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Repair guides, disassembly, and troubleshooting information for the iPhone 17, announced September 9th, 2025.

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iPhone 17 dead after battery depleted

Hi,

So a family member gave me their iPhone 17 to look at. It is currently stone dead. No signs of life at all. They said the battery was at 1% and then the screen went black (assume battery died). After that they said they could not turn the phone back on. They left it charging and still could not turn it on.

I took a look myself and see it is completely dead. There's nothing on screen. There's no battery icon or anything to say it's low on battery. The screen just remains black.

I tried the force restart method (says to quickly press volume up, then down and then hold the power button until Apple logo appears) which did nothing. I've tried multiple cables, computers and wall outlets. Still same.

I have a USB amp meter and I can see when I connect cable, it cycles between different watts. It regularly jumps from 0 to about 2.1W. I see frequent 2.1W readings but it keeps going back to 0 and then up again (sometimes at a lower wattage). It's like it's trying to charge, but can't for some reason.

The phone is still in warranty period, so it can be returned. However, I'd like to check if there's maybe anything that can be done to bring it back to life as it does seem weird that it just died after the battery went out.

Anyone know what could be wrong? If it's a hardware issue, then I'll just send it back for a replacement. But I am hoping there's a way to bring it back to life as this will be faster than waiting for a replacement. It's not looking promising though.

Answered! View the answer I have this problem too

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My 17 pro max.. dead as a rock right now.

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Well, I don't know what happened, but it's decided to work again. I kept trying to get it to charge to no avail. I then decided to try seeing if I could force it into DFU mode. I connected the phone to my PC (with amp meter still connected). It still didn't charge. I then tried to put it into DFU mode after following a video that showed how to force it into DFU mode.

Not sure if I was successful, but after trying some of the button combinations, I saw wattage on the amp meter stabilised. It jumped to 2.1W and settled. I left it alone for a bit in this state (maybe 5-10mins). Current then massively dropped to around 100mA or so (wattage was below 1W). I then held down the power button to attempt to power it on and the Apple logo suddenly appeared.

It's now charging normally and booted into iOS. Must've been some kind of software bug? I did some searching online and saw a handful of reports about this issue (dead after battery depletion) with various fixes (such as using a Mac and wireless charger). I had none of those. Maybe those would've fixed it, or maybe not. Who knows.

Glad to see it's working for now. Amp meter was an immense help for this issue. It allowed me to see what the phone was actually doing (i.e. whether it was actually trying to charge or not). Might not have brought it to life without it.

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The same problem occurs on the iPhone 17 Pro, I pressed the power button and the volume down button at the same time (for 5 seconds) and then pressed the power button and left only the volume down button. And the sound of the voltage stabilized and it turned on!

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omg this worked! thank you!!!

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Same for me but I’m skeptical as it has happened to me three times now

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Think I might return while I’m still in the warranty period.

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Sometimes charging by induction instead of plugging it in wakes it up. Seems to be an issue if it’s allowed to drain too low.. ofc it shouldn’t do this.

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For future reference

Issue: Device not starting after battery has been depleted. No physical or water damage.

Possible solution: Plug in an original or a good quality charger, try hard-restart: press volume up once, volume down once, and hold power button until Apple logo appears.

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