PinkPajamaPenguin
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- Joined
- Sep 18, 2013
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Last Friday one of the student in my class (3rd grade) knocked their water bottle onto my phone in class. I know, letting it get wet was my fault, I don’t need to be told again. Immediately, I turned off the phone and wiped it off. Sadly, some water still leaked into the battery case and turned the litmus strip pink on both the back of the phone and the battery. I put the phone, battery, SIM card, and SD card in dry white rice for 48 hours.
After putting the phone back together, most of the programs worked properly, but the battery life went from lasting almost a full day without needing to be charged to lasting about 4 hours total. Thinking it was a battery issue, I bought 2 compatible S3 batteries off of Amazon that had high ratings. Neither of these batteries can hold a charge while in the phone for more than 4 hours either.
Now, I’ve tried numerous things to make the battery in my phone last for at least 9 hours – what I need to get me through the school day and home safely. Nothing seems to have worked. My attempts have included:
[*] Backing up the phone via Kies and doing a factory reset.
[*] Starting the phone up by pressing “volume up, power, and home” and clearing out the cache and again resetting back to the factory standard.
[*] Installing Juice Defender, turning off wi-fi, Bluetooth, GPS, dimming my screen, and uninstalling unnecessary programs. I put the phone into airplane mode and the battery still drains quickly.
[*] Installing GSam Battery Monitor to see where all the juice is flowing. I don’t see anything taking up too much battery. It says the screen is using about 50%, but I’ve only had it turned on since 7:30 this morning. My app usage is at about 45%, with 15% of the battery being used by GSam monitor (which makes sense, as it is the only app I’ve used all day), 12.2% by the Android system, 7.6% by Kernel (Android OS), 3.4 % by System (com.sec.android.app.launcher), and 1.4% by JuiceDefender, 1.2% by my weather widget, 1.1% by phone (haven’t used it as a phone all day). Everything else is at below 1%
[*] Dismantling the phone to see if there was corrosion anywhere on the motherboard. I took off the back, unscrewed the 10 screws, and went over the motherboard looking for corrosion – I saw none. The litmus paper INSIDE the phone was still pretty much off-white. I did not remove the screen, as I was too worried about breaking it. Nothing even looked dirty enough to attempt to clean. I checked the wire connections and made sure everything was plugged in properly.
[*] Pulling the SD card and powering back on. I read in a different forum that this could be draining my battery. Nope, it wasn’t the culprit.
[*] Made sure I checked the battery connections and that they were free from corrosion. I didn't see anything, but still used isopropyl alcohol and a q-tip to clean everything off.
Right now, I’m at wits end with what to do. I went to the Samsung store at Best Buy and the guy basically told me that without insurance I’m totally screwed and Samsung will do nothing to restore the phone. I was advised to lie to Verizon and tell them I lost my phone and pay a deductible on obtaining a new one. That seems silly to me, as I don’t want to lie, and this phone works fine except for the battery draining quickly. I didn’t purchase insurance, because about 10 years ago, my old flip phone got wet at work and they said insurance didn’t cover water damage. My phone is usually in my purse and in an otter box. I didn’t see the need. Again, my fault. Would it behoove me to go to an independent cell phone repair store to see if they could do anything to decrease my phone’s battery usage?
I checked my Android version and it is running version 4.1.2. When I try to update it, it tells me that no newer versions can be found. My phone’s model is SCH-I535.
TL;DR Phone got damp, battery life now sucks, how can I fix it? I can't get a phone upgrade until March 2015.
After putting the phone back together, most of the programs worked properly, but the battery life went from lasting almost a full day without needing to be charged to lasting about 4 hours total. Thinking it was a battery issue, I bought 2 compatible S3 batteries off of Amazon that had high ratings. Neither of these batteries can hold a charge while in the phone for more than 4 hours either.
Now, I’ve tried numerous things to make the battery in my phone last for at least 9 hours – what I need to get me through the school day and home safely. Nothing seems to have worked. My attempts have included:
[*] Backing up the phone via Kies and doing a factory reset.
[*] Starting the phone up by pressing “volume up, power, and home” and clearing out the cache and again resetting back to the factory standard.
[*] Installing Juice Defender, turning off wi-fi, Bluetooth, GPS, dimming my screen, and uninstalling unnecessary programs. I put the phone into airplane mode and the battery still drains quickly.
[*] Installing GSam Battery Monitor to see where all the juice is flowing. I don’t see anything taking up too much battery. It says the screen is using about 50%, but I’ve only had it turned on since 7:30 this morning. My app usage is at about 45%, with 15% of the battery being used by GSam monitor (which makes sense, as it is the only app I’ve used all day), 12.2% by the Android system, 7.6% by Kernel (Android OS), 3.4 % by System (com.sec.android.app.launcher), and 1.4% by JuiceDefender, 1.2% by my weather widget, 1.1% by phone (haven’t used it as a phone all day). Everything else is at below 1%
[*] Dismantling the phone to see if there was corrosion anywhere on the motherboard. I took off the back, unscrewed the 10 screws, and went over the motherboard looking for corrosion – I saw none. The litmus paper INSIDE the phone was still pretty much off-white. I did not remove the screen, as I was too worried about breaking it. Nothing even looked dirty enough to attempt to clean. I checked the wire connections and made sure everything was plugged in properly.
[*] Pulling the SD card and powering back on. I read in a different forum that this could be draining my battery. Nope, it wasn’t the culprit.
[*] Made sure I checked the battery connections and that they were free from corrosion. I didn't see anything, but still used isopropyl alcohol and a q-tip to clean everything off.
Right now, I’m at wits end with what to do. I went to the Samsung store at Best Buy and the guy basically told me that without insurance I’m totally screwed and Samsung will do nothing to restore the phone. I was advised to lie to Verizon and tell them I lost my phone and pay a deductible on obtaining a new one. That seems silly to me, as I don’t want to lie, and this phone works fine except for the battery draining quickly. I didn’t purchase insurance, because about 10 years ago, my old flip phone got wet at work and they said insurance didn’t cover water damage. My phone is usually in my purse and in an otter box. I didn’t see the need. Again, my fault. Would it behoove me to go to an independent cell phone repair store to see if they could do anything to decrease my phone’s battery usage?
I checked my Android version and it is running version 4.1.2. When I try to update it, it tells me that no newer versions can be found. My phone’s model is SCH-I535.
TL;DR Phone got damp, battery life now sucks, how can I fix it? I can't get a phone upgrade until March 2015.
