iPhone 5S 5C Searching No Imei, ICCID or Modem Firmware

We hear of lots of people having this issue of no imei or searching, with iPhone 5S and 5C. its not an issue with older models such as the iPhone 5, 4S or 4. there is a reason for that which we will explain a little later down the page.

There is some instants where the searching thing can be another issue which is fixable, like if the sim pins are damaged, this can be replaced, or it can happen sometimes because the battery has been disconnected and the date and time is wrong, so the security of the iPhone will not let the phone get a signal to make calls and in this instants it will say “searching”.  this is easily fixed by connecting the iPhone to either  mobile data, Wifi  or iTunes. once its connected just flick aeroplane mode on and off and the searching will disappear.

Why There Is No Imei or ICCID Modem Firmware

An Imei is a 15 digit number which uniquely identifies a GSM phone and stands for  International Mobile Station Equipment Identity, The number identifies which network it is locked to and who the manufacturer of the handset is, Right thats the boring bit about what Imei means.

When you are faced with this Searching issue because you have no imei, this is why, there is an ic on the logic board of your iPhone called the “baseband ic” this ic has all the information that your iPhone 5S 5C needs to make calls and receive them, so when you are facing the searching issue, its because the baseband is not responding to the other ICs on the iPhone logic board, now the usual reason for this is because there is cracked solder balls under the IC rather than the iC being faulty, when the solder balls are not making a connection you get this issue as described and if you connect to iTunes and try to restore you will get and error code which will usually be error -1 or error 4013. this error code is not repairable.

Why This Issue Only Happens With iPhone 5S 5C

With the other iPhones like the iPhone 5 or iPhone 4 / 4s the logic boards are deigned slightly different, on the older models the ICs where not only held down with solder but also with a resin. this resin helps to stop the ICs moving or the solder cracking if the phone is dropped, on the iPhone 5s and 5c there is no resin used on the logic board which seems to make this issue occur much easier,

I hope this has helped to explain why you getting the searching issue with the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c

If you require more information or help just leave a comment below.