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iPhone 3GS won't turn on

I had the same problem today. Because I live in South Africa and the phone costs $1400USD here hardly any one has it so I am the arcade guy....As I get somewhere my phone is snatched from me.

This happened today and once the battery hit 35% I toke my phone and put it into my pocket WORKING.I then Wanted to make a call and it was dead.

Once I got home I plugged it into power and nothing I then plugged it into my pc and held down the home and power button until a picture of flat battery appeared,I left it plugged in and 15min latter started up.

I think this could ether be because a whole lot of apps had been opened today or that the iphone battery status is incorrect,in other words showing the wrong battery percent. Once the phone actually turned on it said I only had 5% how could my phone have depleted so much if it was off?

Thanks for all the info :)
 
Thank you

I feel a little like an addict forced to go cold turkey... without warning ;) My 3gs went down just now & I reached for an answer from the web wise ones.
And lo there was indeed an answer. Thanks sooooo much, MUCH appreciated :)
 
Thank You So Much!

Thanks for the great tip on 'Hard Reset' by AiralynRose. My iphone is working as normal again!!!
 
IPhone 3Gs WONT SWITCH ON !

Like a good few people on here my brand new 3Gs switched off at random with about 77% battery left. I tried everything to get it back on.

It is simple to fix this problem if and when it happens by simply holding the home and on/off button at the same time for 15 secs.....

After that your 3Gs will switch back on :)

Hope this helps people it sure did with me :)
 
My iPhone 3GS I have had for about ... well long time basically 2 days after it came out I had it. Now I have had no issues with it what so ever. It is running OS 3.1.2 (7D11) and is jailbroken with tons of apps. Never had a single problem, I don't even have to re-launch blackrain for it to boot. It does it automatically.

But last night I was on it watching some movies on this app called Top 50, and after that I closed the app, locked it and went to bed. I wake up in the morning and the phone was completely dead. No signs of life what so ever. So I thought... battery again. I plugged it in, the apple logo came on and went right off after 3 sec and never came on again. Now if I try to reset it or start it , that apple logo comes on and off and thats about as live as it ever gets. No matter what I do to it , be that DFU mode which I can't even get to it wont work....

Any suggestions?

Apple should really fix up their products as I can see tons of people having this or similar problem above...

Thanks,


XeqtR
 
UPDATE: I have fixed it now by following what this guy said:

First open iTunes and Conect your iPhone cord to your computer, but do not plug it into your iPhone. Then press and hold the home button on your phone while conecting the iPhone cord into your iPhone continue to hold down the home button. Then click restore in iTunes. Good Luck!
Click to expand...

Hope that helps you guys :)
 
I am having this issue but with a different symptom. It's an iPhone 3GS 16gb. I was using it normally just browsing a forum when the touchscreen suddenly became completely unresponsive. I home-buttoned out of Safari and the touchscreen worked again for about 5 seconds then completely stopped working. Home and lock button were still functional. So I thought it was just a software problem so I hard-powered it off. Now it won't turn back on at all, it won't even go into DFU mode. There is absolutely no signs of life at all with any home/lock button combinations. It had >60% battery when it crapped out but I tried charging it anyway. Nothing. Neither the OS nor iTunes will even begin to recognize it when plugged in. I have had this phone since the 3GS launch and it has never given me such a problem.

I handle the phone lightly and has never seen water damage so there's no physical reason for it failing. There was nothing unusual about the phone before it **** except for the touchscreen going in and out. I briefly considered sending it to Apple on it's warranty but that doesn't really help me because from what I understand they will wipe the device or replace it completely and I'm most interested in recovering the data that I haven't yet backed up, plus it's jailbroken.

