Database Users

Likely Death to my G1

today was a horrible day...
apparently leaving your g1 in your pants while they are in the wash doesnt work so well.
does not power on
anyone have any idea what can be done to bring it back or is it most likely fried
and if it is done then does anyone want to buy it as is?
I guess this is an excuse to get a g2
*UPDATE*
I guess no G2 for me just yet.
My phone works great now. Did not do anything special. Did disassemble the phone though so I can wipe down any residue i saw on main components such as the keyboard.
My advice to anyone that has this misfortune is not to rush things. I think i turned my phone on 2 days too early but I got lucky and it did not affect my phone. I figured this out because there was a lot of visible moisture in the screen when the backlight turned on. The keyboard was not functioning correctly either.
I did leave it in rice for about 36 hours but I do not really think that did much as far as the drying process goes. Best thing to do is go to a hardware store and pick up a torx driver set(mine was $4 at Home Depot and it was 36 piece set including torx philips hex slotted and pozi) open up the phone *be careful* of course and let it air dry for 3-4 days (not absolutely necessary to take apart the entire screen but if you feel comfortable go ahead). While it was open I wiped down the main board and the keyboard. I did not take apart the screen because I just did not want to take any other risks(mostly because i knew the screen worked) even though there was moisture, I knew it would eventually dry out. But the key to all of this was patience(I know its tough to go 3-4 days without your baby).
the link for the service manual is http://mikechannon.net/PDF Manuals/HTC Dream SM (A04).pdf

Most of the time, phones can live through the washer and live. You MUST take out the battery and do NOT attempt to turn it on for atleast 48 hours, as you will likely short out the phone. Put the phone in a big bag of rice to let it soak up the water, also use a blowdryer to help dry the phone out. However, your warranty is now void, and there likely will be some remnants of water within your screen.

Yep! worst thing you can do is turn that thing on (or try) before its dry.
my g1 hasnt had a bath but other phones have (none with touch screens) and i take as much apart as possible and leave it that way till the waters gone (then like 4 more days just to me sure )
artifical drying sources reccomended (dont get too hot!!!)

I have had it in rice for about 24 hours now and its sitting on top of my dvr because it gives off a little heat so it should help the process.
just remembered that i didnt remove the sd card...
i was thinking that since it was in the washer with detergent, shouldnt i have just removed the battery and try to clean it in some type of solution...
I have read about a alcohol solutions but kind of scared and i just noticed that there is condensation around the edges of the screen

I'd say take it apart, Blow dry what you can, leave the pieces in a warm area for a couple hours, and then try putting it back together and turning it on.

anybody know how sensitive the screen is because i want to try and blow some heat on it but not sure if it will damage it

best part about handset insurance cover lost or stolen phones...hint hint

bladepbc said:
best part about handset insurance cover lost or stolen phones...hint hint
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
good point but im on att network using the g1 unlocked...
plus i rather not cheat my way out of it because this is my own fault

good news and bad news...
first of all it powers on and boots fine. Secondly the screen seems to be working perfectly (touch and all)
bad news i might have turned it on too early because screen still had noticeable water spots all over it. The keyboard also just spews random letters and commands (ie one of the letters controls the volume)
other good news 1.5 has onscreen keyboard
anyone have any advice on how to go about fixing the keyboard?

Advise for fixing the keyboard: take it apart and clean it.

ok well im taking it apart to clean it out and i see some residue but what should i use?
microfiber cloth?

cleaned out as much as i could but seems like the menu button is now acting up while the keyboard is still messed up

Aside from parts made of paper, parts with thin films (like the lcd), speakers, batteries, or fine parts that are difficult to dry, you can do a very neat job with 99% iso alcohol followed by deionized (aka distilled) water. This includes most (but not all) plastic casing, buttons, pcb boards, etc. Follow up with a hair blowdryer set on low heat (or if you have an electric heatgun, even better).
Get a semi-shallow dish, fill it with the solvent, submerge the part and scrub it lightly with a soft toothbrush. (probably don't scrub for polished surfaces like the exterior casing). Then directly rinse it under a stream of the deionized water. Finally, clean the dish out, fill it with the di water and scrub with the brush.

