Database Develop

Water damage, maybe?

Eh, bad week. First comes the small crack in my Kaiser's screen, getting out of a car, then somehow the bottom of my cup from BK giving out in my car, pouring water into the area where I leave my phone.
I know you folks have read a fair share of water damage problems, I have searched around for the last hour or two reading threads, but to my avail, haven't came across anyone with the same problem as I.
Basically, as the phone stands at the moment, it's basically completely stock. Haven't flashed anything, added a few programs, etc. Haven't upgraded the battery; everything is how it would be buying a brand new phone, essentially. As for my problem, yes, the water sensitive sticker is pink. The phone was probably sitting in about a half inch of water for 10 minutes; only the bottom half (everything below the LCD) got wet. Then, it probably sat in my pocket for a good 10 minutes before I noticed my leg was getting drenched. I took it out of my pocket, only to see my screen going berserk, thinking that it had to do with my small crack in my screen from the day before. (The crack only runs about 1/8th of an inch in the bottom left corner. The touch screen and LCD were working absolutely fine the entire day with it there.) I noticed the bottom of the phone was wet, took the battery out, etc., and promptly took the SD card and my SIM out as well. I dried everything off, as there wasn't really much water anywhere, just streaks of water here and there, let the phone sit in front of the heat in the car for a good half hour or so, and decided to test it out to see if it works.
Normally, I'd be afraid to put the battery in so quick, but everything seemed pretty dry. On my first attempt, it booted up absolutely fine, with the exception of lasting long. After the AT&T screen and the norm, I got to my home screen where the screen ended up breaking up into pixels and slowly fading black, then to white. I decided to take the battery out and let it dry again.
I got home earlier tonight, took out the hair dryer, dried it on very low heat for 30 minutes, just to be sure, and tried again. This time, everything boots up, with the exception of the graphics. It goes to a very-bright white screen, where the AT&T logo would normally be, then dims a bit, where the green windows mobile load would be, then stays that way. After I know it's fully booted, everything works, but the screen is still white. Keyboard lights up, I can receive and make calls, speaker works. Hell, I know the camera works as well because the back-light goes the brightest when I hit the camera button, and take a picture I can hear the shutter sound.. despite no graphics.
My question is, do you guys think it has to do with the crack in the screen at all, or the water damage? If I had to take a guess, it would be the water. If I touch the crack, or any part of the screen, I don't get the normal black/white discoloring someone would normally get. Yet, why would everything be functional except the screen? Since I bought the phone off of Ebay, I have absolutely no coverage with AT&T, and never planned to anyway, my only resort would be to either mess with the phone itself, or find a repair service.. and of course buying another tilt, which, could kind of burn a hole in my pocket with the holidays and all. I'm tempted to go buy a set of T torx, but of course it'd be my first time taking apart this device and if it is repairable, I'm not trying to be the sole "act" of bricking it.
Anyone have any thoughts or comments? Anything would be appreciated.
Thanks, Scott.
Edit: Gah, just got another RLOD. I've gotten past this once already.. it ended up being my manufacturer's charger. When I toggled with it for awhile, nothing seemed to fix it. I got pissed one night, and jammed the old charger into the USB slot, and viola, amber light. I changed chargers right away, and it's been working fine since. I just tried messing with it again, but nothing happened. I guess I'm going to take apart the device, leave everything standing for a few days, and see what happens, unless of course, someone provides a decent solution to this.
Edit2: Lol, Amber light again. I hate this ****. I'm really looking into the Fuze, but once again, I'd like to get this up and running.

