[Q] water damage? - Nexus One General

So check this out.... I was using my n1 one evening and dropped it in the jacuzzi. I quickly was able to take it out (within 3-5 seconds) imeditially took the batt cover off, turned the n1 off and dried the phone to the best I could. I let it sit overnight and when I turned it on in the morning it was working fine. I was happy everything in the n1 never worked better. At this point I was using the n1 for about a good 1 to 2 weeks. About a month before I unrooted my N1 to wait for the 2.3 update so Ive been running 2.2.2 stock.Now here comes the fu_ked up part. I did a manual update to 2.3 once it came out cuz the OTA was taken forever. I never rooted my N1 I just did the manual update. All of a sudden the N1 started acting funny once I updated. The app draw would flash, and sparatic un normal things. at this point I'm thinking it has nothing to do with the water incident cuz Ive already have been using my n1 with no problems on 2.2.2 . The problems started oncce I updated. At this point its been about 3 weeks since the water I'm running 2.3.3 and now my N1 freezes I reboot it and It wont get past the google X. I'm pissed, right... So my N1 is not rooted its been 3 weeks since the water I'm thinking its cuz 2.3.3. So I call HTC I let them no whats going on and they tell me to send in the N1. They get back to me today pretty quick, But its bad news they tell me its water damage and its gonna be 196.00 to fix. I never told them about the water damage cuz I dont think it has anything to do with it, the N1 worked for 3 weeks before this happen. All of a sudden it freezes after the update, I dont think so. At this point I dont know what to do. Oh one more thing, The N1 powers on and I can also hold the power and the track ball and go to that white screen with the androids. If the Phone had water damage wouldnt it not power up at all. This is a software issue. Any ideas ?

Sounds like water damage - just that it sometimes takes a while to take effect, especially if you just left it for 1 day to dry (when should really be several, if it fell into a jacuzzi.. and in a rice bowl at that).
But like you said, HTC doesn't have to know - you can only hope internal indicators don't show it up as water damage.

They have water damage indicators in the phone, plus - believe me, it's very easily determined. As one who once had a BT headset in the washing machine, and repaired it afterwards by myself - there's a build-up of salt around the power conductors on the board (and that includes all metal pins).
When they have warranty repair, they specifically state that they check for all the signs of out-of-warranty damage, and when such signs are present - they have a right to charge for them. And since they know that the phone has been damaged by water, even if it didn't show immediately, they can charge you.

Related

Dropped in water : The Saga Begins

Dropped the Slide in the garbage disposal (yeah), pulled it out, was still on, pulled the battery within 30 seconds.
Dried it out the best I could for about 30mins. I know I shouldnt have but I turned it on, it got to my CM6 lockscreen and froze, after another restart it would not get past the logo.
Fastboot worked but said touchpanel : fail, instead of Touchpanel : Synaptics "XXXX".
So I did complete dissasembly and the board and the panel is in a box of rice.
I will update as I go along for those who may be curious about the effects of a dunk on this device.
OK. First off, that sucks. I have been there a few times myself, and it was worse. One in the toilet, one in the dish water, and one in the swimming pool (deep end). Second, you need to take it completely apart (look for an assembly manual on XDA), use 90% rubbing alcohol to clean the boards without getting any under anything you cant get it out from (this will remove contaminates), and leave out for 24 hours before re-assembly. It sounds simple, but take a lot of attention to detail. I have done this for people about 40 or 50 times (ex-T-Mo employee with a heart), and only lost about 10 of them. If you're up for it shoot me a PM and I will help you as best I can.
I am a repair technician by trade so the assembly was the least of my concerns. I noticed the inside did not get wet very much at all, I think the touchpanel connector got a drop in it, i made sure it was clean and i used a razor to skim a fresh metal surface for all the contact points on the phone. The phone is 100% functional as of right now.
It was quite a scary moment when the panel tested as fail, and the ROM seemed to be MIA.
Wow, only 30 min. I accidentally took my phone into a lake with me one and was swimming around for about 5 min before i remembered it was on me lol. It had alread powered itself off. I gave it 2 days to dry before powering on. A little excessive but at least it was a little longer than 30 min 0_o so lucky nothing fried. Glad your slide is still working
Sent from my T-Mobile myTouch 3G Slide using XDA App
i dropped mine in a puddle. immediately tore it apart and placed it in bags of rice. it worked after a day of being in rice. didnt need to do anything else other than that. i did notice some sms and call issues after that but rooting it resolved the issue so i doubt it was a hardware issue
donepate said:
I have done this for people about 40 or 50 times (ex-T-Mo employee with a heart), and only lost about 10 of them. If you're up for it shoot me a PM and I will help you as best I can.
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never dropped a phone in water myself, my g1 hit a puddle once(not deep at all) but i still tore the thing apart and got the battery out before anything bad could happen. i try to help out my custs as much as possible, but so many of them just leave it on and don't think anything is wrong until it stops working a few days later.
the best thing to do is what was mentioned with the alcohol, my uncle dropped his phone in the lake and he turned it on a few times and i was still able to get the thing up and running within a day for him.

