort is a pain...
. I used all the firmwares out there, in both recovery and DFU modes, but was never able to restore any firmware.Almost every time, I encountered the following typical sequence of events;
When I connect the iphone to PC itunes,
1) Phone would turn itself on showing apply white logo and then goes to recovery mode with typical "connect to iTunes logo" screen. iTunes would recognize it and ask to restore it with latest firmware. When I select either restore for the latest firmware or shift restore for an older firmware (e.g. 2.2, 2.1, 2.0.1, 2.0.2), itunes would extract the firmware software and then would immediately show an error "iphone "iphone" could not be restored. An unknown error occurred (23).
When I put iphone in DFU mode (switch off, press power button for 5 seconds, power and home button for 10 seconds, release power button but keep holding home button till itunes recognizes it in DFU mode and the phone display stays blank)
At restore attempt, all of the above happens except for one difference, after itunes extracts the software, iphone display changes to bright white and itunes shows "preparing iphone for restore", after a while iphone disconnects and restarts with white apple logo and then turns off.
First I thought its a software issue, but after trying all the above, I suspect it to be a hardware one. Either Logic board finally gave way, due to above mentioned tiny resistors having been impacted by water, i guess? OR, data connector flex cable, which seems to carry circuitry of it's own finally got corrupted, due to water damage?
So what should I do? Should I replace the data flex cable to see if the phone comes to life.
OR, am I way out of line, and it still is a software issue?
Any help from any of tech gurus is greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
manz73