IPhone no longer reads sim cards

[rotarypowered]

Hey guys,

I recently bought a broken Iphone from my friend for 100 bucks. It's basically an Itouch 16g in pretty good condition now. He said that it read SIMs perfectly fine until today and he spent the whole day trying to get it to work but he gave up. I don't know what generation it is as I'm very tech ignorant and have never owned anything this technologically advanced (sad, isn't it?)

Its the generation with manual volume controls on the left side of the phone and on the back, towards the bottom, there is that black tape looking thing.

Any suggestions on getting it to read a sim card?

 

[Applejuiced]

Its a 2G iphone.
Why doesnt it read sims? is it activated or stuck on the connect to itunes screen?

 

[rotarypowered]

Nope, the Iphone syncs with Itunes normally. It just can't read sim cards.

 

[rotarypowered]

Okay, so I think I may have created another problem. I plugged the IPhone and synched it with Itunes and I updated it with the most current software. Problem is... the phone now needs reactivation but it WILL NOT read my sim or any other sim for that matter. I think it's a hardware problem.

What sucks is.. I can't use the phone as an Itouch now because it is forcing me to activate the phone which is impossible since it can't read a SIM.

[EDIT]

So I contacted my friend and he's now sending me "RedSnow" and an Iphone restore that should take care of the above situation.

Okay, I'm perfectly fine with an Itouch because that's basically what I bought. However, it would be nice to make it a functional Iphone if it costs less than about 50 bucks to fix. At this point of time, I think it may be a hardware issue. I tried gently blowing compressed air into the SIM chamber and that didn't help. I also tried turning the phone on and off with the SIM in and out a few times and it still wouldn't read the SIM.

What do you guys think the problem is?

 

[Applejuiced]

Most likely a hardware issue.

 

[rotarypowered]

Now how would I go about fixing this hardware problem? I read somewhere else on the internet that one of six pins reading the sim card may be loose. How would I go about getting them back in place?