TweetMy less than 2 month old Nokia 7250i might not make it. Mom brought it to this repair shop who are experts on fixing wet units. The thing is it’s rare for a phone to be dropped in sea water unless you were thrown into it . Most wet units were a result of being dumped in a swimming pool . You’re lucky if your phone fell in the latter.
Fixing the short circuit and replacement of battery cost like $18.00 . The problem was the salt corroded 3 parts (mainly keyboard circuits and shit) and these parts are not easily available. And I don’t know if it’s worth fixing all that but heck, a brand new Nokia 7250 i is 12,000 pesos or $215.00. *sigh*
If only I knew the “first aid treatment” of wet cellphones…
So if this ever happens to you, REMOVE THE BATTERY at once and….
Source:Howard Forums
In the event that a non-waterproof cellphone/PDA/digcam accidentally gets immersed in water, you should follow these steps:
(1) IMMEDIATELY REMOVE THE BATTERY. VERY VERY IMPORTANT! 60 seconds later and it may be too late. The battery is usually the source of damage, not just the water alone. Water+Battery = Short Circuits! So REMOVE the battery! And DONT TEST the cellphone after it’s been dropped in water!
(2) As soon as possible (preferably within 20-30 minutes). dissassemble the phone using Torx T6 screwdriver. (Get this off eBay or service depots, etc) Make an emergency trip to Sears/RadioShack/ACE/service depot/etc.
(3) Clean/dry as much as you can, using Q-Tips
(4) Dry the electronics components under a desk lamp on a paper towel for 24 hours. A drop of water may have gone under chips and components where you cannot dry, so you need to dry under a 40/60w desk lamp, or 24 hours under a desk fan pointed down at the disassembled components.
(5) Reassemble the phone
(6) Put back together
(7) Only now it’s safe to put the battery back in.
(8) Phone may be good as new.
Try not use a hairdryer, unless with heat turned off or at very low settings. You do not want to scorch the electronics. A hairdryer may help in some cases, but more often than not (especially with clean water), a hairdryer will usually cause more damage caused by the stresses of expansion-contraction caused by all the heat. It’s best to keep things cold, to keep any contaminants in the water as chemically inactive as possible.
If you follow these instructions, you have a reasonably good chance of a working phone after a non-waterproof phone was thrown into water.
Yes, make that emergency trip to buy the Torx T6 if you have to. You have to disassemble the phone. Although reports some devices such as a PalmPilot, has survived in a snowbank for 7 days (luckily, its batteries were dead) after being lost in a snow-filled driveway, it is generally best to disassemble the device quickly. Clean snow/water usually means you can wait a bit longer, but pool water (chlorine) or ocean water (salt) will make is VERY URGENT to dissassemble the phone.
SALT WATER TIP: If exposure was salt water; you may need to clean the salt water with water. (salt water is far more dangerous). This may actually mean washing the circuit board very briefly under filtered water, in order to save its life from salt water (ocean water) before immediately drying it out. This is a last resort, but NECESSARY if your electronic device was immersed in salt water (unless you have access to special electronics cleaning fluid solutions that can get rid of salt water on short notice. Sometimes filtered water is the only thing you have access to, for cleaning salt water ASAP)
Yes, one must get rid of fear of dissassembly! RESIST trying to test the telephone — keep the battery away — until the phone/PDA is disassembled and dried first!
FACT: Water almost never instantly kills a cellphone. You usually still have time to save the phone’s life, especially if the water is clean!
Water is usually never usually the source of damage in a PDA/cellphone/pager/etc that has been immersed into water. The source of damage is usually the combination of Battery+Water which causes short circuits. If there are any backup batteries inside the cellphone/PDA, those preferably must be removed too. Removing all sources of power immediately (all batteries) is the most important step in rescuing water-logged electronics!
Also, phones that have already been exposed to water for longer periods even with the battery, are more likely to permanently stop working. For example, having been inside pockets of damp clothes or wet bags, or fallen in a rain puddle for an hour without you noticing until too late. However, remove the battery immediately anyway and dissassemble anyway. Sometimes you can still rescue electronics that has been wet with the battery for longer periods, especially if the water was clean and the electronics shut off the battery before it did any short-circuit damage.
I’ve had a good success rate in rescuing waterlogged electronics by following the above simple instructions. But to improve your odds, you must act quickly to remove the battery and resist the temptation to reinsert the battery to test, not until at least 24 hours later and after disassembly. If the cellphone/PDA is still wet inside — ZAP. It can take weeks for the inside of a cellphone/PDA to fully dry if you do not disassemble. It can take less than 24 hours to dry if you diassemble first. So dissassemble first!
Dropped your mobile phone or iPod in water? | ashchuan.com - Web Technology said
April 29 2008 @ 10:05 pm
[...] How to fix cellphones dropped into water [...]
Gordon Freeman said
July 31 2008 @ 03:33 am
Or, perhaps you could simply take out the battery and submerge your phone in dry rice…
John Wesley said
July 31 2008 @ 07:38 am
Great post! I’ll remember this next time disaster strikes.
dc said
August 1 2008 @ 04:37 pm
also, leave it in rice. rice is a natural moisture absorber. ifu cannot open ur phone- use rice. leave it in a container with rice over night- and ur good to go!
