Chosen Solution
Hello, Strange thing happened to my iPhone SE. I bough this phone second hand, I have replaced its battery once (back in February 2019) with an aftermarket one and I believe the replaced was still the factory one. It was working all fine until a couple of days ago I removed it from the charger in the morning after an all night charge to see that the phone only shows 36%. Charging is fine, battery life is normal, it’s just the indicator is stuck at the point where the last charging cycle began. The day before I started to charge it at 16%. Charged up full (I guess), still firmly showing 16% and let it drop to 6% (took the whole day). Now it is stuck at 6%. See attachment for battery diagram. Simply put, the battery level indicator won’t ever increase, it can only decrease.
As I mentioned, there is no problem with the battery life. My only problem is that I don’t see the actual battery charge level. I haven’t touched the logic board since the battery replacement, didn’t mechanically knock off ICs and I don’t recall dropping my phone or exposing it to water. By the way, when I knocked of an IC from around the battery socket of my previous iPhone 5S, it didn’t charge, but showed charging symbol at firm 1%. So that issue was different because this is charging. Tried playing with the time-zone settings (toggle automatic), didn’t work. Tried soft-reset, didn’t work. Updated to iOS 13.1.2, didn’t solve the issue either. Do you know what the problem might be? If I should try replacing the battery, what is the brand you would recommend? Thanks in advance. Best, Tamas
There’s a chip commonly referred to as Tristar in your phone that takes care of the data part of the charging circuit. It’s a sensitive IC that may suffer the use of lower quality cable and chargers and may show the symptoms you describe. The other possibility is the logic side of the battery went bad. First step would be to try a known good battery. If issue is still there after replacement, a logic board repair would be needed.
