Here's what's causing your iPhone 5 charging/battery repair issues

Here's what's causing your iPhone 5 charging/battery repair issues

Have you encountered any iPhone 5's with battery or charging issues? Do they work fine until the battery fully dies, then won't turn back on? This tricky issue could be caused by logic board damage and the culprit might surprise you.. Mendmyi reported last week that after placing faulty iPhone 5's through several diagnostic tests and multiple battery replacements, they put the phone's logic boards under a microscope to try and see what the issue might be. There they discovered damage done to the U2 IC, a portion of the logic board which, according to mendmyi's blog, "controls the charge to the battery, runs the power to the sleep/wake button, controls the USB function and and regulates the charging to the power IC that charges the iPhone 5." The cause of this board failure? Third party Chargers and USB Cables! Just another reason to make sure you're purchasing legitimate, authorized charging cables and charging cubes to sell to your customers. Like these Spigen 8-pin Lightning Cables! (Side note: these cables are the bee's knees, true story. They're 40% longer than original chargers, slightly more durable, and the only charging cables we use here at eTech Parts.) I asked David, our on-site technician and jack-of-all-trades, what he thought about the news that third-party charging cables were causing logic board issues. "It's true, and it's something that we had been anticipating. The individual components used in these devices are becoming more and more sensitive, as they have to in order for the devices to keep getting smaller. It's just another reason for our customers to purchase authorized charging cords instead of cheap knock-offs." Check out Mendmyi's blog for the nitty-gritty technical details. According to mendmyi, here are some symptoms that might clue you in on finding out if the iPhone you're working on has a faulty U2 IC.  

Symptoms of a faulty U2 IC

• Battery won't charge beyond 1%

• iPhone automatically powers itself on

• When the battery is removed and the iPhone is placed on charge it does not boot to the Apple logo

• When the iPhone is put onto charge the screen stays blank and the iPhone remains lifeless

  Thanks to our friends over at iMore for the tip and a huge thanks to the tech-savvy folks at mendmyi for discovering the issue and sharing with the Repair Community! Let us know in the comments below if you've seen any cases of this happening, if you fixed it and how. As always we love hearing from the Repair Community so join the conversation! Like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter and be sure to subscribe to our blog so you get clued in on every eTech Parts update!