Database Users

Water damaged XDA Exec...Is it really screwed

I had my XDA Exec in its pouch and carried in my leather jacket pocket whilst on my motorbike on the motorway.
It started to rain heavily but I thought the phone would still stay dry.
Anyway, when I got home, water had managed to leak into the jacket and through the pouch and the Exec was pretty wet.
I left it to try, but now have the following problems.
1) Screen turns off when used in landscape mode and only works in portrait. Its like the device just turns off.
2) The device seems to slowdown like there are many apps running and the only way to speed it up is to soft reset.
3) My backspace key only works when I press it down hard.
So can this all be repaired, and where do I take / send the device. I'm in the UK.
Thanks for any help.

IMMEDIATELY remove the battery. open the device if you have the tools and let it dry for TWO WEEKS.
Most water damage would be easy to remedy if it were not for an overzealous user switching the device back on way too early.

hmmm though i agree with the advice of taking the device apart i do not agree with just letting it stand for two weeks, that will let the motherboard 'rust'.
mineral spirits and alike are great for cleaning the chips, be very carefull not to use to much for that will also create damage. worst case scenario this will remove any signs of water damage then u can claim on warrenty.

Fixing the Touch Display

hey everyone.
Through a random episode in the rain, my phone was soaked in water.
I have all the buttons working, except for the touch display.
It doesn't respond to anything when I touch the screen (Finger or stylus).
Any suggestions on getting it to work again? It was working before, not anymore .

Was it operated while wet?
If so, it may be fried.
If you are VERY lucky, it just got gunked up when the water hit all the crud that inevitably collects beneath the buttons and other cracks between the case edges.
Turn it off, remove the battery.
Open the case and disassemble it (the more thorough you are here, the better your results will be).
Take a blow-dryer to EVERYTHING for a good solid hour at its highest setting (or until your blow dryer quits heating air).
With some isopropyl alcohol and a cotton swab, carefully clean away anything that doesn't belong there. Keep checking for streaks. Streaks mean there's still more gunk to remove.
When you are done cleaning it, wait at least 24 hours before buttoning it back together. It needs to be bone dry. If it's humid in your area, dig through old gadget boxes, jerky bags, etc. and find as many desiccant packets you can, dropping them in a box with the phone parts overnight.
Reassemble and turn it back on. If it survived, it will work fine. If not, you'll probably be able to sell the parts here...
.

Sounds good,
but all the other buttons work 100%
It's just the Touch screen (the display itself works), doesn't accept any input.'
Otherwise, SmartKey 1-handed operation is saving my life at the moment lol.

shadezero said:
It's just the Touch screen (the display itself works), doesn't accept any input.'
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, you might get away with just checking the connections between the screen and the main circuitry, but I'd still do the cleaning, to prevent any increase in problems. Water in phones = never a good idea. (Duh, right?)

URGENT Problem with HTC Wizard WM5 doesnt boot

Hi,
I have a problem with my SPv M3000/HTC Wizard/Qtek etc.. A bottle of water spilled in my bag and my pda became Wet AND now it can't boot the os - windows mobile 5. When I switch on the pda on the screen appears a picture with a name of my network [Polish Orange]and 4 lines of numbers :
IPL 2.22.0001
SPL 2.22.0001
GSM 01.04.10
OS 2.22.1.1
To switch of the phone I have to remove it's battery. Btw. a button to switch on and off the pda is a bit pushed but it works quite good.
Charging works, battery works.
I tried to make a hard reset of the pda but it didn't solved the problem.
Btw. I would like to ask you for a fast and urgent help because I'm abroad and I need my phone very much and something with alarm ;(. Unfortunately I have aslo limited acces to the internet so I 'll be very pleased and thankful for your help

Hmmm, there may not be any help for your device...water and fine electronics DO NOT mix! I would try however, take the battery out of your phone, and leave the cover off of it for a few hours, perhaps even with the keyboard extended, and see if the internal circuitry will dry out. You could also try getting ahold of a hair dryer and setting it on LOW, and doing it that way...just be VERY careful if you go down that path, as hair dryers can get EXTREMELY hot!

There are few other alternatives depending on how desperate you are:
2) an oven at Low heat (150 degrees F or less) for maybe 30 minutes as an alternative to the hair dryer.
3) a bag full of fresh Silica Gel to leave the phone in overnight.
4) a high quality isopropyl alcohol: soak the phone in the alcohol, which should displace the water, allow to dry for several hours.
If you have attempted to turn on the phone while wet, it may have already shorted something out.
I would use any of those at your own risk...the alcohol bath seems is probably the most risky and the Silica Gel the least.

Hi again,
I don't want to try your methods because their sound dangerous ;]. I tried only hair dryer but it didn't help ;(.
What do you think about reflashing ROM?

