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Phone took a drink in Pond and will not turn on.

My phone took a drink in my fish pond on the weekend and now will not turn on.
When I plug into the chargers I get a RED charge light that will not turn amber.
I have disassembled the phone. I did not find any water or condensation in the unit.
Can anyone tell me if it is the battery or maybe the motherboard.
Thanks

Tiberious said:
My phone took a drink in my fish pond on the weekend and now will not turn on.
When I plug into the chargers I get a RED charge light that will not turn amber.
I have disassembled the phone. I did not find any water or condensation in the unit.
Can anyone tell me if it is the battery or maybe the motherboard.
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Smell the motherboard. That'll tell you.
Was it on when you dropped it in? if so did you try to turn it back on after bringing it out? if so, then my guess is it's the motherboard.

there is a case of wizard getting a swim and survived. the owner actually take off the battery 1st thing after he retrieved the phone, blow dry it, let is dry.. then only plug in the power. As I remember, it worked flawlessly.

The phone was on when it went swimming. Swam for about 10 seconds before retrival. The phone was off and would not turn on. I immediately removed the battery cover and battery. Then I shook out as much water as I could.
The unit was allowed to dry out for about 24 hours before the charger was applied.
I suspect it may be the battery but I donot have a spare to check with.
Does anyone know what the voltage values should be across the battery terminals?
I found a Wizard service manual online but it is not much help in the troubleshooting process.

The 'would not turn on' before you remove the battery isn't good. Anyway, you can read through this to see if you get any ideas
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=269884&highlight=

from my exsperience is all it needs is to dry out. might take some time to dry out tho.
dont give up on let it dry as long as possible. i dont think it could be the battery but im not sure.

Today is the worst day of my life

I woke up this morning to find my 8525 sitting in my computer chair as usual. Only to reach over and grab it, and ....its sitting in three inches of water. I have no idea what happened, or how it got there. All i know is my phone wont turn on, and is totally dead. Is there ANYTHING that can be done to right this horrid tragedy? Any help would be a gift from god. Thanks

Wow.
Sorry about that.
Let it dry out before trying to use it. Since it's wet, you have nothing to lose by taking it apart to facilitate this. You could dry it faster by using a hair dryer but NOT on the heated setting.

agreed; but let it dry for a day or two before you try, you should also put it somewhere that will provide additional moisture evaporation (gas oven with pilot lights or a furnace room, behind a PC fan or the like). i saved my old Sony S710a by letting it bake in my hot car for about 6 hours while i was at work. just make sure its totally dry before you try, and considering you already voided the warranty with the pool of water incident, you might as well take it apart if you can to make sure its completely dry.

hmm, bad luck.
Try all the above suggestions. But make sure you have disconnected your battery

Tried putting the battery back in after about a good 4-5 hours of being in the sun. All i get is a crackling noise when i try to place the battery to the metal conductors

Ewww.. I know it is stressful for you not to switch on the phone, but doing that will just make matter worst. Since you said that it wont turn on, I presume that you've tried it once (Strike 1), and you did it again 4-5 hours later (Strike 2), which usually others just leave it for at least 1 day (but probably the sun does help).
Can you identify what water is it? Can there be mineral within? Which may cause a short circuit somewhere in the phone. You'll need to open up the phone and clean it up somehow.. either DIY or get some phone shop people to do it. Your warranty is 'washed' anyway.

Try This
Stop Drinking!

Read This To Possible Save You Phone
OK, this comes from my many decades in the electronics industry.
1. PULL the battery. Do not put it back in in few hours.
2. Where did the water come from? Was it really water or? You need to know this. It's real important because mostlikly the PCB is contaminated. Anything that got inside has most likely contaminated the board and will cause shorts, intermitent contacts and the like. Even rain or spring water, it's the minerals...
What you have to do most likely is disassemble the unit. Get a gallon of DISTILLED (not Spring) water. Distilled, also know as deionized is free of all minerals. You are going to have to carefully submerge the board without the LCD in the water and gently rub it with a very soft tooth brush while underwater. Next take it out and put in another bath of distilled water. Agitate it gently. This proces should remove any contamination as long as the offending liquid is not sticky or heavily acidic or base. In the case of the later 2, you are most likely screwed.
Ok, so now you have a wet board. Genly shake the excess water off of it. Turn your oven onto WARM. Nothing above 150 F. Let it warm up and then shut the oven off. Put the PCB in the middle of the oven directly on the rack, close the door and come back 8 to 10 hours later. If the board isn't dry, repeat the steps again.
If you are luck and didn't fry it from trying to power it up, it may work again.
I have saved lots of radio equipment from rain & saltwater submergence this way.
Feel free to PM me if you need to. Good Luck.