^ almost exactly what I did to recover a "dead" water soaked phone. Worked great, and learned a lot about how the phone is built

couldnt find 99% near by but got 91% which im assuming should work...
is it ok if i use bottled water(kirkland)?
oh and the spots on the screen are still there (light and dark areas)
thanks for the help guys

kp126 said:
couldnt find 99% near by but got 91% which im assuming should work...
is it ok if i use bottled water(kirkland)?
oh and the spots on the screen are still there (light and dark areas)
thanks for the help guys
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I bought my 99% iso from Safeway. It comes in a 16oz container. Look for it in the medical supplies aisles. Don't use bottled spring/mineral water, as that contains... minerals. You need buy deionized (also referred to as distilled) water. Distilled water contains a significantly lower amount of mineral ion, which for the purpose of cleaning electronics would be considered contaminants.
Do the spots appear to be blotches of moisture? Perhaps there is fluid trapped between the various layers of the lcd.

ok ill go check out safeway tomorrow morning. thanks for clearing up the water thing.
it looks like its moisture because after leaving it off for about 5 or 6 more hours i saw a few spots fade a little bit.
I will take the screen apart tomorrow as well. Any special instructions on handling the screen or even cleaning it?

You might want to search for the service manual for the G1. It details a complete teardown and rebuild of the dream hardware.

some sort of a miracle just occured because my phone is not acting up at all anymore and i didnt even clean it with the alcohol solution yet.
Just woke up in the morning and turned on the phone and worked perfectly, with absolutely no problem with the keyboard(except that i think i forgot a screw and a few keys are a little loose) everything works fine.
only problem is that the screen still has what looks like condensation.
but the blotches in the screen seem to be slowly fading. Gonna pop it open right now and leave it out overnight.
thanks for the help
oh and the manual has a few mistakes in it as far as procedure goes but any person with common sense should be able to get past those

Damn, thats rough man. I dropped both my old phones in the toilet(damn you superbowl, damn you!!!)and both of them worked after taking them apart and drying them off but never really worked 100% the same...
Just a note too, those were non-touch screen phones.
Best of luck.

[Solved] Water in SLCD

Did anyone already open the Desire HD?
I followed a youtube instruction how to apply the screen protection, with some drops of water. Well, being more careful than in the video by using a towel to suck off rinsing water instead of a plastic wiper to get the foil onto the screen did not help.
Phone is dry and works without any limitations, except for the usual VERY annoying 'watermarks'
I am sure the display 'only' needs some cleaning in between if possible. Did anyone ever try that? I found HowTos for Desire, but none for DHD.

Ouch! Are you saying you have water in your DHD, or just under the screen protector?
I fear it's the former?

Usually that means either you used too much soap or hi you have not let it dry. Remember that you need to wait at least 24 hours for the protector to settle in. They often look a bit dodgy to begin with but it should clear up after a day or so...

Must have been too much soap then. I just took 4-5 drops on the display and have let the screen protection foil drop off before apply.
Phone is dry and I have had it to dry on my heater (not too much heat, of course).
There is no water between screen and protector, but under the touch field and it must be somewhere on the LCD panel, since watermarks look like limited to certain areas in a very straight way (like exact horizontal and vertical lines).
Well, I´ll send it in and see what it will cost. It won´t make sense any other way.

I'm worried that water has managed to get in under the screen ... are you able to show this in a photo at all?

I have seen that some of the marks changed and put it into a box filled with rice. It is on the heating for two days now and I'll try to hold myself touching it before the weekend.
I reflashed my Diamond and stick to it until then...

Believe it or not, but drying it in a closed box with rice helped.
There are no more spots visible and it looks like new.

Water Damage Indicator?