The first thing to do if you get water damage is pull the battery and do not put it back in until you're well beyond sure it's dry and clean. If the liquid was salt water, soda, etc, it would have to be cleaned, then dried.
Otherwise, probably garbage. Especially considering it ran for a while when wet, and you then tried to power it back up after wiping it off.

khaytsus said:
The first thing to do if you get water damage is pull the battery and do not put it back in until you're well beyond sure it's dry and clean. If the liquid was salt water, soda, etc, it would have to be cleaned, then dried.
Otherwise, probably garbage. Especially considering it ran for a while when wet, and you then tried to power it back up after wiping it off.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
unfortunately this is quite true... I've been working with electronics (specifically printed circuit boards & surface mount technology) for nearly 2 decades and have seen a number of items with water damage come out fine if it was powered down, cleaned and dried properly.
Disassembly of the tilt and hermes is very easy, especially with Mike's guide. But you have a digital problem. You could take it appart and try to clean the surfaces of the circuit boards with a q-tip and some Isopropyl alcohol, possibly a short amoungst one of the IC's. I think at this point, you've got nothing left to loose. Good luck none the less, let us know what happens. PM me if you think I can help!

Thanks guys, I'll see what I can do.

Hi
I was wondering if the OP managed to get this sorted ? I have the same problem, due to phone somehow being exposed to water. the OS loads fine, but screen stays white.
Is there any solution ?
Thanks

Nexus one dead, doesnt turn on, no charging LED, no nothing..

Let me begin by saying that I am an a** for being so careless with my phone(as you will know when you read the rest of this post).
Okay, so two days ago I spilled yoghurt(yeah!) into the USB port of my phone and I didn't take it very seriously and just used a needle to clean it a little. After this my phone worked fine, no problems whatsoever..it was charging fine and running fine.
Today I wanted to connect my phone to my computer, but when I did so, my Windows said that it didn't recognize the device and its probably malfunctioning and I should replace it(probably what I'll have to do now ).
I connected it in every port in my computer, used my dad's blackberry connector, factory reset, even tried eViL's Sense ROM(I had it in my SD card, so tried it).
Even after all the above the computer didn't recognize my phone, although it did charge when connected!
Okay so I thought I should try cleaning the port better, so I took some Isopropyl Alcohol(Second Biggest Mistake) and used a ear bud to clean the port. I connected again and no change, so I decided I'll try later and left my phone in the port.
When I came back 20 minutes later the alcohol had made its way under the right bottom part of the screen and the touch response was messed up. The trackball was constantly glowing red, I fixed the trackball by simply using trackball alert to test a few different colors.
Now I realized I had messed up with the alcohol and I needed to clean the screen somehow(BIGGEST MISTAKE).
I used a hairdryer to blow into the USB port, it dried up some of the alcohol but the screen looked pixelated and the touch response was still screwed.
So then I popped out the screw driver set and started tearing the nexus one down..and from here it was all downhill. I managed to get all the way to the screen, use a lint free cloth to clean the screen and put it all back but all this was of no use. My phone doesn't turn on anymore, all I get is a small vibration on pressing the power button. I connected it to the wall charger and I got the charging LED light and backlight in the touch sensitive button area(great!). I plugged it out and in again and poof the charging LED vanished, no more backlight, no nothing.
What I have tried:
Remove battery and insert
Press volume+up+power > I got a long vibration once with backlight working but never again after that
Let the phone lie for an hour
For those who are lazy to read the whole thread, here is the synopsis:
1) Yoghurt in USB port, left 2 days.
2) No USB mounting, USB charging working.(Tried wiping, reset and different ROM).
3)Cleaned with Isopropyl Alcohol, still no USB > led to distorted screen and touch sensitivity.
4) Used hairdryer, slight effect on alcohol.
5) Persistent Red Trackball light, no effect on restart.
6) Tore down the phone, used lint free cloth to clean the alcohol.
7) Phone doesn't start, only vibrates on pressing power.
8) At first attempt, the backlight for the touch sensitive buttons worked and so did the charging LED, didn't show the light after uplugging.
Now I am lost on what I should do, the phone never had warranty as I am from India and I bought it online. Any suggestions/ideas on what the problem might be?
EDIT:
Just found out that my phone is actually working, but the display isn't. My mom just called me on that number and I somehow managed to pick the phone up and talk with her..any ideas people?

