SilentSadist

Alright, here's the situation:

1. Phone fell in water
2. Phone completely dried
3. Phone turned on, digitizer and side buttons responding but no display
4. Researched how to take apart my phone
5. Took apart my phone to replace my display
6. Broke ribbon cable *doh*
7. Replaced ribbon cable AND display screen
8. Reassembled phone (minus a screw or two)
9. Phone turns on, display works (yay!!), digitizer is not working, also side buttons are not working.
10. Disassembled and reassembled phone at least 3 times to check connections, same result.

Now, I come here, hoping someone who knows how to fix this will help me figure out how to, well fix this. I cannot be sure what is the issue without spending money, but I would rather keep my costs down. I have a feeling the problem may be as simple as a replacement of the digitizer, or perhaps something like the motherboard.

As is, my phone turns on, I can see my unlock screen with the notification bar on top with a few unread texts and its killin meh! I just gotta know who said what.

But yeah, someone please help.

Wpz2000

Water damage is usually fatal to everything. The digitizer may have died during the repair.

Since you have a new cable already, the only thing you can try is to clean the ribbon cable contacts on the digitizer. Just use a pencil eraser and make way strokes along the length of the contact toward the edge. Do not go the other way as you can lift the contact from the end.

SilentSadist

Thanks for the tip about cleaning the contacts, I hope that will bring the digitizer online, but how about the side buttons? The power/sleep mode button and volume buttons both do not incite a response from my phone. Could this be tied to the digitizer, or does it mean that I may need to get a new motherboard for my phone? My phone works almost perfectly, except for not being able to use the digitizer and side buttons. I will try cleaning the digitizer contacts soon and post a result, in the meanwhile, I continue to hope someone who has experienced this before can tell me exactly what is wrong.

Again, thank you very much Wpz2000.

Wpz2000

The buttons are connected via a small cable that connects to a sub board on the bottom of the phone. The speakerphone speaker assembly sits on this sub-board. When you disassembled the phone, you probably had to disconnect this, but a lot of people don't see this little connector when they put the phone back together. As a result, the connector gets pinched under the casing and often breaks the cable. Check if you have done this, if not, then try re-seating the connector (the contacts are too hidden to clean).