iPhone My JB’d 5 speaker died, need to have it fixed

[Dee Ann]

My iPhone 5 has been working fine since I got it in late December of 2012 from Verizon. I bought the best otter box and I have been very careful with it, I do not drop it or expose it to water. As most it might condensate because I keep my house cold and it’s bloody hot here so when you go outside everything condensates, glasses, keys, everything.

Months ago the speaker quit working for some reason that I never figured out but I plugged it into my kitchen stereo with an audio cable and it started working again. That was the one and only time I ever had trouble with it.

I jail broke it the day that the Evasion break came out earlier this year.
It’s been no problem at all.

Last night I was sending some emails from my Mac to my iPhone so I could read stuff later when I was away from the house and the phone just sat there silent. I didn’t really notice too much. I have it so it speaks the time every 1/4 hour and it wasn’t doing that either. But then I assumed it had just silenced itself for the night, I set it up to hush it’s noises when I usually should be sleeping.

A little later I picked it up to start setting alarms so I could get up early on Sunday to go somewhere and that’s when I noticed it wasn’t making any sounds at all. I checked the switch on the side, flipped it back and forth several times and still nothing. I checked settings and volume and such and everything was normal, it should be making sounds. Then I started to trip out a little. So I resprung it and nothing. Then I powered it down and back up. Then I forced a hard reboot (home & power) and still nothing. Then I tried speaker cable like before and still nothing. I plugged in the buds and they work fine. I held down the home button and it came up for a voice command. I spoke and I could see it recognizing my voice and executing commands.

Then I started to google and found out this seems to be a common problem. Ugh…..

I saw people talking about mashing hard on the face. I tried that and nothing. Finally, I started some music playing and I rapped the bottom of the phone (still in the otter box) against the heel of my hand and the speaker started making crackling sounds and the music tried to play but it was very crackly. It went in and out a few times, I rapped it a few more times and it started sounding normal. I thought maybe it was ok now. So I went back to setting the alarms and poof, back to no sound.

So I know the speaker is either bad or the wires connecting it are bad because of the crackling sound it made. I’ve had more than enough hoopty beater cars in my life to be very familiar with the sound of bad speaker wiring.


So now I’m at the point where I can not hear my phone at all. The ear speaker works for making phone calls, the mic works fine. But I can’t hear alarms, alerts and most importantly, I can not hear it ring.

I have accepted that I have no choice but to take it back to Verizon for repair.
There is no Apple store anywhere near here, the nearest one is more than 100 miles away in Houston and I am not driving to Houston.

What do I do now? Will they attempt to repair my phone or will they replace it? I don’t want to lose my jailbreak. I’m still on iOS 6.1 and I have no need or plans to change the OS version. Not all “upgrades” are good ones. I refuse to go to iOS 7 when it comes out. I’ve seen previews of it and it’s horrid. NEVER…

I do not want them to “upgrade” my iOS, period. I just want my frickin speaker fixed. I know that the problem has nothing at all to do with software or the OS or jailbreaks. It’s a physical hardware problem, period.

How can I back up all my jailbreak stuff? I used iTunes to do a full backup but I doubt it backed up the non Apple approved things. I also will not allow them to backup/restore my phone to the “cloud”. I do not trust anything “cloud” related.

Should I attempt to hide from them that it’s jailbroken? Or, can I un-jailbreak it temporarily and put it back later? I don’t know what their policy is on it, I know it’s legal to jailbreak but that Apple wants you to burn in Hell for doing it and that they strive long and hard to stop you from doing it.

If they replace the phone can I get one with an older iOS? Or will it automatically have the latest? From what I hear 6.1.2 is the last version you can jailbreak and 6.1.3 and 6.1.4 have shut the door on jail breaking.

There’s a lot of third party stuff I like to use and it will PISS ME OFF if they take these things away from me.

If they screw me over and take away my jail break what are the chances that we’ll ever get one back? And for iOS 6.x ? iOS 7 is crap and I do not want it. Surely they won’t break it only and leave everyone on 6.x un-broken, would they?

So, I’m desperate for advice as to what I should do next.

Thanks..

 

[studmule]

You could take it to one of those iPhone fixit shops in the mall and have them replace the speaker...

 

[Dee Ann]

You could take it to one of those iPhone fixit shops in the mall and have them replace the speaker...

