Chosen Solution

I have a 128GB iPhone 6, just out of warranty. Two days ago, the GPS signal and Bluetooth connections weakened. They still work, but GPS shows a cone of confusion about 100 feet wide, making navigation and fitness tracking impossible. Bluetooth works within about 3 feet, but any more than that, it cuts out. My phone is 25 days out of warranty, and Apple and AT&T were not helpful. Anyone have an idea of what the issue could be? WiFi works fine, as do calls, and the phone in is near-mint condition. Any ideas of what the problem could be? Thanks!

Had the same issue. Wifi, bluetooth, Gps signals were very weak. Replace the WiFi Antenna Signal Flex Cable Ribbon for $7 and everything is back to normal!!! I’ve been searching for an answer for a while now but this little part does the job!!!!! Installation was very easy as long as you follow the instructions on taking the logic board out!!

iPhone 6 Logic Board Antenna Flex Cable

I have an even simpler answer that worked for me! My problem was the F-cable as well. But I solved it without replacing the F-cable at all. Replacing the F-cable absolutely would have worked, but wasn’t necessary. When I opened up my iPhone 6, I could see part of the F-cable showing through near the top of the phone just left of center. I noticed that there’s a small brass/bronze sticker on the F-cable. You can see that rectangular sticker in pictures of the F-cable on the web. In my case, that sticker had shifted and was no longer covering the brass area underneath fully. I carefully lifted the sticker with the small plastic tool I used to separate the screen from the backing and reseated the sticker. Voila! Full signal and GPS again. Beauty of this fix is all you need to do is remove the two pentalope screws, suction the glass up, then reseat the sticker. If your sticker is unseated, you don’t need to unscrew anything on the inside. Reapply it in the right spot, and close it back up. 5 minute fix. I suspect this is actually the problem most folks are having because it is hard to see how that cable fails or the connectors fail. But because the sticker seems to sandwich between the top plate and the F-cable, if you drop the phone you can see how the sticker might get pushed out of position. Clearly replacing the F-cable will solve the problem of the sticker having shifted, but if the only problem is the sticker shifted you can save yourself a ton of time and the cost of the cable by simply reseating the sticker. Hope this helps!

Check step 29-30 of this guide. iPhone 6 Logic Board Replacement Also check the F shaped RF cable on the back of the board.

My daughter’s iPhone 6 had bad GPS signal ( would not work with maps), weak and unreliable bluetooth, poor wifi signal. Her phone has been messed up for 2 months. I also replaced the Main Logic Board Antenna Flex Cable 2 days ago and all is restored back to normal. Bluetooth works great, GPS works again with maps, WiFi works great. The Logic Board Antenna Flex Cable is a 1 inch long ribbon cable that is F shaped and a picture of it appears earlier in this thread. I found it online for about $6 which included the shipping and an iPhone tool kit. https://www.amazon.com/WELLENT%C2%AENEW-… The logic board antenna flex cable is located on the back side of the main logic board so you have to completely remove the Main Logic Board which is a chore but doable. I used the instructions for removing the Main Logic Board that are also posted earlier in this thread. There are a number of tiny screws of multiple sizes and so some organization of the screws is useful. I used the following hint: Take a blank sheet of printer paper and tape it to the countertop (so it will not slide around and mix up your screws) Draw a 1-2 in square box for each of the steps involving screw removal. In each box draw a circle in the position of each screw location for that step and put each screw in the appropriate location when removed. I also labled each box with the step number and the number of screws for that step. The steps are in the instructions earlier in this thread for removal of the Main Logic Board. iPhone 6 Logic Board Replacement Once the logic board is removed, turn it over and pop off the 4 connectors on the F shaped Main Logic Board Antenna Flex Cable and snap on the 4 connectors on the new flex cable to install on the board. Follow the steps in reverse order to reassemble. It took me 2.5 hours to complete the job but I also replaced the touch screen/digitizer as well because the glass was cracked. I could have done it in about half the time if I did not replace the front screen. This is an inexpensive fix for this big problem.