I would have called BS on this story until you used the phrase "my mom".
Anyways, I can't stand people who destroy their phone and then think they should warranty it. Warranties don't work that way. It's dishonest to try and use it for your own mistakes. Your yogurt spill, attempt at cleaning, and disassembling, led to your phone being broken. Purchase a new one and don't do the same thing.

You probably either damaged the screen, damaged the ribbon cable that goes to the screen, or simply didnt connect it right. id take it apart, wiggle around all the connections and clean around them with very diluted alcohol, and wait for it to dry for at least a couple of hours. clean around the port too. Im not sure whats going on with the charge indicator led, or where the connection comes from. Hopefully the phones ability to charge isnt broken, and you left something not connected. Try cleaning and connecting things again, but lettings things dry for a long time first.

peliROJO said:
I would have called BS on this story until you used the phrase "my mom".
Anyways, I can't stand people who destroy their phone and then think they should warranty it. Warranties don't work that way. It's dishonest to try and use it for your own mistakes. Your yogurt spill, attempt at cleaning, and disassembling, led to your phone being broken. Purchase a new one and don't do the same thing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I never said I was going to warranty it did I? I wanted to get the fact that I did not have a warranty out so I don't get people telling me that I shouldn't have torn my phone down and instead send it to warranty. How was I supposed to know that the alcohol would make its way under the screen? I specifically used Isopropyl Alcohol because it evaporates fast and it meant for cleaning.
I don't need any bashing from anyone who cant stand what I did, I only wanted suggestions on how I would go about fixing the phone if at all possible.
@di2356
I suppose thats the only option I have left, and I guess you missed the edited part of my post.
The phone is actually working now, I am getting phone calls and my notification LED light is also blinking. Only the screen is pitch dark, and as far as I know it doesn't respond to touch. The LED charging light is also working, its only the effing screen

Okay, just tried completely tearing the phone down and cleaning all the contacts. No use, the phone still starts up but is completely blank..maybe the alcohol damaged the AMOLED screen in someway?
I am going to try and contact HTC and see how much repairing this will cost..its probably going to cost me 1/3rd the phones price for everything including the shipping

you said your screen started looking pixelated when you used the hairdryer on it.
that was probably a big mistake and possibly broke your amoled screen.
in any event you really did a lot of things wrong there. it was probably salvageable after the yogurt incident.
for future phones this is what you want to do first thing when any liquid gets on any electronic device. take the battery out right away. if its water or mostly water based liquid then stick it in a bag of rice or other desiccant that will draw the moisture out of it for at least a few days if not a week depending on how wet it got.
for something like yogert in the USB port i would have pulled the battery and cleaned it out of the port with paper towls and toothpicks or similar non conductive material as there can be a residual charge in the device right after the battery is removed or let it sit batteryless for 20 min to make sure all charges have left capacitors and then go at it with something metal carefully.
rubbing alcohol would have been ok to use but only in just enough amounts to get the job done, you obviously did not realize how much you had put in there if it got deeper into the phone before evaporating.
in any event get a new phone and let it be an expensive lesson learned on what not to do

SGS keeps rebooting every 5 seconds. Bricked?

So i was walking home from a party in the rain and i got pretty soaked but i dont think the phone got that wet. Ive had the phone in a cup of dry rice for a few days to try and pull all the water out from the inside.
Now the phone wont boot or stay in download mode.
As soon as i put the battery in it boots, no pushing of the power button. The black and white "samsung galaxy s" comes up for a few seconds then the phone restarts. It never gets further than the first boot screen.
I can enter download mode but it only stays there for a ~5 seconds before restarting. I've tried reflashing the kernel and bootloaders (dangerous i know) in this short window but it hasnt helped, despite the flashing succeeding.
I was running MIUI

Turning it on was a bad idea.
Okay so go get yourself a Philips scree driver and opening tool( normal dinner knife will do)
Take off battery cover
Take out battery,sim card,SD card.
Unscrew the 7 small screws on the back.
Pull back plate off ( use opening tool to slip between bezel and back plate.
Once this is off check the 3 flex connectors on the board.
One on top for audio
One on left for display
One on bottom for buttons.
Make sure no signs of liquid.
Also a good plan pop down to your local tech store and get some ipa and pour that all over the board to remove any excess crap.
Rebuild and pray. Or if blackpool area pop and see me. On.phone so can't see location.
Sent from my phone

