[pogopark]

Hi friends,

So, I've been running a Ziphoned, unlocked, 1.1.4 iPhone for a minute now.

Recently, and with no particularly obvious cause, I began to experience two troubling (crucial) symptoms of brokenness:

1. The periodic "This accessory was not made to work with iPhone" error message, regardless of whether or not anything was connected
2. If the display is allowed to sleep, the iPhone will either turn off within 30 seconds, OR after that time, pushing the home button causes the iPhone to flash a spotty white screen of death and then reboot. Under 30 seconds, pushing the home button wakes the phone up as per normal.

Now, I had two working theories as to the cause of this:
1. Software. I restored the phone from the original Ziphone image (which worked for weeks, so I was pretty certain that would be a sufficient amount of restoration), but to no avail.
2. Hardware. I had recently (stupidly) used a 3rd-gen Firewire cable to charge my iPhone, and I decided that either I had introduced some aged dust into the dock connector, or that I had actually broken something by using an abandoned interface for charging purposes.

So, despairing of my non-warrantied status (30 days outside the 90-day Apple warranty, and not an AT&T customer), I took to the dock connector with first an alcohol-soaked cloth, then a q-tip, and then finally a safety pin, hoping to scratch any tarnish off of the pins and/or out from between them. Of course, the things are so friggin tiny that I had no idea what I was doing. Doubling down, I decided it was a good idea to pry UNDER the ******* pins to try to get any microscopic dust that might have been under them. This was stupid, and I am sorry. (I bent at least one pin of the two in the very middle of the dock port enough that when I plugged the dock cable into the dock port, it squashed the pin(s) against the back of the dock port... I was sort of able to flatten it down, so it doesn't look awful but it's clearly messed up, and I worry that since pins 15 and 16 are ground pins I might run the risk of causing more damage by continuing to charge my phone.)

So........ now a new "iPhone Charging & Click Jack", which is apparently the dock connector along with some circuits and the hold button, is en route, and I'm planning to install it myself. I've found information on how to open the iPhone, but nothing in particular about installing this piece. I assume (foolishly, perhaps?) that I won't have to solder anything -- it looks like this:

IPHONE-CLK-JACK iPhone Charging & Click Jack, Apple Mac and iPod Accessories

So, questions:
a) how big of a n00b am I? Christ.
b) Am I making a big mistake trying to fix this myself?
c) Has anyone been able to finagle Apple service in a similar situation?
d) HOW do I install the replacement parts without compounding my situation?

Thanks y'all,
pogo

[Poseidon79]

One word.... WOW.

[screamforme02]

if your phone has hardware issues they will give you a new phone up too a year. i would get it to apple if its actually broken. Just do a clean restore with itunes and have a boatload of excusses why u havnt activated yet, or sign up for a prepaid plane for 50 bucks. o and if u dont do the prepaid thing. act like a complete idiot when they start asking if you jailbroke and wht not