iPhone 5s says it's charging but isn't?
kirbyreed
Posts: 1,816 Forum Member
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So, my iPhone 5s has had charging problems for a while but I just chalked it up to my original charger breaking and the replacement ones I bought were just rubbish knock off ones from ebay that have a short shelf life, because after getting a new charger it would work for about a month and then it would stop charging and I'd get a new charger and that would be the cycle. For the last couple of weeks though, it has said it's charging fine but it doesn't. Very rarely does it actually charge, and even then it has to be plugged in all day with the brightness down and on airplane mode to even get to 50%
So I checked online and a lot of people said replace the battery, so I ordered one online and eventually managed to replace it this morning. It started charging perfectly until it got to 63% and then it stopped and continued to say it was charging but was losing battery. I get an upgrade in October so I don't really want to invest a lot of money in a fix. I've heard that maybe it could be the actual charging port? Any suggestions?
So I checked online and a lot of people said replace the battery, so I ordered one online and eventually managed to replace it this morning. It started charging perfectly until it got to 63% and then it stopped and continued to say it was charging but was losing battery. I get an upgrade in October so I don't really want to invest a lot of money in a fix. I've heard that maybe it could be the actual charging port? Any suggestions?
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If so go to Settings > General > Usage > Battery Usage and look at the Usage and Standby times - are they the same or different? If they are the same then I suspect your problem is that the phone is constantly running something that is draining power and your charger is struggling to keep up. Take a look at the list of apps under Battery Usage and if one is obviously using a lot more power than anything else then try deleting it and reinstalling to see if that helps. If it is a built in app (like Safari) then try a force close - double tap the Home button and scroll left/right to find the app and then swipe up. You could also try a full reboot (hold power and home buttons together until the Apple logo appears) to see if that helps.
As a last resort I would recommend doing a full restore as a new iPhone and then reinstalling your apps etc. from fresh, as over time battery-draining gremlins can develop. In my experience they tend to be caused by app updates leaving behind buggy code which can usually be cleared by deleting the app in question and then redownloading the current version from the app store, but it isn't always obvious which app is causing the problem - hence restoring as new and downloading everything from fresh will ensure you catch the culprit.
If the battery usage information doesn't suggest anything being wrong then I guess it is a hardware fault but not sure what could be causing it if you have already replaced the battery - perhaps booking a session with an Apple Genius bar if you have a store nearby? They have diagnostics they can run which could isolate the problem there and then.
What you could do is do a full backup, then erase all contents and settings and leave it in a fresh "as new" state and see if it charges up ok at that point. If not then it is almost certainly a hardware fault so you probably need a repair at an Apple Genius bar or a new phone. At least you will have a backup to put back on once you have a working handset.
Try rebooting after closing all the apps, and then charging. A reboot is done by holding both the top (sleep/wake) and front (home) buttons and keep the both pressed down until you see the Apple logo then release.