iphone 4s wifi greyed out.

Go for the hair dryer - I tried both and only really heating it created a sustainable solution. For me, around 4 mins blowing at the upper third worked well (since weeks). It gets so hot you cannot touch it. Flawless Wifi ever since.

It's fun to see how all the pseudo(?)-employees reminding us about warranty-ends-after 13 months or pay 200 USD for a refurbished one have left the thread, I guess because it is just so embarrassing for them to see how a high-tech device, which changed the world of communication, must be fixed with a hair-dryer - becauser the maker has no plan or intention to fix it.

The same thing has happened to my mum's iPhone; the first time about a month ago, I reset the phone's network settings and it worked fine. It happened again and resetting the network settings doesn't do it anymore. I tried the hairdrier thing but that doesn't work either. It seems that the iOS has triggered it or something.

My dad has an iPhone 4S too and if it happens to his phone and I can't fix it (as I seem to be the house Babcock), he'll yell at me :-(

This is to update on the wifi repair status of my phone. To recall, i am in Mumbai and got the wifi problem repaired for $35. My joy was short-lived as the problem resurfaced again after a month! I went back to the repairer and he has got it working again; though he has not charged me anything extra for it. One of the contributers in this forum has earlier opined that the repairer would have applied the heating technique only rather than replacing any components (as it looks difficult within $35). May be his reading is right. Anyways, it seems like we are all doomed without any scope of a permanent fix. If it was due to the IOS upgrade, dont you think Apple would have definitely send a patch for 4S seperately to fix it? Yes, i do agree that these forums are infiltrated by under-cover apple employees. When I started with this forum, i was surprised to see patriotism towards Apple overpowering one's discretionary and impartial intelligence to see the facts! Anyways, I am moving out of this smartphone mania whereby we pay through the nose for something which is not durable. I think this is the latest tulip-mania to hit the world....

Good post. Apple is in denial about this; sales are okay. Why respond to existing customers when you can find a few million new suckers every month. This is how once great companies fade out. For me, no cachet left, time to move on.

Just for an update on everyone still experiencing this, went into the apple store last week explained my problem and right of the bat he gave me a refurbished phone saying the problem isn't really fixable and the phone needs to be replaced so obviously the best situation is to go to the Genius Bar. Also my warranty was out of date but because I was nice an patient he honored me a free phone , so word of advice don't go to the Genius Bar acting like the employees are the ones who broke your phone. Good luck and excuse me for any typos since I am currently on the iPhone 4S. Cheers.

Hmm.. interesting.

I would like to share the similar story.

Mine was initially greyed out once it's upgraded into iOS 6.0 - 6.1.2. Until I search for local repair shop, and it was a fix which cost me $65, but apparently only last 30 days. After that, I return to the same local shop, and they redo the repair without charge. This time, it lasted 35 days.

Since I work with electronics, I have some bunch of stuff required to reflow the wifi chip. This fix is still working till now (it's about less than 2 days)

Hopefully I can keep you posted.

$35 - Told you. Sounds like they didn't even pull it apart for you. I will put it under my hairdryer for you for $29.95.

Hi all

I have iphone 4S with this wifi issue for about 6 months now. my device is about 1.5 year old.

I have some electornics experience and equipment, including a proffessional heat gun.

Every few weeks I open up the back cover, set the heat gun to 450cellcius, and heat it from
~3cm distance for 7-8 seconds.

This fixed the problem for few weeks, and then all over again..

So clearly this is not a soldering issue. It seems that the problem is in the chip design, something

is 'building up' there with time (some kind of internal charge), and the heat resets this condition.

The only permanent solution is to replace the faulty chip, which is not a simple task, not every repair shop

can do it, it requires reflow soldering equipment, and in my country it takes few days to do it, and cost ~100$.

The chip itself can be baught on ebay for 25$ :

www.ebay.com/itm/Original-Wifi-IC-BGA-Chip-Repair-Faulty-WIFI-For-Logic-Board-Fo r-iPhone-4S-/251281538443?pt=US_Cell_Phone_Replacement_Parts_Tools&hash=item3a81 8bfd8b

I think apple should replace the phones having this issue even if they are out of warranty, just like car companies does when they find a systematic problem.

The way I did it was I held a hairdryer agaist the back of the phone until it came up saying the iPhone temperature is to hot please wait to cool down i then put it in the freezer for ten mins and my wifi has been on 2 days now

Happy days hope u get results from this

I work in a shop that sells apple products and iphones and have had 12 - 15 costumers come in with the same problem. "I am one of them"

The problem is the new update 7.0.3 and other IOS 7 versions but mostly with 7.0.3

unfortunatly there is no fix for this problem until apple bring out a new update because the problem is in the coding for the 7.0.3 version and there is NO WAY TO DOWNGRADE to a older version.

so we will all have to wait !!!!! 😟

Why do you think the problem is in the IOS version ? clearly it's a hardware problem.

If heating the chip fixes the problem (even if it's for limited time), and replacing the chip

solves the problem permanently - it's a hardware problem with the chip for sure.

For me it's started in IOS 6, so IOS 7 is not to blame.

For your next customers - I recommend heating the chip as described above, and telling them
it's not a permanent fix, for free.

If they wish to fix it for good they need to replace the chip.

I think with the amount of people this has happened with- apple are a disgrace asking people to pay when it's happened on so many phones

All I'm doing is saying what I did to fix it as I saw it on a YouTube video

48 hours now and still Working fine

Thanks, Im always open to new advice.

I´ve only had people come in with IOS 7 but it´s good to know it most probably is a hardware problem!!

I´ll let them know in the future.

Thanks again.

(complete shut down is necessary before doing this) I have just tried the hair dryer fix on the top front right and left part of the iphone for about 3-5 minutes until the phone was hot (you must turn the phone off before hand) . My wifi worked perfectly for about 15-20 minutes untill it cooled down again, so as this is not a pemenent fix it does allow you to update all those apps you have outstanding or any other bulk data or task you have to perform!!!

Iphone 4s will be my last Iphone. My next smartphone will be Samsung, and that's for sure!!!!!