My new less than a month old EVO just took a crash into some water. I took the battery out immediately, of course, and have it sitting in some rice. The battery water damage indicator looks to have been activated (the stripes are no longer red/white, can see the red stripes but the entire sticker is now pink). I have looked for an indicator on the phone itself, but don't see one anywhere. Oddly enough, the battery really wasn't wet when I took it out, so it's possible that I was able to save too much water from getting into it by getting it out and drying it out quickly. Do I actually need to take the phone apart to see the indicator? If not, where would one be? Nothing obvious just by looking at the phone.
The problem I have is I plan on sending it back to LetsTalk, as I just don't really care for the phone. It's too big for my liking. One of those Try before you truly buy things.

From the teardown photos it looks like there is on on the main PCB near the USB connector.
http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/HTC-Evo-4G-Teardown/2979/2

Just because the phone took a bath does not necessarily mean it's done for good.... last time one of my phones took the plunge I immediately removed backing and battery and threw it all in a Snap Ware container of rice. Over a 24 hour period all of the mostuire was pulled out and it worked just fine.
I have also been told that submerging a wet phone into rubbing alcohol (after separating the battery!) Pushed all of the water out and then alcohol evaporates off. I have not tried this but it makes sense
Good luck
sent from my HTC Evo 4G rooted with unrEvoked, running the latest CM7 nightly build.

If you have a vacuum sealer you can wrap your phone in paper towels and put it in a bag and vacuum seal it overnight. My dad dropped his phone in a bucket of water and quickly pulled the battery out. After he let it sit over night he put the battery back in and turned it on, it had water trapped under the screen so we sealed it and it even pulled out some dirt from the buttons.

Thanks everyone for the info so far! I guess the big question is, do the online resellers actually take the phone apart to check for water damage if someone is returning their phone within the 30 day period? I'm so mad at myself for allowing it to happen!

If the phone turns on this evening after 24 hours and shows no damage, Going to grab a new battery, and send the bad boy back to them in hopes that they don't actually remove the screws and all to check the inside indicator. There is no visible water damage indicator at all on the phone itself, so by the pictures posted in the ifixit, is under everything.

^^Hey i've been in your shoes before.^^ Not with the evo tho....but look at it like this if you can see the indicator turning pink so can they!!!! Once "they" = sprint see the indicator changed your warranty & eveything is void. I dont think they're gonna take it but hopefully for you they'll overlook it.
Good luck bro!!!

You may be able to buy a water sticker on ebay

I actually very recently dropped my Evo in some water though it was in an Ottorbox Commuter case. Pulled it out quickly, took off the case, pulled apart the phone. Let it sit overnight as was and then put it back together. Nothing wrong with it so far.

So my S5 got wet..

Bummer too because I just set it up how I like it.
I was fishing today and I had my S5 in my pocket.
Anyway to my embarrassment I actually fell in the water when I was trying to untangle my lure from some fishing line some asshole had just cut off his rod and left in the water.
The thing is, whilst the S5 is supposed to be IP64 certified or whatever, mine has lost the flimsy bottom cover...
I was in the water with the phone in my front jeans pocket for about 15 seconds. The phone barely had any water on it (it was also in a full case) though it did seem that some had gotten into the charging port.
I took the battery out, and left things to dry. Got home about an hour later after wiping the phone down and I used a hairdryer on it for about 15 minutes (not letting it get too hot though). After that I threw it with its back off in a bowl filled with rice and put it next to a slightly warm heater.
My girlfriend said when she was trying to turn it off (I told her to take the battery out but she was panicking) that the hardware buttons (back and recents) weren't working any more. She also said that she noticed the date and time was wrong. It said April 24 2006 and the SIM card icon had a circle with a line through it (No reception). The home button she said worked fine though.
What chance do you think I have that the phone will work after it's been in the bowl of rice next to the heater?
EDIT: Found 3 packets of silica gel, I ripped those open and threw that stuff in there with the rice too.