Cadder said:
Hi again,
I don't want to try your methods because their sound dangerous ;]. I tried only hair dryer but it didn't help ;(.
What do you think about reflashing ROM?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yup ! very right, what 'ashasaur' posted above "Hmmm, there may not be any help for your device...water and fine electronics DO NOT mix!" unless your phone is completely dried it won't boot or work and I wud rather warn you here,if you persist with turning on the phone like this it'll short circuit and become dead and useless.The only way out is to completely strip or dismantle the phone of its covers and cleaned throughly.
Secondly,its not possible to reflash in this scenario ,as it doesn't boot up,you wud be lucky,if it boots up and start working,after proper cleaning,so stop beating about the bush and start thinking positively,get down to try to dry and clean the phone first.

There's no danger in using the silica gel. It's a desiccant packed with most electronics. Combined with dis-assembling it could be effective.
I agree the other two are pretty scary!

ahhh...very right! I didnt even think about silica gel...or more comonly known as "painters desicant". It does indeed remove the moisture from the air and from any surface within the area...that would be the best choice. The only reason that I recommended the hair dryer was from my own experience with a Palm Treo 650...I dropped it in a glass of water(lol), and dried it with a hair dryer for prolly 20-30 minutes on LOW, and it started to work again!

Desiccant can be had very cheaply, and in large quantities. Just go to a mega store like WalMart, go to the storage section, and look for "cabinet and closet dehumidifier". Remove all the seals and drop your phone right into the pebbles overnight, and that'll take out any moisture.
If it still doesn't boot, no changes of software (flashing) are likely to help. Not booting after water exposure usually means a circuit was shorted. If drying doesn't remove the short, that means something was fried when it shorted. Sorry. Next time get insurance!

I have a warranty for my pda and I dont think that people who will repair my phone will notice what caused damage ;].
But i think i m going to check thaht dehumidifier it sounds quite interesting ;].

Screen stopped working, then magically fixed itself

Ok weirdest **** ever just happened. Touch HD was working fine, all day, came home, pulled the phone out and the screen wouldnt respond, coudlnt unlock the screen. Looking at the screen carefully, I could see these "swirly marks", looked like water was underneath the screen, or moisture, and i could move it all around, it was all over the screen in small dots.
I was looking for another phone to put my sim in with no luck. Was just sitting here flashing my HD2 and i thought let me try again with the touch HD, and while booting, i noted the "swirly marks" had disappeared, and sure enough, the screen responded!
Any ideas? maybe i should trade it in while its still working!

i used to work in a phone repair shop and ive seen loads of phones that have been dropped in water and then been fine.
i dropped my old kaiser in a glass of milk and it stopped working, so i took it apart and cleaned it all with a small brush and some alcohol. put it back together and it worked fine.
but on the other hand ive seen phones that have been destroyed by simply keeping it in a pocket.
moisture can build up inside the phone because of humidity and the warmth of the phone and your leg etc...
when the phone dries again sometimes the residue of the evaporated liquid is non conductive and harmless and the phone works normally again.
if the phone is powered (most are on, duh) or the residue is conductive it can sometimes cause temporary malfunctions, that can be fixed by 'washing' the phone like i did with my kaiser, or it might have caused permanent hardware damage. then you have to get new parts for it.
so basically you were lucky. try to keep it out of the sauna
oh yeh, just to be safe check all the features of your phone like gps, wifi, camera, etc... try to keep your phone in less humid or cooler places, like your outside pockets on a jacket, and try to keep it somewhere where it can get cool fresh air

ah cheers for that! good timing too since i just replied to another topic with a similiar problem, maybe they can read this too
Maybe the hot weather had something to do with it, i dunno, it was in my jeans pocket!

All Sensors are Disabled

Ok quick story first:
My 6t was exposed to a bit of water. Wasn't a lot, (not completely submerged) but water did manage to get inside. As soon as that happened, (while the phone was still on) every sensor on the device almost just ceased to exist (ambient light, proximity, gyroscope, etc. Later, the phone started to prevent itself from booting which lasted until it dried (boot animation would show for a bit before the screen went black. but recovery and fastboot mode worked fine). I opened up the device and took out the motherboard and dried everything out. upon putting everything back together, still all sensors don't work. I even used msm tool to reset everything possible back to stock. still no sensors. The device doesn't even recognize that it has any sensors. In fact, the output of "adb shell dumpsys sensorservice" returns:
"No Sensors on the device
devInitCheck : 0"
in the sensors multitool app, the only things that show up are battery, gps, and wifi. Nothing else shows up in the hamburger menu list.
Is there any way to restore the sensors functionality? my guess is that the water triggered some sort of switch that turned them all off. There's no way that ALL of them got water damaged to the point of not even being recognized by the phone that they exist?
Other than this, the phone is in perfect operating condition. Everything inside and out looks in great condition and there is no weird behavior. screen works, speakers work, microphones work, cameras work, vibration motor works, buttons and alert slider works, etc.
Please, any insights into this situation are MUCH appreciated. Thanks!

