Is it a bad dock connector?

As Apple doesn't consider iPhones to have any user-serviciable parts, this really isn't the best forum for your sort of question. As I understand it, iFixit.com has forums. That might be a better venue.

I_like_Vintage_PCs wrote:

but I am a bit of a hacker-ish hobbyist. 🙂

I'm sure there are lots of sites out that there that focus on that area of interest. Good luck.

And I wasn't bored the last time, either. Just trying to point you in a better direction.

😉

I_like_Vintage_PCs wrote:

Sorry. I didn't realize that was you. However, you seems to be right. This is a bit in depth, and I may or may not have done something that would've voided it's warranty, anyway (if it wasn't 5 years out of date.) I will try iFixit. Need to order a logic board and dock connector. Thanks again

Apple doesn't sell parts, so any part that you buy was salvaged from another iPhone and its condition will be unknown. Logic boards in particular are a real issue, because the device ID is on the logic board, so there's a good chance that a replacement logic board will be activation locked, and thus unusable. There is no way to bypass activation lock on the device, as the lock status is stored on Apple's activation servers, not in the phone.