It’s a small town here with a small mall. I’ve never seen anything like that in this area.

 

[bandofbrothers]

You could take the risk of them not finding out its jail-broke by hiding Cydia in a folder, or restore it.

If you do restore you will be pushed to 6.1.4 and will not be able to re jailbreak until another software tool is released for iOS7, which could be months after its release.

What you have got to ask yourself is whats more important.

A working phone or a jail-break and its tweaks on a non working phone.

If it was me i'd take no chances and restore it and take it in after making a Genius Bar Appointment.

 

[BumpyFlatline]

Your safest bet would be to take the trek to houston. Remove all jailbreak related packages (leaving only the jailbreaking dependent essentials installed) and Poof Cydia. Take it to the apple store and they should replace the speaker for you. Call ahead and confirm they can/will do that.

Sounds like that's your safest bet.

 

[HankHowdy]

Verizon will not fix the phone, they will only replace it and that can be done over the phone.

 

[BumpyFlatline]

Take it to a phone repair shop and they will switch out the speakers

The second post recommended this. The OP said there's nothing like that where he/she lives.

 

[takeshi74]

OP has to select which is most important:

• Retain jailbreak
• Fix speaker
• Avoid driving into Houston

Several points are in contention with each other so the OP has to decide where to compromise and what the OP is willing to give up. OP obviously can't have it all. IIRC there are repair shops that will accept mail-ins.

 

[studmule]

You could also order a new speaker from a place like ifixit and replace it yourself.

 

[Applejuiced]

I had the same issue a few weeks ago. And my brothers i5 also speaker died a month ago. Same exact issue.
I removed all jb hacks and just hid the cydia icon.
They replaced the speaker and I went home and installed all my hacks again
Happy they didn't notice.

 

[Dee Ann]

So Verizon will just swap it out, not repair it? My guess is they would give me a refurbished phone with 6.1.4 AW HELL NO…….


My dad was grocery shopping yesterday and found a little kiosk in the grocery store that says they repair cell phones and iPhones were listed on their sign. It’s a brand new place that just popped up since the last time I was in the store two weeks ago. That’s all the information he gathered, he’s not savvy to cell phone issues.

Driving to Houston to the Apple store isn’t really an option either. Much less even if I did go I would run the risk of them jacking my phone up. I don’t want to take that chance.

So here’s where I’m at now. I’m going to go to the little repair kiosk and see if they can fix it for me.

But I need some advice.

What should I expect to pay for the repair? I found OEM speakers on ebay for $6 w/free shipping. I found the tool kits for $4 w/free shipping. So I’m looking at $10 for tools and the part but 1-2 weeks waiting for the stuff. I don’t want to do that. My guess is they can get the speaker a lot cheaper. What would be a reasonable price I should expect to pay them? $20? I don’t think it’s worth more than at the most, $25 to pay someone else to do it. I watched videos on youtube on how to replace the speaker and it doesn’t look very hard, you just need the right tools and patience.

Also, what’s a reasonable time to have it done? One hour? 4 hours? I understand they will have other jobs in front of me. FIFO..

Next, I do not trust leaving my phone with a total stranger with all my stuff on it for them to browse through. I don’t want strangers reading my email or browsing my contacts or anything else in my phone. I damn sure don’t want anyone having access to my facebook account, iCloud (which I don’t use because I don’t trust it) or any other account of mine.

I did a full backup using iTunes.

Can I do a reset under Settings > General > Reset > Erase All Content and Settings and then be able to come home and restore everything back like it was before the erasure and reset? Will doing so keep my Cydia & jailbreak stuff intact through this process?

If that’s not a viable option, what is an easier way to remove or lock all my accounts away from them being able to access them?

Also, what happens if I remove the little SIM chip? I removed it the other day to check and be sure the water indicator wasn’t tripped and it was not. There is a wee itty bitty chip in the tray that says Verizon. Will removing that prevent them from accessing my accounts and files?

And I guess the last thing to ask is, how can I check afterwards to be sure they didn’t install malware on my phone? I see a lot of talk about using naughty chargers to install malware on iPhones. Being that mine is already jailbroken I would think that this might make it a little easier to do bad things to it.

Thanks..