Water damaged phone.. Help :(

UPDATE: The phone is magically fixed!
Hey guys!
So i was at a party 2 nights ago, and I lost my S2. I finally found it in the morning, it had been outside all night, and then I realised that it had been raining heavily.
I took the battery, sim card and micro sd card out and placed the phone somewhere warm and let it dry for about a day and a half. I plugged it in earlier, and it started charging fine, and then I turned the phone on.
It booted up. The hardware buttons are working fine, and the touch buttons below the screen also work, but the screen is completely unresponsive
EDIT: Just as I posted this, i got signal, so only problem i can see is the touch-screen
Is there anything I can do, or is this phone screwed?
I cant remember if I have Vodafone's insurance or not, I'm praying to god I do :/
Put it in a bag of rice and let it dry out even more
Look this thread:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1128594
You'll find some tips that might be useful
danstah said:
Put it in a bag of rice and let it dry out even more
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Click to collapse
I was gonna say.... put it in rice. Should dry up faster
Had good result with silicate packets (the little bags in shoeboxes and many electrical goods) and rice. But let everything dry for days and don't reassemble - left my old PMP for 5 days after a toilet swim, still working. Smells great too. Honest.
Thanks for the replies guys. I've now put the phone in a bag of rice so I guess I just have to wait and see.
Lol keep us updated!
The problem could by the fact that the digitizer on capacitive screens are very sensitive, it sounds as if that may have been damaged.l I would think that the only thing you can do is to replace the touch screen, because it is gorilla glass and the fact the entire phone would need dismantling, If it isn't insured I would expect it wouldn't be cheap to get replaced. But you should be thankful that you entire phone didn't die, I mean you were quite lucky there. I broke my old hero by leaving it out side for 5-10 min whilst it was raining.
Bad news guys, its still not working.
Cant believe I let this happen, I need some trousers with tighter pockets for this damn phone! (and perhaps not carry it with me when I'm drinking haha)
Luckily its covered under my home insurance.
Do I get a new one or get it repaired?
Edit: Its also bloody ironic that I had just put a pattern unlock screen on my phone, so now I cant back up the contents because its locked! Is there any way to get round this? Or external ways to control the phone so I can get into it?
Cheers
There's insurance that covers phone water damage?
Hazlynch, you really need to keep it much, much longer than one day in the rice.
Trust me, apart from my aforementioned toilet episode, I've also lost phones and PMPs in the snow - all have worked again, but the shortest dessicating time was 3 days.
One day is simply not enough - not saying 100% it'll work after 5 days, but 100% certain it won't after one.
For the record, lost my Cowon S9 (OLED touchscreen) in a snowdrift - 5 days dessicating and worked - still going strong.
Ah right thanks for that info! From what I heard about the digitizer being sensitive I'm not very hopeful, but it wont harm to leave it in the rice longer.
I wasn't with my S9 either, but it surprised me, especially also being a touchscreen device too.
Remember to disassemble as much as you can from the phone - all cards and battery out but also in the box/bag - you need to expose as much surface area as possible of the device to the dessicant.
Try my silicate bag tip posted earlier too!
Let us know wha'ppen?
Ready to give it a try? How's it looking/feeling?
I managed to find some silica packets like you said so I put them in with the rice.
Just turned it on, but still no touchscreen responce
hazlynch said:
I managed to find some silica packets like you said so I put them in with the rice.
Just turned it on, but still no touchscreen responce
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Click to collapse
Shame - not optimistic.. A couple more days won't hurt if you have the patience!
Yeah, I wont be able to get anything done about the insurance stuff for a few days anyway, so I'll leave it in there for longer. Starting to miss it now! Haha.
Oh and thanks again for everyone's help on this!
My situation has taken an unexpected turn... Went into vodafone a couple of weeks ago and explained that the touchscreen had stopped working.
They tried to factory reset and do other things to fix it to no avail, so they sent it off to their repair centre to fix.
I received it back today, with a letter which stated that it was thoroughly tested and inspected, and that they found that the fault had been caused by water damage. They explained that water damage falls outside of the manufacturers warranty and they could not repair it.
They also sent a picture which helped to show the extent of the corrosion, which looked a bit nasty.
I turned on the phone anyway when i recieved it, and to my great surprise... it is working - apparently flawlessly.
So it is a happy ending - and has proved to me how badass this phone is
hazlynch said:
My situation has taken an unexpected turn... Went into vodafone a couple of weeks ago and explained that the touchscreen had stopped working.
They tried to factory reset and do other things to fix it to no avail, so they sent it off to their repair centre to fix.
I received it back today, with a letter which stated that it was thoroughly tested and inspected, and that they found that the fault had been caused by water damage. They explained that water damage falls outside of the manufacturers warranty and they could not repair it.
They also sent a picture which helped to show the extent of the corrosion, which looked a bit nasty.
I turned on the phone anyway when i recieved it, and to my great surprise... it is working - apparently flawlessly.
So it is a happy ending - and has proved to me how badass this phone is
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Click to collapse
This has me worried haha. My SGS2 has recently took a bit of a bath as well. The phone worked perfectly fine after sitting off overnight drying out. However after about 3 days it started random hang up and shut offs. I sent it in to a repair center a week ago and i am just hoping for the best. I dont have high hopes that they will replace it as it was water damage but i suppose its worth a shot for a $600 phone.
If they dont replace/repair it i will be taking it apart and cleaning it in hopes that i can make it work.
Here is my old sgs2 after a dip in the ocean. No insurance either. What you guys think?
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA Premium App

