Barely any sound from speaker > headphone works fine > replaced speaker already

[thisdoesfine]

I just replaced the speaker with a new one (tried taking it on / off again too) and factory wiped my phone and I'm still having the following problem:

My audio (all aspects are turned up to max volume in settings) coming out of the speaker is soooooo very faint. I can hear it if I put my ear up to the speaker itself and it sounds clear just not loud enough to actually hear. Like I mentioned, I did buy a replacement speaker board and swapped it out with the same exact results. If I plug in a headphone the volume is just as loud as it used to be through the headphones.

I guess there is a small chance the part I bought had the same exact thing wrong with it but it was advertised as a new part so it's fairly doubtful.

The phone may have got water on it but the battery was absolutely dead as it was sitting under our fridge for about 6 months (we thought our toddler threw it away). The fridge had a small leak and the back of the phone was a bit wet but upon opening it, I found no water anywhere. We still opened it all up and let it dry before we put any power back to it and everything else works just fine.

 

[B. Diddy]

I'd guess that the water did do some damage--there's no way to know how much water exposure there was over the span of those 6 months, and it doesn't take much to cause damage. Maybe the water exposure damaged some motherboard circuit that's important for speaker function. Water damage can be very difficult to pinpoint and to repair, so you may just have to live with its effect.

 

[thisdoesfine]

Yea, it's a real bummer. It's my toddler's phone. We load it with learning apps so the audio is crucial. I used my wife's speaker (buzzer?) today from her known good S3 and it did the same thing so obviously it's not that part. Thinking of looking for a main board on ebay on the cheap.

 

[B. Diddy]

How about getting a cheap Bluetooth speaker? It'd be a hassle to carry around while you're travelling or otherwise out of the house, but at home, it'd be a reasonable solution.

 

[thisdoesfine]

If it was for my personal use, that would be great. I actually have a couple bluetooth speakers but my toddler carries the phone everywhere she goes and aside from clipping it on her shirt, she'd be out of range quickly. I took some canned air to the insides near the contact point for the speaker but no go. It's my old phone and I had custom firmware on it. I'm very tempted to just hook it up to kies and pull the newest OTA in case some odd software glitch happened. I highly doubt it though as I've re-flashed via odin and data wiped multiple times with multiple images and roms. Right now I have the stock 4.1.2 VRBMF1 loaded. I'll be keeping an eye on ebay for some cheap broken screen phones or main boards. Do you know if the firmware is stored on the main board? I'd hate to buy one with 4.3 or 4.4 on it and not have tried the upgrade myself.