The phone was dropped — and the SIM is gone. Why does this happen?

A familiar scene: you dropped your phone, picked it up — everything looks fine on the outside, the glass is intact, the housing has no dents. But then you notice there is no network. You look at the status bar, and it says "No SIM" or "SIM not detected." We see this regularly in our workshop — especially with the iPhone 12, 13, and 14 series.

The SIM card itself rarely breaks from an impact. Most often, the problem is deeper, inside the phone. Let me explain exactly what could have gone wrong.

Common causes

The tray or the card inside it shifted

Upon impact, the tray can shift slightly — literally by a fraction of a millimeter. That is enough for the contacts to stop hitting the right spot. It also happens that the card itself inside the tray has become misaligned. You won't notice this from the outside, but the phone can no longer read it.

Contacts are bent or oxidized

Even if the phone hasn't been dropped in water, a film forms on the contacts over time. After an impact, the card moves with force inside the tray — and the contacts get deformed. This is especially relevant for phones older than two years.

The SIM connector on the board has come loose

This is more serious. Inside an iPhone, there is a slot soldered to the motherboard. If it falls from a height of more than a meter — especially onto a hard surface — it can come loose. We had a case: an iPhone 13 Pro was brought in, it fell from a bar counter onto tile. On the outside — not a scratch, the housing is perfect. On the inside — the SIM connector was torn off the board on one side. The modem turned out to be alive, but the slot itself had to be resoldered.

Damaged modem chip

Rare, but it happens. If the phone fell very unfortunately — on a corner, with force — the modem processor itself can be damaged. Then "no SIM" is just a symptom. Later, other problems appear: no Wi-Fi, Bluetooth works intermittently, the phone heats up for no reason. This is already a complex repair at the board level.

What you can try yourself

  1. Restart your phone. It sounds trivial, but it works in about one out of ten cases. The system just didn't have time to recognize the card after the shake-up.
  2. Take the SIM out and put it back in. Take a paperclip or a needle and carefully extract the tray. Inspect the card — check for chips or cracks in the corners. Insert it back, making sure the tray is pushed all the way in and sits flush.
  3. Check this SIM in another phone. This will allow you to understand if the card is alive at all. If it works in another device, the issue is definitely with the iPhone, not the card.
  4. Insert another SIM into your iPhone. A reverse check. If the second card is also not read, the problem is in the slot or the board.
  5. Reset network settings. Go to "Settings" — "General" — "Transfer or Reset iPhone" — "Reset" — "Reset Network Settings." Sometimes this helps with software glitches when the hardware is fine.

Important: do not heat the phone, shake it, or try to pull anything with a needle. We have seen such attempts — usually, people end up bringing in two damages instead of one.

When you can't handle it yourself

If you have gone through all the simple steps and the SIM is still not visible, this is a case of physical damage inside. We once had an iPhone 12 mini brought in: it fell down the stairs, the owner said it wasn't a hard fall. It looked fine on the outside, no cracks or dents. But upon opening it, the SIM connector was held by only one contact out of eight — the rest were torn off during the impact. We tried everything: restarts, changing the card, resetting the network — nothing. We resoldered the slot, and everything worked. The repair took about two hours and cost between 2500–3500 rubles depending on the model.

If the phone also heats up, runs out of battery quickly, or has poor Wi-Fi reception after a drop — bring it in immediately, don't wait. These are signs that the impact affected more than just the slot.

Come to Iclub Service at 35 Kommunisticheskaya St. — diagnostics are free, we will tell you exactly what happened and how much it will cost. We do most of these repairs on the same day.