Chosen Solution

My iPhone3GS has started crashing with incredible frequency. I’ll be mid-phone call, or using an app, when the screen will go dark. I’ll have to do a soft reboot (holding the home & sleep buttons down until it restarts). It takes a long time to turn on, then half the time, it dumps to the warning screen that there’s no power and needs to be plugged in. Once I connect the phone to a power source, in a couple of minutes it’s ready to roll again, and displaying a “full battery” icon. The phone is almost always fully charged when this happens, and I don’t get a crash when the phone is plugged into a power source, so I’m assuming that it’s the battery. Has anyone else experienced something like this? Are these symptoms common signs of battery failure, or could this indicate a more pervasive hardware failure? EDIT - After doing some deeper digging, I’m guessing that battery failure is the most likely problem. There’s another thread (which I’ve lost the link to) that describes almost the same troubles I’ve been having. I’m buying this part and will see how battery replacement works: iPhone 3GS Battery

Sorry to have taken so long. Yes it does sound like a battery problem. I’d also try the cheapest alternative which is… Back up your data and do a restore on the phone. Their seems to be many problems like this on the 4.2.1 or 4.x.x ios… Had this on a 3g and eventually it evened itself out-after many resets/restores/dfu’s. It no longer crashes but shortly after upgrade of ios it crashed all the time, with no pattern.

3Gs Owner since 7/6/2009: Never once had a problem with phone crashing until 4/12/11 while reading a wiki site, phone went dead/screen turned black (out of the blue, just like that, poof! no rhyme or reason). Pray first, plug in phone, then I did soft & hard resets & within several minutes phone finally came back On/slider appeared. Whew! (Battery was at 72% when phone came back on so I don’t think battery had died because it was only a few minutes worth of charging). Then yesterday 6/4/11 it happened again – approx. 7 weeks/49 days since the first occurrence. I was reading at youtube site & poof! Screen went black, white apple logo immediately appeared, so I plug in phone, pray, wait, nothing; so then do soft & hard resets again, wait wait wait. It took much longer this time for phone to fix itself, approx. 15 mins. this time vs. 7-8 mins. last time (April). Battery was showing 50+% this time when phone finally came back on (slider appeared so I could slide it to On). After the April occurrence I read many many similar descriptions (“black screen of death”) online from people & it didn’t seem they all had had their phones for 1-3/4 years like me, so I wasn’t sure if it is merely a battery problem or something else going on. And fwiw, I have never upgraded to iOS4, still using 3.1.2 (for many other reasons: I don’t want a unified inbox/Mail, several fav apps won’t work on 4, etc.) From descriptions here, I have serious doubts I could install a new battery myself (old lady :) Thanks!

THIS ANSWER IS FOR PENNY PINCHERS LIKE ME. - SEE MORAL OF STORY AT THE END TO SKIP MY FINDINGS. I know this is a semi-old post, but it seems to be the only one that I have found that describes to the tee what I have been experiencing. So, about a month ago I get the BSOD (Black screen of death…lol…who knew?) on my iPhone 3GS. I would turn it on to drop straight to the dead battery. But, plug it in and the battery is about 75% charged. I figured it was a dying battery (had the thing for 2 years now) but I wasn’t satisfied with just that. I can replace the battery myself. No problems there. But, I am frugal ;) I wanted to get everything I could out of the battery. So, I did a full DFU mode restore, but didn’t restore my apps or settings. I started from scratch and tested every single app that I use. What I found was that apps that use the 3g signal the most, made the phone crap out. Intrigued, I set my phone to Airplane mode for 2 days. No calls/data… just apps (read… a very overpriced iPod Touch). I was able to use the device for those 2 days solid with no charging and no crashes! It’s the radio that is causing the crash. Turned off airplane mode and disabled everything down to Edge data and calls. No BT. No Wifi. No 3g. Worked solid for that next day. Enabled BT. Worked great with my headset the next day. Enabled Wifi. Worked great with no problems that next day. Turned on 3g… we have a winner!!! 3g crashed my phone an hour after I enabled it. MORAL OF STORY: Your battery is dying. It isn’t the radios fault. However, if you turn off the 3g signal you can utilize your device just fine. This improved my calls (ATT has MUCH better Edge than 3g), my iPhone ran like a champ, and my Audio Galaxy music streaming and Pandora still worked (albeit a little slow in between songs). Hope this helps.

@se7en : I have been fighting the black screen crashes since June. I can honestly say that I had absolutely no issue whatsoever with my 3GS until I upgraded it to iOS 4.x. After the upgrade was when it would suddenly start crashing on me. I did try shutting off the 3G and the phone did work okay after that - for a couple of days. It crashes on Edge no matter what now, with Wifi and BT all shut off, no apps running, etc. If I plug it into the wall, it’s fine but it heats up something fierce. I’m pretty confident it’s the battery/battery sensor being shot as when the phone crashes (sometimes at “100%”) and turns back on it always is a different percentage (ie, 100% to 77% to 84% …yes, I have had it jump like that consecutively). Just ordered my new battery so I’ll report back after the replacement on whether or not it still crashes.

i have been having the same problems. i have tried restoring it many times and it doesnt seem to help. I am going to try replacing the lcd screen to see if it helps any. my screen will go crazy when it crashs, and tends to get very warm.

This post contains (I believe) new information Firstly - Thanks to the self described “long poster” above. You just convinced me to go down the route of sending it to Apple. The 2 options had been.