Wayne said
August 27 2008 @ 08:16 am
My wife dropped her phone in the lake. I fished it out a day later and put in in the oven at low heat to dry out. I later turned off the oven to let the phone sit at low heat and continue to dry. My wife came home after work and turned on the oven to cook dinner. At 350 degrees, cell phones melt. Of course it was my fault for leaving the phone in the oven.
Cell Phone Repair Training said
September 29 2008 @ 02:04 am
Cell phone repair tips. Thanks for the important tips to repair water damaged cell phone. I am sure we can save any water-logged cell phone following the tips.
KickTheKidS said
February 8 2009 @ 03:00 pm
I dropped my phone (Sony Ericsson w810i) in a pool, immediately dove in to get it, took out the battery when I was out the pool, took out the sim card, memory card and put it in some teabags (they perform the same function as the rice, but were more readily available) and on a towel to dry in the sun. Took it home, put it in more teabags, and left it for a while. The next day it was fairly hot, 31 degrees or something, so in the evening I took it out of the teabags, reassembled the parts I had taken out, and tried to put it on.
Initially it didnt work, but I plugged it into the charger thinking maybe the water had shorted and thus used up all the battery’s power, and it miraculously came on. Now, however, it doesn’t find any network connection in my area, the date and time have been reset, and it seems to think that it is permanently connected to the computer via USB.
Please help. Anything I can do? Anything I should have done?
Thanks
carly said
February 22 2009 @ 02:52 am
umm well i kinda dropped my phone in diet coke.
it is in rice right now
idk what to do
bob said
February 25 2009 @ 07:30 pm
in my opinion, it would be best to switch to regular coke, or fanta.
ridzaq said
March 3 2009 @ 10:55 am
To late now, didn’t see this website before my phone drooped into sea.(SE W610) Now it can start but the keypad went crazy. Is it worth repairing? Because the technician says once the phone is wet it will do funny things even if you repair it(and repairing cost RM100 here in Malaysia,the cellphone price now is RM500).Please help me!!!
bud said
March 5 2009 @ 04:44 am
My phone doesn’t take a T-6 torx. Now what?
frodo said
March 8 2009 @ 12:25 am
Better to wash your phone down with isopropyl alcohol – you know, rubbing alcohol. Get the bottle with the highest concentration of alcohol vs. water you can find. Alcohol will displace water and then evaporate on it’s own.
But definitely take the battery out.
@bud: Then get the screwdriver your phone needs. It’s not up to the writer of this blog to tell you that – duh. People like you should probably not take your phone apart anyway.
mhadi said
April 5 2009 @ 04:09 am
My son dropped Nokia 3110c in the toilet. My wife immediately took it out and wiped it. Until that time it was no longer working. I pull out the battery and put the set in dry rice. Next day it turns on well but after some time screen started to flicker. I turned it off and again put it in rice for one more day. Now it works as if nothing ever happed to it.
Sakura Aoki said
June 30 2009 @ 10:51 pm
This is a nice one. Thanks. By the way, do you have anyway to fixed a phone saying – no network coverage – after dropped into the water ?
temmy said
July 10 2009 @ 01:19 am
Thanks for all the comments, my 2 week old phone just dropped in fruit tea and I found this useful, it’s right now in rice, and the sim in a teabag, really praying it works again.
Dami said
July 19 2009 @ 07:20 pm
Hello All,
My less than a month old Nokia 5130c drops in sea water ….and i ad no clue of what to do.I wish i ad read this befoiore it happened.
I still hope it works,its a day now and still dead.
jessica. said
August 7 2009 @ 03:10 am
well. my phone dropped into the ocean im 12 and im waiting for my pearents to come home and scream at me , lol , and its sitting in rice and the memory card had no pictures on it i guess? and it had, 70 something.. the battery and the memory card are in the rice too,
and everytime i put my batery back in my phone starts to vibrate?? HELPP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Jessica said
January 4 2010 @ 09:18 am
Omg my phone spent 2 days in the snow! Help
Have faith said
March 14 2010 @ 05:46 am
I was in Hawaii at condo and had gas bad although there was some “you know what ” that came out with the gas so immediatly I threw the shorts in the washer WITH my iPhone not thinking. Letting it dry for 1.5 weeks it finally came back all functions. I need to not eat gasious foods. LOL
annette still said
March 15 2010 @ 03:54 pm
i had went to the beach with a friend. leving our stuff,including phone, i realized as we went swimming R.B. i better grab stuff bring it closer to us twards water. not realizing high tide was coming fast as swimming, i saw my frizzbe which contained my cell and a few other things floating past me while i was in water. i grabed the frizzbe so fast. lot everything but cell phone. went back to shore my phone was floating in it. i grabed it and took out battery tryed dry off both. phons at first was vibrating before i took oy battery now i thought i dried all out with towel took sim carard out, im not sure how to clean it. HELP I LOVE MY PHONE. its one of though verizon texting phones. what should i do with all parts.. annet sad