Chosen Solution
Hi, My iPhone 6 got water damaged in a freak thunder and lightning storm that, without exaggeration, almost killed me and my brother with a strike. We had no right to survive that day. Frustratingly, the repair store hasn’t given me a whole lot of information on what exactly they did. They had the phone for a couple of weeks, and definitely changed the battery and screen, but I do not think that they took out an open up the casings on the logic board. When I got the phone back, it charged to 100%, and worked like normal for 36 hours. Then suddenly the phone rebooted, after which the battery level will not rise, and the system only runs for about two minuted before it reboots again. I do not have a mac in order to be able to run any diagnostics. So I can only give the symptoms that I observe; when the phone is turned on, with the charging cable plugged in, for about 10 seconds, it reads 1% battery, then the green battery and lightning symbol show with some random percentage, normally 15%, but sometimes 43%, but never higher, and the percentage doesn’t increase in the 2-3 minutes for which the phone is on. I have read online that charging issues which cannot be fixed with a new battery or by checking the connectors (which I assume the store did) can be caused by the tristar U2 IC chip. I have two questions. Can this tristar chip be damaged by water?Given that the phone was fine for 36 hours with a new battery, is it possible that the new battery, which didn’t suffer any of the original water damage, can now also have been fried by a subsequent fault with the tristar chip? Because I am wondering if, if I manage to install a new tristar chip, if I also need to buy a second new battery? Thank you if anyone can offer me any guidance. It seems that installing a new tristar chip is very difficult, but here in Albania, I do not know if any technicians have the ability to do it, so I think that I would have to do it myself.
Firstly. Any thing in the phone can be damaged by water, although some things are more likely than others. TriStar wouldn’t be my first guess for water damage, but it’s definitely a possibility. I would actually be more likely to think Tigris in this case which is the chip responsible for charging (TriStar is more for USB connection). It is also the chip which receives data from the batter about how charged it is. It definitely sounds like your board needs at least a once over, preferably under a microscope or with some sort of magnification to make sure nothing has been damaged. Water has the unfortunate side effect of introducing lots of potential variables and if we know where water inside the device went it will be easier to diagnose the cause. If you do succeed in getting the phone repaired, the battery currently installed should be fine. It just sounds like the information it is sending out about how charged it is isn’t working properly. Probably because of a board level issue. Installing a new TriStar or any other chip on the board is difficult, but can definitely be done with practice.