Samsung Galaxy Note 4 sudden dying

Hello everybody
I purchased the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 not too long ago (about few weeks ago). I rooted it, and I installed the needed applications for gaining the superuser access and then the camera mod by kevinrocksman and nothing else.
Then some water was spilt on top of my pocket where the phone was, and some of it got into the pocket. I mean the phone was not soaked wet or anything, it was slightly wet on the surface. Then I noticed some screen flickering, and after that it got worse. It barely responded to the power button, and when it did, the lock screen appeared with green flashes and went away. Then I could randomly start the phone and maybe get to the lock screen, everytime accompanied by this green effect. Then the phone seemed to go down to the Sudden Death Syndrome stage, where while pressing the power on button nothing happens other than an vibration, and blue notification light, and that's it. Is there anything I should try to do with it? Even when connecting the phone through the original USB-cable, it shows no files in there. Do you think it had something to do with the rooting, or was it hardware failure due to the water? It surely seems like a hardware failure, but it's strange that it didn't really get that wet. It was of course stupid risk to take to root warranty-active phone, but I think I should be safe with the warranty since the phone seems to be so destroyed that there is no traces left of the rooting process whatsoever.
Any tips would be greatly appreciated, thanks!
Best regards
Northlogic VFX
Sorry for your loss but you should have pulled out your battery immediately & put your phone in rice bag when screen flickering was there.After few days you should have turned it on.Probably the little water damaged the screen?
Sent from my SM-N910G using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
That is true. Maybe I could change the screen digitizer.
"Suddenly" dying? ?
It's water damage. It doesn't need to be sunk in water to be affected, sometimes all it takes is a few drops. And if that's the case, then you're not covered by warranty, so root is irrelevant.
Having said that, I'd personally pretend to be clueless and send it to Samsung nonetheless, saying "Don't know what happened, it just stopped working". Good luck!
Put in on rice for day or two (without battery) and try again. I had phones submerged in salt water (ocean). I soaked them in destiled water for few hours to flush salt water from inside, dried them on rice for a week and they still working.
Sent from my SM-N910T using XDA Free mobile app

[Q] To claim or not to claim? S5 mysteriously survives dive into bubbly bucket.

