Severe Battery Drain Problem iPhone 5S

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Severe Battery Drain Problem iPhone 5S

Hello guys, I'm just new to the forum and I'm searching for a possible answer to my problem:

The problem started a few weeks back, maybe 2 months. I was charging my phone one day and it was fine until later on in the day, my battery was going down so fast unbelievabl I thought maybe it's just a temporary problem so I decided to hard reboot my phone, home and sleep/wake button of course. I turned it on and the battery percentage was different, and each time I turned it off and on again the battery percentage would be different, strange. So I decided to replace the battery (since the phone was bought on eBay, but it was fine until like December from May last year). So I replaced the battery but the same thing was going in, and while that happened my charging port started to act up though it wasn't damaged at all, it wouldn't accept the same ungenuine apple lightning cable. I had 2 of the same ones and one of them would work and the other not. I decided to change the charging port which resulted in not accepting any ungenuine Apple cable which forced me to buy an original one, and it works fine (though for my friends iPhone 6S the ungenuine work fine). Anyway back to the problem, I replaced the battery again now to a new genuine Apple battery, which the guy assured me was genuine as he was replacing it. Though the problem still persists, last night I left my phone at 70 something percent to see if it lasts, and no it didn't though it should be at least 30/40% still as I remember if I left my phone at like 90% i would wake up and see it would still be at like 75/80%. I have tried restoring through iTunes but I still used my backup to restore which may be the problem, my keychain is off. I haven't tried fresh restore without restoring the back up, I would rather ask here because someone may know the answer to this.

P.S My phone gets quite hot when I charge it and when on 3G, sometimes very hot.

Thanks in advance.

iPhone 5s, iOS 9.2.1

Posted on Feb 14, 2016 6:24 AM

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Answer 1

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love repair

Level 1

65 points

Feb 14, 2016 10:02 AM in response to Patzzxd

Oof, eBay phones are tough because they have such unknown history. You may have more than one thing going on, so let's try to clarify this problem a bit and get you some advice.

1--The battery. Replacement batteries that are available outside of Apple have really variable quality. I would be highly suspicious of a battery that was sold by someone claiming that it was "genuine Apple" since that of course is not possible. Folks that are not up front about this tend to be a little scammy.

2--gas gauge problem. Turning the phone off and seeing a different battery percentage points to a gas gauge problem. This has two common causes. Bad battery, and missing filter on the board on the gas gauge line. Since you've experience gas gauge defect with multiple batteries (but of questionable quality) your problem may be the gas gauge filter. This filter is commonly damaged either 1--by technician damage (knocked off the board) or 2--water damage. Either could be the case here.

3--Tristar chip problem. Fake charging, no charging, no usb detection, and especially--trouble recognizing different usb cables can point to a defect in the Tristar chip on the logic board. This chip is very sensitive to non-Apple charger usage. Your statement "forced me to buy a genuine cable" would put a Tristar (also known as U2 chip) problem at the top of my suspect list for this phone.

4--"old" water damage. Heat = short in the phone. While a bad Tristar chip can cause the phone to run hot, it is also possible that insufficiently treated water damage can be the cause of a partial short in your phone. A short will run down the battery very quickly.

So what to do now? Your phone has a complex presentation and my advice is that you really need to have it seen by someone who is capable of treating board level problems on iPhones. Call your local independent repair shops and talk to them. Find one with great reviews, who will warranty their work, and who will not charge you to look at this board. You need one that is capable of board-level repair--aka not the mall guys.

best of luck!

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Answer 2

Patzzxd Author

Level 1

0 points

Feb 14, 2016 10:01 AM in response to love repair

Thanks for the advice, the guy at the repair shop gave me warranty on the battery for 3 months and also my charging port for 6 months. I'll go and see them tomorrow explain the problem but I am quite surprised that I've been there so many times and they haven't noticed anything. Anyway I'll explain everything, see if they can do anything and I'll reply back here if I have any new information, I just hope I don't need to buy a new device, I've not even had this phone for a year! Anyway thanks.

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