Replaced Battery - Hosed my 3G - Any Help?

Well, I've had a pretty good track record with gadget tinkering. Most recently I revived my son's iPod Mini by swapping out the drive for a CF card ... but I finally went to far.

My iPhone 3G is 1 year and 9 months old. The battery was not holding a charge well so I bought a kit off eBay for $15. I was as careful as I could be when opening the phone and detaching all the connectors. The battery was easy to replace.

I know that I hosed the camera cable when I was putting it back together, but everything else seemed to go smoothly. However, after the battery replacement I have the following problems:
- camera doesn't work (which I expected)
- can't get a wifi signal unless I'm within 5 feet of the router
- has trouble holding an Edge signal (sometimes goes to GPRS)
- won't vibrate any more (it's NOT a software settings issue)

I did a complete reinstall (setup as new phone, NOT a restore) but that didn't help, so these are definitely hardware problems.

Anyone have any helpful thoughts, at least on how just opening up the phone could have created the signal strength issue, if not on anything to try and improve my situation?

One of three things come to mind: You damaged something else on the main board; something is not correctly attached; or the battery is simply not the right one and can't put out enough juice to power your phone correctly, even though it may be fully charged. I'm also wondering if perhaps the camera cable served multiple purposes, aside from anything directly related to the camera itself.

First thing I'd be curious about would be your new battery's voltage and mAh ratings vs. the original battery.

Thanks for the quick reply and thoughts. I have been wondering if the replacement battery just isn't performing to specs:

Original 3G battery: 3.7 V, 1150 mAh
Replacement battery: 3.7 V, 1600 mAh

I ought to be getting better battery life (which is why I replaced the battery in the first place), but I find it to be the same as before I put the new battery in. So, the new 1600 mAh battery is lasting about as long as the 18-month old 1150 mAh battery was.

miltos said:

Thanks for the quick reply and thoughts. I have been wondering if the replacement battery just isn't performing to specs:

Original 3G battery: 3.7 V, 1150 mAh
Replacement battery: 3.7 V, 1600 mAh

I ought to be getting better battery life (which is why I replaced the battery in the first place), but I find it to be the same as before I put the new battery in. So, the new 1600 mAh battery is lasting about as long as the 18-month old 1150 mAh battery was.

Click to expand...

Hokie dokie. My real concern was with the voltage. Too low a voltage can lead to poor performance, though how it would affect a cell phone in particular, I'm not certain. But no matter, the battery shouldn't be the problem, which leaves my other thoughts. Barring another reply here from someone with more know-how, I'm afraid you will either be facing tearing it down again to recheck everything, or sending it in for repair.