Everybody knows somebody who has managed to drop their cell phone into a toilet, sink or pool. While it may seem catastrophic that your iPhone just went swimming, there are quite a few things you can do to try and save your phone. A lot of these things also apply to other portable electronics so if you’ve dropped your PDA or camera in the toilet, this article may help for more than how to repair a wet cell phone.
The first thing you are going to want to do is get your phone out of the water as quickly as possible. The longer it is underwater the more opportunity water will have to sneak into the tiny cracks in the phone.
The next step, and probably the most important, is to remove the battery. The battery provides electricity to the phone, without electricity you can not short a phone out; this is why removing it is vital. One major short in the phone and it could be garbage.
If your phone fell into the ocean or another salt water source, after removing the battery you will want to rinse your phone off with cold tap water to get all the salt and other sediment out.
If you are on a GSM phone network like AT&T, you are going to also want to remove your SIM card. Most GSM phones store a lot of their numbers and other important information on the SIM card. If your phone winds up being garbage from getting wet, at the very minimum you can bring all your phone numbers and addresses to the next phone via your SIM card.
The next step is to try and dry your phone off as much as possible. Any pieces that are easily removable from your phone should be removed and you should shake it out as much as possible. Use paper towels to dry it off. Avoid using clothes or towels that could have static energy on them as they could potentially damage your phone.
Unless you happen to have access to a vacuum chamber at your school or local friendly laboratory, grab your vacuum and use it to try and suck any water out of your phone. The vacuum will suck the moisture out. Make sure you do not use a blow dryer regardless of the temperature setting you have it on. A blow dryer will force the water deeper into the phone which could force water into tighter nooks and crannies resulting in potentially longer time to dry out as well as damage to other circuitry it if it dries on it.
Next, if you can find a product containing desiccant, you can submerge your phone in it to help absorb the water. Desiccant can typically be found in products called ‘Dry Right’ or ‘Damp Rid’. If you can’t find any desiccant, place the phone in some uncooked rice over night and the rice will help absorb the moisture. Try to leave it in a warmer room so that the heat will naturally cause the moisture to evaporate.
Finally, with the battery still disconnected, plug your phone in with the battery charger. If it turns on, your phone is most likely still functional. If you put the battery back in and it doesn’t work the water probably shorted out the battery; head to your local cell phone dealer and buy a new battery.
If your phone doesn’t turn on with the battery charger, getting your phone wet most likely killed your phone. The only thing you can do is take it to the local cell phone dealer and tell them what happened and see if your phone is salvageable. There is no point in lying about what happened as there is moisture indicators inside your phone designed to tell if you dropped your phone in the toilet!
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Nice writing style. I look forward to reading more in the future.
It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what other men say in whole books–what other men do not say in whole books.FriedrichWilhelmNietzscheFriedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols
Thank you!! It worked – this is what I did (very similar)
1. I dropped my iPhone 3g in water (5-8 seconds at most)
2. Took it out & turned it off ASAP
3. Shook the iPhone to get all the water out of it
4. Placed in bag sandwiched between 2 DampRid ‘pouches’*
5. Let sit for 24 hours**
6. Plugged it into battery charger & turned it on
7. Bought a rubberized iPhone case so the cell phone would never slip out of my pocket again!
*http://www.damprid.dsiwebbuilder.com/index.asp?cat=174559 – you can get them at Home Depot, Amazon, etc. See website, they list places where you can buy them.
**if you have the patience you should probably let it sit longer, but 24 hrs worked for me
Update:
I needed to put my iPhone next to my computer’s exhaust fan to dry it out further. Plus, I needed to completely reset the phone and restore it to its original settings (used iTunes to restore the last backup).
My iPhone works fine now.
i dropped my phone in water, but i cant get the sim card out it is now sitting in rice though. what do i do?
My 3GS got doused in water at the lake. I dried it off as best I could then let it sit in the heat and dry out. The external speaker seems to have been affected in some way and I’m assuming there’s nothing that can be done about that. I also get a message “charging is not supported with this accessory” and a big yellow exclamation point any time the phone is locked.
- Anyone know if this can be resolved and how to fix it???
The uncooked rice thing REALLY works, My previous BlackBerry Curve got wet (just a few seconds) and was acting all weird. I panicked but then found the RICE instructions online. I didn’t believe it, but did it anyway. To my surprise the next morning the device was working flawlessly.
I got my iphone wet at an amusement park. It has set in rice for three days now and will not turn on. When I first noticed it wet it had a warning message saying that it could not function in this enviroment and wanted to know if I wanted to turn it on airplane mode. I pressed no, which I think was a mistake, I just wanted to turn it off but panicing couldn’t figure out how to do that, than it turned off never to be turned on again.
The phone’s have a water sensor which should kill the phone if exposed to water to prevent the phone from being damaged (Blown capacitors or what not). I’m an electrical engineer so I will take the phone appart to see what is salvageable and respond later. Waiting for a disassembly kit.
Great article, very informative. Thanks!
my cousin got her phone wet and she put it in rice and it worked. I heard from somebody that you can put with bread too.