I used to have a motorola and dropped it into a bucket of water. Dried out in a few days and it was working fine.

my 8525 recently fell in the sink. as soon as i seen it in the sink i pulled the battery out. rigged the phone up on something in the floor so air could ventilate under and over, set the hair dryer on high (but without the heat) and 5 or so ventilation fans from a desktop pc wired to a 9v battery. let the hair dryer go for about 15 minutes but left the fans on over night. took the phone with me to school the next day and left it in the car during both of my classes. came out put the battery in and powered it up. works just fine now

http://www.wikihow.com/Save-a-Wet-Cell-Phone
ive heard the rice thing works, ive alway wanted to flush with alcohol, that would in theory dilute the water and the alcohol would dry out faster.

Ok so heres the deal. I put the battery in. Power up the phone, gets to the vp3g startup screen, then fades to white. Could someone point me in the direction of a tutorial that shows me how to disassemble a Hermes CORRECTLY.
Hopefully ill be able to give it a DI Water bath and breath a little life back into her. Thanks for all the help guys, I really appreciate it

It's drying out slowly. I had a Hermes that did the same thing - eventually getting to the "screen behavior" you describe. I never fully disassembled it. I just let it sit open, with the battery out, keyboard pulled out, and the back off. Eventually (after leaving overnight), it was fine. Worked normal ever since that with one exception.. I had forgotten to pull the SD card. The SD socket never worked again :-(
Moral of the story: don't forget to take out the SD card.

todd_jg said:
It's drying out slowly. I had a Hermes that did the same thing - eventually getting to the "screen behavior" you describe. I never fully disassembled it. I just let it sit open, with the battery out, keyboard pulled out, and the back off. Eventually (after leaving overnight), it was fine. Worked normal ever since that with one exception.. I had forgotten to pull the SD card. The SD socket never worked again :-(
Moral of the story: don't forget to take out the SD card.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yeah i got lucky. when mine fell in the sink i had the SD card out and in the laptop doing hw. so i guess im really lucky that the sd socket still works

Not worried about the SD card as much... Anyway, Ive popped the back off of my 8525 after removing a couple screws. On the back of the circuit board there is white material that can be wiped off with a little rubbing alcohol and an ear swab. What is that crap? Ill go further in depth here soon once it fully drys. I sure hope I can get this thing running again, birthday is the 13th and would be a nice little gift to myself to get the phone working. Thanks for the help guys

WOW Just look it here...Thats what I call the Power of Unity man. Great piece of work, info. I love all You people. If the world learns anything from XDA developers then there wont be any more human sufferings I am sure..Enjoy friends the power of forum..

If it fades to white, it is still wet.
You need to let it dry a lot longer before trying to use it.

Sterch said:
On the back of the circuit board there is white material that can be wiped off with a little rubbing alcohol and an ear swab. What is that crap?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, those are either stuff from the water or stuff from your phone that is washed and gathered to form some dangerous circuits (much like coffee water rings, that things tend to get to the edge of waters). These stuff may conduct electricity, hence making your phone goes nuts. Search and destroy all these 'crap' Good luck. Don't try the phone unnecessarily until you are sure that all 'crap's are gone. One of these 'crap' may potentially kill your phone (ok, it is usually not that serious, but just incase )

Sad story, I was lucky with similar story, but much cheaper. I left my Nokia BH-600 Blue Tooth Head set in my panties and give them to washing-mashine. 40 degrees program for 30 minutes ended by wringing on 800 turns/minute
When I found it in the pocket I just left it to wither up and it didn’t worked. So I tried to re-charge it and WOW it works and the battery has normal capacity.

