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Announced on October 13 and released October 23, Apple's flagship smartphone for 2020 features a 6.1" OLED display, a triple-lens rear camera system with LiDAR, and 5G. Successor to the iPhone 11 Pro.

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Device won’t turn on after a night on the charger.

I have seen there’s already a guide on some things to troubleshoot this iPhone refusing to power on (no display not even logo, no sound, no vibration, nothing to indicate the device is on with a broken screen.) however none of these have lead me to an answer. I’ve taken it to apple, where they just attached their little diagnosing machine on it and told me “it will never turn on again, it will be cheaper to buy a new one” to which I mentally rolled my eyes cause of course they did, and I took it to T-Mobile whom I purchased the phone from and they couldn’t do anything either. The phone did take a drop to a tile floor cracking the back screen so it’s by no means unreasonable that that is the root of the problem but I had it running for months after that without issue, then one night when I left it on the charger to update, I woke up to it dead and refusing to turn on. Find my iPhone can’t find it either. It won’t turn on with any charger, iTunes doesn’t recognize it’s plugged in, and I did try firmware reset with no results. Battery health was fine before it died, above 80%. Also bought it new if that helps.

I’m very willing to open it up, no warranty on it (I’ve already bought a new one and this ones just been a brick for a few months)

Any suggestions?

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Were the charger brick or cable offbrand? If so, they may have fried your phone.

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Cable came with phone, had bought a type c brick from Walmart tho since god forbid what could happen to the environment if they just provided an own one with the phone. I never changed the brick tho and while my new phone came with a new cable I just kept using the old cable as well. Best hope I’m not jinxing myself by saying this but it hasn’t had any issues with my new one, tho I do avoid overnight updates now.

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Also which part specifically would it have fried if you happen to have a guess? The motherboard? Or maybe just the charging port?

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Thank you for the detailed answer. I have opened it up and can confirm the only part of the phone that seems damaged other than cosmetic is the lightning port, as you mentioned. There’s a slight discoloration on both the penelobe screws and the port itself that looks like rust, however the rest of the phone is rust free and the water damage sticker is still white.

I have used a MagSafe 3rd party to charge for over a day and while it did indicate it detected a charging device with its LED, it did not turn on the device. My best educated guess is that while it will accept a charge it somehow managed to have both the lightning port go bad and be in the middle of a night time auto update, meaning that now it will only turn on with the lightning port, and the lightning port is broken, causing it to brick till the lightning port is replaced. I will update after trying a port replacement.

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In a situation like yours where there's no sign of life whatsoever, the place to start is the power source. If the power can't get into the phone, it can't power the phone and can't charge the battery so there won't be any functions working at all.

Have you tried a wireless charger? Wireless charging uses a completely different input mechanism to get power to the motherboard and then the battery, so it may still work even if the lightning port is totally fubar.

In theory you could also check that by swapping out the battery for a replacement that will normally have a certain amount of charge and see if it powers on. Assuming you don't have a spare battery lying around, I would try replacing the charging port as the next step after trying wireless charging. That's what connects the lightning cable to the motherboard so if that's failed you won't have any power getting to it.

Unfortunately, iFixit doesn't have a guide to that particular repair, but there's a Spanish site called Nadie Me Llama Gallina that has just what you need. The site is in Spanish but if you use it with the Chrome browser's translation, it works quite well.

Manuales / Apple iPhone 12 Pro / Load flex - Nadie Me Llama Gallina

There's a copy of Apple's official repair procedures on the Device page, but that assumes you're using Apple's equipment and won't necessarily give you the best guidance for doing it yourself.

Apple's iPhone 12 Pro Repair Guide - iFixit

The part is available for sale here on iFixit in whichever color you need to match your phone if you want to support their repair efforts.

iPhone 12/12 Pro Lightning Connector Assembly

You can also find it on most of the major sites that carry phone parts such as Amazon, eBay and AliExpress. The color selection is strictly cosmetic; in practice you can use any color and the only effect will be what you see on the inside of the charging port.

So I'd suggest changing out the lightning port flex cable and see where you are from there.

iPhone 12/12 Pro Lightning Connector Assembly Image

Product

iPhone 12/12 Pro Lightning Connector Assembly

$79.99

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