Droid Razr M took a Swim

[retsnomkcos]

Okay, So after about 2weeks of serching I finally broke down and decided to make and account and ask. I dropped my Droid into water by accident and pulled it out as fast as I could (maybe 2 seconds). Phone worked with no problems a few hours later. Well when it finally died I plugged it in and now a green light turns on for about 10 seconds and then shuts off, but doesnt charge. I figured it was the batter so I replaced it...no deal. I figured the board is fried, but I have a lot of information including personal numbers I need. Is there any way I could retrieve this data? If so how? If not where can I get a board? PLEASE HELP.

 

[retsnomkcos]

honestly 180+ views and nothing?

 

[guidot]

If you need a board you'll have to scour eBay and the like.

Its not an easy task but it is possible to swap out the innards.

For the future, drop in water means pull battery right away and let it dry.

Sent from my XT1060 using Tapatalk 2

 

[retsnomkcos]

Well scoring a MB from ebay isn't the hard part. I called verizon and they never heard of the blue light turning on and shutting off like mine is doing. I plugged it into a comp but nothing shows up. I was wondering if there is a way to get the information (IE. Pictures and numbers) off the phone or is all hope lost? If someone has any clue or knows my MB is totally screwed please let me know.

 

[rustydog]

I have recovered 2 phones by washing them down immediately with isopropyl alcohol. Your first response is to power off the phone and keep it off until you are sure that it has dried. Pull your battery asap if it is a removable battery. If you power it on before it has dried your phone is most likely history.

 

[AECRADIO]

Best thing is to remove the covers, open as much as you can to direct airflow, and as odd as it sounds, WARM your oven to no more than 170 degrees, and once it reaches that temp, shut it off and place the main board on a cookie sheet and place it in the warmed oven for about 1 hour. The temp is too low to damage anything, but the heat will be enough to dry out components and shield assemblies, and anything than can hold moisture.

I have been doing this for over 20 years in the land mobile radio and PC board manufacturing fields, and in fact, this is a common method.

The less than boiling temperature of water is more than enough to effect a good dry-out, as the 1 hour timeframe should be enough to evenly heat the board to cause rapid water removal and prevent corrosive actions by liquid contaminants. Isopropyl alcohol works after, but it only absorbs water, and can not remove it. Heat is far more effective.

 

[retsnomkcos]

Best thing is to remove the covers, open as much as you can to direct airflow, and as odd as it sounds, WARM your oven to no more than 170 degrees, and once it reaches that temp, shut it off and place the main board on a cookie sheet and place it in the warmed oven for about 1 hour. The temp is too low to damage anything, but the heat will be enough to dry out components and shield assemblies, and anything than can hold moisture.

I have been doing this for over 20 years in the land mobile radio and PC board manufacturing fields, and in fact, this is a common method.

The less than boiling temperature of water is more than enough to effect a good dry-out, as the 1 hour timeframe should be enough to evenly heat the board to cause rapid water removal and prevent corrosive actions by liquid contaminants. Isopropyl alcohol works after, but it only absorbs water, and can not remove it. Heat is far more effective.

Well it's already been over 2 weeks. I talked to Verizon and they didn't understand why the blue light turns on because if the board is fried the phone should not recognize anything being connected. So I am guessing it might be short in something other than the board? any suggestions?

 

[AECRADIO]

There may corrosion built up inside one of the headers to the camera, keyboard or LCD backplane, as most interconnects are via header assemblies, which do hold moisture well.
Do you see any other signs of apps not functioning, or see any ANRs when using specific apps?
Other indicators might be subtle, such as low/poor connection speeds, call dropping in known good signal areas, watery sounding audio, feedback of your own voice while on a call(normally carrier issue only).

Do you experience short battery life, or more battery use during normal use, as if 'something' is sucking the life out of the battery for no reason?

All electronic devices have built-in smoke, once you release it, it's game over, so we are trying to help you keep the smoke inside.(Tech's joke)

Note any abnormal changes and try to isolate the cause of the change, it may be a clue as to the real 'culprit' such as on-screen keyboard acting flaky/non-responsive, SD card problems, read/write errors becoming more frequent and so on....Things you normally do NOT see occurring on your device.

