Repairing No Service Issue on iPhone 7

[thwdylm]

I have the model A1660, which was affected with this "No Service" curse seen here: https://www.apple.com/support/iphone-7-no-service/ but Apple will not repair my device because they found a problem with my dock connector (that functions perfectly) and only provided me with this: https://imgur.com/a/eQLiShh information as to why I must pay $319 for the repair. I called to see what they found, spoke to the "senior adviser" who could provide no details of the issue and offered little help.

So, I must fix it on my own apparently (or pay $319 for a phone worth about $100 less than that). What specific issue in the device causes the phone to not recieve service?

 

[Minorite]

Issue is with baseband IC, there are tons of videos on youtube on the topic. Best solution: find a trusted repair shop that does microsoldering and ask how much will it cost to fix this. If less than Apple, go for it (MAKE A BACKUP FIRST!). If not, it would make more sense to get a new phone as I understand...

 

[Minho]

The problem is that a high percentage of those "No Service" iPhone 7's are caused by a faulty Baseband IC. You cannot change the BB IC as it is code-locked with the CPU/NAND and EEPROM. Most micro-soldering shops won't even touch them as it is time consuming to troubleshoot only to find out that 80% of them are unfixable. That simply is not a viable repair when you work on a no fix/no fee policy.

 

[Minorite]

The problem is that a high percentage of those "No Service" iPhone 7's are caused by a faulty Baseband IC. You cannot change the BB IC as it is code-locked with the CPU/NAND and EEPROM. Most micro-soldering shops won't even touch them as it is time consuming to troubleshoot only to find out that 80% of them are unfixable. That simply is not a viable repair when you work on a no fix/no fee policy.

OK didn't know that, I had 2 phones with "No service" bug (mine a while ago and friend's phone recently), and there were no issues when we've brought it to the repair shop or after it was fixed. I knew it was wise to leave Wi-Fi without password for neighbours last year and clean my karma...

p.s. Noob question, just for my info: No other solution then to replace the phone if it's dead? Or motherboard will be cheaper and should work?

 

[Minho]

OK didn't know that, I had 2 phones with "No service" bug (mine a while ago and friend's phone recently), and there were no issues when we've brought it to the repair shop or after it was fixed. I knew it was wise to leave Wi-Fi without password for neighbours last year and clean my karma...

p.s. Noob question, just for my info: No other solution then to replace the phone if it's dead? Or motherboard will be cheaper and should work?

I should clarify here that there are two versions of the iPhone 7 logic board, one with an Intel baseband chipset and one with the Qualcomm baseband chipset. The problematic one is the Qualcomm chipset, where a high proportion of them fail due to a short inside the IC. This problem does not seem to afflict the Intel version...that would likely explain why you've had success with this repair.

 

[Minorite]

I should clarify here that there are two versions of the iPhone 7 logic board, one with an Intel baseband chipset and one with the Qualcomm baseband chipset. The problematic one is the Qualcomm chipset, where a high proportion of them fail due to a short inside the IC. This problem does not seem to afflict the Intel version...that would likely explain why you've had success with this repair.

OK thanks for explaining this! Wasn't aware that they had both Intel and Qualcomm chips on A1660 model.