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iPhone 3GS doesn't seem to be holding a charge

deedas

deedas

macrumors regular
Original poster
Dec 2, 2003
139
0
Baltimore, Maryland
Earlier today I remember seeing my battery at 62% about 15 minutes later when I checked again, it was off, trying to turn it on gave me the beginnings of a boot up sequence but stop nearly after the screen flickered. Follow up attempts only gave me the empty battery icon. Plugging it in to any source with different cables also failed to put a charge in it, all I see is the big empty battery icon. Putting under restore mode and doing a clean FW install gives me an error #1601.

Anyone else having this problem? I'll be contacting Apple tomorrow, but I wanted to see if anyone else has heard about this problem with other people.

Edit: It has now come on but the battery life indicator is all over the place. 60% then 89% the next minute. 5 minutes later it's 32%
 
I have this problem whenever my 3G battery drains...I don't know why the iPhone doesn't want to recharge when it is low, but it's a total pain.

Just keep trying to restore...it will work eventually without the error code. If it really annoys you take it back and exchange but I don't think it is a problem with just your phone....
 
I don't know if this applies to you, but when I was getting my iPhone 3g S at att on friday, one of the employees said that if you were on the edge of a 3g coverage area (i live just outside augusta where it says my house should have 3g but doesn't) that the phone can drain quickly by constantly trading/searching for networks. To combat/prevent this I turn 3g off and only turn it on when I go into augusta where I know there is 3g coverage. This is just what an att retail employee said, but maybe true.
Joey
 
See this thread where I posted the following:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/726426/

*** First post:

Today, 12:37 AM #12
MajesticNJ
macrumors newbie

Join Date: Jun 2009
Glad I'm not the only one...
1st full day with the 3GS 32 gig. Charged all night. Took it out. Was great really. Lots of juice. Then it started sinking faster and faster so I charged it. Was at 40% when we went to dinner. While at dinner I saw it at 34%. Within a few SECONDS of that, the phone turned itself off and would not come back on.

I then took it out to my car and plugged it into my charger. It showed the battery as completely dead! I saw it go from 34% to NOTHING almost immediately.

So then, after that I charged it up on the ride home. The phone worked great. I ran it down to below 17% then took it downstairs to charge for the night. That's when I noticed that it said it was at 17% but then almost right after it backed up and synced, it was at 77%!!!!

I don't get it. The local Apple Store is closed for renovation and I doubt ATT can change out the battery so what's left to do?

Fred


*** Follow Up Post:

Today, 07:20 PM #16
MajesticNJ
macrumors newbie

Join Date: Jun 2009
Latest update. I took it in to see the Genius' today. They ran diagnostics on the unit and said that there is definitely something wrong so they gave me a brand new replacement. They said the unit's best standby time was 3 hours and it should have been far more than that. He also said that the current percentage showing was 90% but the diagnostics showed the phone had about 1.4 hours left of standby. Since they couldn't replace the battery, brand new phone it was.

Just wanted to let you all know.

Fred
 
MajesticNJ said:
See this thread where I posted the following:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/726426/

*** First post:

Today, 12:37 AM #12
MajesticNJ
macrumors newbie

Join Date: Jun 2009
Glad I'm not the only one...
1st full day with the 3GS 32 gig. Charged all night. Took it out. Was great really. Lots of juice. Then it started sinking faster and faster so I charged it. Was at 40% when we went to dinner. While at dinner I saw it at 34%. Within a few SECONDS of that, the phone turned itself off and would not come back on.

I then took it out to my car and plugged it into my charger. It showed the battery as completely dead! I saw it go from 34% to NOTHING almost immediately.

So then, after that I charged it up on the ride home. The phone worked great. I ran it down to below 17% then took it downstairs to charge for the night. That's when I noticed that it said it was at 17% but then almost right after it backed up and synced, it was at 77%!!!!

I don't get it. The local Apple Store is closed for renovation and I doubt ATT can change out the battery so what's left to do?

Fred


*** Follow Up Post:

Today, 07:20 PM #16
MajesticNJ
macrumors newbie

Join Date: Jun 2009
Latest update. I took it in to see the Genius' today. They ran diagnostics on the unit and said that there is definitely something wrong so they gave me a brand new replacement. They said the unit's best standby time was 3 hours and it should have been far more than that. He also said that the current percentage showing was 90% but the diagnostics showed the phone had about 1.4 hours left of standby. Since they couldn't replace the battery, brand new phone it was.

Just wanted to let you all know.

Fred
Click to expand...

Yeah, we have the same problem. I also have a 32GB. Well I scheduled a call with Apple tomorrow. I'm hoping they'll be able to send me a replacement in the mail. Going to an Apple store will be a bit of a pickle for me. I'm not so mad that my phone is a lemon as to the fact I already put on a full body invisible shield on it. Money straight down the drain. I should have learned my lesson two years ago when my launch iPhone had to be replaced 3 times. I also lost a full body invisible shield. :mad:
 
Battery is down to 72%

Think I have a issue with my iPhone too.

Picked mine up Saturday and fully charged it all night etc, via my laptop, shock horror after a days normal use on sunday, ie checking emails and facebook and a call of about 30 mins and some txts, my battery hit like 7%, so fully charged it again overnight, on the way to work my iPhone was kinda of hot and battery went down to like 75% within 2 hours. (btw 3G switched off, wifi only switched on when in a hotspot)

So went to my local o2 Store, guy said you will only get 5 hrs use out of it :eek: and thats the same with all iPhones, but my iPhone 3G last a average of 2 days with same use, he said your welcome to exchange it but if it happens again you would have to go to apple, how long is that :rolleyes:

I kindly informed him apple claims upto 30 hours use when playing music (I kinda guess this does not include cell network being on, but when listening to music I'm underground, when I was in the US a few months back, I had a basic nokia, that was switched on and last like 2 weeks without charge, hardly used thou lol) He said if that was true, thou would have that in their leaflets, what a mug :D

So what do you think I should do ?
 
Just a quick note. I remember something about the phone that happened before it got really bad. About 3 times in the previous 24 hrs the phone's backlight seem to come on so low the screen was hardly visible after unlocking it. I had to lock it and unlock back again to bring the screen brightness to its regular level.

Did anyone else with this problem notice this before your phone got all wonky? It maybe be a sign your phone is about to crap out and you should probably schedule an Apple Genius as soon as possible so you are then not waiting days for an appointment to get your phone replaced.
 
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