 

[Night Spring]

Can I do a reset under Settings > General > Reset > Erase All Content and Settings and then be able to come home and restore everything back like it was before the erasure and reset? Will doing so keep my Cydia & jailbreak stuff intact through this process?

Last I checked, doing a Erase All on a jailbroken iPhone bricked the phone, and you had to do a full DFU restore to unbrick it. Since the current version of iOS is unjailbreakable, this would cause you to lose your jailbreak.

You don't happen to have an older iPhone or other iDevice lying around you can play with, do you? Or have a friend with an unjailbroken device that they'd be willing to lend you for a few hours?

 

[Applejuiced]

1. you cannot do an erase all on a JB device. Removing your sim has nothing to do with it. Its only there for international GSM support when outside the US.
2. it shouldn't take that long to do the repair. You can ask to wait there for the 10-20 minutes it takes.
3 They're not going to do it for $20 as you think. Most likely $40-50 or so. Apple charges $59 plus tax. If you're brave you can try doing it yourself.
4. About your info on the phone you can install a package from cydia that locks and password protects any app you have on your phone. There's a bunch of them. One I came across is called Lockdown.
5. Don't be so paranoid about malware. Open up cydia and look at the installed packages but you can password protect cydia too so they cant get in there to install anything. But they wont anyway, they're just a repair place.
6. Calm down, don't be obsessive and stop acting like its the end of the world, you will be fine.
Breathe.....

 

[Dee Ann]

Whew! It’s fixed!

The place in the store wasn’t a kiosk, it was a full store in the store. A few months ago they did a massive remodel and expansion of the grocery store and added in a bunch of little in store stores. They sat empty for months and months. Apparently this little cell phone shop just opened and I never noticed it as it was near the door I never go through. Oh well.

Anyway I tried to install some app lock thing from Cydia and it put my phone in a loop of rebooting into safe mode. I had to uninstall it.

I decided to just log out of everything and hope for the best.

I went in and asked them about it and the dude hands it to some guy sitting at a little desk and he starts fooling with it right away I was like WOA, WOA!! How much will this cost me?? He told me it’s $10 to diagnose only or $45 + tax to diagnose and repair.

So I told him go ahead and diagnose it. He asked for my password which I was reluctant to give and he said he needed to power it on and off several times to diagnose and repair it. So I told him the password, he powered it down and had it apart in seconds. He messed with the speaker and the screen while it was half open. Then he pulls my speaker out and puts another one in and it starts working. ZING! So I ask him how much to repair and how long and he says just a few minutes, $45 + tax and I told him to go ahead and do it. I sat and watched him do the whole thing, it looked really easy, I know I could do it, IF I had had the parts & tools. Anyway, it was like 15 minutes total for him to fix it and me walk out.

While he was working on it he says “Oh, jailbroken I see.” and I told him yes, that’s why I brought it to them and not Verizon. He said “Yeah, Verizon would just swap out the phone for a refurbished 6.1.4 and then you lose your jailbreak until they do another one.”

Then he asked me “So, who jailbroke for you?”

I told him I did it myself and he looked up at me and gave me the Spock eyebrow. “Oh really? You did it?” I said “Yeah, I’ve been jailbreaking my own iPhones for years, it’s easy.” He just nodded and went back to work on my phone. He seemed very surprised that a woman jailbroke her own phone..

So all is good now.. My phone is working like it should and while it cost me a lot more than I wanted to pay, no one jacked up my jailbreak and it got done PDQ..

Thanks guys for the advice…

 

[BumpyFlatline]

Whew! It’s fixed!

The place in the store wasn’t a kiosk, it was a full store in the store. A few months ago they did a massive remodel and expansion of the grocery store and added in a bunch of little in store stores. They sat empty for months and months. Apparently this little cell phone shop just opened and I never noticed it as it was near the door I never go through. Oh well.

Anyway I tried to install some app lock thing from Cydia and it put my phone in a loop of rebooting into safe mode. I had to uninstall it.

I decided to just log out of everything and hope for the best.

I went in and asked them about it and the dude hands it to some guy sitting at a little desk and he starts fooling with it right away I was like WOA, WOA!! How much will this cost me?? He told me it’s $10 to diagnose only or $45 + tax to diagnose and repair.

