iPhone says "Searching" for carrier, never connects

[Maury]

My roommate was given a 1st-gen iPhone when his friend upgraded. The machine has apparently been damaged, but seems to work fairly well with the exception of the external speaker and a small scratch on the screen.

WiFi works, and we've used it to connect to the App Store and download all sorts of things, which run fine.

However, the phone will not connect to the local carrier, Fido. We have tried several Fido SIMs in it, including the one that works fine in my iPhone, but the same problem continues and it says Searching forever.

Any ideas how to troubleshoot this?

 

[iBookG4user]

Have you tried restarting the iPhone? Restoring it using iTunes?

 

[chstr]

settings>general>reset>reset network settings

 

[Maury]

settings>general>reset>reset network settings

Was excited, but no luck.

 

[Maury]

Is there any way to tell if the phone has been activated? I suppose that if I can get to the "desktop" then it has been, right?

 

[Moi un Mouton]

If you go into Settings - Carrier, does it find and list any carriers there? (May take a minute or two)

 

[Maury]

If you go into Settings - Carrier, does it find and list any carriers there? (May take a minute or two)

I let it go for "a while" but it didn't find anything. I'll try again tonight, but for the meantime, let's say "no".

Maury

 

[Moi un Mouton]

Hmmm, that does suggest the GPRS antenna is defunct, or the chip, unfortunately