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Second generation of iPhone. Model A1241 / 8 or 16 GB capacity / black or white plastic back. Repair is more straightforward than the first iPhone. requires screwdrivers, prying, and suction tools.

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Gold grounding prong on motherboard affect battery life?

I was removing my 3G motherboard a few days ago and I broke off the small gold motherboard ground next to the "Do Not Remove" sticker. What should the effects I encounter be? My battery life has since suffered drastically and will hardly last a full day. Also, I know you can order IC chips for the motherboard to replace damaged ones, can you replace this?

Update

I'd like to update this post with my solution. I took one of the thin metal camera holders from a parts phone and bent two edges onto the area of the bracket that the screw passes through so it would rest on that corner. Then I soldered it in place. When I was reinstalling it I adjusted the bend in the prong so that it would just contact the bezel when installed, but not so extreme that the force of snapping it into place would break it off of its solder. If you'd like pictures just ask and I'll e-mail them to you.

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Just wanted to clarify that I can't verify that the battery issues occurred at the same time it broke. It just seems they were really close to each other in time.

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hi jarrett, could you please post the photo's ? could really do with your solution... cheers jen

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Do you have an e-mail address I can send you some pictures too? They're not fantastic as it's an old 5.0MP point and shoot but I think you'll get the idea.

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Yes it will affect battery life - primarily because the bezel on the iphone is actually part of the antenna. The prong in question is one of 2 ground contacts for the antenna. To compensate for the damaged prong, your iphone is most likely applying full voltage to the antenna circuit.

I snapped the same prong off mine and I am looking for a replacement. If I cant find one, I'm just going to adapt a gold contact from an old scrap phone. Best bet is to find the official part name or number then ebay it. I'm still looking.

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Yeah I've been looking on eBay for a while. I even contacted a company that sells some of the IC chips for the motherboard to see if they had any or knew of where to get them. They asked me to send them a picture and have yet to respond back after I sent a picture. I will continue to look as well. Please let me know if you find a part though as my new 1600MAH battery is lucky to get through 1 day of below average use. Thanks!

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For all those interested, I do not have pictures. They were on a computer that the hard drive was corrupted on and I no longer have them I also sold the phone so taking new ones is not an option either. I'll try to make it as clear as possible though for people to follow. So, a formal DIY will follow in this post.

iPhone 3G/3GS motherboard grounding prong fix:

This worked out really nice for my situation because I fix iPhones quite a bit and as a result I have a lot of random spare parts lying around. You may not have the same resources that I did and if not you will need to be creative. In this case, I used a silver prong from that holds the camera down on the 3G and 3GS model phones. That is the only part you'll need.

The brass grounding prong on my motherboard broke completely off once when I was removing my motherboard to replace the battery. I couldn't find it so I put the phone back together like normal once my battery replacement was done. I noticed a sharp decrease in battery life and this is likely due to Peter's reasoning (accepted answer for this topic). I looked around to try and order the prong to no avail so I decided to improvise. I happened to have an extra camera tab from someone's phone I had that was almost totally smashed. It has a wider base at the end that the screw passes through so I figured it would be suitable to mount in the same arrangement as the brass prong and I would simply have to bend it up in the same orientation so that it would make contact with the inside of the bezel once the motherboard was installed. I cheated a little bit and used super glue at first so it would hold itself in place while I soldered it down. If you cannot solder it down I recommend holding it in place with something small and unobtrusive such as the head of a pen while the motherboard is on a flat surface and applying super glue to the top of the tab. Some runoff will occur and that will be what hold the contact in place. If you do it between the tab and the motherboard contact pad you run the risk of not having an electrical connection. That would defeat the purpose of this DIY fix in the first place. Once I reassembled my phone and fully charged my battery, the battery and antenna performance went back to normal levels. A good preventative measure for this issue is to be careful when installing your motherboard and not allowing that brass tab to get behind the bezel. It will get caught and that is what breaks them. If it does get caught apply some pressure to that lower corner once all screws are removed from the motherboard and it should clear the bezel and free itself. That's all I've got so let me know if there's anything else I can do.

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Brilliant advice, thanks jarret, I'm sure thus is one of the more popular problems... So you've helped lots of people.

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I only used a camera hold-down tab because my gold prong broke. If yours fell off then I would recommend putting it back on where it went. If you can solder then this is the best method though you may be able to get similar results with superglue applied once the tab is set in place. You don't want to have glue between the prong and the contact surface. Let me know if you need me to clarify further. By the way, when I say camera hold-down tab I mean the tiny litte metal piece that the screw passes through to hold the camera in a 3G/3GS down. It may have a different name, I'm not sure.

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Whatever happened to the photos? Ifixit is a giant wiki... I think they'd be really helpful to others, your diy inspired me to try it...

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Wanted to ask something else in relation to this question. My iPhone 3G 16GB is running a redsn0w jailbreak of 4.0.1 and it runs like crap. So many functions take so long to complete that it's almost a worthless phone. I have 3 other 3Gs (multiple iPhone 3G, not 3G S) that are also jailbroken on the same redsn0w 4.0.1 and they all perform perfectly fine including multitasking and also having the background wallpaper enabled. Could this issue also be related to that gold prong? If the phone is overloading the amount of power sent to the antenna, it is denying other functions of the phone the power they need to function properly?

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hey , i have the same problem with my iphone 3g... do u have the pics??? what s is your email or how can u send me the pics?? plzz

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Is it possible to obtain the picture of the gold prong?

I disassembled my Iphone 3G and a little bronze (I believe)contact fell.

Perhaps it is the gold prong? In this case where you fix the prong?

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Jarret

Thanks for your guidance. My gold prong did not broke, it fell loose.

I am not able to do soldering so I will use glue but would appreciate your comments on how to do it.

Bye, Alberto

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hi im having the same problem only that the circuit with the gold connector broke off and the piece of chip also broke off, so when i try to charge the phone, it doesnt and the phone has no signal, can i fix this by sodaring myself ?please help me

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avinash.... we'd love to help. please start your own question and if you can upload a photo of the area where the antenna was so we can see how you can fix it.

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I found a handy piece of brass that is attached to the dock connector on a 3gs. Luckily I had kept an old one so just broke the brass connector off that and used it for the repair. Works perfect.

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I got two iphones 3g that the prong you mention fell off i managed to find them both and so i am going to try this superglue method.

Do i have this right

place prong in place

hold with pin

apply superglue

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have a 3g i jailbroke and the gold prong fell off,afterwards the phone was not detecting in itunes neither by my computer..Are they related?

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hi can u send the pics to my email add? the golden thing on mine broke too. fazhly88@hotmail.com

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Hi everyone!

I guess I also messed up with the (not so) gold (at least for me) prong.

Anyone has photos of where to put it? I don't know its correct place.

Thanks in advance!

metrofire@gmail.com

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Does anybody know if this might affect the wifi signal? Since this part broke off from my iPhone, my wifi signal has been poor, yet no loss in carrier signal - I'm just wondering if this is a coincidence or not. Many thanks!

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I found a better picture of the tab, along with what may be a replacement part.

http://www.cyberdocllc.com/iphone-3gs/ip...

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Jarrett Lauderdale will be eternally grateful.
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