iPhone 3GS won't turn on or charge....

NOOO! Please don't delete this topic! I have the EXACT SAME problem! It came back to life for 3 hours and dead again! Don't get too excited.

My iPhone is also from Australia, I got it through e-bay as we don't have an Apple store here! It's factory unlocked.

Help me please!

I have a 32GB 3GS and today mine died on me too.
I left to go to Lowes knowing my battery was full. Made one phonecall
got home.. iphone was off..
So plugged it into the charger, and saw the red battery with lightning bolt.
It's been on the charger for three hours and no battery power yet, I cannot turn the phone on.
I have tried Recovery mode, that did not work.
Then tried DFU mode, that did not work either, cannot make it work in itunes.

What steps next ?? I live two hours away from an apple store and really don't want to drive there

SAME ****!!

I bought a brand new 32GB 3GS yesterday and it died on me after 6 hours without me even using it, plugged it in the charged before i went to bed woke up 6 hours later, same thing, red battery with lightning bolt.

Can't get Itunes to recognize it either... and apple store is an hour and a half away....

Iphone 3GS 16Gb White
London UK
o/s 3.1

I had my phone for 2 days.... Sync to Pc and updated to the current software and all contacts and running google mail. Added 9 apps all fine for 1st 24 hours.

Then I charged it again as was going to work. Just about made it to the 12 hrs when battery life got low....

Put it on charge, 3rd party charger and the phone did not charge.... Continued to drain.....

I switched it off and still it continued to drain whee by it eventually died....

Can't get it to charge. Had it on for 4 hours and it just got very warm....

Due a replacement today.....

Any reason as to why this happened.... ANYBODY.....

I have the EXACT same problem. I just got my iPhone 3GS today, updated it to 3.1 or 3.0.1 (i don't know) - and then suddenly I had an iPhone with a black screen.

It doesn't appear in iTunes or elsewhere. What the FFFF happend?

hey i had the same problem with my phone. What i did is put my phone on charge and it did not turn on.so i called my cusin and he told me to hold the power button and the middle button the main home button, what i did was hold them both together for 10 seconds and it reseted the whole phone and after that no problems at all

Was sending mail, surfing web, locked it, put it in my pocket drove home and black screen. and wouldn't do anything!!! I knew the charge was at least 85% had not long taken it off the charger.

Googled the issue and got to the forum, read the posts and tried the following from the posts:

"hold the power button and the home button, what i did was hold them both together for 10 seconds and it reseted the whole phone and after that no problems at all"

What the heck kind of mode was it in? Anybody figured this out? What caused it?

Man, liked to crapped my pants....

a friends iphone shat itself the same way others have described here. did not charge and would not turn on. a booking was made at the apple store to see a technician. the technician said that they have 15 minutes to repair the phone otherwise a brand new iphone was given, provided that your phone was still under warranty.

To all those who still have this problem, the following procedure might help you.

A friend of mine who has one of the early models of 3GS with OS 3.0 running had same problem.

This is what I did to fix it.

1. Plugged in the phone to Computer, the screen showed up with empty battery.
2. Held Home+Power button the phone blinked released Power button but still held the home button. iTunes recognized the phone and stated phone in Recovery MODE.

3. Clicked restore to the latest version of the OS, as soon as the iTunes rebooted the phone to process the restore disconnected the phone. Did a restart, and wallah, the phone started fine.


If the second part of the process doesn't work for some people try switching the mute button to on or off. As couple of times the phone wouldn't boot to Recovery Mode.

Note: I had my computer speakers on so every time i could hear that the USB is connecting to a device or something like that. Also, when the phone booted in Recovery Mode i had a black screen so the only way I knew if it was in Recovery mode was because I had iTunes ON.

Hope it helps some people.
And please ignore my grammar, English is not my native language.

Regards;

This worked beautifully. I had the same exact problem, my 3GS drained from 100% to 0 in an hour or so, and then wouldn't charge no matter where I plugged it in, and a restart only brought it back to the red battery and charging logo screen. My phone is currently backing up and resyncing with my computer, THANK YOU SO MUCH. I can now cancel my appointment with the genius bar.

Thanks a lot it did worked for me as well.

Regards,
Rajesh