  1. I can get the local phone shop to replace it for 30 Euro
  2. I can send it to Apple for 80 Euro - and IMPT If you send it to Apple and say it is a battery issue (not a software issue) I’m Guaranteed (you saying replacement battery) means they send you a DIFFERENT phone / refurbished, with a full 3 month guarantee. FYI they dissemble the “battery replacement” phones for parts. Important Reminder (Regarding reinstalling your software yourself via Itunes) As we know / have read here and in similar forums, constantly reinstalling the software via Itunes apparently just reinstalls the same error back on again and again. It’s a complete waste of time. I read that in forums and was told it by the Apple Technician. THE NEW (I Hope) INFORMATION I was on the phone to Apple who spent over an hour on the phone with me and they talked me through a COMPLETE proper full reinstall while connected to Itunes. Again this is something you as a general user can NOT do by yourself. This different reinstall can only be done when you’re connected with an apple technician online/on phone at same time! It’s as close to a new phone as you can get! THE RESULT WAS (with the Apple Technician on the phone and online) It fixed it… FOR 4 DAYS…. And then back to the same problem! When I opened an application / made video) it began crashing at 50% then 100% So beware of posts where someone tells you they did the online / on phone with an Apple technician and it worked. It may be that they are posting the “Good News” on the day or a few days after they did the full reinstall with the Apple technician! So don’t waste your time (though they guy was extremely helpful and nice) going down that route of going through the complete reinstall with the Apple Technician! Repeating Repeating for those skipping paragraphs that this with Apple Technician on phone/online is not the general reinstall you can do yourself, which as stated above is a pointless exercise! FINDINGS
  3. General reboot / reinstalling software will never work./ Pointless waste of time
  4. Reinstall with the Apple technician does not work (reminder – not a general reinstall and only available to you unless you call them)
  5. Replacement batteries via local phone shop do not always work So – OPTIONS Chance the local Phone shop 30 Euro (as we know doesn’t always work) OR Send to Apple. Saying specifically it’s for a REPLACEMENT BATTERY which results in then sending you a different phone fully refurbished Iphone incl new battery for 80 Euro. And gets you a full 3 month full cover issue. For the extra 50 Euro, bearing in mind the 3 month guarantee I’m going with Apple. We have read that general battery replacement is a gamble. So better to be safe than sorry, the sorry being 30 euro down the drain / then having to pay Apple the 80 Euro anyway, that’s if they even attempt to fix it because the phone has been tampered with! With this being 2012, there is still a good monetary value in selling used iphones. So do factor that into your thinking regarding repairs. Take note (I heard) that Apple wont touch Iphones that have been tampered with / replacement batteries by other shops and this may have consequences if you go to resell it or need some completely different other repair piece of work done on it at other stage. I will try to do a follow up in a few months to let you know how this route goes! Apologies for repeat of certain phrases. I know that some people just skip through to certain paragraphs, so I wanted to be clear to them at all times. Hope this helps. Bernard (In Dublin Ireland) Update Subsequent to my above post, I just read that some people who got even fully NEW (Not refurbished phones) ended up with the same problem. I tried to post the above post with a cut and paste into the Apple forums, only to discover they don’t allow a cy and paste EVEN MORE ANNOYING. I’ve decided… cheap replacement battery and sell the iphone telling people honestly what the story is and BUYING a Samsung. And a pox on apple! Bernard (In Dublin Ireland) https://discussions.apple.com/message/17… UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE Subsequent to my above post, I just read that some people who got even fully NEW (Not refurbished phones) ended up with the same problem. I tried to post the above post with a cut and paste into the Apple forums, only to discover they don’t allow a cy and paste EVEN MORE ANNOYING. I’ve decided… cheap replacement battery and sell the iphone telling people honestly what the story is and BUYING a Samsung. And a pox on apple! Bernard (In Dublin Ireland) https://discussions.apple.com/message/17…

try draining it and recharging it. That can sometimes work for a while if it does buy a new battery!!!

I used to have this problem with an iPod Touch 4th Gen that I got for Christmas 2010. It came from Best Buy (there’s my problem!), and so I sent it to Apple for repair. It came back with a note: “No problems found.” All my data was wiped, though. So I plugged it in and did its little setup thing, and it worked-until 7:00 PM that day (got it back in the mail at 4:00 PM. My parents took me to the Apple Store that day and I was lucky enough to have it happen right in front of the Genius there. He immediately set me up with a refurb replacement. It’s been working perfectly since. Updating this immediately after posting to add more detail to the problem I had. The battery life was ABISMAL. 24 hrs of charging to yield a 35% battery. And on the rare moments it did get up to 100%, it would “die” at 75%, and then after holding Power and Home, it came back up with 40% left. It also randomly shut off at random times, while listening to music, while playing Ninjump, while browsing YouTube, while just swiping around on the home screen.

Hi everyone, Not sure if this is still relevant to anyone, but I have been experiencing exactly the same symptoms with my iphone 3gs. Regularly reception goes from full bars to no service and will randomly crash when im in the middle of a call, sending a text message and even opening some apps. Fearing it was the battery (phone is 3 years old) I bought a replacement battery from ebay and installed it myself. 2 months later, phone is still working, but the crashes continue to happen…. :( Unfortunately I don’t think the problem is battery related. I am back to the drawing board.