iPod dropped ipod touch in water , i need a specific answer on what to do ? help pleasee

sherouk · Mar 16, 2012

pleassssse help .

i dropped my ipod touch in water ,but it only sat there for about 5 mins . the problem is i immediately tried to open it . i opened it for a second then the screen went dark .

i have been putting it in rice for about 3 days now . now i tried to open it .it wont work at all . should i try to charge it ???? ,,, i heard that someone had the same problem his ipod wouldn't work after 3 days but when he tried after 2 weeks .it worked . so should i just be patient and re-place it in rice for couple of days more ????? or is that just useless ??

also if the ipod is dead ,will the data on it be lost to ?

William.Mantle · Mar 16, 2012

Go to an Apple store... Buy a new one... Look after it better

sherouk · Mar 16, 2012

William.Mantle said:
Go to an Apple store... Buy a new one... Look after it better

i just read that some people having the same problem managed to get it fixed ok .. so please be helpful .i wont be able to afford new one .

John T · Mar 16, 2012

William.Mantle said:
Go to an Apple store... Buy a new one... Look after it better

It's sad, but true! Electronics and water don't mix.

Julien · Mar 16, 2012

sherouk said:
pleassssse help .

i dropped my ipod touch in water ,but it only sat there for about 5 mins . the problem is i immediately tried to open it . i opened it for a second then the screen went dark ....

Setting in water is very bad but turning the Power On almost certainly destroyed it for good. If you dropped an electric heater in the tub would you pull it out, plug it in and then cut it on? This is what you did to your iTouch.

bigfatipod · Mar 16, 2012

good luck

sherouk said:
i dropped my ipod touch in water ,but it only sat there for about 5 mins

You mean it sat in the water for 5 minutes? Five minutes is a very long time.... Keep going with the rice...odds are probably against you.

Good luck

AlabamaSlammer · Mar 16, 2012

Buy a new one. Not worth the trouble if it does turn back on. With the water damage it could last a few years or 10 seconds after it powers on, if it ever does

PieVine96 · Mar 16, 2012

I dropped my HTC in a swimming pool (well, it was in my pocket and I sort of jumped in..) and I just stuck it in rice a few days later and went back to it after a week or two, there's still rice in it but it works, the iPod is pretty similar (sort of- touchscreen, both hand-held electronics etc etc), but the battery life will almost certainly be shortened significantly, you might need to get a new battery and screen off of eBay, they have allot of cheap electronics..

Chances are your stuffed though, iPods aren't built to last- I had a 64gb 3rd Gen 'Touch once, lasted 4 months before I (correctly!) removed the charger and it pulled some of the mechanics out.. you could always buy a 'Touch with a faulty screen for less than £20-£30, and buy a cheap screen (my friend got a 'Touch screen for about £20)

-aggie- · Mar 16, 2012

You have water damage. You said it was "only" in the water for 5 minutes. It doesn't matter if it was in the water for 5 seconds; it's ruined. You told the first poster to be helpful. He was. Very. You compounded your problems by turning it on. You've done all you can do and putting it in rice for a month isn't going to matter. The water is gone, but the circuits are ruined.

hchung · Mar 16, 2012

-aggie- said:
You have water damage. You said it was "only" in the water for 5 minutes. It doesn't matter if it was in the water for 5 seconds; it's ruined. You told the first poster to be helpful. He was. Very. You compounded your problems by turning it on. You've done all you can do and putting it in rice for a month isn't going to matter. The water is gone, but the circuits are ruined.

Exactly what they said.

There's all sorts of things that could have gone wrong. Board traces exposed to liquids with voltage across them will get eaten away. Or voltages being exposed to parts that wern't expecting those levels could get fried. All sorts of things.

And there were better ideas as to what to do when it happened. Rice is suboptimal.

1. Remove all power if possible. Not too easy for an ipod touch since you'd have to open it and desolder the battery. Both risky for most people.

2. Remove all conductive liquids. Faster way to do it is by going out and buying a bottle of 95%+ rubbing alcohol. And dunking the ipod in for at least as long as it was contaminated before. After making sure the water/oj/coke/beer dissolved into the alcohol, flush that out with more alcohol and then dry it out.

As for the data, it's recoverable by a professional, but that'll cost way more than the ipod did to begin with. The first step of that is desoldering the NAND... not easy.

sherouk · Mar 18, 2012

hchung said:
Exactly what they said.

There's all sorts of things that could have gone wrong. Board traces exposed to liquids with voltage across them will get eaten away. Or voltages being exposed to parts that wern't expecting those levels could get fried. All sorts of things.

And there were better ideas as to what to do when it happened. Rice is suboptimal.

1. Remove all power if possible. Not too easy for an ipod touch since you'd have to open it and desolder the battery. Both risky for most people.

2. Remove all conductive liquids. Faster way to do it is by going out and buying a bottle of 95%+ rubbing alcohol. And dunking the ipod in for at least as long as it was contaminated before. After making sure the water/oj/coke/beer dissolved into the alcohol, flush that out with more alcohol and then dry it out.

As for the data, it's recoverable by a professional, but that'll cost way more than the ipod did to begin with. The first step of that is desoldering the NAND... not easy.

well i have few questions to ask ??

1- must i apply the rubber alcohol method now ? or can i wait maybe another week ? (will waiting awhile affect the chance of that method to work ?????

2- will using the rubber alcohol still fix it ,if the circuits are ruined(because that's the reason why ipod wont work ,right ?!) .if not , then what's the use of that method ??

thank you so much for the help

thewitt · Mar 18, 2012

Though it's only tangentially related, let me tell you a story. In 1982 or 83, there was massive flooding in Arizona. A school was flooded, and their 150 Apple II computers were filled inside with mud.

