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Scorch07

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Dec 16, 2007
338
49
Hello!

I have a really puzzling problem. My company has several iPhones that our maintenance guys use for work orders and time clocks and such. One of them recently started acting up, and I realized it was because the clock was not remotely accurate. Thankfully I had a spare and swapped it out so I could figure out what was going on with this one.

The phone will keep time as long as it's awake, but as soon as it goes to sleep, the time resets to the last time I actually set it, whether that was manually or automatically. I've tried resetting the phone, turning LTE on and off (based on a thread I found from 2012), I even opened it up and disconnected the battery for a few minutes. I'm not sure what could be causing this, but it's very odd. I've seen some issues from several years ago with Verizon LTE towers causing something similar, but nothing recent, and it does the same thing if the time is set manually anyway.

Any ideas on this one?
 
It sounds like a software bug and not a hardware issue.
Try DFU restore mode and make sure you setup as new after its done. Do not restore from backup when it asks you after its done restoring with itunes.
 
It sounds like a software bug and not a hardware issue.
Try DFU restore mode and make sure you setup as new after its done. Do not restore from backup when it asks you after its done restoring with itunes.

Wow, I did a full DFU restore, and it's still doing the same thing. I thought it was fixed for a few minutes, and then it jumped back 15 minutes to the time I set it.
 
So having done a little more research, it seems that it's a relatively common problem for the crystal oscillator in 5Cs to just stop working.

I'm hoping Apple might give me a little grace since it's apparently a recurring problem, but I'm not super hopeful. Maybe I can at least find a broken one somewhere to pull the logic board out of.
 
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