Iphone 4s Wifi "is not available"

[danielr]

My phone has developed a bit of an issue, Basically the situation is that I applied the IOS 7.1.1 update to an Iphone 4s and just like a lot of (though not all) iphone models this update has somehow changed something and caused the WIFI chip/module to "burn out".

 

The update was installed about a month ago, and in that time the phone has become progressively more unusable, freezing, randomly restarting, dropping off of wifi networks, until now it just won't connect.

 

To say it's burned out is probably a bit wrong, as I've found that if I turn off the WIFI for a few days, when I turn it back on, it's available and can even see networks, but only for a few seconds before it decides that it can't find anything.

 

If I try to turn wifi on from the settings menu it's often just greyed out.

If I try to turn it on from the quick pull up menu I get a message saying that WIFI is unavailable.

 

It seems to be a reasonably well documented phenomenon with some people saying that a chip needs to be replaced, or re-flowed.

 

(where re-flowing is a process where "basically" the solder attached to the board is reheated and remelted such that it re-establishes a good connection.)

basically, what's happened is it seems that the latest update has somehow upped the juice to the chip, or somehow changed it's parameters, what this had the effect of causing was:

The corner of the phone where the wifi chip is got hot, (and I assume that the wifi connection was/should have been better). but as things get hot they can expand? and this seems to have caused some kind of issue like dry joints cracking.

 

 

Long story short, as far as I am able to ascertain, this is a manufacturing issue, either with the chip being underspecified and unable to handle the changed parameters within the update, or the update has uncovered a weakness in the manufacturing process (something similar to how you used to get dry joints in TVs).

 

 

So that's the problem, does anyone have any idea what the solution is?

 

I bought the phone as an upgrade with a new 18 month contract from O2 in February 2012, so the phone is now 27 months old.

 

Over the course of the contract I've clearly paid for the phone in full, it's mine, I've also left O2 when my contract expired in favour of going to their daughter company Giff Gaff for a cheaper Pay as you go deal. I'm on a limited data plan, so this not having Wifi thing isn't really working all that well for me.

 

It is my opinion that the phone is faulty and obviously has been faulty -though that fault has been hidden from new.

 

Clearly as I'm just outside of the two year window that the European sale of goods act.

I believe that (http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/bills/article-1677034/Two-year-warranty-EU-law.html)

 

"

The EU directive in question is 1999/44/EC. The full wording is contained here (open the word documtent and scroll to page 7) but the important bit is this: 'A two-year guarantee applies for the sale of all consumer goods everywhere in the EU. In some countries, this may be more, and some manufacturers also choose to offer a longer warranty period.'

As with UK law, a seller is not bound by the guarantee 'if the (fault) has its origin in materials supplied by the consumer'. But the EU rule does not require the buyer to show the fault is inherent in the product and not down to their actions.

The EU rule also says buyers need to report a problem within two months of discovering it if they want to be covered under the rule."

 

 

Basically, if this had happened in December it's have been nice and easy, I could take the phone back to an o2 shop and say "look it's faulty, and I think that you should replace it...(please)"

 

 

but as it's over two years old I'd need to ask for a repair under the SOGA? where I may have up to 6 years to claim, although as 6 months have long since elapsed it would be up to me to prove this was a manufacturing defect?

 

 

 

 

Which seems a little crazy to me... (well it's crazy for this situation!)

 

 

Basically, I don't want a new phone. what I want is my existing phone to be repaired to a state where it is working.

 

 

the reason it is broken appears to be because of a manufacturing defect, or a substandard part.

 

 

how would I go about proving this?

Can I say, Just do a search on-line there are hundreds, possibly thousands of people with this issue, so many people with this issue that apple actually started removing threads on their forums!

 

 

Do I need to get the phone inspected? if so how do I get that inspected? where do I go?

 

 

Is it enough to take it to the apple shop and have them say that "yeah, we've seen this before and it's broken"

will the "genius" guys confirm that this is a known issue affecting handsets made with poor quality components? -would they give me this in writing to take to an O2 store?

 

 

 

Or would I need to find an engineer to take the phone apart and prove that it is broken in this fashion?

-if so what is this likely to cost??

 

 

 

 

Even if I had a good enough reason, be it just look at the thousands of others who have this issue, the apple genius said this, or said paid engineer said that in this report... what exactly will O2 say?

 

 

I don't want money off of a new phone, I just want my existing phone to work! will the entertain the idea of fixing this phone?

and if I had gotten an engineers report would I be refunded for that?

I.e would O2 say, I'm sorry we sold you a defective product, here let us repair it, and here let us reimburse your expense of getting a report to prove to us that it was faulty?

 

 

Or would I spend hundreds of pounds trying to get o2 to perform a fix that a 3rd party repair shop might do for £60?

 

 

(Approaching Apple seems to be a crazy idea, other than as a starting point to say is the phone broken yes/no??)

[Ford]

hi

did a googly re this, seems to be an issue. presume you have googlied and tried any suggestions eg restore etc? seems a software issue rather than hardware?

[danielr]

Hello,

 

Yes, I found a thread on Apples support forum, where a person had a good icloud backup, the apple support agent (as they must have paid for after 1 year support) suggested that they reset network settings, and it didn't work, then suggestted that they reset the phone back to factory. when they have reset they cannot connect to wifi and hence cannot restore... (the apple person at this point said that they should just buy a new phone!)

 

I made (and would suggest anyone trying this makes) a backup in Itunes first!

 

I tried resetting my network settings -no change

I tried resetting the whole phone (erase contents and settings) to start again.

 

There is still no wifi connection, - in fact during the setup proceedure the phone doesn't even ask if you want to turn on and conenct to wifi (this is usually the third step after selecting language and country) to enable icloud restore.

 

 

Ordinarily I would agree that it appears to be a software issue (it only occurred for me on the very latest IOS update), -but various sources are suggestting that apple staff are telling people that the update has caused their wifi chip to "burn out" and that they need a new logic board in the phone at a cost of hundreds.

other sources are suggesting that the chip may be swapped or simply re-flowed as said above.

 

Also some phones have been experiencing issues since IOS V6, which would suggest that Apple have been making changes to the way in which the wifi module is used for quite a while, and despite their incremental updates and tweaks to the way that it's used keeps apparently breaking phones they continue to tweak things.

 

From what I gather, or am able to surmise, it's like their software updates are turning up the volume of the wifi, they started turning it up a little while ago, and despite complaints [that hardware breaks] are continuing to turn it up. These incremental increases in the operating parameters are breaking peoples handsets in the order of thousands.

[Ford]

hi

i think i read the same apple threads seems not much apple support there! and, even the national press have taken it up. some users not even able to use their devices at all after the update!

i see what you mean re software.

ps, as seems is apples fault, would think they have to do the fix, or stump up for a new device if thats whats required. what do their terms say re updates etc, including those out of warranty?

[danielr]

So I decided that I had a 2 year old phone, 2 versions behind the current, and could be happy swapping to an older phone that I already had...

 

I followed these instructions.

ifixit-guide-pdfs.s3.amazonaws.com/guide_22167_en.pdf

 

and the phone now works.

 

so hardware issue it definitely was, but since it's now fixed there isn't a huge worry about how I'd have proved that to the phone vendor and had them fix it.