Dropped a GalaxyS4 in the toilet, now it won't charge.

[AC Question]

I was just casually listening to music while all of a sudden I tripped and made my phone go into the toilet, no pee thank god.
I immediately took the phone out, took of my case, took the battery of (and memory card and sim) and put them all in the rice.
But when i tried charging it, wont charge at all. Help?

 

[John Kettler]

AC Question,

Call this technical speculation, but what may be happening is that the hydrophilic rice got the moisture off your circuit boards, restoring them to working order, but the tunnel for your charging jack likely has much more water, water capillary action will keep there. Suggest you put your phone back into the rice and leave it there longer, say, overnight. I have a friend who dropped his Android into the toilet, and the rice trick completely restored his phone. I believe you're almost there, but the place the intruding water now remains is precisely the one preventing you from putting your phone back in operation.

 

[Rukbat]

What actually happened is that the impurities in the water caused shorts, which killed the phone. Putting a wet phone into rice (or silica gel, which dries it even faster) is exactly the wrong thing to do. I don't know who came up with the idea (it's been floating around the internet for years) but whoevcer it was didn't know anything about repairing cellphones, or how electronics or chemistry work. Read Wet Phone so you;ll know what to do when you get your next phone wet. (I'm afraid that if your current phone is repairable at all, it's going to have to go into a Samsung repair shop (and don't count on it being repairable - a good used, or even new, phone may be cheaper than repairing yours - assuming that any repair shop will actually accept the phone for repair. Most shops won't repair phones that have actually been dropped into water. The chance of something that was working, so they didn't repair it, failing later, is too great.)

 

[John Kettler]

Rukbat,

There appears to be more than one way to get the job done. Obviously, the rice has to be uncooked and the container sealed after completely surrounding the (dried as much as possible w/o heat) phone, which ideally is broken down into its components, starting with the battery. In some cases, such as the (not a Galaxy) Razr M, even the battery can't be removed w/o tiny screwdrivers and such. Since I can't post links, here is the title to the piece from the Radio Shack tech forum. Nowhere does it so much as mention any sort of alcohol bath. Seems to me that if (Radio SHacks ) Tech Channel writes explicitly on resurrecting drowned phones using uncooked rice, then we're well past Internet rumor. I know of multiple cases in which a friend's phone had an unfortunate dip, to include a water-urine mix, yet still, using rice method (likely accompanied by a rinse for the water-plus scenario) got them all fully working.

"How to Dry a Cell Phone Out With Rice"
by Shawn McClain, Demand Media

Nor is Radio Shack alone in these views.

LifeHacker has a potent testimonial regarding a Blackberry immersed for 30 minutes which was raised from the dead via the rice method.

"Testimonial: Rice Resurrects Even the Most Soaked of Gadgets"
Jason Fitzpatrick

Here, Popular Mechanics wades in, concluding that rice is the general solution.
Popular Mechanics
"How to Save Your Wet Cellphone: Tech Clinic"
BY JOEL JOHNSON

Some of the above do opine/the commenters say that a rubbing alcohol bath can be useful for removing impurities resulting from, say, murky water immersion and for helping remove moisture from the phone. Not one of the recommends your preferred method as being the primary approach.