Went swimming with my SGS2....any tips???

StevieP

StevieP

StevieP

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Yep, I literally went for a swim and without realising it had my Samsung Galaxy S2 in my shorts pocket!! :(

Anyway, after about 5 lengths, I realised what I'd done, swore at myself in my head and rushed out and tried to dry out the phone!

So far I've taken the battery and sim card out and dried them off as best I could and then left them both in a tub of uncooked rice overnight (!?!?) because I'd seen something about this helping to dry them out!

Tried to turn on the phone this morning and nothing - not even a charging symbol if I plugged it in!

I'm guessing I wont have a leg to stand on if I try and send it back to Affordable Mobiles even though I'm still in contract so wondered if anyone here had done anything equally stupid and managed to get it working again??

It's a long shot but worth a try!
 
After that amount of time it's probably done for especially if you only left it overnight before sticking power through it again, you could try leaving it in the rice somewhere warm for a week just to make sure it's dry but I wouldn't hold out much hope.
 
Yikes!

As mentioned, in a bowl of rice and stick it in the airing cupboard and start praying.

I wouldn't get my hopes up tho, may as well have gone for a spin in the washing machine. The phone, not you ;)
 
Thanks guys, that's pretty much what I figured to be honest!! :(

I'll leave it to dry and keep my fingers crossed!

The most annoying part is I've lost a load of photos that were on the internal storage rather than an SD card! (never got round to getting a SD card because the phone itself had so much damn space!) I assume there is no way of recovering these if the handset is dead??
 
Don't suppose you ran dropbox with the upload pic feature enabled? Otherwise, nope. Water damage isn't covered by warranty, you will have broken the OLED display with that amount of water ingress as well sorry to say, Battery is likely destroyed, i wouldn't even try to charge the cell tbh.
 
mine went through washing machine..couldnt get it working again. you can get over £100 for it still on ebay.
 
Quick update on this - I've had the phone and battery in a tub of uncooked rice on the windowsill for just under a week now!

I tried my mates S2 battery in it a few nights ago and to my amazement the phone actually booted up - problem being that the touch screen and buttons were un-responsive and within a few seconds the battery was reading as depleted! (it had been around 40% in my mates handset!)

Put the battery back in his handset and after a few seconds of it saying no charge, it jumped back to around 40% again!

Other than this, with my own battery back in it, I've had a couple of occasions where the battery charging icon has come up on screen when I plugged it in (albeit not the moving green charging animation but the picture of a battery with a frozen circular arrow on it as if its trying to start!?!? :confused:)

Do we think its worth splashing out on a new battery to see if I can get it working? (or at least working enough to get my data off it!)
 
StevieP said:
Quick update on this - I've had the phone and battery in a tub of uncooked rice on the windowsill for just under a week now!

I tried my mates S2 battery in it a few nights ago and to my amazement the phone actually booted up - problem being that the touch screen and buttons were un-responsive and within a few seconds the battery was reading as depleted! (it had been around 40% in my mates handset!)

Put the battery back in his handset and after a few seconds of it saying no charge, it jumped back to around 40% again!

Other than this, with my own battery back in it, I've had a couple of occasions where the battery charging icon has come up on screen when I plugged it in (albeit not the moving green charging animation but the picture of a battery with a frozen circular arrow on it as if its trying to start!?!? :confused:)

Do we think its worth splashing out on a new battery to see if I can get it working? (or at least working enough to get my data off it!)
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Damn that sucks fella, as for the battery if you can find a cheap one its worth a shot i guess, apart from that im not sure what else you can try :(
 
I don't know if this will help, but an old show who dunked about 10 phones in a pool said that the problem with immersion for that length of time is that the connections between electrical points and circuitry begin to build up a chemically calcium like fur, and this shorts them.
If you want to repair it completely then you will have to remove the internals from the plastic outer case ( and I'd imagine that is not easy) You will then need to get some rubbing alcohol or I suppose you could use nail polish remover, and with a ear bud you need to rub over all the connection, inputs, pcb, or anywhere you see white residue.
If that doesn't work then something has blown.