In my case long washing mainboard in isopropanol helped (gt s8530 threw into deep water for few seconds), altough got still problems with microphone circuits, gonna give it a try with ultrasonic bathing. It may be horrifying to think about diving mainboard of phone to liquid, but if it is pure iso it wont damage anything (onboard, it will most likely wash off all labels, ink printed texts, and glue)

Theory on source of the screen lift issue and possible wedge fix

The washer fix resolved the screen lift issue for many, however I've noticed that something doesn't quite add up. Using the washer fix mysteriously resolves(or partially) the issue of a springy/spongy left screen and the creaks and popping noise. The theory was that the screws was too long and tightened too far with the ends of the screws pushing the glass screen out and pulling the plastic silver bezel back.
There isn't a reason to why the springy screen or strange noises was fixed and neither a reason to what the cause was. Besides resolving those issues some people found it hard to push the back cover back on and still have bulging back covers and also bulging silver bezel. You might get away with this issue by putting washers on the two centre screws and taking out the washer on the top part of the screen. I believe this worked because the height of the screws gets elevated with the washers and pushes against the back cover and denting and marking it in some cases. If you managed pop the cover back on the increased pressure from the screws makes the plastic tabs pull on the silver bezel and warping it (maybe).
I thought maybe the culpit of the screen lift might not simply be long screws. But I didn't understand how the washers fixed it. After looking at iFixit teardown pictures I saw something else that could push down on the LCD unit and onto the screen. On the second picture of step 12 I can see large cut outs in the metal frame and on the back side of the motherboard I can see taped components. I thought it might be possible that the taping left creases and air bubbles on the pcb and the bulging of the taped components looks like it can press on to the LCD unit directly underneath. The cause of the popping noise and sponginess came clear to me now. The popping noise comes from the tape being pressed against it (it could be glue from the screen/bezel too) and the sponginess is probably the PCB bending .
I think what the washers did was lifting both the metal frame and the pcb up and the taped components underneath didn't press against the LCD unit anymore. This created screw elevation for some people and back covers can't fit back easily as I mentioned.
I didn't want any screen lift, bulging back cover/bezel. I thought maybe I can lift the pcb up without putting washers in and I thought of just wedging the pcb against the metal frame right next to the screws. I don't recommend anyone to just try jamming stuff underneath the pcb without checking out the pictures and have a plan first. There are components underneath and please don't push anything too far in. I've tried putting plastic blister underneath the pcb in between 4 screws and next to the 4 pin connector. They are just longer rectangles by the way and I trimmed the ends in the same way as the washer method. However the screen still bulges a little around the centre where I can't put wedges because of the ribbon cable. The bulging back cover problem is completely gone however. I think I will try to put one washer for the screw above the ribbon cable, because I can see that the pcb has a screw hole right under the ribbon cable near that screw. This should lift the pcb a little around the centre. However I'm going to put a thinner washer as I don't want the screw to get elevated too much.
Anyone thinks this theory is rubbish, or have something to add?
EDIT: I report success! Instead of typing out the same thing I will show you with pictures. No idea if this fix will last, no guarantees. I still have a little sideways bulge but my N7 is so close to being perfect now. I don't think I will change anything else for now.

it's from that black foamy piece in your photo....this was mentioned in one of the other threads....

[Q] M7 no display after replacing battery

Hi
I tried to replace my battery and after assemble it back i only get a black display when turning my m7 on.
I broke this little plastic thing from the display cable off (look in attachment)
Is this thing essential for a working display? (i thought i can fix it with a drop of glue)
Should the display work when the backcover is off the device? Because there are some connectors on the backcover....
cheers

00Nuclear00 said:
Hi
I tried to replace my battery and after assemble it back i only get a black display when turning my m7 on.
I broke this little plastic thing from the display cable off (look in attachment)
Is this thing essential for a working display? (i thought i can fix it with a drop of glue)
Should the display work when the backcover is off the device? Because there are some connectors on the backcover....
cheers
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Shouldn't have done that, I think you accidentally broke something. I'd send it to a HTC service center. But that's gonna cost you probably.

nah, official repair isn't worth it. The phone is more than 2 years old...
and yes i think i broke something... thats why im asking

You're gonna have to be good with a solder and a couple of tiny wires if you want to revive your phone.

