Help Phone got wet

[t-readyroc]

Dog spilled water onto my phone last night. Knocked my water off the night stand. Worked fine until an hour or so ago, now it thinks I haven't got a SIM card in it. Both water sensors red. Everything else works fine. Boots up, works, WiFi.... everything except the SIM part...

Am I screwed?

 

[Abby6497]

I know when i had my blackberry i took the back off and the battery out and stuck it in a bag of rice..you might want to try that!

 

[Frisco]

Last night?

The first thing to do when a cell phone is exposed to water is put it in a container of dry, uncooked rice, which will draw out the moisture over night.

Too late for that, but it might still help get remaining water out.

Some advocate using rubbing alcohol to displace the water. Maybe too late for that, as well.

 

[t-readyroc]

I've followed this guide & have been blasting it with compressed air for the last half hour.

Yeah, Frisco, but it was dark, & I was in bed, & I just thought he (my dog) had knocked the cup of water off of the table to the floor (which is where it was)... I had no idea he'd soaked the phone in the process.

Why in the hell would everything else work except for the phone part?? It's also very odd that it worked fine all the way up to an hour ago (made & received several calls this morning)...

 

[Frisco]

It is surprising how these things often recover from immersion; we've seen reports of them being dropped in toilets, pools, sink water, etc and the rice trick saving them back to full operation.

Sorry you had to lay there not knowing right away what happened; bummer.

But, let's see how it goes.. perhaps it'll come back to life with the measures you're using from that guide.

 

[nyydynasty]

as already stated, unless you do these steps right away, you're pretty much screwed...unless you get lucky.

 

[sremick]

Non-energized electronics can be safely dried-out without damage.

However, by using it after it got wet it's quite likely that you shorted something out, causing permanent damage that drying it out will not fix.

The proper solution is to immediately remove the battery if a device gets wet. You can then take your time disassembling and drying it out over the course of a few days.

 

[tazman171]

Have you tested your sim in another phone? That would isolate whether it's the SIM itself thats messed up (easy fix) or the hardware that uses the SIM (no so good).

Washed my Razor once, went through the whole wash process. I thought "Well it's already dead, what the hell." then pulled they battery and sim, put it in a tied up pair of socks and dried it with the load of laundy. Had nothing to lose at that point but LAB, it worked! Used that phone for another year before giving it to a friend that used it for another year after that. You just never no some times.

 

[t-readyroc]

Good point & definitely something to try. I just put it into another phone & it worked, unfortunately.

 

[alphadog00]

Still, try the rice trick for 24 hours, it may not be too late.

The last option is to disassemble and look for corrosion type shorts and remove it. Not a guarantee either.

 

[t-readyroc]

Well, like I said above, I followed a guide to fully disassemble the phone, then I used compressed air on it for about an hour. I'm going to leave it in the rice for the entire weekend, but I'm already scouring craigslist for a replacement.

When I had it disassembled, I didn't see any noticeable corrosion anywhere, but I really can't say I'd know exactly what to look for or how to remove it...

 

[Frisco]

It isn't about corrosion, entirely. Water is a conductor, so it is also about sudden contact between two or more areas of the circuitry that should be isolated from one another.

Results of that run the gamut of negative possibilities, short term and long term.

 

[t-readyroc]

No dice after leaving it in the rice for 48hrs. I've called Samsung to get a repair. It's (obv) not covered by the warranty, but readers out there may be interested to know that the fix is only $70. They even emailed me a shipping label (UPS 2day). Once they get the phone (in Texas), the turn-around time is only a week, so I should have it back before the end of the month. Not bad at all, really...

I was already dreading purchasing one off of craigslist or ebay for the off-contract price. Awesome to have found this out this morning.

 

[Frisco]

No dice after leaving it in the rice for 48hrs. I've called Samsung to get a repair. It's (obv) not covered by the warranty, but readers out there may be interested to know that the fix is only $70. They even emailed me a shipping label (UPS 2day). Once they get the phone (in Texas), the turn-around time is only a week, so I should have it back before the end of the month. Not bad at all, really...

I was already dreading purchasing one off of craigslist or ebay for the off-contract price. Awesome to have found this out this morning.

Sounds good on that company, t-readyroc; 70 bux and a lesson learned about rice.

 

[sremick]

Wow... $70 for an out-of-warranty repair?

Someone could totally milk that for a crazy discount on a contract-free phone. Buy a dead one on eBay for a steal, call Samsung for repair... contract-free Captivate for under $100?

 

[t-readyroc]

@Frisco: you're telling me. I wish I had known that my phone was "submerged" at the time... could've avoided all this.

But yeah, I'd have to say I'm really impressed with the customer service/repair process from Samsung.

@sremick: yeah, I suppose you could. Matter of fact, I saw a non-functional Captivate go for ~$200 on eBay over the weekend...

 

[Dreddi]

I've got a deep vacuum pump I use for refrigeration service. I've saved countless phones and other electronic devices by putting them into a large glass mason jar and pulling a 100 micron vacuum for 10 min. Its cool watching little droplets of water on the inside of screens pop and disappear. It will get 100% of the water out of the device and wont harm anything. I had a blackberry that spent the night in a swimming pool boot up about 3 min in the dry-out, didn't hear its usual start up sounds (Since there's nearly no air) but it vibrated the jar and startled me.

 

[AWilson]

My captivate can't swim either

Just got off the phone with Samsung and she told me about the $70 charge. I said, "But it could be more depending on what's wrong, right?" and she said, "yes".

She also told me to give it whole week to dry so it's back in the rice.

Anyone else have any experience with this? What did it cost?

 

[blackhemi]

best thing for most wet electronics, 100% rubbing alcohol. Its important to remove battery if possible, and let the alcohol get into every crack you can. it displaces water and is safe on electronics. after that, rice it or a can of air or whatever else to dry, or just let it sit.

 

[t-readyroc]

I've saved countless phones and other electronic devices by putting them into a large glass mason jar and pulling a 100 micron vacuum for 10 min.

Oooooo... that's a great idea. We've got tons of those here @ work, too... didn't even think about it

@AWilson - Samsung rep said the same to me. I won't find out until next week at the earliest, obviously (phone went out 2day shipping yesterday - maybe by the end of this week, but I'm not holding my breath). I'll post back here when I find out any final charges. I'll be happy if it's less than $200... heh.

 

[Dreddi]

best thing for most wet electronics, 100% rubbing alcohol. Its important to remove battery if possible, and let the alcohol get into every crack you can. it displaces water and is safe on electronics. after that, rice it or a can of air or whatever else to dry, or just let it sit.

Its true that Isopropyl Alcohol is hygroscopic but the problem with it and electronic devices is the plastics they're built from. Not all of them are okay with more then a few min exposure. It will cause acrylic plastics to frost and craze, even crack all the way through. The alcohol dissolves the water into solution, not displaces. Which means when the Iso. evaporates out of the device it will leave the water behind. But hopefully in a different place.

 

[AWilson]

Well, they got my phone yesterday and are sending it back today, unrepaired.

Solution: BER (Beyond economical Repair)

They didn't even give me a quote, just sent it back.

@t-readyroc, hope you have better luck.

 

[t-readyroc]

Same deal w/me. I was going to wait until tomorrow morning to post after I'd had a chance to call them & clarify. Needless to say, I've already begun scouring Craigslist.

 

[Dreddi]

BER is very very common in aviation. In very layman's terms, it would cost more in troubleshooting or parts and labor to fix then it would to just replace it with a new unit. Just in the event someone didn't already know that.