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Committed involuntary iPhoneslaughter

quagmire

quagmire

macrumors 604
Original poster
Apr 19, 2004
7,045
2,587
The crime happened at 8:30 PM EST Tuesday January 17, 2012. This irresponsible iPhone owner left his iPhone in his short pockets as it he put it in the washing machine. The owner shall be charged with a $149 replacement fee. :(

I feel like an idiot right now. How I could leave my phone in my pocket..... It is getting fairly warm and is currently in my sink just in case it catches fire. Should I be concerned for it starting a fire?
 
quagmire said:
The crime happened at 8:30 PM EST Tuesday January 17, 2012. This irresponsible iPhone owner left his iPhone in his short pockets as it he put it in the washing machine. The owner shall be charged with a $149 replacement fee. :(

I feel like an idiot right now. How I could leave my phone in my pocket..... It is getting fairly warm and is currently in my sink just in case it catches fire. Should I be concerned for it starting a fire?
Click to expand...

If you can get to some Sicilia Gel bags that will help too! That stuff is super absorbent
 
I don't have time to wait a few days for it to dry out. Need a new phone ASAP.....
 
Blow / shake / vacuum out as much water as you can. Put in a bag with dry rice / silica gel, and place somewhere that gets warm, not hot, just warm.

W-A-I-T for at least a couple days and do NOT charge it or turn it on. Wait at LEAST 2 days.

Search the thousands of threads that have come up before this for details.

Save yourself $149.00. You've got slightly better than a 50/50 chance it'll come back to life.

Edit: Just saw your other post... well, if you want to speed things up, and not buy a new phone: Take the 2 screws on the bottom near the charging port out, and push the back plate UP. Opening the phone will allow it to dry out orders of magnitude faster. Do that, and you won't have to wait a couple days.
 
I also read online somewhere that you can get 100% alcohol or something along those lines that is not water based and no conductive basically replacing the water with it and it works... I will try to find the link but that may be your last option if you want to try it and your that desperate. I will keep looking and post later

THIS IS A LAST DITCH EFFORT!!!!!!
http://techpp.com/2009/12/13/how-to-save-and-repair-your-mobile-phone-after-water-damage/
 
Last edited:
sirpots said:
I also read online somewhere that you can get 100% alcohol or something along those lines that is not water based and no conductive basically replacing the water with it and it works... I will try to find the link but that may be your last option if you want to try it and your that desperate. I will keep looking and post later

THIS IS A LAST DITCH EFFORT!!!!!!
http://techpp.com/2009/12/13/how-to-save-and-repair-your-mobile-phone-after-water-damage/
Click to expand...

I believe that's isopropyl alcohol you're referring to and you are correct, it's not conductive and is generally used to remove the water from inside the device, because even if it does start working again, the water could corrode the insides and break it down the road.

OP, it sucks that you did that but live and learn I guess. Might want to consider one of those waterproof cases? :p
 
ideal.dreams said:
I believe that's isopropyl alcohol you're referring to and you are correct, it's not conductive and is generally used to remove the water from inside the device, because even if it does start working again, the water could corrode the insides and break it down the road.

OP, it sucks that you did that but live and learn I guess. Might want to consider one of those waterproof cases? :p
Click to expand...

Yeah, live and learn. First time any of my iPhone's received any damage and it happens to be the worst of the worst..... :eek:
 
I've used isopropanol to clear the water from a Dell laptop back in the day. The key is to do it as soon as possible, not allowing the water to sit for any length of time to prevent corrosion starting.

Get 99% isopropanol from the drug store, make sure that you don't get rubbing alcohol (contains mineral oil, and will leave residue behind). Flush the phone liberally with 99% isopropanol and it will draw the water out of any nooks and crannies. 99% is almost pure alcohol, and will evaporate cleanly, leaving no water behind.

If you plan to keep the alcohol around for future emergencies, make sure that you keep it tightly capped. Isopropanol is highly hygroscopic (will absorb water out of the air and dilute the alcohol).
 
Invid said:
I've used isopropanol to clear the water from a Dell laptop back in the day. The key is to do it as soon as possible, not allowing the water to sit for any length of time to prevent corrosion starting.

Get 99% isopropanol from the drug store, make sure that you don't get rubbing alcohol (contains mineral oil, and will leave residue behind). Flush the phone liberally with 99% isopropanol and it will draw the water out of any nooks and crannies. 99% is almost pure alcohol, and will evaporate cleanly, leaving no water behind.

If you plan to keep the alcohol around for future emergencies, make sure that you keep it tightly capped. Isopropanol is highly hygroscopic (will absorb water out of the air and dilute the alcohol).
Click to expand...

Good info, thanks.
 
I went ahead and paid the $149 to get the replacement. Luckily the SIM card still works, so didn't add the further hassle to go to an AT&T store to get a new SIM card.

Overall, it's nice to have the replacement. There were a few issues that started to pop up on my original 4, but not big enough to bring it in for work done. It was mostly the home button wasn't as responsive as before. I would double click to get the app switcher, but it wouldn't recognize the second click sometimes where it would go back to the home screen or to spotlight. Another thing is the battery started to wear out( as to be expected after nearly 2 years). So it's nice to have this refurbished iPhone 4. And when I get the iPhone 5/6/LTE/whatever later this year, it will serve as a great backup phone just in case something happened to my new phone where my original and 3G are in poor shape( battery or technology wise with the original's case).
 
This is where the "Cloud" really shines. A friend's iPhone went over board while deepsea fishing and had to buy another. The phone had nearly restored itself before he got back to his car!:cool:
 
For Water-Damaged Devices

Just an FYI to those who might be worried about what the OP went through and don't keep rice handy, iFixIt sells "Thirsty Bags" that can be used for just about any electronic that you can dunk in liquid. These bags are relatively inexpensive(unlike the $149 replacement fee that the OP paid), and when paired with the isopropanol method of cleaning gives you the best chance of getting the device working again.

Here's a link to iFixIt's site: http://www.ifixit.com/Tools/Thirsty-Bag/IF145-163-1

Not a paid spokesperson or anything, I just find their solutions to be particularly useful.
 
Kyotoma said:
Just an FYI to those who might be worried about what the OP went through and don't keep rice handy, iFixIt sells "Thirsty Bags" that can be used for just about any electronic that you can dunk in liquid. These bags are relatively inexpensive(unlike the $149 replacement fee that the OP paid), and when paired with the isopropanol method of cleaning gives you the best chance of getting the device working again.

Here's a link to iFixIt's site: http://www.ifixit.com/Tools/Thirsty-Bag/IF145-163-1

Not a paid spokesperson or anything, I just find their solutions to be particularly useful.
Click to expand...

Seems like a cool idea, rice gets all over the place in phones, and then looks like dried up mealworms :/. But it's probably not too useful if you're using isopropyl, since you'd already have the board out of the phone.
 
My biggest worry in trying to revive my original is not that I will not get it working, but what kind of damage the water did to the internals. The biggest worry in that was what the water did to the battery. As noted in my original post, the iPhone started to get extremely hot which was probably the battery shorting out. So how would it be like if I revived it? Would it start to overheat or will my battery life suck? Not to mention the cameras as the water got into the camera lens.

I felt better paying the $149 to get a replacement.
 
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