00Nuclear00 said:
Hi
I tried to replace my battery and after assemble it back i only get a black display when turning my m7 on.
I broke this little plastic thing from the display cable off (look in attachment)
Is this thing essential for a working display? (i thought i can fix it with a drop of glue)
Should the display work when the backcover is off the device? Because there are some connectors on the backcover....
cheers
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You definitively need this clip to be intact so the flex cable sits firmly in place otherwise you'll have bad contact between the cable and the pins.
If you don't want to send to HTC for repair you'll need at least to send it to your local electronic repair shop so someone skilled with the proper soldering tool (not the standard iron you have at home) can replace the connector. BTW some of these clips must be lifted from the cable side and some other from the opposite side of the cable, so next time use tweezers and apply very light force on each side you'll find from what side it must be lifted.
LCD should work fine with the back cover removed, afaik. Connectors in the back cover are often for antennas but I wouldn't recommend to run the phone with antennas disconnected to avoid damaging the radio chips (reflected power).
If you are from the US, you can easily find this connector on ebay for about 10$. I'm sure it won't be that much expensive to repair if you bring the new connector and the phone already disassembled to your local repair shop.
Btw are you sure its only the LCD? When trying to boot the phone can you here the HTC theme or does it vibrate? Recognized by your computer when connected with usb?

thx for your response
I found an replacement part on ebay but first i have to look for someone who can solder this for me.
When i try to turn it on it only vibrates without a htc theme sound and there is no display reaction.
The other thing i mentioned is that the phone gets very hot in the middle (should be the cpu) where i dont know if it should get that hot.
I have to try the pc connetion again and let you know asap.

00Nuclear00 said:
thx for your response
I found an replacement part on ebay but first i have to look for someone who can solder this for me.
When i try to turn it on it only vibrates without a htc theme sound and there is no display reaction.
The other thing i mentioned is that the phone gets very hot in the middle (should be the cpu) where i dont know if it should get that hot.
I have to try the pc connetion again and let you know asap.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not really worried about the absence of HTC sound when booting, if your phone is on silent / vibration mode, it will only vibrate when booting. If your computer does detect it once booted, then I guess the broken connector clip is the problem.
---------- Post added at 09:49 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:27 AM ----------
Here is a video about the connector replacement, it doesn't look that hard to replace but wouldn't recommend to do it yourself if you never soldered electronics before. Soldering isn't that hard but you need some practices and knowledge to make good joints. I don't think your phone motherboard is a good candidate to practices yourself if you never did it before. You'll also need a really tiny tip for your iron, probably a type "L", 50/50 solder + some flux. Flux must be cleaned after use to avoid corrosion. The most difficult when soldering on motherboard, imo, is to find the right temperature. If your iron is to hot, you'll damage your connector. If its not hot enough, solder will take more time to liquefy and some heat will be absorbed by surrounding components which can cause irreversible damage.

Easy fix mate
You don't need to replace the connector, I've done this before, it is just the connector clip that has come off and it goes back on reasonably easily.
You will need a good magnifier.
You will need a good light source.
The phone held securely on its side with the socket pointing up.
Some masking tape on the loose part because it WILL go "ping" into the distance if you don't and you will not find it.
Look at the other connectors to see the proper orientation for the part, mark it with a permanent marker on top and at one end.
The insertion looks difficult, it isn't too bad, keep the part nice and straight and the motion is kind of like clicking it down on the ribbon.
Forget replacing the connector, that is 100 times harder.
If you do lose the loose part I have one or two laying around.
Good luck.