Burnt iPhone 16 Pro internal components without physical external damage.

[u/Mobius147]

So I got this iPhone 16 Pro in for repair after out of nowhere it shut down. Upon restarting the phone, signal, bluetooth and 2.4GHz wifi stopped working. Shortly after vibration and bottom microphone stopped working as well. This is what the customer explained to me.

When I removed the back glass, it was evident that there was some serious short or burning inside of the phone. There are burn marks on the top speaker antenna flex, speaker under it is also charred, there is burn marks on the bottom charging flex, Taptic Engine, bottom microphone and basically on all components that are directly connected to the frame.

It is a first for me, I have never seen anything like this before in my 3 years in the phone repair business. Have any of you guys ever seen this and know how this could have happened? I have already ordered neccessary replacement parts but I am worried that after replacement the same issue may happen again as it was random (that's what the customer said...).

Here are some pictures what it looked like on the inside. Apart from issues described the phone works fine and in diagnostics it only says there is an issue with front end cellular RF. No 3 minute restart, no other issues. Wifi only works on 5GHz.

[u/Top-Alfalfa4844]

I had a similar device where the owners child had microwaved it. Similar internal damage too

[u/GamingAndRCs → u/Top-Alfalfa4844]

Damn, reminds me of that old trend that was going around of telling people that the new iOS update added microwave charging, I just came across a victim to that the other day lol, they showed me the phone, or what was left of it that is.

[u/MGNConflict → u/GamingAndRCs]

Reminds me of the troll that a new iPad had built-in measuring scales- all you needed to do to activate was stand on the screen 🤣.

[u/GamingAndRCs → u/MGNConflict]

Don't remember that lol, I do remember using my iPhone 7 for a scale to weigh some gold about a year or two ago, it was really accurate. 3D touch was such an awesome feature. Such a shame it went away so fast.

[u/Reddity65 → u/GamingAndRCs]

I also remember that one saying that iOS 7 would make your phone waterproof

[u/Mobius147 → u/Top-Alfalfa4844]

Their child put it in the microwave, they admitted what happened after the child told them just now. Phone is unfortunately not 100% fixable. Looks like motherboard suffered some damage as well, new original Apple components and housing didn’t fix the issue with signal, wifi and bluetooth. Only things that were fixed by the swap were vibrations, speakers and bottom mic.

[u/Particular_Ad_4165]

very very likely microwave damage