LG G3 (D855) No cell coverage IMEI now 0

[bobajob]

I have the above phone (v6) bought from new and not rooted and as a whole has ben fine it is unlocked and on 3 I bought a fan from ebay the other which will plug into the bottom of the phone, i wanted it as sometimes the tube in London is like a sauna sometimes, however plug it in and fan worked fine, however phone turned itself off and i just presumed it was need to run the fan and thought nothing of it, took fan out and and powered up phone and i thought all was fine however i had no cell coverage so thought maybe 3 was down so put in Mrs Voda SIM and still nothing, plugged in another sim from EE and still nothing.

So have had a nose round the settings it is now saying the following:
IMEI number: 0
IMEI SV: 81
Network: Unknown (on all sims)
Mobile Network Type: Unknown
Service Stae: Out of service
Wi-Fi & BT woring fine.
So it's done some serious damage to the phone and it internal software, I will do a full factory reset soon but need to get stuff of first, but i doubt this will fix it as i suspect it's deeper then just a reset job.

Has anyone come across this before and if so know of any fixes i should try.

[BandOfBrothers]

Hi @bobajob

I've never come across such an accessory and would assume it could quite possibly draw quite a lot of battery power and resource from the phone. 

If as you say it turned it off during using it them this could point to it being damaged. 

If this was my situation I'd double check any literature that came with the accessory to look at compatability and ways of contacting that company to ask relavant questions. 

If a Factory Reset does not rectify the problem then I agree it could be the accessory has caused a fatal internal issue or even that the phone has just basically failed. 

Unfortunately a Manufacturing Warranty wouldn't cover the phone if it's failed due to the accessory causing this. Thinking about this as the phone is unlocked and being used on another network Vodafone wouldn't have its imei etc on their systems to be able to book it in for a repair. 

If it's over 24 months old and depending on the time and resources you wish to invest in the handset you could engage your own phone engineer to look at it. 

If it's internal then their isn't anything you can do as it requires an engineer to open it up to test. 

My learning curve from this would be to use one of those hand held battery powered fans to help combat the heat. 

[bobajob]

No paperwork with the fan, i'm 99% certain a factory reset will not do the job but i will try later, i know this has happened to others as i googled it last night and saw various fixes but means i'd have to import a new ROM and i'd rather not do that if i can help it, i need some software that will alter the IMEI number which used to be legal but a good few years ago they chaned the law and it became illegal to even own it so think i might be stuch between a rock and a hard place hopefully someone else will come up with something here.

[hrym]

I think your only hope in this instance would be LG.   If the device is still in warranty (?), you might get a fix done if the issue was corruption due to the battery going flat, though it's also possible they'd be able to tell it was a bit more than that.   If you allow a battery to go flat, it can do so while the OS is writing data and this will corrupt the device to the extent that it won't even boot.   It's possible that the IMEI is still there but that the system simply isn't reading it.

If the repair is chargeable, obviously you'd need to consider whether it was worthwhile versus the cost of a new phone.   And, given that you can get self-powered handheld fans for very little, I'd go for one of those!

Edited to add: I've just had a look and was amazed that these are a thing!  The claimed power consumption of the one I looked at is 1 watt, which is about 0.2A (assuming 5.5V) - your phone's battery would be about 1500-2000mAH, or 1.5-2A at full charge.  There's also no knowing how the USB is wired and that could be the cause of the problem, too.

[bobajob]

I know it can be reflashed and bought back to life but can't find the tools to do it, if you google IMEI 0 LG G3 you will see a few hits on it.

It's well out of warranty now  bought in Dec 2015, so no help from Voda.

Oh well i guess here was worth a try but looks like i'm going to have to dig alot deeper

[hrym]

If the device is dead, there's certainly no harm in giving it a go yourself. I wouldn't throw money at it, though.

[bobajob]

This is the funny thing sometimes it is working with other sims and even allows me to make calls despite the fact the phone has no IMEI number, will be looking into this more from Thursday onwards as i'm busy up till then but i will keep this updated just in case it happens to anyone else