Video of 8525 / Hermes being dismantled
Sterch said:
...Could someone point me in the direction of a tutorial that shows me how to disassemble a Hermes CORRECTLY ...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Don't forget the popcorn: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsljpn74SW0

Just dropped my HD2 down the toilet

I immediately removed it from the water, and desperately tried to remove the back case to remove the battery (its quite hard when the phone is wet) i got there eventually though.
The screen was flickering whilst the phone was still on, and the water sensitive stickers on the battery and phone are both pink. I've blow dried it for about 10 minutes haven't tried to start it back up yet.... any suggestions?

joeyjoee said:
I immediately removed it from the water, and desperately tried to remove the back case to remove the battery (its quite hard when the phone is wet) i got there eventually though.
The screen was flickering whilst the phone was still on, and the water sensitive stickers on the battery and phone are both pink. I've blow dried it for about 10 minutes haven't tried to start it back up yet.... any suggestions?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
DON'T start it for a few days. Put it in a warm place, leave it to dry for 48-72 hours and pray it works when you turn it on.

yeah just be patient and wait about 3-4 days to dry. but do not put it under direct sunlight

....and wash your hands

Try to put into bag with rice, and leave for couple of days...

DanijasDub said:
Try to put into bag with rice, and leave for couple of days...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
put it in a bag of rice or leave out in the open?!?

put your phone into rice and keep bag closed

Basically you just need to make sure you dry it out thoroughly. Don't try to rush this process in a few hours. All the posts about leaving it somewhere warm (like an airing cupboard) are correct. Don't put it on top of a radiator or hot pipe, or in the sun as already suggested. The idea of putting it in a bag of rice is to help draw the moisture out. Never tried this method myself.... You really must be patient with this - managed to save my Touch Pro that got soaked in the rain last year....

okay so i've put the phone the battery and the sim on top of some rice in a bad behind my tv in my bedroom

rice like the others said or if you are a cigar person (or know someone who is) place it in an acrylic humidor w/ humidification beans.......I resurrected a M$ ZUNE my wife dropped in a rain puddle by doing this in my humidor

man, this reminds me of the time I dropped my phone in a bucket of puke from a heavy night. Still worked after I dried and cleaned it up.

"DON'T start it for a few days."
yup ..is correct wait until dry ... "rice" are good for absorb humilities ..
but If I not wrong ..after dry .the speaker of the phone will change ..just like my tytn II drop into "wash floor water", it still can use .. but the speaker sound change ...

Οh man , really bad luck..
hope it goes ok but be patient and let it dry manually !!!

my wife washed my cellphone once (left in pocket after heavy night of drinking). Took the battery out, let it sit on a counter for about a week. Phone recovered though it took the screen a while for the colors to all show properly.
I have read where people put their oven on warm and leave it overnight. I don't think this will hurt the phone since their won't be a power source in it.

Dropped in a sink with the tap running!
I dried it out under a hand dryer, then powered it up straight away. In hindsight this was pretty stupid, but it booted up ok. The only problem being the NAVPANEL would randomly appear and require a reboot. The next day that problem had gone away, and was replaced with a new problem - the Volume down button being jammed on! Also the battery life was reduced to about 10 hours. After a further 48 hours and a blast with compressed air (around the volume buttons) the phone has returned to 100% normal use - even the battery life is getting better, now upto about 36-42 hrs..... but I have bought a replacement for that anyway!!
Can't believe how lucky I was!

[Edit: Just saw you fixed it. Bravo! I'll leave this here anyway...]
Rice is good, unless you have any silica gel kicking about, the stuff you get in electronic packaging in the little paper bags/sachets that say "do not eat".
But yes, definately don't do what the majority do...
"I just turned it on to see if it would work..."
"You turned your phone/laptop on while it was wet... to see if it would work?"
"Yeah... why?"
*facepalm*
Happens about once a week in the PC store I work at. You could also try stripping it after it's dried and going over it with a carbon pen to remove any corrosion/residue.