I've been on the iPhone bandwagon since the 3G launch and this is the first time it has agitated be enough to consider switching to another phone. Now that there's actually competition, a Droid doesn't look like that bad of an option right now. :mad: At least if it craps out I can just pop the SD card out and my data is safe. The worst part is it just seems like the phone is 'frozen' and I'd like to try a battery pull, but... Now I have to shelf it and let the battery drain however long that takes, meanwhile I'm using a busted up first generation iPhone with a cracked digitizer. :eek:

Is there any other way to 'defibrillate' this phone without opening it up and pulling the battery cable while voiding whatever warranty I have left? Has anyone else had an issue with similar symptoms? Any help would be enormously appreciated as I have wrongfully become very dependent on this phone. TIA Sorry for the enormous, 'ranty' post.
 
Hey Guys,
I have a very similar issue, I got an iPhone 3GS 2 months ago from Hongkong. The phone was already unlocked from apple itself. So i never jailbroken it to have it work with my local service provider (Vodafone). 2 days ago a friend of mine suggested me to jailbreak it, as we wanted to have open ssh installed on the phone. But before that i wanted to take the backup of my sms & contacts, so we tried out this particular software called "Tansee iphone backup" but the software never recognized the phone. So this friend of mine suggested we try it in DFU mode (& i don't know why i agreed :confused: ) Anyways, windows xp gave a pop up saying it has detected the iphone in recovery mode, & started loading the iphone iBoot rom file driver & the phone just died. & never came up again.It was 90 % charged then. I have tried all possible key combination there are to offer. But the phone just wont start. Can anyone suggest a way out?
 
this may or may not help but sometimes my iPhone dies and won't turn on (I call this an iPhone coma) and I just click the home button and the lock button rapidly and after about 10-15 sec it will turn on.
 
matt-o said:
Battery was just under 50%, the phone was in my pocket and I felt a very short vibration. I checked it and it had turned itself off. When I tried to turn it on I got no response at all, so I plugged it into my computer to see if that helped but nothing happened.
In the end, I held the power and home buttons simultaneously for about 10-15 seconds and it suddenly sprang to life with the startup screen. I really don't know what would cause it to happen, or if anything I did actually helped, but if it does it again I'll have to take it to the Apple store to make sure it's not defective...assuming they can tell :confused:
Click to expand...
worked for me!!:) :apple:
 
iPhone 3gs won't turn on

I just got my 3g iphone. The on/off buttonwasn't working at all so I did a hard reset as advised by folks on this web-site and now it won't come back on at all!! Have tried all yuor recommendations, holding down the on/off button at same time as home button, have tried "toggling" ..allthat happens is that the apple icon comes on for 2 secs and then nothing. It goes away again just leaving my phone switched off.
What's wrong with it and how do I turn it back on again?
 
Therapist for your next career

You should be a therapist. I needed to be told "be patient...it takes longer than it should". Thank you!
 
i phone 3g wont power on

i had the same issue with my iphone 3g,after owning it for 2.5 yrs.
the only time it will not power on is after i try to charge it from a pc usb port,and i-tunes is not installed on that pc. not sure why this happens , but the fix is to hold the home key and the power on button ( on top of the phone) at the same time.this will preform a hard reset,and bring the phone back to the boot screen. hope this helps. :eek:
 
iphone 3gs won't start up

I have had a problem with my iPhone 3GS as soon as i purchased it when it came out.
After a couple of months it just completely stopped working at all. It would not turn back on or charge the battery icon would randomly and occasionally flash up on screen. I charged it for literally 3 days straight and it still would not work.
After a long long time i took it to Apple for some help. The guy magically turned it on by holding both the home and on button, even though i had attempted this numerous times.

Then about 3 months after it started working again i dropped the phone. I had not done this before but it carried on working as usual. I never normally turned my phone off but the very next time i did it would not turn back on again. The problem i faced this time was as i pressed the buttons to restore it the Apple logo just appears as it is loading up. It remains there for about 15 seconds and then the phone just turns off again.

How do i resolve this problem without having the restore my phone and delete all the content?

Also when i shake my phone i can hear a tiny object moving around inside, perhaps this may be the problem and should i open it up to have a look?