Interestingly enough I poked around (while I am still waiting for my gps antenna order to arrive) and managed to get a somewhat usable enough accuracy by sticking a 3 layers thick of electric tape between the back case and the antenna flex. I had unusable 65 meters accuracy at best and now I have 10 meters accuracy which based on “GPS Status” app by PocketGPSWorld is considered good. I’d prefer sub 10 but at least i can use my phone with waze and avoid traffic. Playing around with the sticker on the flex cable didn’t seem to realy change anything for me. My guess is that the 4 connectors on the antenna flex cable dont make good contact. So playing around with the sticker as suggested in the thread is likely resolving the issue by really shimmering the connectors more than anything. In my case I would bet a combination of frequent phone drops / hot temperatures / cold temperature resulted into my GPS (wifi , 3G) to give up. UPDATE June 30, 2018: The tape trick worked so good that I didn’t bother going through the trouble of installing the new GPS antenna that I have received from iFixit!

Hold the power and home button at the same time don’t let go until you see the apple logo. Give it a try if that doesn’t work try reseting all settings and go to Compass and calibrate the compass.

I’d like to add my success story. My problem that lead me here was really, really poor Bluetooth, along with bad GPS (off by roughly 0.1 miles). GPS was useless for map directions and exercise apps. I used app “GPS Status” by PocketGPSWorld.com to compare to other iPhones and mine showed “Poor Fix” with a horizontal accuracy of 65M. Speed and Course were listed as “Invalid”. I presume this meant it would suck for direction/course based apps. Other iPhones showed significantly better info. I bought the F-Type antenna for $4.90 here. Note: this item doesn’t come with the tools for disassembly, so if you don’t already have a kit, you’ll have to buy that too. I got the part and proceeded to disassemble my phone according to these instructions. When I opened my iPhone, the “sticker” that has been mentioned in this thread, which looks and tests like it’s a piece of conductive foam, was a little scrunched up, moved and sticking to the underside of the metal camera housing. It certainly looked very out of place. Mine was a little too scrunched up to save, so I continued with the full replacement of the F-Antenna. Disassembly tips: Use a piece of paper and tape to ensure you don’t lose screws, and you can tape screws to the paper in the orientation the were removed. There are many different thread/length screws inside, so don’t assume you can put them in a pile and remember where they go. The replacement was successful and a retest of my GPS showed a status of an “Excellent Fix”, a horizontal accuracy of 5M and Speed and Course showing data. I think it’s very likely that re-placing the foam, if intact, will solve many problems and is way easier than a full disassembly. It would only require opening the phone, no other part removal would be required. However, my thought here is that if it came loose once, it may come loose again. If you’re up to the task, I’d say replace the antenna (which includes a newly stuck on foam) and you’ll be better off for the future. Thanks a million to this thread!

As mentioned above, there is a little Sticker on the F-Cable for the BT/GPS/Wifi Antenna. This Sticker is NOT an isolator but a connector to the frame. After experiments with aluminum foil under and/or over the the cable, to ensure connection by pressure when the phone is put back together, I found the best solution is to scatch the sticker with a sharp tool … also scratch a bit on the opposite site under the cable and on the counter side on the displays back. It is connected on both sides. Maybe use contact-fluid with a q-tip as well. It might be corroded or was touched by your hand when you replaced battery or so . Then there is no more connection possible due to oxidation or grease from your fingers. Here is a picture of the sticker: https://ibb.co/sQ4CgZP For me it works now. I am back with Bluetooth, WLAN and GPS full signal again. After half a year my BT audio works again. You need to open the phone but do not need to remove any cables. It is done in less then five Minutes. Good luck.

Recently acquired an iPhone 6 with weak 2.4 and 5GHz wifi, Bt, GPS, and cellular signal. After studying the design, there are few ground and antenna contact points that needs attention after drops or just age. Generally, no new parts are necessary (likely just remaking better connection while replacing parts) In my case, just fluffing up a couple of ground contact patch area fixed it. Here is a pic and link to the summary https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lLlRpKd…

Just to add my experience, I was having the same issues mentioned above i.e. GPS not able to track route or pin down location accurately, very low bluetooth range. Replacing the Wifi antenna signal flex cable took about 1 hour for me (a complete novice) and fixed the issue. Many thanks!

