Q: iPhone 5 wifi issues

I have.  I have had it replaced 5 times already.  I have an Apple Store almost literally down the street, which would be nice if all the employees could actually figure out how to set up an AirPort Extreme right.  To have my iPhone replaced by mail, I have two options:

A. send in my iPhone to get it replaced, wait a week, then get a refurbished replacement

OR

B. give Apple a credit card number with $750 free (or a bank account with $750 free) so they can put a hold on it and send me a refurbished iPhone via "Express Replacement", then once I receive the new iPhone and activate it, I send them the old iPhone back.  Simple, but I don't have $750 in my account nor do I have a credit card with that much free.

Apple seriously needs to come up with more replacement options.  A lot of people can't be without their phone for a week or have a $750 hold placed for Apple to send them one first.

They really need to fix this.  They cannot get away with this!

Actually they have never faced such a big issue of hardware before that. They just faced small issues of softwares in the past which they resolved by sending updates and thngs kept on improving. But now they are badly stuck up as their market already suffered a lot because of samsung galaxy 3 and 4. So if they announce this problems, then thousands of users will start coming for replacement and they will have to bear more loss.

There are many examples that despite replacing iph5, people are still facing many problems. So nothing cant be done as Apple is hiding from this problem for the last 8 months now atleast i dont expect anything from them. So just waiting for iphone5S with the expectations that apple must have resolved this wifi issue in iph5S.

So lets hope for the best. Sorry to hear you but i have seen many stories like yours. Even I also sufferd big loss and after finding no solution, I ultimately sold both iphone5 in half prices. Now waiting for Apple iphone5S but i promised one thing that if the same problem is repeated in iphone5S, I will permanently leave Apple forever.

haroonansari72 wrote:

 

... One of the shop technician told me that he resolved this wifi issue on one of the iph5 after replacing wifi chip. but said wifi chip is not available in market. ...

While I won't say it's impossible, replacing a surface mounted chip that is as tiny and as tightly packed in among other things like the iPhone chips are would be an extremely challenging task for even the steadiest of hands.  And that's if the old chip isn't epoxied in place, which the iPhone 5 chips are.   It seems pretty unlikely that an Apple shop technician replaced the wifi chip.  The antenna, sure, but not the chip.

haroonansari72 wrote:

 

Actually they have never faced such a big issue of hardware before that.

Are you talking about just iPhones, or iPhones, Macs, and iPads?

If just iPhones; does anyone remember AntennaGate?

If you are talking about all 3;

iBook G3 (Dual USB) Graphics Card Problem

iMac G5 bad capacitors

Early MacBook Pros Graphics Card Problem

iMac Intel (2009-2011) screen flicker issues and bad HDDs

iPad 2 (2011) Backlight leak reported on early devices

MacBook Pro with Retina Display (2012 model) had screen ghosting problems

Now most of these problems Apple set up a Repair Program for and were fixed, which I give them a lot of credit for.  But there have been some that had to be fixed under warranty and Apple said noting about, i.e iPad 2 light leak, MBPwR Ghosting.

I'm wondering, has anyone here purchased, not received a refurbished iPhone, but purchased a brand new iPhone after the beginning of the year (Jan 1st, 2013)?  Do you still have problems?  I'm thinking if the iPhones we receive are refurbished, the logic board in them is not new (according to Apple's refurbished page).  So this means that we could keep getting the same bad logic boards over and over again with the same Wi-Fi chips.  Is there anyone who can confirm that a new iPhone 5 bought after January 1st, 2013 still has problems?  If so, please post your purchase month and year.

Well I got my new replacement as in brand new in may. It won't connect to hotspots and really has a weak signal. I've been talking to apple and even did some info exchange on the router but it never did anything. I'm really frustrated with the wifi issue. Like I said before my 3GS is stronger and even on speed tests out performed my 5. I have a gsm model so I'm not sure if that makes any difference. My brother in law has a weaker one than me and my sisters seems fine. I have 16 black my bro in law 32 black my sister 16 white. I have no idea way to do now. But I'm still talking with apple.

A "certain new version" appears to have fixed my issues, early days, will post again in a few days.

By which you mean the download speed issue, which necessitated using a Proxy, ozsmacd?

Sadly it appears I may have jumped to an early conclusion without enough testing, 240MB podcast download showing as 15m+ with no local proxy..............3m with the local proxy.  I would swear here, obviously this is frustrating......why can't it just work.

That's very disappointing, to say the least....

Maybe this is a hardware bug that will only be fixed with the next iPhone.

In case this helps someone else - our ip5 with the latest ios update has the exact issues as prescribed with wifi drops, we tried every solution listed here to no avail. We then decided to test the remedy of putting it close to our wap2 router, that made a remarkable difference in signal strength, but as soon as we went away from it, same thing happened. Seeing it as a potential signal strength issue, we made an assumption that the iphone cover was hindering its signal so we removed it, and voila, signal strength remained to be full at distance, no trouble connecting, so far so good. Of couse this might just be isolated to our particular set up. Good luck!

which case were you using with your ip5?

Like everyone else on this thread, this issue is really frustrating!! I tried removing the cover and stood by my AEBS (dual band) - as suggested, still no improvement.

Recently I downloaded my regular podcasts in a Starbucks store and noted an improvement - not great, but better. Last week I stayed with friends running a BT Infinity Homehub (similar ISP speeds to my home, but single band) and my regular downloads just flew!!

So back home I gave the 5GHz N band an individual name, to see if the Dual Band was the issue, but sadly no improvement.

Of those that saw an improvement after the last update, how many are running Apple Airports, versus other brands? Based on my very limited tests, I am thinking there might be an issue with iPhone 5 and Apple Airports.

Message was edited by: MacHay (Typo correction)

My neighbor's wifi router was using channel 8, mine was using channel 10 and had this problem. Forcing the router to channel 1 seems to have solved the problem.

In my ZeXEL P-2601HN-F1 router, I logged in and chose "Network Settings" -> "Wireless" and changed the "Channel Selection" from "Auto" to "Channel 1". Will probably be similar for other routers.

I have a japanese case that should be plastic but with an aluminum plating