Hi Everyone
I'd like to start off by apologizing that my first post is a question - as the welcome message so nicely encouraged helpful posts I promise I do have skills (not related to my question though, only software) & in future, when I have time, will hopefully manage to post something helpful. You can have a good lol at the stupid situation I've gotten myself into though.
I've looked over the internet for days but can't seem to find anyone in the exact same situation as myself... In a way I am extremely lucky but kinda not because now I've been left with a dilemma.
I have a Galaxy S5 and lo & behold it fell off the arm of the chair into a bucket of water (sadly not just any water but containing thoroughly diluted Fairy washing up liquid) which I was using to clean the floor an hour earlier. (Bucket placement fail. Rest assured I now always remove the bucket to the bathroom straight after cleaning.) It was submerged for ~2 seconds, was turned on at the time and when removed it was in the process of shutting itself down. Stupidly, my first instinct was to turn it back on (I know it's actually irrelevant but I was pretty uneducated on water damage before this happened so I thought if it came back on it was a good sign.) It began booting up normally but my second instinct was arguably more intelligent and I turned it back off again.
I went off to dissassemble it & just as I was thinking about how lucky it was that the S5 was water resistant I suddenly noticed a gap where the battery cover had come away (probably from the impact of hitting the bottom of the bucket - it fell bottom first and it was very shallow - still deeper than a phone.) That sucked. On removing it it was painfully obvious that water had got into it - everywhere - the water indicator behind the battery is so red it's half fallen off. So at this point I just consigned myself to claiming on my insurance (it is covered for this situation thankfully but there's an excess) and left it in pieces for a few minutes. I really stupidly turned it on again - just to check (please don't tell me off, I totally admit at this point I hadn't read on google this was a bad thing to do) - and the display did not work at this point, it constantly vibrated until I removed the battery again but I was erroneously relieved that it had powered on.
Remembering I had an emergency wet electronics pack - a rich name for a plastic bag with 2 big packets of silica gel in it - I thought I might as well try it (although I really did think there was no hope at this point.) I left it - and the battery - in the packet overnight and tried again in the morning - still no display (vibrating had stopped =)) I returned it to the emergency packet where I pretty much forgot about it for 3-4 days booting up my old S3 mini to use in the meantime. (Pay as you go so I still couldn't ring the 25p a minute insurance line.)
I was just about to pop to a relatives to use the house phone to make my claim when I thought I'd give it the S5 one last shot, not expecting anything, I pressed the power button & realised it wouldn't power on at all, so I wiped it with alcohol (having finally googled my problem... the cleaning kind, not the drinking kind), dried that off, plugged it in and lo & behold - again - it appears to work perfectly. This, ironically, is the crux of the problem.
I've read the insurance T& Cs over and over and whilst it covers water damage it says, in a totally unrelated section, that it doesn't cover damage that does not prevent the normal functioning of the device.
So I started googling some more. I read that water damaged devices may have some problems (namedly with the screen, audio or signal) yet I have none of these. I am ridiculously paranoid that every bit of lag is water damage but then again I have a lot of apps installed *naughty* so it's probably not... and tbh it does perform pretty well (my nonwater damaged laptop is lagging as I type & the S3 mini performs worse.) I also read that water-damaged devices frequently appear to work then give up the ghost within a few days of drowning - this also didn't happen. Aside from the indicator being red (and possibly soap residue inside knowing my luck) it's working. So, because of the fairly large excess I haven't reported it yet (there is no time limit on when you report the damage on my cover, I assume this is because most people want their phone replaced sooner rather than later.).
Soooo... phone is still working what I think is fine. Battery life sucks but tbf I think that's the case with all the droids I've had, if it did actually become a problem it's likely fixably by replacing the battery anyway. What I want to know is do I ring the insurance people anyway? There's no T & Cs regarding time of accident or when it breaks la de da but the clause that's worrying me is that the phone has to not be functioning normally. I don't want them saying "you can't have a new phone because it still works" and then snidily cancelling my insurance the next day because they know there is a heightenend future risk of breakdown. Or is water damage so bad that they will replace it anyway regardless of whether it's showing any signs of damage yet? I just want to know what the typical approach to that is.
I'd also like to know, based on the high-level of detail I've provided on what occured post-plunge - what are the odds & likely timescales of future breakdown? Is most the damage likely to have been done by now or is it still likely to turn into a brick at any second? If problems emerge are they likely to appear gradually or suddenly? It has been 4 weeks since the incident. I think I can safely rely on it day to day at this point but do you think it could last another 4 weeks? 4 months?
I guess I could dunk it again just to be sure it breaks :angel: but that seems like such a waste, both of the phone & the excess money... and not to mention stupid if there were any problems with the claims process or the new phone...
Thank you very much, Im really not much of an expert on what water does to phones. Especially not fairy liquid.
Many thanks
AngelzEye
TL;DR = Dunked S5 in water, waterproof cover failed on impact, did turn it back on whilst wet *idiot*, left it in emergency wet electronics pack for 3-4 days, works perfectly, insured for water damage but there's a clause that says damage that doesn't affect the normal functioning isn't covered - I'm guessing their talking about minor cracks here but does it apply to me? . What the hell do I do?? Should I break it properly and claim because the future risk of problems is so great, do I just wait it out and claim only if problems happen, will I get a replacement if i ring the insurance or will they refuse to replace it cos it still works and threaten my future cover.