You need to disconnect the battery and completely dry it, now.
The device if not already permanently damaged will be, sooner then latter...

blackhawk said:
You need to disconnect the battery and completely dry it, now.
The device if not already permanently damaged will be, sooner then latter...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
well thats the thing. i already did disconnect the battery and dry it out. but if it was permanently damaged how come it is every single sensor and nothing else? wouldn't it make more sense if only some of the sensors were damaged? and if a sensor or two was damaged wouldn't it be likely that something else got damaged too? however thats not that case. Every single sensor is just completely gone as if they were all disconnected/removed from the phone entirely (as opposed to present but not working correctly). Thats why physical damage just doesn't seem likely to be what happened.

How did you dry it out?

blackhawk said:
How did you dry it out?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i completely disconnected and removed the motherboard out from the phone and let it air dry alongside the rest of the device with a fan blowing on it

Riley.davies2716 said:
i completely disconnected and removed the motherboard out from the phone and let it air dry alongside the rest of the device with a fan blowing on it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How long?
The BGA chipsets may not have dried out. The solder pads are underneath...
One reason I recommended using the drying agent anhydrous isopropyl alcohol... with care.
Then heat plus fan for 72 hours.

blackhawk said:
How long?
The BGA chipsets may not have dried out. The solder pads are underneath...
One reason I recommended using the drying agent anhydrous isopropyl alcohol... with care.
Then heat plus fan for 72 hours.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It was only a bit more than overnight, so I guess I could try for longer :/
However, it has already been over 2 days since the incident so I would have thought everything would have dried out by now.

Riley.davies2716 said:
It was only a bit more than overnight, so I guess I could try for longer :/
However, it has already been over 2 days since the incident so I would have thought everything would have dried out by now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If it gets under the chipsets it going to take a lot longer than that. A temperature of 100F or so would help as would the anhydrous isopropyl alcohol. Also sit on edge rather than flat.

ok. I should also mention that when I would try to boot up the phone, it seemed like it would take just a little bit longer to boot than usual. not sure how or if it's related but that's what I noticed.

Riley.davies2716 said:
ok. I should also mention that when I would try to boot up the phone, it seemed like it would take just a little bit longer to boot than usual. not sure how or if it's related but that's what I noticed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If it's still wet you don't want power applied; electrolysis and accelerated corrosion may occur. If that happens on a BGA chipset and damages a pad by shorting it out or causing an open circuit there's no practical way to repair it.

I guess it really was leftover water. I let the motherboard dry out in the sun, then put it all back together again. Immediately I noticed that it boots a lot quicker now (like it used to) and now all the sensors register (and work as they should).
So at the end of all of this I am left with much the same suspicions as I had when the issue arouse. There must be some sort of contacts on the board that disable all the sensors (to prevent further damage) when they have continuity, like in the case of water. There might also be another pair of contacts that prevents the whole OS from booting like I initially experienced with the phone shutting off mid-boot like I explained earlier.
So I guess what I got out of this (and for anyone else in the future with similar issues) is that whatever it is that isn't turning on, it's probably not damaged. Instead, it's probably just disabling itself as a safety measure to prevent further damage and will work normally once all water is completely dried. The best you can do is to dry out all the water as quickly as possible, and don't use your device until then.

Riley.davies2716 said:
I guess it really was leftover water. I let the motherboard dry out in the sun, then put it all back together again. Immediately I noticed that it boots a lot quicker now (like it used to) and now all the sensors register (and work as they should).
So at the end of all of this I am left with much the same suspicions as I had when the issue arouse. There must be some sort of contacts on the board that disable all the sensors (to prevent further damage) when they have continuity, like in the case of water. There might also be another pair of contacts that prevents the whole OS from booting like I initially experienced with the phone shutting off mid-boot like I explained earlier.
So I guess what I got out of this (and for anyone else in the future with similar issues) is that whatever it is that isn't turning on, it's probably not damaged. Instead, it's probably just disabling itself as a safety measure to prevent further damage and will work normally once all water is completely dried. The best you can do is to dry out all the water as quickly as possible, and don't use your device until then.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yay.
It may still fail in the future though.
Water damage to electronics and electrical systems like a car's is insidious. I do not use the word insidious lightly or as an exaggeration here.
There's absolutely no internal circuit water protection. The C ports have external water protection on most models now though.