Phone not charging - traveling in thailand

[ls1dreams]

Hi all,

My iphone 5 recently stopped charging.

At first, i was able to pull the cord up and apply some pressure and it would work, but now it won't even do that.

I tried doing a hard reset of the phone, and also used someone else's ip5 cable with similar results.

I tried cleaning the port with a toothbrush and a bit of isopropyl alcohol, but that ddn't work either.

Anything else I can do?

I'm on random islands in Thailand, stopping back in bangkok for a night, then off to cambodia.

Are there apple stores with USA AT&T GSM phones in bangkok? Or possibly cambodia or vietnam?

 

[lordofthereef]

I've read some people having a similar issue. Try and get your hands on some compressed air and blow out the lightning port. Lint can get packed in there preventing charging.

 

[SAD*FACED*CLOWN]

I frequently travel to Thailand...and I never had any charging issues...I would suggest trying an adapter for the outlets...they use different wattage than in the US...if that does not work could be a bad lightning cable

 

[BruiserB]

I'm on random islands in Thailand, stopping back in bangkok for a night, then off to cambodia.

Any chance that in your island hopping you got even a small amount of salt water into your charging port?

I killed my iPhone 4 in Puerto Vallarta by having it in my pocket while walking on the beach. Waves came up and got my shorts wet, but below the pocket level. Evidently enough salt water wicked up the fabric and got to the phone that in a couple of days the port wouldn't work correctly. Even after cleaning it out, I could only get the phone to charge if I partially plugged the cable in at an angle. When I took it to the Apple Store they said that enough salt had gotten in to corrode the contacts.

Lesson learned. Keep iPhone in a ziplock bag if going anywhere near water...especially the salty kind.

Also, it looks like it is possible to replace just the charging port, if that turns out to be the problem. If you wouldn't want to tackle this yourself, some 3rd party providers would probably be skilled enough to do it. If Apple won't replace your phone free, this may be better than an out of warranty replacement fee.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDYk93I872c

And after my iPhone 4 died, I upgraded to a 5 and bought some of these on eBay. At least gives some protection to the port...but probably not enough to protect from direct water contact. I like how it covers both charging and earphone port, so you can just open the one you need and not lose the entire piece.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/330849003871

Whatever the cause, hopefully you can convince Apple to cover it under warranty.