iphone 4s wifi greyed out.

Spot on Buddy,

I am a tech, and the way you explained this is 100% on spot. If people have tried the firmware restore and all sorts of resetting and still have the issue. its hardware, and its the heat management chip which is malfunctioning, causing wifi to grey out and also sometimes BT.

And like you said, Doing Software updates/restores don't cause the problem.

They just bring out the Pre-existing problem, and make it visible to the user.

Regards

G

I tried all of the above (Airplane Mode, Reset Network settings, even a full Erase and Restore), but none of them worked for me.

Then I decided to combine information from several threads and figured that if it is an overheating problem, the solutions for avoiding overheating may work. I therefore switched off all the options under Privacy-Location Settings-System Services and eventually even decided to completely switch off the Location Services completely anyway. I don't know (yet) why (I understood that Location Services generate quite some traffic, causing at least some temperature increase) but for me this is already working for a few days.

It is a shame of course that in case you wanted to keep your Location Settings working you can't when you face the WiFi issue, but on the other hand, why have it continuously switched on anyway....? Anyone with an explanation why this may work?

Hey RedDevil

Any network related service on an iPhone does use a significant amount of power and processing. Hence if you have you phone on airplane mode your battery life is unbelievable. Obviously processing generates heats which is going to make the whole device warmer, causing it to affect the wifi chip.

You solution is a temporary one and not the best as alot of iPhone users use location services etc.

I would highly recommend getting that chip re-flowed or replacing the whole Logic board. But from what i know Apple wont re-flow just that chip.

Depends if you got extended warranty or anything of the sort, that might be your best option instead of getting a new phone or paying a fee for getting the chip re-flowed.

Hope this makes sense:)

Regards

G

Thanks VamoozE for the additional clarification. Since I am (just 2 months) out of warranty, I will accept doing without the Location Services for now. If I really want to re-use it, I will follow your advice and get the logic board (or perhaps even the complete iPhone by then) replaced...

My wife's iphone 4s has the same problem, If I repair the problem, she must be very happy🙂

I Faced with problem 2 times. At first I reset my network setting and it worked for just 2 days. Next time I tried tempreture fluctuation. It does work for more than a week up to now. You can test it. Warm up your iphone with hair dryer upto you will see tempreture warning and after that keep it on freezer for around 15 min. It worths to try it.

I've tried everything suggested, and my WiFi is still greyed out.

My phone is out of warranty (I'm assuming, as I never purchase 'extended warranties', on principle. I've saved thousands over the past 10 years by doing so!).

Living in Norther Ontario, I've NEVER seen a Genius Bar in my life - I'm not traveling 10 hours to Toronto to find one!

Of course the problem is Apple's fault. This isn't a 'once off' issue.

The issue existed at the time of manufacturing.

BUT, it wasn't revealed until an iOS update, far after the warranty expired . . . so how was I suppose to know way back then.

The iOS update should have reset the warranty period, at least for new issues revealed by the update.

But of course, the fanboys say its our fault. Hmm. They are quite funny to listen to, and to try and understand their misguided reasoning!

Pay $200 for a refurb - or jump ship and put that $200 towards an Android.

The wi-fi doldrums have forced me to feed my phone to the fishes, I hate being hornswaggled!

Android . . . ahoy matey!

I have tried everything from repair to heating, freezing....at the most it stays for 4-5 days. But at times, wifi goes off even after a few hours and does not come back after the heating/freezing, etc. Finally, I gave it up...I just bought an Asus android phone for $100. Takes care of all my requirements. Finally, abandoning the iphone 4s which was bought for $550...

I've had my iPhone 4S 64GB for over two years now and yesterday morning I got the dreaded iPhone 4S wifi greyed out screen. Never had this before and I updated to iOS 7.1.2 when it was released. So my phone has the latest software. Performed a network reset and even a complete restore (DFU mode) but it did not help. Next, I took it to an Apple store where the tech did the same resets with negative results and the only thing he could offer was to replace the phone ($199). The phone was working fine, except for the wi-fi.

There is a "solution" on the internet that worked for me. Apparently this has something to do with a thermal reset or unseating of the wi-fi chip. The posted solution was to heat up the phone with a hair dryer until a "thermal warning" comes on your screen - at which point you power the phone off, put it in a ziplock bag, and put it in the freezer for 10-15 mins. Take it out and restart it after a little while! From what I've read, this might work since it softens the solder a bit and then resets it in the freezer, reestablishing contact. Who knows.

I did this, except that I did not heat it all the way to a thermal warning, but rather until the phone felt quite hot. I just blew hot air up the connection port, the top, and the back. When it felt quite hot, I powered it down and did the freezer thing. And wow, my wi-fi came right back on! it's been on for a couple of hours now. No idea how long this will last. From what I read, some have had permanent success and some just for a few days. So who knows but there it is. Obviously I imagine has the potential of damaging the phone if the heat is excessive so it might not be advisable… but it worked for me! There is a YouTube video you search for see that illustrates this technique.

