iPhone 3GS random shutdowns on iOS4.01, iOS4.1 and iOS4.2.1

I use to be able to use my iPhone 3GS until the battery runs dry and I get the battery running out popup message starting at 20% remaining and below. At that time, using the iPhone was a really enjoyable save for the bad battery life. Then came iOS4.01 and I hesitantly upgraded to it. I say hesitantly because if given a choice, I would not have upgraded it. My upgrade was made because of the increasing number of apps that do not support iOS3.x and most of them wouldn't even let you install it if you do not have iOS4.x. You can see my blog entry on Why I think iOS4.01 firmware sucks.

My iOS4.01 experience was still ok until I upgraded to iOS4.1 the moment the greenpois0n and limera1n jailbreaks were released for it and oh my... did I regret it. All other displeasures aside, the most horrible thing about it was that my iPhone started to shut down randomly whenever it is under intense use. By intense I mean by playing a game (e.g. Angry birds, FIFA 11 or even Bejeweled 2), or typing constantly on Whatsapp, using Safari or even taking a video. The shut downs usually happens when the battery is down to between 80% to 40% and it is totally random. If I leave it and not do anything except for receive and making calls, then I'm safe (or at least I think I am).

Read on...

And once it turns off by itself, there is no way whatever I do to make it start again. Not with holding the power button or even holding both power and home button together. All I can see is the Apple logo starting and it will take like 2 minutes to load and then off. Keep doing this and I will see the battery drained logo/signal. At this point, there is no more Apple logo no matter what I do. That is until I plug it in to the USB cable. Only when it is plugged in via the USB (to wall or to computer) the Apple boot logo will result in the phone being booted up properly and showing my lock screen. And by this time, I will see that my battery still has between 40% to 80% juice remaining.

Attempts to downgrade back to iOS4.01 proved to be in vain. And before you suspect that maybe my jailbreak had caused this to happen, I just like to let you know the combinations I have tried:

•  iOS4.1 jailbroken - problem occurs
• iOS4.1 clean from backup - problem occurs
• iOS4.1 start as new phone - problem occurs
• iOS4.01 clean from backup - problem occurs
• iOS4.01 start as new phone - problem occurs
• iOS4.2.1 start as new phone - problem occurs
• iOS4.2.1 clean from backup - problem occurs
• iOS4.2.1 jailbroken - problem occurs

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So you see, no matter what I tried, this problem still happens. And none of the jailbroken solutions offerred by some websites helped. These are the few help attempts I have tried:

• SAM - http://www.bingner.com/SAM.html
• Turning off Gamecenter
• Turn off location based services
• Turn off 3G, Wifi and Data services
• Turn off push notification
• and restoring device (as you can see the numerations I have tried above)

It seems that many of the iPhone interest blogs/sites mostly talk only about the battery drain issues of the iOS but not many discuss about the sudden shutdowns that many are encountering. The ones above main are for battery drains. Many requests for help with this issue (random shutdowns) are either not answered or do not have a definitive answer to solve the problem. As far as my research is concern, there is no absolute way as of now to solve this problem although there is a solution that has many has reported that have worked. I will disclose this later below.

My research (on blogs, forums, etc) has yield a few probably cause of this problem. But most of them revolves around people with iPhone 3GS that have upgraded to iOS4.x. To name a few:

• New Baseband 5.15.04 causing problems for iPhone 3GS (No non-physical way to fix this unless you know how to flash your iPhone rom).
• iPhone 3GS not coping well with new multitasking features of iOS4.x (iPhone 4 has double the amount of ram compared to 3GS)
• Firmware upgrade wasn't done properly, hence a corrupted firmware upgrade file may be causing this problem.
• Memory leak issue with iOS4.x
• Defective battery (which I refuse to believe since there are many who encounter this only after iOS4.x upgrade).
• Defective hardware (same as above, I refuse to believe this is true).
• Defective firmware from Apple which has not been thoroughly tested (which I bet my money is most likely the case. So until they are willing to admit it, we can't do much)

There may be other causes but I'm just listing out those that I have read about. In any case, if you have this problem, you could try what I have tried. I mentioned above that there is a solution that I have found from Apple's support forum that I have yet to try, and that is to replace the iPhone's battery with a new one. Word of advise though, if you still have warranty on your iPhone, bring it to the nearest Apple store (or your authorized service provider) to get it repaired/replaced at no cost.

Here is a link to the Apple support forum which I found most useful and could be the answer to our problem (although I have yet to try) and if you have this problem like me, please do share your report here on whether you are successful at resolving it.

Link to forum thread - [LINK]

UPDATE: I have replace my iPhone 3GS battery with a new one and it seems that the problem has been resolved. I have tested playing intensive games and it all went smoothly without any shutdowns. However, I disclaim myself herewith in case you are still unsuccessful even after the battery change. I'm just sharing my experience ;)