I dropped my wife’s iPhone 5 in the pool and only half the screen was responsive so bought a new screen / digitiser.

2-3 months later when I got around to replacing it, it was the same 1/2 responsive screen but otherwise okay.

I too the screen off, replaced it and it wouldn’t turn back on. I googled it and it said to remove the battery for a few minutes. As I pulled with the suction thing I stupidly pulled the wrong end and tore the camera strip in half.

I’ve put it back together with the other two stips attached but it still wont turn back on (I removed and replaced the battery). It’s completely unresponsive. No noise from the PC, not screen, nothing.

So:

Would the phone still switch on without the camera if the torn strip was the only issue?

How can I / can i trouble shoot without the camera or would I need to buy the camera replacement and then see what the issue is?

Can anyone guess what the problem’s likely to be?

Would you bother? New screen was £20. New camera would be £8. The phone is an iPhone 5. 16 or 8Gb.

Thanks

TBH it sounds like you’ve knackered it with your hamfistery 🙂 Could be multiple reasons why it’s not powering on, including you severing another cable that you haven’t even noticed whilst attempting the repair!

I would guess it should power up without the camera connected but I couldn’t say for sure.

I did similar with a 5 back when they were new out. Replaced the screen but it didn’t fix the problem of it being unresponsive, so even if you can get it to power it might still be broken! Sent mine back to Apple in the end & they swapped it for a refurb.

I did other repairs on it subsequently like replacing battery, switches, etc which went fine. If you’ve put it back together properly it should just power on as normal, no need to do anything else or unplug battery for a time IME.

I’d be tempted to cut your losses and get her a new ‘phone.
Mrs Lex had been using my old iPhone 4 (yeah, how generous, I know), but with the battery in its 6th year, it was showing its age – rather than the lottery of a “new” one from Amazon resellers/ebay, I bought her a new 5S from Giffgaff – £200 – delighted to have a faster device with fingerprint lock.

There are only the three cables, aren’t there?

It wasn’t turning on pre-hamfistery (love the word). I was re-removing the screen to disconnect and reconnect the battery as a possible fix. The other two strips look fine but, as I said, it wasn’t turning on before that.

I guess I could connect the old screen but would a dead screen stop the PC from recognising the phone? I’d’ve guessed not.

In the last week I’ve repaired a 5c, 4 and this 5. Well, I didn’t repair the 5, but you get the idea…

You misunderstood drlex. You know how if you pringled a wheel you’d buy a replacement that afternoon… I dropped my wife’s phone in the pool and she had a 5c on order within 24 hours – when it was apparent her’s wasn’t going to be okay. I have her old, old iPhone 4. She has the 5C. I was going to have the repaired 5.

It’s annoying as I don’t care enough about phones to spend money on one but was looking forward to my wife’s hand-me-down 5 purely because mine frequently drops strava connection.

Hmmm

Ah; fairy nuff.

Daughter 2 had dunked her 5c a couple of times, and the screen became unresponsive. I swapped it with the screen from my work 5c, but the problem persisted, so I assume that the issue was with something on the logic board. As the battery was sub-par, we pooled funds to get her an SE.