Oh my goodness, Ralph Landry1, that totally worked. I kept seeing these posts online about the hairdryer and freezer thing so I thought what the heck. I read your post while my phone was in the freezer, which didn't work for me. I tried your solution and it totally worked! Thank you!!!

http://youtu.be/LuYdFul9k08

This really works ive tried it myself

As crazy as the solution sounds, the heat your phone until the temp warning appears, power it off and put it in the freezer for 10 minutes worked for me. Fingers crossed that the problem does not reappear.

My wi-fi grayed out on me yesterday. One second it was working and the next it wasn't. Considering the poor 4G I get in my area (and in my own house), this is an extreme inconvenience, and basically makes having a smart phone worthless as it takes ten minutes or so to load a webpage or app. I've tried Apple's suggestion of resetting network settings, as well as Ralph's suggestion (airplane, do not disturb on and off), and freezing. However I am unable to take Ralph's suggestion of backing up and restoring my phone because every time I try, it says "iPhone cannot back up because the iPhone has been disconnected" when it clearly has not. I'm wary about contacting Apple support considering the last couple times I've had to use them, I've spent money for nothing because they didn't help one bit. Looks like I may be getting a new phone. I don't know what help I'm looking for here, if any, but if anybody has any suggestions, that would be great.

I tried the hair dryer and freezer thing. I think it works for some people, but it didn't work for me. The only thing that worked was the airplane/do not disturb solution. Also, I'm pretty sure he mentioned the heat that gets created from too many apps running location on you. I didn't think that could be my problem because I didn't think I downloaded that many apps. When I went to my settings and looked in my location services there were SOO MANY apps running location on me!!! All of my running apps, weather, etc. So I deactivated all of them, like Ralph says to do, and only reactivated the few that I use daily, weather, facebook, etc. This has kept me out of the grey so far! When you tried this did you turn your location services back on immediately? I'm just wondering if you don't have the same problem I did. I just kept my location services off for a few minutes until I went into my settings and realized how many apps were actually running location services on me. Maybe try again and keep the location services off and only activate a few?

Best of luck! Such an annoying problem!

-Susan

Hi everyone,

Here I go, another story of an EX- Apple client after being really disappointed by their service..

I had the same issue.

I bought my iPhone in Belgium in a provider store (Mobistar) in November 2011.

Really happy with it, great device, UNTIL I downloaded iOS 7 in October 2013. (I didn't want to but practically was FORCED by my own phone). After this, my wifi started turning on and off, acting really weird. After 2 days, the button just greyed out, couldn't do anything with it.

As we don't have an official Apple store with genius bar in Belgium, I went to a Switch store. I told the guy about my problem, he immediately knew what was going on, didn't even care to look at my phone nor did he make any record of it in his computer but just said I should go to the store where I bought it (Mobistar) and I would get a new one as it was still in warranty (warranty in Belgium is 2 years). I was leaving on holiday for 3 weeks the next day so was kinda bummed out I wouldn't be able to take my phone with me (really needed it to check my e-mails etc). But, I had no other option so decided to go and hand in my phone the next day. When I came home that night, my wifi magically turned on again and I was so happy it worked again and decided to just take my phone with me on holiday the next day. Little did I know, it was just a temporary 'fix', just the chip that decided to work again for 2 days. After one day in Portugal, the wifi went down again and NEVER came back up. When I came home 3 weeks later, my phone was out of warranty for 1 day. Dear lord I could've cried like a baby.

I tried contacting an Apple employee through the internet and all they did was tell me I should visit a Genius bar.

In February, I went on holiday to New York so made an appointment at the Genius bar in the Apple store on Fifth Ave.

The girl there was friendly, but same story: she knew immediately what the problem was, told me it's a common problem with the 4s but denied that it happened after downloading iOS7, had nothing to do with it she said. Completely ridiculous ofcourse. Then, she told me that if the employee at the Switch store had made a record of my complaint, I could have proven that it was already broken within my warranty and she could have had it fixed for free. The only thing she could do for me now was give me a "new" (it's refurbished, so basically she was lying) phone for 200$. Ok, so after paying 650€ (840$) for my iPhone, I had to pay another 200$, leaving me with an (at that time already) old phone for which I would have payed a total of 1040$. She told me that it would be better to buy an iPhone 5 immediately because after a year a 4S would be useless as well with updates that won't work on it anymore. Wow, thanks for not helping me at all.

I kept using my phone (which was getting slower and slower and with draining battery life) for half a year more, forcing me to spend endless amounts on cellular data. Thanks Apple!! Love your customer service!

I even tried the blowdry and freezer trick (together with all the other options) but it didn't even work for me. Honestly, while blowdrying my phone I couldn't help but laugh that a company that makes billions each year forces just forces customers to blowdry and freeze phones for wchich they pay a month's rent.

Know, I think it's crazy I ever paid that amount for a device from a company with SUCH BAD CUSTOMER SERVICE.

But lesson learned, I just bought the Samsung S4 Mini for a reasonable price and can't wait to start using it.

My advice: iPhone is not worth its price, and even if it was, the customer service is so disappointing that it's still not worth it.