Blog - ChargeAll

Frustrated by a battery problem with your iPhone? Feel like you’re on the brink of a breakthrough, and you just need that one piece of advice to solve it? That’s what I’m here for. In this post I’ll tackle the 15 most common issues I’ve seen, and how to deal properly with them. 

Let’s look at some battery and charging questions!

Question 1: My iPhone 4 has only been charging with the sim card removed as of late, and even that’s inconsistent. I’ve tried over a dozen working cables and none will charge my phone anymore. How can I fix my phone?

Answer: First, always try the various levels of reset, starting with settings, and moving up to a full restore. If that doesn’t work, try yelling at it aggressively. Since that has no shot of working, from there you’ll want to look into getting a replacement model. The good news is that websites like Gazelle.com will pay you $40 for even a broken iPhone, which should help replacement costs. For those who are really committed, there is another option. ifixdirect.com will diagnose and try to fix your phone for a pretty reasonable price (definitely less than replacement costs without insurance) Good luck.

Question 2: My iPhone 5 with lightening connector charges, but when I move it just slightly, or when it moves by itself, it disconnects and doesn’t charge. Is it the cable or the phone?

Answer: It’s most likely either the contact, the wire, or the build of the cable (definitely the cable though). You can buy a new one online, but if you bring your cable in to the Apple store within a reasonable length of time from purchase (about 60-70 days) they’re usually happy to replace it. If you have Applecare on your phone, they’ll do it for two years from the date of purchase.

If the connector doesn’t fit, it must be replaced (OJ Simpson Reference)

Question 3: “I plug in my iPhone 4S before going to bed and charge it over night (6 – 8 hours).  When I wake up in the morning most of the time it has only charged to somewhere between 93% and 97%.  If I unplug it and plug it back in the charge will complete to 100%. This has happened on multiple cables.”

Answer: That is very strange, but there are a couple of things you can do to try and remedy this. It doesn’t sound like a software issue, although I’m not positive, so I would first try leaving it on the charger an hour or so longer, and see if it charges all the way. You did say your sleep pattern is consistant so you could just have an issue that is slowing down your charging. It could just be a reduced current from some type of foreign object or corrosion on the contacts inside your phone. If you’d like, you can buy a 3rd party replacement charging port for $20 and install it yourself, which only takes a little while and a bit of screwing and unscrewing.

Question 4: “I gave my girlfriend a charger (OEM apple brick and cord) a while back for her iPod Touch. It charges it fine, and did too with my iPhone. The other day it just quit. It works fine for her iPod but when I plug my iPhone in it won’t work…ANY other charger works including the one from my stereo in the car. What could cause this?”

Answer: First you’ve got to determine if the issue is with your brick, or your cord. Try charging with the cord in your computer instead of the brick. If it charges. your brick is broken and you need to replace that (you can get 3rd party products pretty cheaply) and if it doesn’t this issue is with your cord, and that’s very cheap to replace.

Question 5: “I woke up this morning to find my iPhone 4S had not charged all night but instead went down to 21%. I tried unplugging and recharging, hard reset, turning on and off and letting the battery fully die, but it was no use. When I tried charging it, it said “this accessory is not compatible” with my device which is not true and I think it’s a glitch. Can anyone help me fix my problem?”

Answer: Considering the error message, and that you only tried one charger, I’d gander that the charger itself is your issue, and you should purchase a replacement ($10-15 3rd party). It could also be the charging port on your iPhone, but until you try another charger, I can’t tell. Check it with another charger, and if it works, buy a new charger, but if it doesn’t try, try cleaning it with compressed air. Sometimes dirt can mar the connection.

Question 6: “I upgraded my iPhone 4S to the latest version of iOS (iOS 6.1 and 6.1.1) and now my battery life is really bad”.

Answer: Yes. This is a commonly reported new issue which Apple is currently working on a fix for. I know the upgrade is what killed your battery, but your best hope of improving this permanently is to upgrade as soon as they release that fix (iOS 6.1.2). Until then, decrease your brightness, keep wireless, bluetooth, and location services off when not in use, and cycle through your battery in full at least once a month to optimize your battery. Also, if you have a backup of your phone from before the update, you can do a reinstall with that and completely revert your phone to before the charging issue occurred, which would really help.

Question 7: “I’m getting the best battery life (iPhone 5) I’ve had in years. I’ve always been lazy and RESTORED from previous phone. I suggest (strongly) that you reset and start from scratch. It took me a couple hours to reinstall approximately 100 apps but it was well worth it. Why is that?”

Answer: Ha ha ha. I’m guessing that the better battery life can be more attributed to your new phone, and not how you restored, because honestly that should make no difference whatsoever in your iPhone battery life.

Question 8: The battery on my new iPhone 5 drained really fast. I just got it yesterday, and I don’t know why it would be that bad.