They brought the to the Apple dealer where I worked for help. All out of warranty. Apple was not really interested in doing anything. Their insurance did not cover flooding - an act of God...

The store would not help, but I offered to try on my own time.

They brought me 148 computers, all packed inside with mud... These were submerged in a flooded school for two weeks, then the mud hardened inside.

We took them apart and washed them. Literally. Soaking them in clean water, washing circuit boards, disassembling disk drives, monitors, mice and keyboards.

After a thorough washing with tap water, we rinsed with bottled water, let dry, and sprayed with a contact cleaner. This whole process took several weeks.

After assembling, most of the systems came back up without errors! We lost a dozen disk drives, some keyboards, mice and monitors, but we were able to get 120 of the 148 computers back up, passed their diagnostic test, and back in service.

I learned something about electronics that surprised me. As a newly graduated electrical engineer, I assumed everything was dead. It wasn't, and when I left Tucson a year later, virtually off of these computers were still in service.

Now how this all relates to your drowned iPod touch is as I said only tangential, but don't give up until you try!

sherouk · Mar 18, 2012

thewitt said:
Though it's only tangentially related, let me tell you a story. In 1982 or 83, there was massive flooding in Arizona. A school was flooded, and their 150 Apple II computers were filled inside with mud.

They brought the to the Apple dealer where I worked for help. All out of warranty. Apple was not really interested in doing anything. Their insurance did not cover flooding - an act of God...

The store would not help, but I offered to try on my own time.

They brought me 148 computers, all packed inside with mud... These were submerged in a flooded school for two weeks, then the mud hardened inside.

We took them apart and washed them. Literally. Soaking them in clean water, washing circuit boards, disassembling disk drives, monitors, mice and keyboards.

After a thorough washing with tap water, we rinsed with bottled water, let dry, and sprayed with a contact cleaner. This whole process took several weeks.

After assembling, most of the systems came back up without errors! We lost a dozen disk drives, some keyboards, mice and monitors, but we were able to get 120 of the 148 computers back up, passed their diagnostic test, and back in service.

I learned something about electronics that surprised me. As a newly graduated electrical engineer, I assumed everything was dead. It wasn't, and when I left Tucson a year later, virtually off of these computers were still in service.

Now how this all relates to your drowned iPod touch is as I said only tangential, but don't give up until you try!

can you give me any suggestions on how can i try to fix it ,if possible ?
thank you so much for the post .it was inspiring.

kaielement · Mar 18, 2012

The problem is that you tried to turn it on. Which by what you are saying sounds like you may have shorted out the iPod. No amount of drying it out will help. Two things can happen now: either Apple Will fell sorry for you and give you a new iPod (which in rare cases does happen) or they will say well it was your fault and if they are feeling nice might and I say might give you 10% off on a new iPod. Oh and if you did open the iPod then apple may just flat out not do anything regardless because that voids the warrwnty. Sorry this happen to you. I went through something like this when I droped a cellphone in a pool so I totally get you, it SUCKS!!! Hope you get this worked out some how.

hchung · Mar 19, 2012

sherouk said:
well i have few questions to ask ??

1- must i apply the rubber alcohol method now ? or can i wait maybe another week ? (will waiting awhile affect the chance of that method to work ?????

2- will using the rubber alcohol still fix it ,if the circuits are ruined(because that's the reason why ipod wont work ,right ?!) .if not , then what's the use of that method ??

thank you so much for the help

The alcohol wash method is most likely NOT going to work now. It was supposed to be used immediately after the device got dropped in water to save it.

I posted that just so that you and anybody else reading would know of something better to do than to throw it in rice for a few weeks. It's just in case somebody remembers it the next time this sort of thing happens.

(one of my friends saved his old powerbook from orange juice with it once too, though he had to carefully pour to avoid getting anything on the hard drive)

thewitt · Mar 19, 2012

At this point it sounds like you have nothing to lose by taking it apart and cleaning the circuit board and all connections with alcohol or even better electronics cleaning fluid, then putting it back together and charging it.

davidcshaw55 · Apr 1, 2012

Use rice

Dropped my touch in water three days ago - it was in a case, and I got it out immediately. From previous experience with getting electrics/electronics wet, I know THE KEY thing is to resist the temptation to try to turn them on to check if they're working. What you've got to do is remove all the moisture before you press the on switch. So, remove any obvious excess moisture using tissues. If you're a camera nut and have those little sachets that come with cameras when shipped to prevent moisture build up, and if you have several of them, seal your touch in an airtight container with them.

However, most of us haven't got multiple sachets lying around so, as suggested on a different forum, I covered (completely) my touch in uncooked, regular rice and placed in an airtight contained.

Took it out this morning (after 72 hours) and it worked perfectly (I know from other forums that as well as affecting the electronics, one of the issues with even a light soaking such as mine had is that, even if the electronics are still working (and I could here mine still "pinging" as it received mails) is that moisture gets behind the screen and stops the famous "touch" function from working.

I think this rice solution is safer than suggestions I have seen to use ovens/hairdryers - it just requires patience to leave it in the rice for minimum 48 hours.

This refers to an IPod touch but logically should work equally well for any of our other electronic gizmos that get an unintended soaking.

Hope you find this helpful.

zepfhyr · Apr 2, 2012

Take it to an Apple Store. Throw yourself on the mercy of the Genius Bar. You might be surprised.

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iPod dropped ipod touch in water , i need a specific answer on what to do ? help pleasee

sherouk

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William.Mantle

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sherouk

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John T

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Julien

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bigfatipod

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AlabamaSlammer

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PieVine96

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-aggie-

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thewitt

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