Thanks :)
 
i tried to download somthing from cydia and my iphone 3gs froze i turned it off by reseting it and its in a loop of unsucsessfull boots what do i do?
 
it won't charge :-(

My husband's 3gs refuses to charge. It was fine at 8 this morning and now no chargers are working on it. I tried holding all kinds of buttons down in all kinds of sequences and plugging it in while restarting but nothing works because there is no charge at all on it. All I can get is the red line that says to plug it in. It's out of warranty by quite a bit so I don't see what Apple would do (I jailbreaked (is that a word?) it a few weeks ago at the same time as mine. Mine is fine. Obviously Apple won't know if it doesn't turn on but again, it's out of warranty anyway.) Any ideas? We tried several usb cables, Apple and 3rd party, a wall charger, a car charger, and straight in 2 different computers.
 
Thank You!

EastVanErin said:
This forum has been incredibly helpful on two panicky occasions for me. I figured it was time to join and contribute.

I also, had this problem of not seeing any sign of life with my 3-week old iPhone. Sure enough, if you're patient (because this takes longer than you'd think it should) hold down the power button + the home button at the same time. Voila. iPhone wakes up!
Click to expand...

I was playing my usual early morning Words With Friends, put the phone down for a second, and by the time I picked it up again about 12 seconds later, the damn thing had bricked--black screen, no signs of life.

In a panic one of the first things I did (after holding down the power + home button to no avail, plugging into charger, then to computer all with no result) was go to the ATT website (yes, stupid. panic) to check my upgrade options. As this is a 16gb white 3Gs, my options for replacement thru att were about nil. I'm not paying $199 for an upgrade to a white iphone 4 with half the memory. EFF that. Plus lets face it, the iphone 4 is ugly.

Panic subsides, I think to check here...and thank god. read this post, tried power + home again and this time just sat there for many many seconds praying it would work (and trying to be patient)...and thank god it did. Last backup was nearly 3 months ago.

Thanks...for calming my freakout and fixing my problem! (although I'm curious as to why this spontaneous but temporary death even occurs...why? now if i can find a solution to my rapid battery drain...)
 
Last edited:
I have tried every thing posted here to no avail...... iPhone 3g Died Last night, no Battery Screen, No response to hard reset, No response to DFU, I am at a Loss..... I mainly just want to get the info off of it... It has been plugged into wall all day, Screen has remained Black, I have tried the Power button trick, really don't know what else to do. Anything else thats possible?
 
mine turned on weee =)

hey, i just had this problem a minute ago and decided to check forums,,

i was watching a movie and did not use my phone for like 3hours, so after the movie i got my phone to text someone and unluckily it wont turn on nor respond to any buttons pressed..
when i read this forum, i decided to follow the advice which is:
TO HOLD THE START BUTTON AND HOME BUTTON SIMULTANEOUSLY
and lucky me it jumped back to life.. at first an apple logo appeared in my screen and then i hooked it up with the charger and waaalaaa, it went back to its normal state. Now im using it and is working perfectly fine, i just hope that it does not crash or something.. hehehe..

about jailbreaking, i know its illegal but i have my phone jailbreaked and i just want to say that this problem does not result from a phone being jailbreaked.
whether your phone is jailbreaked or not, you will likely experience this problem..

thank you everyone for the help, i just want to give back to the community because it really did help me..
 
I phone wont reboot

Hi
I tried to read a message on my iphone 3gs about 1/2 hour ago and it said that my memory was nearly full then it jus shut down now i cant get it to restart all it is coming up with is the apple icon when you start the phone.
any ideas of what to would be greatly appertionated :confused:
 
Iphone 3GS restored!!

Such a very helpful and informative guide in restoring iphone 3gs..my iphone came to life after three days of sleep and i almost thought that it cant be restored again until i read this thread!thank you very much!:)
 
Iphone 3gs wont turn on

Hi my iphone 3gs decided to turn itsef off on 60% battery too, could not turn or reset. I placed in freezer for 20 minutes, now working, for how long who knows.:rolleyes:
 
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