Before I spit the dummy out and Chuck this fine piece of technology in the appropriate recycling container,does anyone know how to fix this…?

IPhone 5s, almost 2 years old, been working fine up until now. Recently though, when it drops to around 50% battery, if I try to do something with it (open camera,synch strava) it will shut down and show the dead battery symbol. When I put it on charge, it very quickly returns to about 50% charge.

I assumed it was the battery so got it replaced, but still doing same thing now.

Any ideas anyone?

Try putting a new battery in (plenty around on ebay and amazon)… I did it on my daughters 5 and it made a massive difference. fairly easy to do too.

Did you get the battery replaced by Apple ?

If so take it back to them as the phone will still be under warranty.

If you didn’t get it done by Apple, your screwed as you have invalidated the warranty

Hard reset (holding both Home and power buttons together) if you haven’t already? If you’ve replaced the battery it might not do anything but worth a go as it can clear glitches.

You may installed a faulty battery (there’s a lot of recycled ones out on e-Bay/Amazon). Try a newer one and hard reset immediately after installation. If this was installed by someone else take it back to them for repair.

what FunkyDunc said.

A lot of the replacement batteries you can buy online aren’t new at all, they are from iPhones broken up for parts. So you might get a newish battery or one which is no better. The non Apple ones can be a bit of a lottery too. Do the battery check thing with Apple first to check it then take it from there. I’d backup the phone to iTunes and do a factory reset then install the backup – that often worked well with older phones to get rid of any issues on the phone – like a clean install on a PC.

The problem you describe sounds very much like a completely knackered battery though.

Sounds like the processor is trying to pull more power than the old battery can provide so the phone is shutting down as a protection. Apple are doing cheaper battery replacements now

Follow this guide with their replacement kit.

Although as Jonnyboi points out the £25 replacement scheme is probably cheaper and easier than the ifxit stuff.

My iphone 5 used to do exactly that, it stopped when I replaced the battery. I did it myself, battery was £10 odd from ebay and it was brilliant after that…until the phone went for a swim in the sea.

my old 4 – or 4S – used to do that, along with my daughter’s 4S – it would die on its feet around 25% mark IIRC. 50% is pretty poor though – I’m not sure you can get the battery status re-sync’ed but might be possible.

sound slike a very extreme version of the battery throttling that Apple have confessed to!

To my mind though Apple stuff is still pretty well engineered, I guess if you were in the Aberdeen store any time soon you could ask them to check it over..

Download a free battery life app.
As above. Sounds like it needs a new one. And that the internet is full of scammers selling old batteries as new.

Both our iPhone 5S’s do this and it is a known problem. It is not the battery but I think something to do the battery manager. Apple deny any problem. You can find the issue the Apple support forums and the same issue occurs with replacements. The problem gets worse over time in our experience.

sound slike a very extreme version of the battery throttling that Apple have confessed to

It’s precisely the problem the throttling tries to prevent! Sadly the 5s doesn’t qualify for the cheap battery replacement (iPhone 6 and upwards).

IC charging chip is a probable if the battery life app gives a good result

Use of cheap chargers gives too much current and zaps them.
Though usually the IC chip being dead won’t turn back on even when plugged in. So battery would be my first port. But same symptoms on a different battery is unusual.

I had the battery fitted at a local phone repair shop for £25 as I don’t think the battery is still under warranty. Apple shop is far far away.
Tried resetting the settings only, no different.
Reset everything last night so will see how it goes today.

wysiwyg – Member
IC charging chip is a probable if the battery life app gives a good result

Use of cheap chargers gives too much current and zaps them.
This is really interesting, I use a Garmin charger, a Hudl charger, and have wired usb sockets in directly in my van.

kcal – Member
my old 4 – or 4S – used to do that, along with my daughter’s 4S – it would die on its feet around 25% mark IIRC. 50% is pretty poor though – I’m not sure you can get the battery status re-sync’ed but might be possible.

sound slike a very extreme version of the battery throttling that Apple have confessed to!

To my mind though Apple stuff is still pretty well engineered, I guess if you were in the Aberdeen store any time soon you could ask them to check it over..
I’ll take it back into the elgin shop first and see what they say.

This may well turn into an excuse to argue a new phone out of EE, and go back to android

I had the battery fitted at a local phone repair shop for £25 as I don’t think the battery is still under warranty.

You didn’t know it was the battery, which was still under warranty anyway. Apple customer service is generally excellent and they also have the equipment to diagnose hadware/software problems. They replaced my three-year-old 6 that suddenly started blazing through a battery charge in five or six hours. After initially testing the phone remotely while on a call to CS, they booked me in at the Apple store – the battery tested as fine there also, but the diagnostics pointed at another potential hardware fault. The phone was just replaced without fuss. Apple should always be first point of call, not some random repairer who just wants to sell you something. I suspect you, or your cheap ‘repair’ man, may have shot you n the foot as far as a warranty claim goes.

Three_Fish – Member
I suspect you, or your cheap ‘repair’ man, may have shot you n the foot as far as a warranty claim goes.

Yep, I agree

OP the battery percentage is the result of a calculation, it’s basically guesswork on older batteries imho

Just change the battery

If you have a Mac you can download Coconut-Battery app for free. I just got my iPhone 6 battery changed by Apple for £25. On coconut battery it said the max charge my phone could hold was 49% of the design / new battery capacity. So even at “100%” it was only 49

My wife had her iPhone 5 battery changed at a “corner shop” it lastest about 8 months before it needed changing again – they did it for free as it has a 12 month warranty

Got battery changed again by cornershop under warranty, so far so good 🙂