Sony Xperia SP will not work without a SIM card

[Jpepper]

hi there

Does anyone know if the Sony Xperia SP will work without a SIM card? This is my old phone and I want to give it to my son so he can play games and Skype with his grandparents, however, I keep getting a message that the phone will automatically turn off after 15 minutes because there is no SIM card inserted. I have lookked everywhere and I cannot find any direction on how to change the settings so the phone can stay on without a sim.  Any suggestions?

Thanks

[_alexdon_]

@Jpepper yes, just turn airplane mode on and you will be able to use the connections afterwards (wifi, bluetooth etc).

[Jpepper]

@alexdon  thanks for the suggestion!  I've had it on airplane mode for a couple days now but I'm still getting the 'no sim card' message and then the phone restarts.

[_alexdon_]

Strange, SP does not have a SIM tray so it can move. Have you also tried to reset the device and set it directly to airplane mode after?

[Jpepper]

@alexdon  So, I'm now experiencing a different issue......when the phone is restarted the 'no sim card' message comes up and says it will automatically restart in 15 minutes, then within seconds a 'sim card inserted' message comes up and restarts the phone, even though no sim card has been inserted. The phone restarts and we go through it all again. It took me a number of restarts for the phone to give me enough time to go in and reset the phone before it restarted again. So, I've reset the phone again and as soon as it turned on I turned it on Airplane mode. It was good for about 5-10 minutes so I was feeling hopeful for a few minutes but lo and behold the stupid 'no sim card' message appeared again. I hit cancel and within about a minute the 'sim card inserted' message came up and restarted my phone!  I now seem to be stuck in a loop of 'no sim card' 'sim card inserted' messages and restarts 

[_alexdon_]

@Jpepper could it be a hardware fault here? At the SIM insertion place, near the battery.

[Jpepper]

Well, after farting around with this stupid phone for two weeks, I went out and bought a sim card for $10 and VOILA, no more error message. Stupid of Sony to not allow a cell phone to not work without a SIM card but at least it didn't cost me a fortune to get it back up and running again.....I have a happy kid! LOL!