[GUIDE] Oh, no! My Phone got Wet!

[smokeville24]

what are the chances that my phone is saved? i have a note 4. it went for a short swim in sea water , about 15secs after which. i took out the battery. About 1hr later( because i was in the jungle) i washed it out with clean water and shook it out then i swished it around in some rubbing alcohol and shook it out. another hour after that i finally got some rice and placed it in a bag and left it ,that is phone, stylus and battery separated of course. i left it in the sun. mind you the day was extremely hot.i live in the tropics. in the evening i thought that it would be dried by then so i placed my battery in and nothing :-[ i placed it back in a bowl of uncooked rice and left it there overnight what are the chances of it turning on ?

 

[Rukbat]

Not much. If washing it in alcohol didn't fix the problem, one of two things happened:

1. The hour of sitting wet and dirty damaged something.

2. One alcohol bath wasn't enough and whatever impurities were left in caused damage.

(Sea water is a great conductor of electricity, so probably half the parts on the motherboard burned out as soon as they got wet. I'm guessing you'll need another motherboard and possibly another screen. Depending on repair prices where you are, buying a used one on Swappa might be a better idea.)

 

[bzzy]

plastic outer back cover

One caveat from my recent (in-progress) experience with alcohol-bathing my MotoG {XT1028, 2013, 1st gen}: don't soak the plastic outer back cover (POBC) with the rest of the phone. The POBC (at least for this model) has a coating on its back which the isopropyl (at least, the 91% solution I bought) erodes off the rest of the POBC, such that the coating comes off into the solution in small pieces. You should probably just wiping off the POBC with soap and water and set it aside to airdry.

 

[Rukbat]

Re: plastic outer back cover

The alcohol soak is just to get the impurities off. Unless there's oil in the water you dropped it in, just clean water should be enough, without any soap.

(I'm amending the first post to reflect the problem with 90% alcohol and the MotoG.)

 

[Cloud7z]

I have an S6 (irremovable battery) that I left on a wet desk all night charging. It wasn't very wet but it has messed up my phone. The phone still works and turns on as usual. However it will no longer charge, and I can smell a burning smell inside the charger port. What should I do?

 

[anon(632115)]

Not a lot you can do personally. This needs to be repaired professionally as the burning smell suggests something has shorted so the damage is potentially serious

 

[Rosiella ShadowsHeart]

simple take the back off remove the battery and stick it in dry rice and make sure that the phone completely cover in the rice and let it sit there for 6 hours and once 6 hours is up take it out of the rice put battery back in replace the back on the phone and turn it on and be good as new ( the rice will draw the moisture out like water and etc )

Rosie

 

[sionoh99]

So if I have charged it when it was still quite wet, is there no way to fix it?

 

[pete101]

All that water vapor and steam gets into the phone. When you bring it back into a cooler room, it all condenses and causes water damage. It's worse than leaving the charging port cover open on an S5. The vapor gets into every little air space inside the phone, no matter how small, it's just humid air. You really need an airtight phone to bring into a hot humid environment like that.

I don't think it's the heat itself - if the room was hot enough to affect the phone, either you're in a sauna, a steam lodge or you're risking death. It's the fact that the warmer the air, the more moisture it holds. When the phone (and the air inside it) cools off, that moisture condenses, and you have water damage all over the inside of the phone.

Can i ask i took my s6 edge plus into a car which was very humid due to windows being left open and rain getting in.

The temperature is cold here like 10C or less the windscreen is always full of condensation.

I forgot about this when i sat in the car and took my phone out to use it. Prior to that i had the heating on so the air was warmed up so obviously more moisture in the air inside the car. I got out of the car and came back 20 mins later by which time the air had cooled a bit inside but was still a bit damp humid. It was only 7C outside so cold. Inside i would say it was 12C with high relative humidity i could feel my hands and clothes getting wet as the cold outside temp on my clothes met the warmer humid air inside the car.

My question is how much if that humid air would have gotten inside the phone via the headphone jack, speaker and charging port? It was maybe 10 mins i sat inside the humid car before i realised.

Weirdly no condensation was on the screen maybe cos the temperature of the phone was above the dew point temperature but my hands and clothes were below hence the dampness.

Is it possible a lot of that coldish-warm humid air got inside my phone through those small entrances?

I know it's important to keep it above the dew point temperature to avoid condensation forming inside the phone.

I put it in a bag of silica gel but only had a few packets so not enough and ziplocked it overnight the problem is that the temp dropped overnight meaning it must have fell below the due point and whatever moisture was inside would have condensed.

What else could i do? I know steam and moisture humid air can be worse than dropping it in water as the air can get into places which water cant and factor in the varying temp betwedn night n day guarantees condensation forming. Is 8 hours enough time for silica to remove the humid air inside my phone?

 

[pete101]

All that water vapor and steam gets into the phone. When you bring it back into a cooler room, it all condenses and causes water damage. It's worse than leaving the charging port cover open on an S5. The vapor gets into every little air space inside the phone, no matter how small, it's just humid air. You really need an airtight phone to bring into a hot humid environment like that.

I don't think it's the heat itself - if the room was hot enough to affect the phone, either you're in a sauna, a steam lodge or you're risking death. It's the fact that the warmer the air, the more moisture it holds. When the phone (and the air inside it) cools off, that moisture condenses, and you have water damage all over the inside of the phone.