black screen

So water got on my mtxp ..probably got under the screen..hour after the colors would fade when screen unlock and lines shown..now phone responds to power off and on..sound works but screen stays black. ..think I need a new screen or software related?..anybody have the same issue?
Doubt it is software related if it happened out of the blue like that unless you were flashing or modding something. Minor water damage can be kind of a slow moving thing. You might not see all the problems you're going to have just yet.
My wife left a phone laying face down in a thin film of water once; not submerged, it was actually just from a really heavy dew. Probably for about 30 minutes or less. When I found it I turned it off immediately and threw it in a bag of rice. The next day it powered up ok, but had some discoloration in part of the screen. Over the course of the next few weeks the "stain" spread around most of the screen. The "stain" actually got to where it was almost so uniform you couldn't see it anymore. It was an old phone anyway so she replaced it. We gave it to one of the kids to play with. Within the next few weeks it started having random reboots, and by about two months after the water exposure the battery wouldn't hold more than about 5 minutes charge. I'm pretty sure it was all related to the initial water damage, because it had zero issues to start with.
Not trying to discourage you, but just use caution with how much you want to invest fixing an unknown. It would suck to replace the screen, then have the motherboard or the battery turn goofy. The MXP sells pretty cheap lightly used and even new these days, or maybe you deserve an upgrade for the Holidays.
jason2678 said:
Doubt it is software related if it happened out of the blue like that unless you were flashing or modding something. Minor water damage can be kind of a slow moving thing. You might not see all the problems you're going to have just yet.
My wife left a phone laying face down in a thin film of water once; not submerged, it was actually just from a really heavy dew. Probably for about 30 minutes or less. When I found it I turned it off immediately and threw it in a bag of rice. The next day it powered up ok, but had some discoloration in part of the screen. Over the course of the next few weeks the "stain" spread around most of the screen. The "stain" actually got to where it was almost so uniform you couldn't see it anymore. It was an old phone anyway so she replaced it. We gave it to one of the kids to play with. Within the next few weeks it started having random reboots, and by about two months after the water exposure the battery wouldn't hold more than about 5 minutes charge. I'm pretty sure it was all related to the initial water damage, because it had zero issues to start with.
Not trying to discourage you, but just use caution with how much you want to invest fixing an unknown. It would suck to replace the screen, then have the motherboard or the battery turn goofy. The MXP sells pretty cheap lightly used and even new these days, or maybe you deserve an upgrade for the Holidays.
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Well already ordered a screen ..just tryna get some more life out of it..btw the screen acted the same way your wife mtxp reacted

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