iPhone won't charge or turn on

damstr · 12-03-2007, 05:40 PM

Well I left to go somewhere for the weekend and forgot the wall charger for my iPhone and it eventually died on me a couple hours before I got home.

At this point if I pressed any buttons on the iPhone, a battery with a very small amount of red on the left side of the battery would flash and underneath the battery would be 2 symbols which read in symbols; charger plug > electricity.

I obvioulsy knew what this meant but after sitting plugged into my computer for 3 hours it hadn't charged at all and wouldn't even turn on. I tried doing a hard reset and it would keep going back to the battery screen.

So I thought maybe it needed a wall charger to charge it when it was this low. Plugged it in for a couple hours and nothing.

When it's plugged in, the screen stays illuminated showing the battery and the electricity symbol below. If I take it off the charger it shows the plug symbol > electricity symbol like before.

Hope this made sense.

Like I said before I've tried resetting it. Doesn't show up in my computer when I plug it in so I don't know what to do.

geordisjd · 12-03-2007, 07:34 PM

Change USB cable. Restore. Not luck, time for repair.

damstr · 12-03-2007, 08:24 PM

Took it to Apple and they replaced it which was amazing considering that if it did turn on they would see that it was modded, it had a cracked screen (glass part right down the middle pratically) and there were a lot of dents on the back.

Now I just need to figure out how to get iTunes to recognize my new iPhone.

EDIT: nvm I thought it was plugged into my computer but was actually still plugged into the wall charger. :P

robby69 · 12-04-2007, 12:17 AM

Same thing happened to my 3 month old iphone. Mine was factory with very little use. I am waiting for mine to come back from Apple. Pretty good service, overnight delivery of shipping label and overnight shipping back both ways. I think Apple still has alot of quality control issues though. I am definitely going to get the $79 extended warranty before my year is up.

sm86 · 10-05-2008, 03:38 PM

I had the same exact problem and I was able to fix it! No need to take it to Apple.

(specifically convinient for those of us that got the iphone 3g on ebay)

This is how it happened:

I was talking on the iphone when it said that my battery had less than 10% so, I went ahead and connected it to the wall charger I have for it and continued to talk. 30 mins later the iphone just turned off completely. I was pretty upset to say the least. I went to turn it on again and found the same exact picture being described. I figured I just had to let it be for a few hours on the wall charger.

The next day in the morning I find out that the iphone had the same picture and had not charged 1 bit!

I restarted it (pressed the power and home buttons to force it to shut down and turned it on again) and nothing, same picture. I took out the charger and put it back, nothing, same picture (it would even turn off if I didn't put the charger back in right away).

I then used my USB dock (a dock actually for the old iphone version, but that still works for the 3g, if you force it in). And nothing my computer would not recognize it.

Finally I thought of something:

I placed in the dock and turned it on, once again giving me the annoying battery screen. However, this time I actually restarted my computer. My rational was that if the device was connected while it was booting up the computer had to recognize it somehow.

During my computer's boot sequence the iphone appeared to had turned off, I didn't touch anything though. After windows loaded, I noticed that still the iphone was black as if it was turned off. Thinking that it probably ran out battery once again, I went to turn on the iphone while still having it on the dock (during this whole time I had not removed it from the dock).

And alas! I saw the apple symbol and my springboard showed up!

It is now currently charging (I can see the charge increase on the screen, when I lock the screen, it is now halfway and green) on my usb dock.

I went to place it back on the wall charger though and it seems that it doesn't work. I will be buying a new wall charger soon.

I am thinking when I was talking on the iphone and connected it to the wall it simply never charged and thus the battery completely drained. As soon as I placed it on something that wasn't broken (ie: my iphone usb dock) it started to charge but still was frozen on that (stupid) battery screen. Restarting my computer while connected did something to the iphone so that now it is fully operational. All without having to resort to apple's communist ways of trying to control all aspects of your life.