 

[retsnomkcos]

AECRADIO, No there is nothing on my phone It wont charge (I replaced the battery), when i plug it in it has a green like that is a steady light and then goes away after 10 seconds.... ANY HELP?

 

[FoxKat]

As aceradio indicated there may be corrosion on one or more of the minute traces on the motherboard or on any of the daughterboards, which can either create a fault - a undesired resistive conduction or "short" between two or more traces, or can actually eat away completely at the very thin trace of copper on the board causing an open conductor and cutting off all electrical conduction. Either situation can result in both a complete failure and also can cause damage to other components by sending voltages along paths which were not meant to receive such voltages.

Although some of these traces may be on the board's back or reverse, and also some may be laminated between layers of the board, many of these traces are right on the board's front surface and run underneath surface-mount ICs - flat undersides resting directly against the board traces. Also in many cases those ICs are further containted underneath metal shields which are soldered to the board as well. This leaves very small and wide areas of the board that are "protected" from airflow and evaporation is severely hampered, meaning water will remain underneath those ICs far longer than it will anywhere else on the board. Water, electricity (and therefore Oxygen), and copper are a perfect formula for corrosion.

This is why it's crucial to remove all sources of electricity immediately (battery pull - if possible), and then just as quickly do whatever you can to remove the water. Aceradio mentions essentially "baking" the board to accelerate the expansion and thereby speed up evaporation of the water. This is an effective means of removing water. Also many suggest placing the phone without the back and SD/SIM cards installed into a plastic bag or tub full of fresh RICE. This acts as a desiccant or draws water out of the surrounding to replace the very dry RICE. A true desiccant is perhaps even better at doing so. Another suggestion which also can work is to bathe the phone in the highest concentration of alcohol (highest ratio of alcohol to water, i.e. 95% solution), since water and alcohol mix and this essentially dilutes the water to very low concentrations which will then quickly evaporate with the alcohol. I keep a container of denatured alcohol, 95% solution around just for that purpose.

There are many things you can do to try and prevent any damage from water, but once the damage is done, there's usually virtually nothing you can do to reverse it other than replacing the damaged parts. Furthermore when one component goes bad it can set off a chain reaction - sort of like dominoes falling as the voltages and resistance values across the circuit start to tip in one direction or another as a result of the failed component creating an imbalance, short or open circuit. Often when one component fails it takes out an entire section of a circuit. Given these circuits are most often ICs, an on-board short or open can kill one or more ICs.

I have found one other method for removing water which deserves mentioning...centrifugal force. Place the phone into the toe's end of a tube sock with the phone powered off (for non-removable batteries), and battery cover removed (if possible). You may wish to place a rolled-up sock along side the phone on the front and back to keep the phone positioned with the end toward the toe of the sock. Also, don't use a sock that's old or has holes! Then go outside in the open air - hopefully while it's not raining...and swing the phone and sock in a circular motion as fast as you can, being extra careful not to let go of the sock, and to be far enough away from any immovable objects, and also not swinging in a vertical motion, but horizontally, like helicopter blades. The extreme centrifugal force created (several Gs - remember the "Hell Hole" at the amusement park?), will cause the water to rush to the outermost end of the circle, to the end of the phone casing and leak back out through the cracks along the phone seam, and out the battery cover (if there is one), leaving only a very thin superficial film of moisture that will evaporate very quickly.

If this is done very soon after the "dunking" it may be all that's needed to prevent catastrophic failure of the phone. I have used this method on other electrical devices with 100% success, but don't discount the other solutions above.

 

[AECRADIO]

*Thinking FoxKat just enjoys swinging* (socks)

 

[FoxKat]

*Thinking FoxKat just enjoys swinging* (socks)

ROFLOL, well...swinging, never tried it...socks, sure! Actually I had an idea for a small centrifuge device that wet phones could be dropped into but there's no purpose to make it since it needs to be done quickly after the dunking, so the sock was the next best thing. :biggrin:

 

[diesel97]

what about a food dehydrader to hot ?

 

[AECRADIO]

Might consider a dehydrator with a smoker attachment, make tasty smoked phone treats while removing moisture ingress...

 

[lloydstrans]

Might consider a dehydrator with a smoker attachment, make tasty smoked phone treats while removing moisture ingress...

You do realize someone (like me) will take you serious. BTW they're way to crunchy. Lol.

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