leijonasisu said:
Bummer too because I just set it up how I like it.
I was fishing today and I had my S5 in my pocket.
Anyway to my embarrassment I actually fell in the water when I was trying to untangle my lure from some fishing line some asshole had just cut off his rod and left in the water.
The thing is, whilst the S5 is supposed to be IP64 certified or whatever, mine has lost the flimsy bottom cover...
I was in the water with the phone in my front jeans pocket for about 15 seconds. The phone barely had any water on it (it was also in a full case) though it did seem that some had gotten into the charging port.
I took the battery out, and left things to dry. Got home about an hour later after wiping the phone down and I used a hairdryer on it for about 15 minutes (not letting it get too hot though). After that I threw it with its back off in a bowl filled with rice and put it next to a slightly warm heater.
My girlfriend said when she was trying to turn it off (I told her to take the battery out but she was panicking) that the hardware buttons (back and recents) weren't working any more. She also said that she noticed the date and time was wrong. It said April 24 2006 and the SIM card icon had a circle with a line through it (No reception). The home button she said worked fine though.
What chance do you think I have that the phone will work after it's been in the bowl of rice next to the heater?
EDIT: Found 3 packets of silica gel, I ripped those open and threw that stuff in there with the rice too.
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Click to collapse
i have had better results with letting it dry in open air, under the sun....take the back off (ofcourse the battery aswell) and place it under the sun with screen facing downwards.....let it dry for an hour or so...check

You need to leave it in a moisture absorbing product (dry rice/silica granules) for a LOT longer than an hour or so.....24 hours OR LONGER is more realistic. Preferably in an airing cupboard too......
It's going to take a lot longer to dry out than leaving it in the sun for an hour, as I assume you weren't able to start the drying process immediately and the water would have had time to get further into the phone.......
In cases like these, it's always best to let it dry for 'too' long than not long enough....
Sent from my rooted, debloated stocKK kn0x0 SM-G900F

Thanks. I let it dry for 15 hours, I guess it wasn't enough. Also yeah it took at least an hour for me to get the phone back to my apartment. The antenna seems to work fine but the hardware buttons are indeed screwed. I know I can use those on-screen hardware buttons if I toggle them somewhere from Xposed or an App or something. So not all is lost, but I'd really like my normal ones back. At this time I just guess that some water got into the bottom of the phone and shorted out the touch sensors or something. I wonder how much it would cost to get this repaired or if I could get away with having it replaced on warranty or something... Everything else on the phone seems to be fine. Screen, antenna, etc. it doesn't seem like any water got very far in.
Either way I am going to put it back in the rice/silica gel combo and see how that goes. I'll leave it in for 24 hours this time.

Okay so the capacitive buttons at the bottom (menu and back) are definitely broken from getting wet.
What chance do I have at returning the phone and just claiming that they just stopped working? Left the phone in rice and silica gel for what seems like forever and there doesn't seem to be any traces of moisture or water at all.
Worst case scenario Sammy sends the phone back and states that it was water damage and they won't fix it? Best case they fix it under warranty??

Highly unlikely it'll get fixed under warranty......
These phones have stickers placed 'strategically' inside them which change colour if they get wet.....Samsung will take one look at your phone and say.....yeah right......NO chance....
Sent from my rooted, debloated stocKK kn0x0 SM-G900F

Well I'm going to have a try at it, the white square that marks if it got wet down the bottom corner where the battery goes is completely white, and not red. Worst case they won't fix it for free. If it costs anything less than €100 to fix then I will get it fixed, otherwise I'll shop around and see if I can get a third party to fix it or sort out what my options are. I'm flashing it back to stock now and I'm going to clean the phone and then take it into the store and ask them to fix it.
Normally if they won't fix it under warranty they will send me a text message telling me how much it is going to cost to fix, and then if I want to pay. At the very least I should probably pay, as long as it isn't upwards of around €100 because it restores the resale value on my phone and I can make more than the amount back when I eventually sell it.
I really think Samdung should have put more thought into the bottom USB cover though. Mine and my friend's broke within about 2 months.
Anyway I'll post back on what happens later on.