After removing the battery, SIM, and MicroSD and gently removing any surface water.
One trick I found is to put a phone in the path of hot dry air for 30 minutes to a couple of hours. A clothes dryer vent works wonderfully for this since its temperature controlled (and timed) to keep from destroying the fabric in your clothes, and hot enough to allow water to evaporate. If you have access to your dryer vent hose, unhook it and rest it on top of the dryer and put your phone in the path (at least 4 to 6" from the opening). It's worked for 2 phones so far. One being my wife's Motorola, and one my Touchpro. If you have a dryer with an insert for shoes, you could use that as well, although I would put the phone on something to keep it from vibrating off.
You could use a hair dryer but keep in mind that hair dryers are not designed to be run continuously and the temperature is not technically regulated.
The trick is to get the temperature of the whole phone up to about 130 to 140 degrees and the water will evaporate. I would avoid shaking the water out of the phone or using pressureized air since that will push water into the delicate connectors, keypad matrix, screen, etc.

Let me give you a more scientific approach to your problem, i will try to explain as better as i can since english aint my primary language.
After you drop it in the water, your phone will never be the same for couple of reasons. First of all, when the water will dry, salt will "sit" on the connections and the weldings of the connectors, and that will slowly but steadily eat them. My saying is : " Never trust a phone that was dropped into water/coffee ". For you to be sure of your phone you need to strip it, and clean it with a spray for electrical appliances. Now there are 2 types of those sprays, one with oil and one with no oil in it. For your thing you need the NO-OIL one. Thats to make sure you wont get a loose joint and eventually your phone wont get broken.
If you dont feel like opening your phone and you dont feel comfortable with it, just ignore my post and just dry it out. What is 100% sure is that at some point it will break down, it depends on when though, from hardware to hardware.
Just my 2 cents.

Any time I get anything wet I IMMEDIATELY remove the battery, then I remove anything else I can from it: Sim Card, Memory Cards, etc. I don't like the rice idea because rice ALWAYS ends up stuck somewhere inside. I prefer setting my phone on some foil out in the sun for a bit (provided it's not too hot out) or just leaving it somewhere where it's warm to dry out. DO NOT BY ANY MEANS put the battery back in or turn it on until it is COMPLETELY dry. A minimum of a day if you even want to begin to chance it. If it was dropped in something other than relatively clean fresh water, I would keep everything out of it (battery, sim, memory cards, etc.) and dip it in a cup of distilled water a few times to clean any particles off, then let it dry again completely before turning it on. Just because an electronic gets wet, doesn't mean it won't work. The only way to kill it really is if you power it back on or the battery shorts it.
I went swimming at the lake with my old Nokia 5310 for 10 minutes before remembering it was in my pocket, I immediately took everything out when I remembered and left it in the sun for 8 hours and it worked fine for a year after until I threw it into a wall as hard as I could due to a frustrating girlfriend haha

U may have problems in the future... Since it was submerged in water some components will begin to rust... I suggest u take it to a mobile service shop so they can tell u what to do, or maybe they can fix it...

DVP drenched in rain

I carried my Dell Venue Pro in my jeans' pocket while riding my bike, it was raining quite heavily. Now it won't turn on. The indicator turned red on my battery, but the indicator on the device (on the battery slot) is still white.
When I returned home I thought the charge was down and plugged into charger still it didn't start, I used hair dryer to get all water out, didn't work either. Finally searched on the net and found that it should be sunk in large quantity of rice, still didn't work. Is there anyway to fix? If I take this phone to dell, approx how much will they charge to fix it?

Oh dear god don't power it. Take the battery out and place both in a bowl of uncooked rice. Leave it for 24 hours. This will remove all the water.

Rice trick worked, I placed in a bag of rice for 20 hours. But once again my phone turned off after 10 - 15 mins of usage.

to be safe when any electronic gets wet, take it apart as much as possible, put everything in a plastic container of rice and set it in a sunny location and leave it for as long as you can, at least 3 days a week is prime. Then after the time frame, with everything apart use a combo of compress air and a blow dryer to get rid of the small rice and then put battery back in and your good.

You might need a new battery

MJCS said:
You might need a new battery
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can test this by plugging the phone in to the charger without a battery in. See how it works.

