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Repair information and guides for the Apple iPhone 5s that was announced on September 10, 2013. Model: A1533, A1453, A1457, A1528, A1530, A1518

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Why is my iPhone not activating?

I purchased a 'for parts or not working' iPhone 5s on eBay, and replaced the screen. I noticed before anything else that the sim card trey looked like it was just shoved into the sim card slot. It took a little bit of work to get it loose, but now it goes in and out no problem. The phone is on the 'Hello' screen, and recognizes the sim card, but never activates. Some times it asks for iTunes to be connected, other times it says it outright can't be activated due to the servers being down. If I connect it to iTunes (when it says it needs to be connected) iTunes just returns with an error, saying 'iPhone failed to activate, please try again later'. If you need any more info that would be useful, just let me know. I tried to explain as much as I could, but I'm sure I left out some details.

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Click the blue little Information icon located at the bottom right of the screen. You will see this on the lock screen of the setup screen.

If you don't see an IMEI number displayed and just the SN serial number only the baseband circuit has gone bad on the phone.

At this point the phone is paperweight.

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Thanks for the response. It shows the IMEI, ICCID, and SN, so the baseband is not the problem, correct? Any other ideas as to what it could be? Thanks in advance.

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Try connecting the phone to a computer and use 3Utools which you can get from 3u.com to check the information of the phone.

Also check the IMEI number if it's blacklisted / reported stolen. Not sure what the best website is to check for United States.

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3U tools says that everything is fine. It does have an option to click 'Activate'. I tried clicking it, and it claims it activated the phone, but all that pops up on the actual phone is the 'Activation Required'. Also, I checked the ESN on Swappa, and it says that it is ready for activation. Thanks again for the response.

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Activation required usually indicates that the phone has a network lock.

You will need to get a GSX report from someone that will tell you that if the phone has a network lock and under what carrier.

There are websites online (search via Google) that offer GSX reports generated from the IMEI number.

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imei.info and swappa.com can check the status of the IMEI.

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