 
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There's a regulator chip which should be just near the battery contacts, I'd wager it's either still damp or it's buggered as it detects the current charge state of the battery etc...
 
Myshra said:
Don't suppose you ran dropbox with the upload pic feature enabled? Otherwise, nope. Water damage isn't covered by warranty, you will have broken the OLED display with that amount of water ingress as well sorry to say, Battery is likely destroyed, i wouldn't even try to charge the cell tbh.
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I dropped my other half's OLED Desire down a drain - I could see it down there with all the lights on fully submerged. Unfortunately I'd just come out of hospital so I couldn't really do much for a couple of days and after a go with a net the phone disappeared into all the boggy water.

Two days later I pumped the drain out to get the pictures off the SD card, the phone was so flooded it was like a lava lamp! I took out the SD card ran it under clean water for a good while (it stank) and then stuck it in the airing cupboard for a few days. To my amazement it worked still and she ended up using it for a year without any problems. :eek:

I've always considered the fact it has an OLED screen part of the reason it was ok, LEDs don't seem that adverse to water unlike LCD technology with backlights and inverters to go wrong.
 
strip it and bye some deionized water, rinse the lot in the de-i water then clean with rubbing alcohol and dry in rice for a week.

should clear up any debris left, you swam in a pool and chlorine will leave a residue behind that will likely not help much.
 
Another update on this - I managed to get the phone to boot tonight by holding the battery more tightly against the contacts and believe it or not, the touchscreen worked and I've managed to recover all of my photo's etc off the internal memory! :)

Anyway, after a few attempts at getting the phone to stay on with the battery in the regular position, it finally seems to have worked and as far as I can tell, everything appears to be working fine, even the camera!!! :eek:

Until.....

I tried to power down the phone and it just reboots, even when I take the battery out completely, as soon as the contacts touch, the phone powers up!?!? :confused:

So essentially, in one short evening, my S2 has gone from not being able to power on, to now not being able to power down!!!!

Is it worth still keeping the phone and battery in the rice to continue drying it out or do we think this is as good as it's gonna get???
 
Interesting that it was working perfectly fine for a while till power down, that action could have caused some form of short circuit, but also if there was any moisture left inside the phone and with the heat could have caused some condensation etc.. Give it a few more days resting in the rice at room temperature and see where your at... Failing that I'd be tempted to do what Kanifee has said as you won't have anything to lose.
 
KnightStalker said:
Interesting that it was working perfectly fine for a while till power down, that action could have caused some form of short circuit, but also if there was any moisture left inside the phone and with the heat could have caused some condensation etc.. Give it a few more days resting in the rice at room temperature and see where your at... Failing that I'd be tempted to do what Kanifee has said as you won't have anything to lose.
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I think it's about time for "could have" to be a ban-able offence.

As others have said, the best course of action would be to strip the phone down and give it a clean.
 
Have you tried running a factory restore on the phone? I had a similar charging problem and the phone refusing to power off completely and rebooting. I didn't drop it in water though!
 
I did a search last night for a similar problem and a few people recommended cleaning out the usb port with a small brush so I did that with a toothbrush and left it overnight and so far today, it appears to be working fine! :eek:

Going to give it a full charge today to see if the battery holds the charge and possibly let it run right down!

I can't believe that everything seems to be fine though - all my data and apps are still working as if nothing has happened - so far anyway!
 
StevieP said:
I did a search last night for a similar problem and a few people recommended cleaning out the usb port with a small brush so I did that with a toothbrush and left it overnight and so far today, it appears to be working fine! :eek:

Going to give it a full charge today to see if the battery holds the charge and possibly let it run right down!

I can't believe that everything seems to be fine though - all my data and apps are still working as if nothing has happened - so far anyway!
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Quick ebay it while it working...:p
 
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