If you can prove it drowned due to a faulty charger cover, you might have a case

I told the guy in the shop I bought it from what happened and he looked at it and said there is no sign of water damage. He said it should be repaired under warranty but not to 'quote' him on it happening. I'll report back in 2-3 weeks and say what happened.
I couldn't really complain about a 'faulty usb cover' when the whole damn thing fell off about 6 months ago.
I looked at a bunch of disassembly videos of the S5. Seems there are 3 main water damage stickers. 2 which are visible from the back. One behind the battery, one behind a little 'square' on the left-hand side of the phone. Both of mine were pure white. There's also another on the battery, except that mine didn't have a spot for it which was weird. The battery was a stock one I got from the same store.
That leaves 1 more which is in the middle of the phone behind the circuitry which I cannot see and I doubt very much that it is anything but pure white. So I think I have a good chance to have it replaced under warranty.
Also the bottom part of the phone's PCB is actually remove-and-replaceable. So if something there shorted out behind the capacitive buttons perhaps they will just throw that piece away and click in a new one.
Who knows.

Yeah, although this phone has ip67 protection, it doesnt do much with samsungs "engineering capabilities" - i have this phone too, and i can say, that this phone has at least 3 weak points, that makes ip67 to ip20 (first number is resistance to dust, second is resistance to water, higher is better) - so, the weak points are : 1) usb connection cover does not fully close, it is stuck out by like a 1-2mm, which i believe leaves some kind of space for water to flow in; 2) back cover does not fully stick to the back of the phone near the camera, you can press in that place to feel that there is empty space, which makes protection gum on back cover kind of useless, because it does not fully stick to the phone and will let water flow; 3) that corner of back cover, which was made to start removing back cover, does not fully stick to the phone, which leaves an empty space of about 1mm for the water to flow in. So to add everything up, even if s5 has ip67, i do not recommend testing it, because it only might work only with a new phone, but when you use your phone, some parts of phone gets out of the shape really fast, like usb connection cover, so it will decrease resistence to water a lot. Anyway, if you are above the water with your phone, i recommend doing good old trick, whick works with all phones - put your phone in a baloon or a condom - this protection will be 100 times better than anything that samsung will offer us in 1000 years.

I don't care if they tell me it is 100% waterproof, under 100 miles of water, for 100 years - I`ll still keep that theory for the day I accidentally drop it in a puddle - Im not going to purposely put any phone in water, no matter how 'safe' Im told it is

About a month ago, I knocked a pint of beer over my phone.......I had a moment when I started panicking about the phone......then I remembered IP67 and rinsed the phone off under the tap......then I started cursing myself for wasting a pint of beer........
Sent from my rooted, debloated stocKK kn0x0 SM-G900F

The outer area under the back cover is not sealed. May still contain some beer for emergency situations.

Lol.....that'd look really good wouldn't it?
Me walking down the street sucking my phone....
Sent from my rooted, debloated stocKK kn0x0 SM-G900F

I used the S5 plenty in the rain and I didn't worry putting it next to the sink or something. I don't think I ever actually fully wet it, but the screen did get covered in water at times in the rain. To me the IP67 rating was always something that meant the phone wasn't made of 'paper', in that it wouldn't be ruined in the rain, but I shouldn't exactly take a bath with it. I've read blogs etc. however that state that it is prone to some pretty nasty moisture damage if you take it into the shower or sauna with you. Though I suppose that is stating the obvious.
Point is, I think the water protection on the S5 is pretty garbage. On paper (no pun intended) it might look good that it is IP67, but let 1 drop into the bottom USB port with the cover off and you've lost both capacitive buttons as well as gained an issue that the phone constantly thinks that it is overheating after the screen turns off (funnily enough doesn't happen unless the screen goes black) and will try and reboot itself continuously. You can't even charge the phone because in a hilarious work of irony, it states that the battery is too cold!
Everything is only as strong as its weakest component and I found that usb cover to be about as weak as it gets. It only took 4 weeks for it to stop closing properly, and another 4 weeks for it to actually fall off... all just with regular use. Anyone is free to look around the web and see similar complaints of how cheap and flimsy the cover is. It would have made much more sense if it closed magnetically, or even if they had made the bottom cover replaceable so when they wore out, they could be replaced. To me it just feels like a typical scenario of Samdung trying to cover as many 'bases' as they can with regards to 'listed perks' without actually thinking about things from a long-term constructive or realistic point of view.
You can see from the S6 and the Note variants that they have abandoned further development towards water resistance and have saved it purely for their 'active' variants. I would have gotten one of those despite how ugly they are if they didn't come with a dumbed down CPU and Camera.
This will be my last Samsung phone anyway. I'll go the HTC or LG route after this.

