Wifi Hardware Damage?

[jlodamofo]

Hi. Please accept my apologies if this is in the wrong section.

I dropped my S5 and the back sprung off the phone, exposing the battery etc. As i bent to pick it up, i poured water over it from a watering can.

Yes. Indeed. I am a clumsy oaf.

The battery remained in the phone and the screen still displayed.

I took the battery, SIM and SD out and put the phone in the airing cupboard overnight, fearing the worst.

Roughly 12 hours later i tried the phone. It worked....

....apart from a crackling sound.

I removed the battery and waited a bit longer for it to dry further.

Since then, everything works apart from wifi. The wifi slider in settings will not slide over and many of the options are greyed out. It will not scan. It's as if wifi doesn't exist. I have tried a few wifi apps but none do anything.

Therefore i have had to conclude that it's a hardware issue.

How do i fix it?

All the searches i do lead to wireless charging chips etc which is not what i need.

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! Water damage can be unpredictable, and often irreversible, so if some wi-fi component was damaged, it would have to be replaced. The tricky thing is that you don't know what the extent of the water damage is, so the repair shop might try replacing one component, then have to replace another if that doesn't work, then another, and before you know it, you're spending more money on repairs than the phone is worth.

 

[jlodamofo]

Thanks for your welcome and your reply. I was hoping it was just a case of...."get a new wifi antenae... they sell them here...."

Should i take it to a repair shop? Or put up with it?

Is there such a device as a plug in wifi thingy?

Thanks

 

[B. Diddy]

You could always bring it to a repair shop and get an estimate. But again, there's no guarantee that just replacing one component will fix the entire problem, due to the water exposure. I don't think there are any wi-fi dongles that can work via USB.

Have you already tried a factory reset?

 

[jlodamofo]

Hi. No. I haven't tried a factory reset because i'm convinced it's a hardware issue.

Do you think it's worth trying? Is there a backup program that will store everything? I have some SMS messages from (sadly deceased/hugely missed) Mum on here that i don't want to lose. I don't trust Kies after i backed up an S2 and found all the Kies folders empty.

If i got a replacement motherboard, would that be a possible solution?