If a phone shorts from water damage is that it?

[EIijah]

So my sister being the teenager she is, unable to put her phone down, dropped it in the bath. She continued to use the phone because it stayed on, eventually the screen went weird and it turned off, I assume an electrical short, maybe not. I told her leave it off and just put it in rice for now (I know this isn't going to fix it but I figured it could help get rid of some of the water while nothing else is being done) now I have repaired iPhones before just never water damage. Because the phone turned itself off due to the water damage, does this make it unfixable? I understand that if corrosion happens you can clean it with alcohol, I'm just hoping that the fact that she didn't turn it off and that it turned itself off doesn't mean bye bye forever.

It's a 5S but I don't think that matters, my parents just bought her this and she's hoping I can fix it before they find out.

[Ichi]

She would be lucky if it does turn back on.

Whenever an electronic that doesn't advertise water resistant being exposed to water, the most sensible thing to do is turn it off and let it dry.

If it doesn't survive then hope she learns her lesson.

[deWaardt]

No. I've dealt with multiple phones dropped in water. Some of them started going strange stuff or turned off altogether. One idiot even attempted to turn his phone back on untill I told him to stop trying, the phone wasn't turning on. After drying it for 48 hours the phone was fine.

[Darel321]

hmm... Im gonna look in my crystall ball so I can see where the water went in the phone brb

[EIijah]

Just now, Darel321 said:

hmm... Im gonna look in my crystall ball so I can see where the water went in the phone brb

What?

[EIijah]

2 minutes ago, deWaardt said:

No. I've dealt with multiple phones dropped in water. Some of them started going strange stuff or turned off altogether. One idiot even attempted to turn his phone back on untill I told him to stop trying, the phone wasn't turning on. After drying it for 48 hours the phone was fine.

Oh cool, just I live pretty far and don't really wanna make a 2 hour round trip if there's pretty much no hope

[deWaardt]

Just now, EIijah said:

What?

He's trying to be funny and inputting completely useless information.

[Lord_Karango17]

Have you tried to dissemble it to look for any obvious water damage? Having it it open would also help the rice in removing the moisture.

[Darel321]

Just now, EIijah said:

What?

noone can know for sure whats the damage in the phone... soo... we can speculate whats wrong etc... but there is no answer to your question

[EIijah]

1 minute ago, Darel321 said:

noone can know for sure whats the damage in the phone... soo... we can speculate whats wrong etc... but there is no answer to your question

I'm not asking what's wrong... I'm asking more for personal experience like have people had similar things happen and been able to fix it, not how to fix it because I already have a good idea on how to get rid of water damage

[EIijah]

2 minutes ago, Lord_Karango17 said:

Have you tried to dissemble it to look for any obvious water damage? Having it it open would also help the rice in removing the moisture.

I would but I don't live at home, I live kinda far so I wanted to know if there was a chance before I bothered making the trip

[Lord_Karango17]

Just now, EIijah said:

I would but I don't live at home, I live kinda far so I wanted to know if there was a chance before I bothered making the trip

I've never opened up an iphone but is it simple enough of a process to over skype? I know not everyone has the torx bits needed, but a small flathead might do the trick. Once opened up you could inspect it over the webcam... Not an ideal situation, but would let you know weather its fixable and worth driving over for.

[Darel321]

1 minute ago, EIijah said:

I'm not asking what's wrong... I'm asking more for personal experience like have people had similar things happen and been able to fix it, not how to fix it because I already have a good idea on how to get rid of water damage

well I still feel useless in this thread because there's no help... only thing you should do is remove the battery and let it dry.... if you didnt remove the battery by now.. you can forget about it....

[EIijah]

Just now, Darel321 said:

well I still feel useless in this thread because there's no help... only thing you should do is remove the battery and let it dry.... if you didnt remove the battery by now.. you can forget about it....

Why? are you guessing, water shouldn't penetrate the battery

[EIijah]

1 minute ago, Lord_Karango17 said:

I've never opened up an iphone but is it simple enough of a process to over skype? I know not everyone has the torx bits needed, but a small flathead might do the trick. Once opened up you could inspect it over the webcam... Not an ideal situation, but would let you know weather its fixable and worth driving over for.

The internet over there is .25Mb/s.... half the reason I left

[Djole123]

Just leave it in rice for a day or two and it should be working again.

[Darel321]

Just now, EIijah said:

Why? are you guessing, water shouldn't penetrate the battery

if the battery is still connected and the phone have water inside its basicly dead alrdy... because?? simple put... electrolysis.. + - put together with some metal and water its gonna corrode everything

[byalexandr]

25 minutes ago, Darel321 said:

hmm... Im gonna look in my crystall ball so I can see where the water went in the phone brb

You see, that phrase works when asking about how GPUs that aren't out yet will perform, but here it's just a weird phrase to say.

[byalexandr]

15 minutes ago, Djole123 said:

Just leave it in rice for a day or two and it should be working again.

That doesn't actually work and/or has a very slim chance or working.

 

A much better solution would be getting a bunch of silica packets (the 'do not eat' ones) and covering the phone in those.

[EIijah]

2 hours ago, huilun02 said:

If you need to force out the water asap, you can dunk it in 99%/pure alcohol.

Only problem is alcohol will burn off any adhesives and TIM inside.

So any screen protector will just fall off and the processor keeps thermal throttling.

I was going to pull it apart so I could pick the pieces to put in, leave the screen and shit out