The S5 is useless in the rain for me, a few drops on the screen and it thinks I'm pressing buttons, phone becomes self-aware and does what it wants until I turn the screen off and dry it, then it works until the next raindrop hits it

Lol.....as long as it doesn't turn into one of those nasty little decepticons out of Transformers you're fine.....
And the S5 will be my last Samsung device too.....not happy with certain aspects of the S6 that look certain to appear on further generations of Samsung devices in the future....
Sent from my rooted, debloated stocKK kn0x0 SM-G900F

Wouldn't surprise me if it did
Been a few times I've pulled it out of my pocket and it's been all set to call someone, just needed to hit the call button and I'd have the borrowers talking to me from my coat

I treat the ip67 rating like I treat the air bags in my car. It's nice to know is there in case of an accident but I'm not going out of my way to test it.

Tybalt said:
I treat the ip67 rating like I treat the air bags in my car. It's nice to know is there in case of an accident but I'm not going out of my way to test it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This ^^
Safety net, not a feature

P8 Lite survived water submerge

, I fully dropped my phone in a bath with water aprox. of 30 cm just for A SECOND. I instantly turned it off. Shaked it on some paper towels, dried it a bit with a hairdryer.
2. Dissasembled it, just removed back (that took me 30 min. , glue is really strong) no other parts and now it's staying in a bag with some Silica Gel packets.
The phone is staying from 15:00 p.m. (now in my country is 22:01), but tommorow I have to take it to work at 11:00 a.m
^^This thread is just informative, I will let you know if it survives (god please) because I don't want to buy a new phone^^
I have to mention that I had headphones plugged in when dropped and that water damage indicator is FULL red.
:crying::crying:

I am very interested in your situation. Did the water get inside the display? Do you have any spots on the display? Like, gray/white spots? Unfortunately I dropped a couple of drops of water near the side buttons and somehow the water got into the display. I got it off by puttin the phone in white rice for a night, but some white lines still remained and are not coming off.

Pensionaru said:
I am very interested in your situation. Did the water get inside the display? Do you have any spots on the display? Like, gray/white spots? Unfortunately I dropped a couple of drops of water near the side buttons and somehow the water got into the display. I got it off by puttin the phone in white rice for a night, but some white lines still remained and are not coming off.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, display was full, but checked it this morning,,, and it was ALIVE, with no markings, everything was working. Silica Gel does really absorb water very well
:angel::angel:
P.S. (edit) The display is really fragile in terms of water, I had a lot of white lines on the display, but now they're all gone.
P.S.S. Rice does not save electronics that well, how it's advertised, I've dropped a long time ago an Samsung Galaxy S plus in water and tried the method with rice, after 3 days tested it and everything was buggy, dissasembled it and found out that the motherboard and some cabled had a lot of white spots on them(from the rice),but cleaned it and worked as new. Silica Gel is in small bags, so rice fragments don't go to the motherboard and leave white spots.
(edit 2) Now my phone "is washed" and is like new, wash yours too! (--do not TRY, JUST JOKING)

Thanks, I'll take this advice, its a good idea, using silica. Where did you buy it from ?

Pensionaru said:
Thanks, I'll take this advice, its a good idea, using silica. Where did you buy it from ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can find small bags in shoe boxes, but I found my big packets into some chair compartiments, to not make mold.
But, for international buying, try amazon or ebay