My second-hand i-phone 4 started to not work last week. No one could hear me when I was talking (just on the phone, not in actual real life, that would be freaky).
BUT if I put the phone on speaker, I could be heard! So this solved the problem short term, but was v.annoying.
I fell into that trap of assuming straight away that it would be un-fixable, and had almost started looking on eBay for a ‘new’ one, but then hubby said that one of his work colleagues had managed to replace the speaker on their i-phone-hurrah!
The first issue is getting into the phone. Hubby managed to borrow a special kit from his work colleague, but I think it is possible to get into them without. There are various videos on You Tube-try here and here.
Once opened, hubby discovered some kind of sticky and slightly damp residue. On questioning, I did remember *maybe* spilling something on it a few days before….
Anyway, hubby dried it all off, and we tried out the ‘bag of rice’ technique for drying it all out (basically putting it in a bag of rice overnight).
In the morning it was slightly better, but still not usable, so hubby ordered a new speaker/microphone bit for the grand sum of about £2.50 from eBay.
While we were waiting for it to arrive, he put the phone back in the airing cupboard overnight, with the back removed.
And in the morning, it worked!
I know that ultimately this is quite a dull tale, and just involved drying out the phone.
BUT I wanted to share as I think it illustrates the point that many of us (me) assume that things like phones and i-pads are going to be either super tricky to repair, or totally non repairable.
This was the simplest of fixes. And I think that prior to My Make Do and Mend Year, we (hubby) wouldn’t even have attempted it.
Yet we’ve saved ourselves the cost of a new (second-hand) phone-hurrah!
Oh, and we have a spare speaker/microphone for an i-phone 4 if anyone wants one….
PS. A fabulous resource for all kinds of electronic fixes is IFIXIT. They have a whole section for i-phones, plus lots lots more!
PPS. If you don’t fancy having a go yourself, check out the Restart Project to see if there is a Restart party anywhere near you.
My Make Do and Mend Year 
The bag of rice trick is brilliant – I think you’re supposed to do it for 48 hours, which is probably why overnight wasn’t enough for your phone. The same technique revived my phone after I had sat in a river with it in my back pocket for five minutes (I was saving a sheep from drowning at the time). It already had a cracked screen, so extra chance for water to ruin it.
If anyone’s reading this and doesn’t know about it, the real trick if you submerge your phone is not to switch it on before you put it in the bag of rice or it’s likely to short out.
Brilliant-great tips, thankyou!
Blow me down. I was sure you would have fixed it with Sugru! 😉
Haha! Yes, all our fixes do seem to involve sugru!!
At last – it is horrifying the amount of phones that just get discarded because they stop working. In places like India nothing gets discarded and there are people on every corner who can do wonders to get things working again. Well done, very encouraging!!
Thankyou! Yes, we definitely need to change our mentality and get ‘re-skilled’ in terms of fixing
I was all set to buy a new laptop, as mine wasn’t working and is 2 and a bit years old, so I thought it had run the course of it’s short life….£40 to the repair man on the market later and it’s like new! 🙂
Hurray for repair!
I did not know about the bag of rice! thanks. Oddly enough I noticed my iPhone’s battery seems not to last as long as it once did. I did not change mine this time round, I could not see any reason to do that.
As for laptops, I bought a Mac several years ago because the upgrades are either free or minimal charge of £20. My mac runs just as fast as it did when I bought it new. I resented the way that laptops and computers were discarded so quickly because the ‘new platform requirements’ make it impossible to run on old machines…. oh dear.. step away from the soap box before I run away with myself!
I’m a Mac fan too!
For the rice-someone else commented that you need to leave it for at least 48hrs, which I didn’t know, but which makes sense!