So I told him go ahead and diagnose it. He asked for my password which I was reluctant to give and he said he needed to power it on and off several times to diagnose and repair it. So I told him the password, he powered it down and had it apart in seconds. He messed with the speaker and the screen while it was half open. Then he pulls my speaker out and puts another one in and it starts working. ZING! So I ask him how much to repair and how long and he says just a few minutes, $45 + tax and I told him to go ahead and do it. I sat and watched him do the whole thing, it looked really easy, I know I could do it, IF I had had the parts & tools. Anyway, it was like 15 minutes total for him to fix it and me walk out.

While he was working on it he says “Oh, jailbroken I see.” and I told him yes, that’s why I brought it to them and not Verizon. He said “Yeah, Verizon would just swap out the phone for a refurbished 6.1.4 and then you lose your jailbreak until they do another one.”

Then he asked me “So, who jailbroke for you?”

I told him I did it myself and he looked up at me and gave me the Spock eyebrow. “Oh really? You did it?” I said “Yeah, I’ve been jailbreaking my own iPhones for years, it’s easy.” He just nodded and went back to work on my phone. He seemed very surprised that a woman jailbroke her own phone..

So all is good now.. My phone is working like it should and while it cost me a lot more than I wanted to pay, no one jacked up my jailbreak and it got done PDQ..

Thanks guys for the advice…

Awesome! Congrats. I'm glad you got it sorted out while more importantly, keeping your jailbreak!

 

[regkilla]

Take it to Apple or mail it in to them and they will give you a refurbished iPhone 5 on 6.1.4. Now stop complaining.

 

[Virginaustralia]

Haha just goes to show you how dumb it is to jailbreak your phone and all the stuff you need to work around.
And here's an english lesson; You say "Jailbroken" not "Jailbreaked"

 

[bandofbrothers]

Why is it dumb to jail break ?

The OP only had issues because they were worried about losing the jb !

You don't have to work around anything.

Want Jail-Break to go = Restore = Easy.

----------

Take it to Apple or mail it in to them and they will give you a refurbished iPhone 5 on 6.1.4. Now stop complaining.

The OP advised on the 21/8/13 they had resolved the issue.

What's the point of your post today {24/8/13} ?

 

[Dee Ann]

Take it to Apple or mail it in to them and they will give you a refurbished iPhone 5 on 6.1.4. Now stop complaining.

Haha just goes to show you how dumb it is to jailbreak your phone and all the stuff you need to work around.
And here's an english lesson; You say "Jailbroken" not "Jailbreaked"

1. I took my phone to an independent repair center and had it repaired. They did not tamper with or modify my iOS, the jailbreak or any other software or firmware on my phone.

2. I bought a BRAND NEW iPhone 5. I’ll be damned if I’m going to “mail it to them” in exchange for a piece of crap, scratched up, second hand, “refurbished” phone that someone else put their dirty hands and dirty face on.

3. I will not allow or tolerate someone, specifically Apple or Verizon “upgrading” my iOS to a version that can not be jailbroken. It’s MY PHONE, I own it, I paid for it, it’s my private property and I’ll damn well do with it as I see fit. And I see fit to jailbreak it and add whatever software floats my little boat.

4. NO ONE, in this thread used “jailbreaked” except you. Are you an English professor? I doubt it. If you’re honking your busted little horn at me for improper use of the English language you should go back and read my posts again.

5. I’m not complaining. My phone is fixed. Well, actually now I am complaining, about your trolling and attitude. Does it make you feel good to stroll in and start barking like a Chihuahua? Go bite ankles somewhere else little boy.

 

[Night Spring]

2. I bought a BRAND NEW iPhone 5. I’ll be damned if I’m going to “mail it to them” in exchange for a piece of crap, scratched up, second hand, “refurbished” phone that someone else put their dirty hands and dirty face on.

You bought your phone in December 2012, I believe you said, so you've been using it for, what, eight months? Seven? So had you chosen to get it exchanged for a refurb, you would have gotten a used phone for your used phone. Plus, Apple puts on a new case and I think a new battery in their refurbs before shipping them out. So you won't be getting a scratched up, dirty phone. I've gotten refurbs from Apple a few times, and they always looked brand new. If you hadn't been so insistent on keeping your jailbreak, I would have recommended you get your iPhone replaced, because that is the best way to guarantee getting a working phone. Sounds like you got lucky finding a knowledgable and competent repair place nearby, but getting your iPhone serviced by a third party shop is always a risk.