Phone took a dunk, everything works but...

[ReasonableMan]

A lovely weekend at the cottage turned horrifying as I fell off a boat with my Desire in my pocket. I quickly pulled it out and got it back in the boat, where it sat for many hours with the back panel, battery, SIM card and SD card removed. It struggled for awhile, but after a few hours worked normally again.

However, last night I plugged it in to charge overnight, and everything was working. This morning, everything works except the cellular service. I'm with Telus, but cannot detect any carriers.

It's definitely enabled. If I go into Settings->Mobile Network and choose "Network Operators", it will search for awhile and then say "No networks found" with a "Error while searching for networks" message at the bottom. If I choose "GSM only", it searches for awhile and does the same thing. If I choose "CDMA only", it will return the error right away without spending time searching. The icon in the top right of the phone is just the 4 empty bars with an X over it.

So maybe the radio is busted? Am I totally screwed? WiFi, Bluetooth, etc all work fine. I'm uncertain of my terms, but I would think dropping it in a lake would void the warranty, so I'm trying whatever else I can first... any suggestions?

 

[jblessing]

There are a whole bunch of "dropped my phone in water" posts all over the internet. I think the consensus is disassemble it as much as poss, then leave it somewhere warm for a few days before even thinking of switching it back on again. Others have suggested rinsing it in a solvent (isopropyl alcohol IIRC?) to extract any residual water. Sorry to say, but chances are it is shagged.

 

[Paranoid_Android101]

You could try putting it in a bowl of uncooked rice in a warm place, the rice supposedly extracts the moisture.

 

[ReasonableMan]

Yikes.. don't have any rice here at work right now, but I've got the thing mostly disassembled with a kleenex resting between the chipset and the screen. Was a little wet in there still when I opened it, so hopefully time will heal all wounds... My wife is going to kill me!


EDIT: PS. What's up fellow Radiohead namesake buddy!

 

[sookster54]

You could try putting it in a bowl of uncooked rice in a warm place, the rice supposedly extracts the moisture.

Try this, this fixed my soaked Palm Pilot 10 years ago.

 

[skoodbeef]

Those silica gel or crystal sachets you get inside
New bags work as well.use alongside the rice.

 

[acuk]

This was on telly the other week on The Gadget Show...This was taken off there site

Mobile phones Let