[sympleko]

Hi, I bought an iPhone 3G last Friday and until now everything's been great. This morning I grabbed the phone and it had no charge. I got the low battery image on the left here:

!http://forums.macworld.com/legacyimages/
1!

I thought it was odd since it was fully charged when I left work yesterday and I hadn't used it since about 6pm the night before. But I haven't been able to get it charged since.

When I got to work today I connected it to the computer. At first the screen stayed blank, finally it popped up and the battery icon showed it was charging. I was able to sync the iPhone at this point and received and sent text messages.

Three hours later the main image was still the low battery one, but the small one on the top of the window is the "plug" battery like the one on the right below, as if it were fully charged.

!http://forums.macworld.com/legacyimages/
1!

I disconnected it and immediately the iPhone powered down. I reconnected it and it was just as before--it took several minutes to muster enough charge to turn on, charged a little, but disconnecting showed there was no battery power.

Some googling reveals that this sometimes goes away if you restart or restore. I did both and nothing has changed. At this point the phone has been connected to my computer for the better part of six hours, and still has no battery charge. Once it moved up to 20%, but then it moved back down again.

What gives? Is my battery hosed?

[Grapho]

Be sure your computer is not set to go to sleep. Sleep mode will drain your battery instead of charging it. I always charge my iphone from an electrical outlet, not my computer, because of this reason.

When your computer goes to sleep, it in effect cuts off the power to the USB connection. But since the iPhone is connected it thinks that it needs to be on.

[sympleko]

Thanks for the response. In this case, I don't think sleep mode has anything to do with it since I've been working at the computer all day long. It's never been asleep.

[sympleko]

I was able to get a full charge into the phone by plugging it into a wall socket. I suspect it wasn't charging off my computer because my computer is so old (2003 PowerBook G4). Maybe it was lacking power along the USB wire to charge. We shall see.

[Grapho]

The USB connector on the G4 is USB 1.0 on new hardware is USB 2.0 I am glad you solved your problem. You could get an inexpensive PCI USB 2.0 adapter card that will probably not only charge your iPhone, but transfer data almost 200 X+ faster.

[sympleko]

The problem is solved but not the mystery. I have the phone plugged into the computer now and it's charging fine. :D

But no need to upgrade the USB port. New computer on the way!

[Grapho]

Just got a MacPro a couple of months ago. I love it.

[a7878]

There is an issue with the IC that handles charging the battery and generating the different voltages the iPhone needs. Historically there have been problems with this chip so I am not surprised you are experiencing glitches with the 3G already. If the problems comes back it is most likely not caused by the battery, since the battery should not cause problems in the first year. If the battery has a manufacturing problem it will not recover spontaneously and you can take it to Apple. If you are out of warranty or unlocked your iPhone there are independent iPhone battery repair services that can open the iphone for you and replace whatever is needed, but they will charge for it.

[JiggyJew]

I had this EXACT issue with my new 3g iphone. 4 days it sat on the charger, displaying these exact pictures with nothing happening, and me not able to use it. Finally, I decided to call AT&T and see if they could help. After waiting on the phone for 1 hour a rep finally picked up the phone and told me my phone would have to be swapped because there was a "software issue" I stated to her that this could not be the problem, she disagreed of course. As I was going back and forth with her about this issue, I decided as a last ditch effort to avoid replacing the phone I would yank out the SIM card and see if that did anything, she said it would not. BUT IT WORKED!!!!! Upon reinserting the SIM card and powering up, the apple immedietly appered and the phone began charging. I must act as a hard reset of some type, all I know is it worked [inappropriate text snipped]

[sm86]

I had the same exact problem and I was able to fix it! No need to take it to Apple

(specifically convinient for those of us that got the iphone 3g on ebay)

This is how it happened:

I was talking on the iphone when it said that my battery had less than 10% less, I went ahead and then connected it to the wall charge I have for it and continued to talk. 30 mins later the iphone just turned off completely. I was pretty upset to say the least. I went to turn it on again and found the same exact picture being described. I figured I just had to let it be for a few hours on the wal charger.

The next day in the morning and find out that the iphone had the same picture and had not charged 1 bit!

I hard restarted it (pressed the power and home buttons to force it to shut down and turned it on again) and nothing same picture. I took out the charger and put it back, nothing, same picture (it would even turn off if I didn't put the charger back in right away).

I then used my USB dock (a dock actually for the old iphone version, but that still works for the 3g, if you force it in). And nothing my computer would not recognize it.

Finally I thought of something:

I placed in the dock and turn it on, once again giving me the annoying battery screen. However, this time I actually restarted my computer. My rational was that if the device was connected while it was booting up the computer had to recognize it somehow.

During my computer's boot sequence the iphone appeared to had turned off, I didn't touch anything though. After windows loaded, I noticed that still the iphone was black as if it was turned off. Thinking that it probably ran out battery once again, I went to turn on the iphone while still having it on the dock (during this whole time I had not removed it from the dock).

And alas! I saw the apple symbol and my springboard showed up!

It is now currently charging (I can see the charge increase on the screen, when I lock the screen) on my usb dock.

I went to place it back on the wall charger though and it seems that it doesn't work. I will be buying a new wall charger soon.

I am thinking when I was talking on the iphone and connected it to the wall it simply never charged and thus the battery completely drained. As soon as I placed on something that wasn't broken (ie: my iphone usb dock) it started to charge but still was frozen on that (stupid) battery screen. Restarting my computer while connected did something to the iphone so that now it is fully opperational. All without having to resort to apple's communist ways of trying to control all aspects of your life.

Personally I'm not an apple fan. I "gave into" the whole iphone thing when I figured out there was a generation of people my age committed into fighting back the apple empire while still using its technology.

Cheers

[DaveCarson]

I had the same problem just this morning and I'm not really sure which solution worked but this is how it went down:

I was on the phone last night and ignored the low battery warning and the phone cut off. I plugged it into the wall and got the screen with the battery and the lightning bolt. I charged the phone while I slept, and still no battery power.

I tried resetting it, I tried the SIM card yank, I tried restarting the computer while it was still on and that didn't work. However, I finally turned it off, hooked it up to my computer and then restarted the computer. Once the computer was fully back on I turned the phone on and it finally worked.

[smilingzoia]

Hi,
I had a similar problem. I bought my iPhone from an unofficial reseller, in the states, who unlocked it so it could work in Israel (where I live). When I came back and inserted my simcard, everything worked fine for the first 6 days. Today, my iphone needed charging, and i put it in the wall adapter and waited for it to charge for 4 hours. The battery level stayed the same-10% left or so. The phone didn't die, but it didn't charge either. I went to a place in Israel, which I knew was good with phones and they gave me another usb (stupid, I know). Still didn't work. I used the method of turning off my phone, connecting it to the computer and restarting it. After I restarted it on the computer, the picture showing was that the battery was full. After I disconnected the phone, it showed that it was all charged up, and working like nothing ever went wrong. I will see what goes on the next time I try to charge it. . .

[yaroslavvb]

My IPhone used to show 10% battery charge left after few hours in the charger. After restart, it showed battery almost full.

[jzira]

I had some very similar problems, but fixed it by flipping the adapter in the wall socket.

- charged overnight (using wall adapter) after battery had run out, but when I turned phone on next morning, got the empty battery sign

- tried resetting, plugging in to computer, nothing worked

- plugged the adapter into the wall socket, but this time put it in upside down (since it can be plugged in either direction), and the phone immediately showed the white apple sign, started up, and showed that it was fully charged

strange...