Chosen Solution
Hello I have an iPhone 6 which got kicked by a horse- literally- and came in with a broken screen. It had a bashed/dented frame corner I had to sort of correct as you can see on the attached image. After screen replacement I noticed the system constantly shows Searching…, but it never gets signal. I then decided to place the logic board in another full body assembled phone and voi-la: the signal is there! I could not find any damaged components, so I wonder whether anyone would have a suggestion as in what to look for. Many thanks.
Typically if the housing is original, then the first suspect that must be ruled out if your iPhone is stuck on “searching” is that the time/clock is correct. Then rule out the lightning dock which comprises the antenna. And to a lesser extent the upper antennas. Finally board itself can be bad, due to cracks under some cellular-related chips or because the phone is not keeping the time (you can notice the latter: time would always be incorrect). So: Either the new housing has a good lightning dock, and the old one is bad. You fixed it this way. Or the antenna got loose during the incident and when replacing the housing, you plugged it in correctly. Or the clock was not set and you did not notice it. Restarting the phone in a new housing fixed it. Or the board is now damaged from the hard drop, and soon this searching issue will become more frequently recurrent. Hope it’s not that one.
