Monday, July 5, 2010

How to clean your Headphone Jack

2G, 3G, 3GS and iPhone 4 headphone jacks can get dirty, grimy, corroded and/or filled with lint, which can hamper you getting the full use of your iPhone. Symptoms that may be resolved by cleaning your iPhone headphone jack is...
  • the headphone jack won't fit down all the way*
  • Sound only coming out one side or speaker
  • Moving the headphone jack makes audio go in/out
  • Earpiece doesn't work during Phone Calls (test by hitting the volume keys while the iPhone is unlocked: if the iPhone indicates that you are changing the heaphone volume and not the ringer volume, it thinks something is plugged in when there is not! )
  • You can see dust/lint inside the headphone jack.

How can you resolved that?

Our recommendation is two-part:
  • Take a needle and pic out what dust, dirt and lint you can out of the headphone jack
  • Take a Q-tip and pull off some of the cotton (about half from a name-brand Q-tip) and twist the remaining cotton around the stick. Make sure it's small enough that you do not have to jam it in the jack, but large enough that when you spin it, it can clean the contacts inside the headphone jack.


DO NOT GET THE Q-TIP WET WITH WATER OR ANY CLEANER AS THIS CAN SHORT OUT DIODES NEAR THE JACK AND PERMANENTLY HAMPER OPERATION, TURN THE LIQUID INDICATOR INSIDE THE HEADPHONE JACK RED AND INVALIDATE THE WARRANTY!!!

* except for 2G iPhones that have a recessed headphone jack, you might need an adapter for non-standard iPhone headphones.

If cleaning your iPhone headphone jack did not help, check out these replacement services:
iPhone 3GS Headphone Flex
iPhone 3G Headphone Flex

1 comment:

  1. Connexion Republic repair cell phone, tablets, and other electronic gadgets. I am located in southwest Arkansas, but I do take mail ins. I only use high quality parts that are sourced in the United States.

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