Daughters iphone got soaked...chance of success of revival?

[YeOldeStonecat]

Older iphone 4...S I guess.

Got it wet in the bathroom, who knows what actually happened...I know she props it up on the tub next to the shower to play tunes when she's showering. I dunno the events of how it actually got wet...I doubt it went "under water"...likely just got doused pretty badly, in it's case (which probably held some water in between the case and buttons for a bit).

I was out working in the garage the whole evening...so not sure of what happened immediately afterwards. Likely her and her mom tried to get it working..thus powering it on. By the time I came in, wife had it in a big bowl of rice, unplugged.

Couldn't tell if it was turned on or off for that 24 hours in a bowl of rice.

I took the SIM card out just now. That "silent/ring" button on the upper left...if I push it back I feel (and hear) the phone vibrate a bit. I can't tell when the phone is powered off or on.

I know nothing about cell phone repair....I stick with servers, routers, switches, etc.

 

[Frick]

Gather up a bunch of silica packs from your office/shop, and pack the phone in them for a few days (powered off). They should pull any moisture in the phone out. If that does not "fix" it then more in depth measures will be needed, which I will leave to the others on this board...

 

[Markverhyden]

You need to expose the phone to warmer temperatures, just under 95F, to accelerate the evaporation. The longer you leave the water in the greater the chance of corrosion. My 5s fell off the top of my car this winter. Finally found it after a couple of hours in the wet slush. Kept in a warm oven for a while and then on top of the warm over overnight. At first I it acted up a little on the home button but eventually working fine. I can tell someone ran over it as the case is ever so slightly curved. What luck. LOL!!!

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

OK son got it to turn off...he has an iphone..held the top button and swiped to the right where it's supposed to be on the top of the screen (you just can't see it..black screen)...and now when hitting the vibrate/silence switch it doesn't vibrate. So assuming it's turned off. Will rice it some more...I don't have silicon packets at home.

 

[katz]

My smart phone got an accidental dunking a few months ago. Here's what I did.

Immediately powered it off & removed the battery, sim card and sd card. Opened the case, towel blotted everything dry; Used electrical contact cleaner on the circuit boards to help displace the moisture. It evaporates fast so there isn't a residue left. I then used my heat gun to dry things very well, or an oven as Mark suggests.


Let it sit for probably three days or so before I powered it back on. ...And it worked! As a matter of fact, the speaker clarity was improved for some reason.

Warming it/drying in the oven would probably be the best bet at this point, short of actually disassembling the case for a through cleaning.

The rice trick is probably a good way to go, but there is no substitute for actually getting that moisture out of there with heat.

 

[Markverhyden]

Actually rice does very little in situations like this. The objective is to get water from a liquid phase to a vapor phase and rice does next to nothing in that category. The two things that really work, after physical removal, are temperature and air pressure. Putting a fan blowing across the surface will help with air pressure, especially if it's on a warm surface. Placing it in a vacuum is the best but most people do not have that setup. I guess if one had some cat litter and one of those food vacuum sealers you could nuke a coupe of cups of the litter to warm it up and then bag everything up and do the vacuum bag thing.

 

[Krynn72]

The number of people we get coming in after the "rice trick" didn't work is very high. Hell, a lot of times there's nasty crap all over it because of the rice which make it worse, and sometimes there's even rice inside the darn thing lol. The best thing is like markverhyden and katz said, disconnect the battery (slows the corrosion process greatly) and to get the water to evaporate asap, or to displace the water with alcohol/contact cleaner. Trying to turn it on over and over is going to accelerate the corrosion process and potentially blow out some component. A lot of people are too curious to see "if it works still" and try many things to turn it on, killing the board that could have potentially been fine had they waited a day. Hopefully you have a pentalobe screw driver

 

[Mercenary Roadie]

Desiccant bags in a vacuum would be the best I would think.

 

[Mercenary Roadie]

Problem is with an iPhone, you can't disconnect the battery unless you have the tools and knowledge to open the case.

 

[nlinecomputers]

If you have pentalobe screwdrivers you can open the phone. Only need to remove two screws. https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iPhone+4S+Battery+Replacement/7111

I would get that phone open asap if you can.

 

[altrenda]

Gather up a bunch of silica packs from your office/shop, and pack the phone in them for a few days (powered off). They should pull any moisture in the phone out. If that does not "fix" it then more in depth measures will be needed, which I will leave to the others on this board...

This^^^^^^ much better than rice. RIce leaves lots of dust.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Problem is with an iPhone, you can't disconnect the battery unless you have the tools and knowledge to open the case.

Yeah...that's the thing, we don't work on smart phones thus no tools for them. Cost of getting the parts...might as well just go get her another used phone at the store.

I'll bring to the office and see if we have a few silicon bags. And also get it in front of a fan.....or...here's an idea...put it on top of one of our servers in the cabinet....will be warm there (not hot)...and there will be great airflow over it from the rack mount fans.

Thanks for all your input everyone! I owe everyone a virtual beer!

 

[Moltuae]

And also get it in front of a fan.....or...here's an idea...put it on top of one of our servers in the cabinet....will be warm there (not hot)...and there will be great airflow over it from the rack mount fans.

Warm, dry air is best. Warm air can 'hold' more water vapour than cold air, but if the air is already fairly humid, it's like trying to dry something with a damp sponge. I would stick in front of an air-con/HVAC fan for faster drying.

Do I earn a VB (Virtual Beer) too?

 

[joydivision]

My Galaxy S4 landed in the toilet before Christmas.

I instantly removed the battery (hard on an Iphone).
Removed the SIM and SD cards
Put it in a back of rice with those silca gel packs you get with PSUs etc
Left it in the airing cuboard for a few days

It worked perfectly, at first the 4G signal was a little weak but after a week it worked perfectly.

I believe the reason for my success was I removed the battery straight away and it was clean water so no problems with acid (touch wood).

 

[nlinecomputers]

I washed my 6 month old Moto X (1st Gen) about 6 weeks ago. Ruined it. Really ****** me off as I lost some mileage data that I had not uploaded. Everything else on the phone syncs. Got a nice Droid Turbo for me and the wife to replace them. And she promptly broke the screen on hers before the first bill was in. #FML Insurance got a replacement for her. Minus the $150 deductible.

And I found a program to sync my mileage data to dropbox so it is now protected against future f ups.

 

[Mercenary Roadie]

...........#FML Insurance got a replacement for her. Minus the $150 deductible ......

OT

Check out Square Trade for insurance. Their rates are good and they have very low deductibles.

 

[DataMedics]

I would actually open the phone case to expose the electronics to air. Use a blow dryer to speed up the drying process, and then possibly even spray in some WD40 to lubricate and prevent corrosion (don't worry it's not conductive). I've seen what happens to these after they dry out the other way, and it's a corrosion nightmare.

 

[Mercenary Roadie]

Do not use WD-40!! It will destroy all of the foam and loosen all of the adhesive.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

well 3 days later....still nothing on the screen. It still appears to power up....as I can push the silent button back and feel/hear the vibration. And appears I can power it off....hold down the button and swipe where you think the swipe spot is...and the silent button no longer vibrates it.

Just..totally black screen.
Has the super tiny star/torx screws on the bottom, I don't have the tools for that, won't get 'em...by the time purchasing tools and taking the time to go crosseyed and take that thing apart...just isn't worth it, will pick up a used phone for her at the store. I am going to assume it is pretty roached from being turned on too much that first evening she got it soaked.

 

[nlinecomputers]

And they are not Torx screws. They are Pentalobe screws. If you try to use a Torx driver you'll damage the heads. (Which of course is what Apple is counting on.)