Personally I'm not an apple fan. I "gave into" the whole iphone thing when I figured out there was a generation of people my age committed into fighting back the apple empire while still using its technology.

Cheers

iPhone™ · 10-05-2008, 04:54 PM

God, This would of been the part where I would of silently panicked and cried for 15 seconds.

But it's good to hear you got you iPhone back working :P

flapper · 10-12-2008, 10:51 AM

Thanks for this - it worked!

My 3g Iphone died during the night and I left on charge in the car whilst I played golf but the phone did not take any charge and the only sign of life was the battery screen.

I tried a wall charger and USB but still no change. I then left it connected via USB to my PC and rebooted the PC. The phone came to life as soon as the PC booted.

Cheers.

Originally Posted by sm86

I had the same exact problem and I was able to fix it! No need to take it to Apple.

(specifically convinient for those of us that got the iphone 3g on ebay)

This is how it happened:

I was talking on the iphone when it said that my battery had less than 10% so, I went ahead and connected it to the wall charger I have for it and continued to talk. 30 mins later the iphone just turned off completely. I was pretty upset to say the least. I went to turn it on again and found the same exact picture being described. I figured I just had to let it be for a few hours on the wall charger.

The next day in the morning I find out that the iphone had the same picture and had not charged 1 bit!

I restarted it (pressed the power and home buttons to force it to shut down and turned it on again) and nothing, same picture. I took out the charger and put it back, nothing, same picture (it would even turn off if I didn't put the charger back in right away).

I then used my USB dock (a dock actually for the old iphone version, but that still works for the 3g, if you force it in). And nothing my computer would not recognize it.

Finally I thought of something:

I placed in the dock and turned it on, once again giving me the annoying battery screen. However, this time I actually restarted my computer. My rational was that if the device was connected while it was booting up the computer had to recognize it somehow.

During my computer's boot sequence the iphone appeared to had turned off, I didn't touch anything though. After windows loaded, I noticed that still the iphone was black as if it was turned off. Thinking that it probably ran out battery once again, I went to turn on the iphone while still having it on the dock (during this whole time I had not removed it from the dock).

And alas! I saw the apple symbol and my springboard showed up!

It is now currently charging (I can see the charge increase on the screen, when I lock the screen, it is now halfway and green) on my usb dock.

I went to place it back on the wall charger though and it seems that it doesn't work. I will be buying a new wall charger soon.

I am thinking when I was talking on the iphone and connected it to the wall it simply never charged and thus the battery completely drained. As soon as I placed it on something that wasn't broken (ie: my iphone usb dock) it started to charge but still was frozen on that (stupid) battery screen. Restarting my computer while connected did something to the iphone so that now it is fully operational. All without having to resort to apple's communist ways of trying to control all aspects of your life.

Personally I'm not an apple fan. I "gave into" the whole iphone thing when I figured out there was a generation of people my age committed into fighting back the apple empire while still using its technology.

Cheers

siamesekitten · 12-06-2008, 11:34 AM

I had the EXACT same screen prob. Tried dock, wall charger, USB cable and car charger. Could not turn on phone or get past the battery screen. Plugged it into my Mac, rebooted, and voila! It came on even before the Mac started up, so it must be an issue with the USB port in the iPhone 3G getting stuck in limbo somehow.

Nocturnal_Nick · 04-07-2009, 06:59 PM

Hi guys,

You're lifesavers! Rebooting my PC while the phone is plugged in works fine! Looks like my eeePC has just become my new wall-charger :-p

101mouse · 06-30-2009, 05:42 PM

sm86, you're a genius!

Same exact thing happened with my phone. It just displayed the charging screen with the lightning bolt after many hours of charging. I tried the reboot trick. Nothing happened after I booted into Windows. I unplugged the USB cord, let it die (took 5 seconds), plugged it back in, and the Apple logo appeared. What a welcome site.

Thanks for saving me and others time and money with your excellent DIY instructions!