The Important Points
- “Audio IC disease” (or “loop disease”) typically causes the following issues:-
- Audio problems while making calls
- Siri can’t hear you
- Greyed-out loudspeaker icon and voice memos.
- iPhone takes much longer to boot than normal. (Stuck at “Apple logo”).
- More likely to happen as iPhone 7 or iPhone 7 Plus gets older.
- Widely believed to be result of phone twisting due to bad design, in turn breaking connections between motherboard and Audio IC.
- Generally, some audio functions will still work, but not all.
- Apple does not officially recogise this problem at the time of writing (Sep 2018).
- Repair St Andrews can repair it- contact us for further details.
Introduction
Own an Apple iPhone 7 or iPhone 7 Plus? You might have heard of a problem that’s becoming increasingly common with those models- “audio IC disease” (also sometimes called “loop disease” *). The problem is related to the audio IC (audio chip) and results in various issues, such as problems with audio (at either end) during voice calls, Siri doesn’t respond (because it isn’t picking up your voice), loudspeaker icon or voice memos are greyed out and intermittent static.
(Before we go further- note that Audio IC/loop disease doesn’t affect everything related to audio. Generally speaking, it frequently happens that you’ll have these issues with call-related and similar functions, yet you can still happily play back an MP3 file).
Another obvious sign is that the phone can take far longer to boot than it normally would.
Audio IC/loop disease is something that apparently becomes more likely as your iPhone 7 or 7 Plus gets older. We’re guessing this is because of the build-up of strain-induced damage over time, which probably explains why the issue only started getting noticed the better part of two years after the 7 and 7 Plus first came out. This means that, yes, the problem is most likely to first show itself a few months after your phone’s year-long warranty has expired.
The issue that’s most widely believed to be the cause of the problem is a faulty design that let the phone bend more than it should. This in turn strains the connections between chips (ICs) and the phone’s main board, eventually breaking them. (This is essentially the same thing that caused touch disease on the iPhone and 6 Plus).
(If you simply want your phone fixed and you aren’t interested in more details, there’s no need to read the rest of this article- just contact us to arrange a repair appointment, or just bring it in to our St Andrews store at 1 City Road).
Audio IC Disease / “Loop Disease” Symptoms
If you’re having any of the following problems with your iPhone 7 or iPhone 7 plus, it may be down to audio IC disease:-
- One or more of these audio-related problems:-
- Audio is being dropped at your end on a voice call
- Person at other end of a voice call can’t hear you, or just gets static
- Grayed-out/Greyed-out voice memos
- Greyed out loudspeaker
- Siri doesn’t respond, as it can’t hear you
- Boot time much longer than usual (around three to five minutes)
- iTunes detects the iPhone, but its screen stays stuck on Apple logo
- Haptic feedback on the phone button works, but (again) screen is stuck at Apple logo stage
- Response after inputting the pass code is laggy
This iPhone 7 has a nasty bend in it. While your iPhone 7 or Plus might have been damaged slightly differently, any bending or curving is a possible cause of audio IC disease (loop disease).
The Most Likely Cause
The most widely-believed explanation- by far- for audio IC/loop disease is that it’s a result of flawed design allowing the phone to bend excessively at a particular point. This also happens to be where the audio IC is found, alongside a couple of other significant chips. It means that when the motherboard inside bends in turn, it strains- and over time, breaks- the solder pad connections between that and the flat underside of the audio IC.
Most problems are caused by damage to the pad C12, the “master clock” input. Other pads, including H12, G12 and E12 can suffer damage as well. However, C12 is the most important, since the IC won’t do anything without a clock signal.
As discussed above, this is essentially the same bending-and-breaking process that damaged the Touch IC connections on the iPhone 6 and led to touch disease. However, many think that “audio IC disease” on the 7 and 7 Plus may end up being an even bigger problem.
The reason that affected phones tend to get stuck on the Apple logo during the boot stage is that the iPhone is running a program loop that checks, waits and then rechecks until the audio IC confirms that it’s ready. Normally this won’t take long, but if the IC is faulty, it’ll never respond, and the program will loop forever (hence the name “loop disease”)- or at least until it hits a predetermined time limit, at which point it gives up.
Apple is well-known for not discussing the internal workings of their products, and the audio IC is no different. However, it’s generally believed the reason that some other audio functionality (not related to calls) continues to work is that the audio IC contains- in effect- two or more separate circuits, each with its own clock input. Thus, damage to C12 won’t affect functions that use the other clock input.
One potential problem for phone repair businesses like us is the risk of being incorrectly blamed for causing the problem. The reason is that, while many iPhone owners can- and do- go for a long time (often several months!) without completely turning off their phone in normal use, we always have to do that before carrying out any repair. Because the most obvious sign of the problem is hanging at the boot stage when it’s turned back on you can understand why a customer might think the problem started after we got our hands on it, even though the fault might already have been there for some time.
iPhone 7 exhibiting the greyed-out loudspeaker icon during a call.What Can I Do If My Phone Has Audio IC disease?
Apple’s Response, or Lack of One
At the time we’re writing this (early September 2018), Apple still hasn’t admitted the existence of “loop disease”, “audio IC disease” or anything resembling it. This is despite the growing evidence of its existence, and mirrors the situation with the similar “touch disease” on the iPhone 6 series.
In that case, it took many months for them to acknowledge its existence. Even when they did this, their statement seemed to imply that the issue was also partly the fault of users dropping their phones. This despite the fact that none of the independent investigations had pinpointed that as a significant factor. We’ll wait and see if Apple respond in a similar manner to audio IC/loop disease.
Some people claim that early victims of the loop disease issue had their out-of-warranty phones replaced as a “known hardware failure”. However, it appears that, as numbers increase, this is no longer happening.
In the absence of an official acknowledgement, it can only be assumed that the repair options Apple will offer are those available to any owner of an out-of-warranty phone, i.e. purchase a refurb replacement at their own cost (a significant percentage of the price of a new device) or to buy a brand-new phone at the full price! We don’t consider either reasonable if the problem is due to Apple’s faulty design, but until this changes- or is forced to change- what’s the alternative?
Repair St Andrews Can Fix Your Faulty iPhone
The other option is to have your iPhone 7 or iPhone 7 Plus repaired independently- and that’s exactly what we’re here for. Best of all it’ll cost you far, far less than Apple would have you pay for a replacement phone.
We’ll do it properly as well. Some businesses just perform a simple “reflow” of the IC- much easier for them, but also less likely to succeed, and unreliable over the long term. We remove the IC completely in order to repair or replace the problematic connections properly and fully before it gets reinstalled.
(Even if Apple do eventually offer an extended warranty, it’s our suspicion that the drawbacks we pointed out surrounding a similar offer after the touch disease debacle will apply here as well).
* Not everyone is keen on the name “loop disease”. Some dislike it as being unclear or not descriptive enough for non-technical users. Others dislike it because it’s misleading (many people think of “looping” as being when a phone gets stuck in a constant cycle of crashing and rebooting, which isn’t what it means here).
Audio IC repair; you can see that the chip has been removed and the damaged pads are being repaired or replaced.
The audio IC back in place with things now working again.