S4 submerged in water

so yesterday as i was outside talking with some friends, i dropped my s4 which then bounched along the grass and down into the drain, fully submerging itsself in about 4 inches of water. the amazing thing is that after pulling it out (still powered on) i turned it off and let it sit and to my surprise everything still works 100%! im not sure if i am just lucky but does anyone know just how much moisture this thing can take? still stuns me that it survived being undwerwater. i thought for sure my $600+ investment had just went down the drain.. (pun intended)

Joomlad said:
so yesterday as i was outside talking with some friends, i dropped my s4 which then bounched along the grass and down into the drain, fully submerging itsself in about 4 inches of water. the amazing thing is that after pulling it out (still powered on) i turned it off and let it sit and to my surprise everything still works 100%! im not sure if i am just lucky but does anyone know just how much moisture this thing can take? still stuns me that it survived being undwerwater. i thought for sure my $600+ investment had just went down the drain.. (pun intended)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i had this issue on my s2 but after searching google.com i finally found an answer and this works 100% as of now since my s2 still working but bought a new battery anyways here's what i did Putting it in rice is basically trying to suck out the moisture. Depending on how much damage was done it may or may not help.Open the back cover of the phone and remove the battery, put them in, leave it there for days, and it may sucked out the left over moisture inside your phone or if still doesnt work get a Silica gel and that should help your problem as well
Edit:
If you wanna try out the rice solution folow this step
1 The first step is to leave your phone alone! DO NOT try to turn your wet cell phone on. Turning on your wet phone can permanently damage the circuitry.
2 Next step is find a bag of rice, preferably white. White rice can absorbs the most water. Ensure that you have enough bag of rice to completely submerge your wet cell phone.
3 Now, place your wet cell phone into the bag of rice. Place the phone in the middle of the bag so that you can no longer see your wet cell phone.
4 Next, place your bag of rice in a dry and warm place.
5 Leave your bag of rice to sit for days. . After waiting for a few days you can turn it on your phone once again. Remember this works on my s2 and i wouldnt not suggest this to you if doesnt work well or go with a plan B "Silica gel packet"

Repulsa said:
i had this issue on my s2 but after searching google.com i finally found an answer and this works 100% as of now since my s2 still working but bought a new battery anyways here's what i did Putting it in rice is basically trying to suck out the moisture. Depending on how much damage was done it may or may not help.Open the back cover of the phone and remove the battery, put them in, leave it there for days, and it may sucked out the left over moisture inside your phone or if still doesnt work get a Silica gel and that should help your problem as well
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thats the thing, it doesnt seem to have done any damage at all, everything all works as it should, i did have some moisture on the inside of the front camera but that has since evaporated. but if it ever happens again ill be sure to try the rice method

Joomlad said:
thats the thing, it doesnt seem to have done any damage at all, everything all works as it should, i did have some moisture on the inside of the front camera but that has since evaporated. but if it ever happens again ill be sure to try the rice method
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
it might corrode over time. a water damage could appear weeks or months after getting wet. i wouldn't be too excited if i was you. you might have even worsened it by using it without letting it dry out.

Joomlad said:
thats the thing, it doesnt seem to have done any damage at all, everything all works as it should, i did have some moisture on the inside of the front camera but that has since evaporated. but if it ever happens again ill be sure to try the rice method
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Okey mate goodluck with the phone and i already edit my post on how to do it with that solution have a nice day

dr.wtf said:
it might corrode over time. a water damage could appear weeks or months after getting wet. i wouldn't be too excited if i was you. you might have even worsened it by using it without letting it dry out.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i hear what your saying, although after it happened i pulled the battery and let it sit for an hour or so. i didnt see any signs of water under the battery area (was in a case) i did have a good look before attempting to power it on

you've got a power plug, a phone connector, a mic and many slots where water could have come in.

dr.wtf said:
you've got a power plug, a phone connector, a mic and many slots where water could have come in.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i opened the phone up and looked at all the internals, everything is clean and also the water damage indicators are all white as they should be so i think i got away with it, but i'll keep monitoring things and see how it goes. also it wasn't underwater for too long, only a few seconds.