Would putting a fan on low setting on the ports speed up the evaporation process?

It's about 12c in my room now but i dont know if there is still humid air inside the phone if there is and it hasn't turned into condensation will a fan evaporate it quicker provided it doesn't cool the phone so much it drops below the dew point.

Im just panicking cos my hands were quite damp inside the car telling me that the humidity musta been close to 100% since my clothes and hands felt wet the only saving grace was my phone was in my pocket heating up prior to taking it out in the car so prob above the temperature of the air but could the humid air still get inside?

I didn't see any moisture in the bag

Im just annoyef with myself for not winding down windows or realising sooner i really hope i not caused damage inside it that's invisible or corrosive

 

[pete101]

If my phone is sealed ie cant take battery out will silica gel in a zip loc bag really draw out any humid air moisture inside the phone through the headphone jack?

It seems like it's really easy for humid air to get inside the phone but to get it out seems impossible.. as in would silica gel packets really draw the moisture from inside the phone through that little hole in headphone jack?? Does that actually happen? Doesn't the silica need a more open port to suck out the air moisture inside a sealed phone?

 

[Eklay]

Hello Rukbat, I dropped my Nexus 6 in water. its been 2 days now. It was working fine the next morning but during the day the screen started flickering until going off completely. After reading your thread, I think it was caused after I started charging it.
Can you pls advise..how to save it?

 

[Bogdan Bogdanov]

Detach battery. Put it in rice to absorb wet.

I drop my LG Nexus 4 in the water. At first it looks like it works fine, but:

1. First microphone stop working.
2. My calls start to interrupt.

So I disassemble the phone. Remove battery and make alcohol bath. I put it in rice to absorb alcohol that left.

The phone appears to work, but I have problem with the screen. Either I it still has alcohol, either the alcohol dissolves something and there are a lot of stains from the inside on the glass.

So not make alcohol bath for the screen.

 

[Helpful_Knowledge]

My Phone was recently dropped in water a month ago, I just left it and now just recently saturday morning i tried to charge it and it turned on, Everything was fine except wifi, Ive did all the factory reseting and router reseting. can someone please help?

 

[joyce D]

Hi there. I was in my boat in fresh water and my phone got wet but not submerged. I unfortunately, did three things you have said not to do. I plugged it in, kept battery in and out and tried to power it back up several times. I've tried the rice over night the last 3 nights. I even tried it in rice in our food dehydrator on the lowest setting. I can hear calls come in, hear the volume setting, see light at the top sometimes red, blue or green and see the white lights at the bottom. I have tried all combinations of power,up volume, down volume, and menu buttons, but no luck. Besides not wanting to pay to replace the phone that is not insured, I don't want to lose the pictures on it. Is there anyway to retrieve the info that has been saved to the phone without the screen lighting up? Am I to late to try the alcohol treatment? If not, do you unscrew the phone to get to the mother board before you wash it? I have seen a few videos that show you unscrew the phone and check if something has come lose?? Or is time no longer on my side as it has been 3 days from the accident? PLEASE HELP ME!!!!! Thank you!!!!

 

[Rukbat]

It's too late to do anything. The damage was all done within the first few hours, especially once you plugged it in. Sorry. (In the shop, we opened the phone and removed everything, then washed the pieces one by one in alcohol with a gauze alcohol wipe. But swishing a closed (not water-resistant) phone in an alcohol bath enough should do as well.

 

[V278]

Can you add instructions for opening the non removable battery phones? My phone is probably a paperweight at this point and I'm sick to my stomach. I have an s6 edge. On Monday I got caught in the rain. Put the phone in rice till Tuesday night, plugged it up and turned it on wednesday morning. Turned it on and it said finger print sensor not working or something like that and it wouldn't connect to the mobile network and the camera failed. So after reading this I had the genius idea of trying the alcohol bath in spite not having a clue on how to crack the back open.....so I did the bath with the back on. I put the phone in rice after the alcohol bath on Wednesday morning and just took it out and tried to turn it on. Blue light comes on and that's it. Doesn't seem to be responsive to being plugged up. The top part of the screen looks moist. I'm so mad. I hate the fact that these phones are being made with non removable batteries now. Are there any good quality phones at least somewhat comparable to Samsung phones that have a removable battery? Apparently I'm now in the market for a new phone and I will never buy a phone that does not have a removable battery again. You'd think 5 days later I wouldn't still be this pissed but I am.tgese phones cost an arm and a leg with zero durability.

 

[Elinda12]

i did all the worst things! what can i do now my phone opens apps i didnt even click on etc...

 

[KiraCarr]

I dropped my phone in the toilet everything is working except for my Wifi. Even if I'm 3 feet from the router it has only 1 bar. Every internet connection has a 1 bar on my phone. What do i do?

 

[AllanAG]

Not a phone but a tablet.

Last week, I quickly noticed that the top had gone off my water bottle in my bag.

However, it seemed to already have affected my tablet - it kept turning on and off, never got past the first boot window.

But a couple of hours later I took a look, and it was on. Everything seemed to work - though the battery seemed stuck at 50%.

I didn't think much of it as it worked for 3-4 days.

Then suddenly I woke up to an empty battery (it was plugged in), and the message 'Charging paused, battery temperature too low'

Is it the water damage?Is it dead? It's important, as I was on holiday, and have hundreds of pictures from there, I hope aren't lost!