Samsung Galaxy S3 Water Damage

[03ahmads]

My brother accidently knocked his Galaxy S3 into the toilet it had a casemate case on it. It was taken out immediately, battery out & dried any excess water. Was left overnight. Tried turning on the next morning as it was really needed for work, phone boots up however takes much longer than usual but the touchscreen doesn't respond to touch, we have also opened it up & wiped the motherboard with Isopropyl Alcohol wipes then tried again, no change. Is there anything which can be done to get it working again? The phone looks like it's had minimal water inside it due to the case. It's password protected so can't get the contacts off it which is number one priority. The buttons work & the screen itself looks fine. Any help will be really appreciated.

[cactikid]

you should have put phone into a bag of rice as that takes the moisture out,the longer you left it the more damage may have been done.

[Shady]

you should have put phone into a bag of rice as that takes the moisture out,the longer you left it the more damage may have been done.

canker said that rice is useless
he told me off for recommending it.
canker knows phones.
i believe in canker

[03ahmads]

Yes because rice isn't going to take away the corrosion that the water causes, it must be physically opened up & cleaned to stop the corrosion.

[iGame]

You should put the straight into the rise as it absorbs all the waters, its actually all the minerals in the water that cause the corrosion, best thing to do is look at the connector for the digitizer and check for corrosion and then get a used toothbush dip the head in isopropyl alcohol and brush the connector, all do this with the whole board and try to remove the shields first. Hope this method works for you also bush the connector the digitizer.If it still does not work try get some distilled water and tip the motherboard in for around 15mins then brush off all the connector and then leave it to dry in rice and reconnect everything and pray for the best.

[cactikid]

How to Save a Wet Cell Phone: 12 steps - wikiHow

[Jim.Mahoney]

Sorry, like Canker I'm also in the trade and rice is NOT recommended! Rice falls in to the category of 'old wives tales' end of story! Much like putting butter on a burn!!

Rice tends to get recommended but when rice gets moist as it absorbs liquid it will ferment (caused by natural bacteria in the rice) and gives off a gas, which in turn will corrode any metals on your handset! This corrosion is far worse than that caused by the water you are trying to remove!

If you really must follow such a route, then use silica gel or crystals (you'll often find these packed in electronic equipment when it's purchased) as this will absorb liquid.

That said, unless you clean the PCB with a alcohol like IPA then you will almost certainly never have a reliable working handset.

Remember just because some bright spark has put a procedure on a web page, it doesn't make it right!