iPhone 5 not charging – not U2 problem

Oh the old iPhone 5.

I don’t usually do these repair any more as the cost of repair is the same as buying a second hand phone, unless, you really want data out of it, or you are a big reseller and just want to test my skill levels to discover bigger opportunities for further corperation.

This iPhone 5 was from an iPhone refurbisher and was for a skill test to resolve logic board repair.

Anyway, here we go.

This iPhone 5 does not charge, shows no sign of charging at all.

Charging IC (U2) replacement, right? easy.

Replaced charging IC, problem still persists, but now it shows charging sign on top of the screen, this is what we call “fake charging”

I have detailed iPhone 5 charging IC replacement article in the past, itself was a bit tricky as it has underfills and is very close to CPU.

This is some basic skills you need to master anyway and we are not discussing U2 replacement in this post.

Now, the problem is fake charging, we have already changed U2, now what to do?

I would just get a replacement board for the customer if it was end customer, but this was to test our logic board repair skills, so we have to repair it.

Checking battery connections, voltage around U2 and ensure USB5V is getting to U2.

What left is either the CPU, or the primary power supply IC.

I wouldn’t want to touch any of these as they both have underfills.

Before we proceed, lets pull a power IC from a donor board and make it ready to put on this board.

Shinny solder balls and this IC is ready.

OK, lets pull the IC off this board.

Ugly hard underfills, and we didn’t touch anything rather than that power IC, all surrounding components are in place.

Cleaned it, and here we see the problem.

Pad for TRISTAR INT has gone, along with other pads, this phone must suffered drop damage. Micro jumper time.

Six jumpers were done.

put the new IC on and … full short, beeeeeeeeeeep.

hmmmm, full short, was it the new IC bad? Were the micro jumpers  grounded? Or was I didn’t use the right technique to put the IC back?

Up on close inspection, it was a filter that grounded near the edge of board.

Its grounded because the solder underneeth it melted and somehow connected the ground points for shields.

Removed the short and fully working phone.

We are so confident at our skill levels that no matter you are a repair shop or a phone refurbisher, we can provide second to none iPhone board level repairs at very affordable prices.