Answer: Just as you need to warm up after not working out for while, your phone’s new battery needs to go through a few cycles when new, or after long periods without use. Wait two weeks, and if it still doesn’t seem too good, take it to an Apple Store before your warranty expires (90 days) for replacement.

Question 9: I have an iPhone 3GS that I just inherited from my brother, I say this as it’s new to me, and seems to consume its battery even when off. I can switch all functions off, charge it to 100% leave it overnight and it has discharged by 40% by the morning. It seems to be even worse with the SIM card in. Vodafone PAYG. The SIM is over 3years old. The battery is now 2+ years old, could it be that it needs replacing or is this just normal? Any advice would be appreciated.

Answer: It’s an old phone, so even at the start it only had 10 days of standby under optimal conditions. After two years, it’s probably been reduced to half or less of its’ original capacity, which is natural for lithium ion cells. SIM cards consume power, as does any component of the phone. Your best bet at this point would be replacement, because it’s no longer under warranty in any way. So to answer your question, it’s normal AND needs replacing.

Question 10: So it turns out that the little white box that came with the iPhone to plug it into the wall is broken. the cord still works but for some reason the white box won’t charge my phone? Should I contact apple, or just buy a new one, or what?

Answer: If you’re in warranty (90 days), or have Applecare (two years)  Apple will replace the wall adapter. If not, buy a third party USB to AC adapter ($10).

 Yes There’s More

Question 11: My iPhone 4 stopped charging altogether the other day. It didn’t drop, nor did it have any contact with water. It says that the charger isn’t supported or something, and I’ve tried multiple cables.

Answer: It sounds to me like your issue is with your 30 pin connector port (the place where you plug in your charger). Try cleaning it out with compressed air or a small paint brush. Sometimes a bit of dirt can cause that warning to appear.

Question 12: I’ve been having a strange problem charging my iPhone 4S the last few nights. I plug it in to charge and it charges as normal but when I wake up, my battery is at 1%. Any ideas on what I could do to fix this, or what the problem could be?

Answer: First of all, are you sure it’s charging? Make sure you have the proper charging icon on your phone. If it appears, try a reset or reinstall on your iPhone, but if not, try this. First, try your charger in a different outlet, and then try another charger with your phone if that doesn’t work. If the other charger works, it’s your charger, but if that charger doesn’t work it’s your phone. Next try a reset to repair your phone, and cleaning its’ bottom (see above answer), and finally if that doesn’t work, you’ve got a problem.

This is what your charging screen SHOULD look like when working

Question 13: I had my iPhone 4 16GB replaced about 10 days ago by Apple. It was out of warranty but part of a recall so was swapped FOC. a few days ago the phone developed a fault where every time I plug it into the wall or my laptop it vibrates to say charging, then stops, then vibrates to say charging again constantly over and over again. In fact in the time is has taken me to write this i have over 100 dialog boxes saying unknown error 0xE80000084!!! Worse still is that I logged into the support page and it tells me the phone is not within warranty or valid for support

Answer: Errors beginning with 0x#80 are unknown Windows connection errors. As stated, the cause of the issue can be a variety of factors, and is thus “unknown”. Your best bet would be a full reset, and restore. This would install a clean copy of the operating system, maximizing your chance of getting rid of any dirty code. If that doesn’t work, try taking it into that Apple store if you can. Digital repair solutions aren’t going to help you, so your best bet would be a human.

Question 14: My iPhone 4S has been having problems recharging. The problem is that once I want to let my iPhone charge from a wall charger, the phone always has a battle between charging and not (the lock screen always goes from the battery charging to my wallpaper and then back and back). I have changed the USB cable and used other wall outlets, but the problem still exists. One weird thing is that it charges perfectly fine if I hold my iPhone upside down with the dock connector on top, while held upwards, it won’t charge.

Answer: It sounds to me like a issue with the contacts inside the charging port on your phone. Clean it using the instructions from my answer to question 11, and if that doesn’t help, take it into a repair center. It sounds more like a hardware issue than a software issue, because it’s most likely that part of your contact is rusted over or in some way impaired, and that’s affecting your charging.

Question 15: I updated my iPhone 4 to IOS 6 and my phone will no longer charge from any cord by any means (PC, Wall, Mac, Car, etc) I used a friends’ 3G and the cord and outlets work and charge. My iPhone will only charge if I plug it in and then turn OFF the PHONE.

Answer: That’s strange. If it works when off, it’s probably some form of rare hardware issue. Try doing a full restore from your computer or the cloud to your phone, and if the software doesn’t fix it, take it into an Apple Store. Very rare indeed.

So?

In today’s article we went hardcore, taking on 15 common iPhone charging and battery issues and questions, and we answered them in detail. I hope this was useful, and the least you can do is share this article, if we solved your problem. Thanks for stopping by, and come back soon. Got a question that wasn’t answered? Contact us and we’ll be happy to try and help you fix it.

Thanks to the internet for providing various popular questions for me to answer.