My iPhone 6 has issues lately: 1) bad GPS location service, off at least 100 yards; 2) poor blue tooth connection, work only within 4-5 feet; 3) wifi connection only works for 5 mHz, can connect to 2.4 mHz wifi, but only works within 4 feet distance from the router. Found this thread days ago, ordered a Wi-Fi Antenna Flex Cable Ribbon from ebay ($3.50) and a simple iPhone tool set ($6), following the steps in the link provided above. In less than an hour, all issues are gone!!! Many thanks to everyone who share the great information!!! An observation: the old Wi-Fi Antenna Flex Cable Ribbon doesn’t seem to have any damage. I doubt why a replacement of a new antenna works just fine… However, I found the insulation material on the bottom of the phone at the upper left corner underneath the antenna connector seems to be damaged (could be caused by dropping of a iPhone). To avoid any complication, I put a small piece of electrical tape on each of the two connector heads. I am wondering if a NEW antenna is needed. Repairing the insulation material damage could fix the issues just fine. :)

A helpful tip for keeping all the screws in order is to use a magnet pad but if you dont want to buy one of those I just use the packing slip that has a sticky side and pop my screws on there! An bigger sticker would also work.

In my case fixing the sticker location seems to have made a huge difference, BEFORE you replace the antenna, check this sticker out, I would venture to guess that a significant number of the replacement antennas people installed could have just needed the sticker moved. The sticker is located in the top middle of the bottom half of the phone and can be accessed by just opening the phone without removing any parts. Picture that clearly shows the sticker in question

Ok people I figured it out, the little sticker has everything to do with it, it’s purpose is to connect the metal on the F strip to the metal on the back of the screen. I adjusted my sticker but it still didn’t work at first because it was embedded with old sticky glue. So I scraped a little to get some metal on top instead of old blue, I then stuck a little piece of paper on the backside of the f strip to raise it up so that it smashes even tighter when it closes .it may not be a very professional fix but I can literally walk 25 feet away from my Bluetooth radio now. It wasn’t working at all before.

I have same problems ago, But since I posted my experience and I read all the suggestions I finally found the solution after reading this thread: https://www.howtoisolve.com/ios-11-bluet…

Had the same issue. Weak Bluetooth, weak wifi and very weak gps signal. Replaced the logic board antenna flex cable and no more problems. Ordered with ifixit. Took me about an hour as its quite fidly to do.

Just want to add another success story. Problem: Disconnecting from airpods when phone was positioned a certain way. And I was no longer getting a strong signal from the 2.4ghz network in my house. Solution: Repositioned the sticker on my antenna. Now works beautifully. Took out the two bottom screws, popped it open ( I have the suction cup tool), and used a plastic spudger to gently push the bronze sticker back so it was fully covering the metal section beneath. Turned it back on and poof! no more problems. Good luck to those still having issues. Just know it’s worth checking this sticker thing out before spending any money.

This is for slammer- Where exactly does the electrical tape spacer go when you open up the phone? Can you do it without unscrewing anything? Do you put it right on top of the rectangular “sticker” that seems to move out of place all the time. (Covers the brass plate). Or does the tape go underneath the f shaped antennae somehow? Thanks.

I have replace wifi F-antenna but still my WIFI/BLUETOOTH /GPS not working. I brought new antenna. Also in Mobile Wifi symbol is grayed out in settings, Bluetooth icon is enable but not finding any device from the setting, GPS get enable but not sure its working on not. where can not enable the WIFI. Can any one tell me where is the problem? Let me know what can be other issues to bring my wifi back .

Hi. I have lost the middle screw that holds the steel plate for the screen connectors. What size is it and how can I get it ? i was trying to reassemble and don’t ask my screw driver had a jerk of hand and the screw which was stuck to it flew away! thank you