By the time I went to bed yesterday, my iPhone battery was in the red zone, nearly flat. I woke up this morning to a dead iPhone…
I hadn’t put it on the charging cradle properly, or something, so it hadn’t charged, and I now had a flat battery.
I plugged it in to the charger again, and just got a red battery with a charging symbol underneath. It wouldn’t operate. I tried turning it on etc, nothign doing. I left it for a bit, to give it some charge. Tried again, and still nothing.
The internet told me I had to reboot it. It’s an iPhone 3G, so I held the power button and the home button at the same time for 10 seconds. Back to square one. Then my laptop battery was running out too, just as I found something that said I needed to plug it into a PC, and reboot the PC with the iPhone plugged in!
I turned on my desktop PC – where I sync the iPhone. Popped the iPhone into the sync cradle, and the same screen, time to try the PC reboot. I made breakfast.
With iTunes running and that, the phone still refused to do anything. I then rebooted the iPhone whilst it was plugged into the PC still, and amazingly, the friendly apple logo appeared, and it came back to life.
What the hell is all that about? You’re telling me that if I let my iPhone run flat, I need a PC to plug it into to revive it? That’s just ridiculous. And what is the PC doing to the iPhone during the PC reboot to make it work again? Does it send some juju down the USB to gently wake it up?
I’m quite baffled. But thankful it works again. And, when it’s got a low battery next time, I shalln’t be so lazy, I’ll charge it up before the weirdness begins.
Adaam has let his 3GS run down and didn’t need the PC.
Just plug in charger and a lightning symbol means do not use
once charge is at 5% it works
I tried that, it was plugged in charging for an hour or two and never reached the required 5%!
Once I’d done the PC fiddle it charged to full in an hour or so.
Maybe it’s fixed in the 3GS? I’ve read reports of similar from other 3G owners.
here’s a secret that almost no one knows about… seriously… the internet nearly says nothing about this… turn off your push and fetch function on your iphone. go to settings, mail/contacts, then fetch > turn “push” off, turn fetch manual, go to advance at the bottom, tap on every email you have and put them on manual. you dont need to constantly have the phone updating for new email… unless you really need to. i found this drained my battery a lot. I’d pull the iphone off the charger with %100, and then 10 minutes later it’d be at 95%.
Here is another tip that I found useful. My battery started to drain rapidly and I could not figure it out, sometimes it drained and sometimes it was okay. Then I found the problem – GPS! If you have “Location” set to ON and you drive around in a car, or bus, your battery drains rapidly while the GPS is constantly updating your position. Since I turned it off, I have had no problems.
Oh just ridiculous, it’s done it again. I left it on the charger overnight, and woke up to it flat again. It was nearly flat when it went on the charger, and I had it playing some whale music to help me sleep.
Some reboots again and it didn’t work, nor would it charge. I plugged it into my laptop this time, and rebooted the laptop. A phone reset later, and it wouldn’t start.
A few minutes later I tried unplugging the USB and plugging it back in, and as I plugged it back in the Apple symbol appeared on the phone and it was back to life.
What’s going on, am I just being impatient? Am I failing to sit it in on the charging stand correctly? Am I not waiting long enough for it to charge to 5%?
had the exact same problem last night, ran it totally flat, i couldnt get it to charge off a 240 volt charger or a 12 volt cig lighter, had to plug it into a usb for a bit till it built up enough charge, bloody stupid, is there any other way around this
I am having the same problem from what it sounds like. From what I have noticed is if I let my battery die to 20% or below it will not charged via the wall charger, only the computer. I can plug it to the wall when below 20% and it says its charging but will just go dead. Also the battery life was horrible it would last from 100% at 7:00am to dead around noon. I replaced the battery with one I bought from a website and I still get the same problem and battery life did not improve either. Could this be a software problem not allowing it to charge? And why is my battery life so horrible?
if your still having trouble, i found a solution that i tried all day to get. and its fairly easy and dont have to be an uber geek.
just scroll down to the part where it says:
THE STANDARD/EASY MAC INSTRUCTIONS FOR FIXING THE BOOT PROBLEM.
Download the 2 files it tells you to and youll be sweet. I was so happy. And i feel like one of those ppl who are always saying it works, good job, hoorah and you try it and it doesnt… Well, it does
And sorry Windows users, doesnt look like there’s a fix for you yet. But he said he was working on it.
I am having the same issues. This phone is rubbish as you cannot take the battery out especially when you cant switch the poxy phone off when the battery is low. I think Nokia is the way forward, Iphone is now a thing of the past as your not allowed to have an image on the desk top (all other makes do) and you cant have your own ring tones on unless you hack the phone (all other makes allow you to do this) and lets face it the other makes are more reliable and have much more than the Iphone. Mines being sold as soon as my contracts up for renewal.