Help on Water Damaged iPhone

Symptoms & Preventative Measures
When a iPhone 3G needs a Liquid Damage

How do I know if my iPhone 3G got wet?

Liquid Indicators are installed inside the iPhone. DO NOT dissassemble your iPhone as you can incur significant unrepairable damage.


Headphone Jack: Very back of the Jack (clean out lint if necessary with a needle gently). Should be white or silver. If Red, the iPhone has been exposed to liquid.

Charging Dock: Should be white. Look inside the iPhone charging Jack, towards the bottom.If Red, the iPhone has been exposed to liquid.|

Two Internal Sensors: Not Viewable without proper dissassembly. DO NOT dissassemble your iPhone as you can incur significant unrepairable damage.


WARNING: DO NOT dissassemble your iPhone as you can incur significant unrepairable damage. Further damage from dissassembly can make any repair impossible, forever loosing any information or chance of 

What symptoms occur when the iPhone 3G gets wet?

Persistant WSOD (White Screen of Death)

Boot Loops (including but not limited to a DFU Boot Loop, or Hard Boot Loop).

Speaker/Mic Disfunction or Failure

Sync/Charging Issues

Will Not Boot or Power On

Earpiece Speaker Issues

Overheating

Random applications open

Persistant "This accessory is not made to work with iPhone" without plugging in iPhone

Persistant "Charging is not supported with this accessory" without plugging in iPhone


All Data (such as pictures, telephone numbers, video, or any other stored information) WILL LIKELY be lost. If you can, ensure that you backup your iPhone 3G before repair. When your iPhone 3G is fixed, you can re-sync your backup to your iPhone to the latest backup. 

What to do if your iPhone 3G gets wet?

Sure, we fix iPhones, but if your phone gets wet, there is only so much we can do! But all is not lost... we have revived phones that have been completely submerged in water! How?


There are three critical things you need to do to ensure your iPhone survives a drowning....


TURN IT OFF!!!! Yes, it might actually turn back on, but DO NOT DO IT! The more the iPhone is on while there is ANY moisture in the phone, the more damage it will cause! If you cannot turn off your iPhone normally, attempt a force kill (Hold Power + Home Button for 10 seconds and release as soon as it turns off).

Get a Bag of Rice. Any bag will do, just a bag of rice. Open it, and place your phone inside. The rice will absorb the majority of the moisture out of the phone while you do step #3

Contact us ASAP through facebook, email, my website, text message or telephone (if you have another phone) 417-268-5211.

Since Apple doesn't cover water damage, you will loose your warranty anyway, but we will open up your phone and clean the components, extract any residual fluids, and run some tests on the phone before we turn it back on to see if there are indeed shorts in the phone. If your phone recovers, it could take as much as a week to regain consciousness.


So remember, OFF, RICE, and CONTACT US when you get your phone wet.


Preventative Measures to keep your iPhone from getting wet or liquid damage

There is no practical foolproof way to keep your iPhone from getting liquid damage. However, there are some options to help prevent such damage from occuring.


Keep your iPhone away from water

: Seems simple, but taking your iPhone to the lake where you have no service is not the smartest suggestion. If you cannot live without having your iPhone within grasp, do not keep it near the bow of the boat, and keep it in a case such as an Otter Box. You might even consider putting the iPhone away so if you need access to it you can go get it, but it's not immediately at risk of tipping with an unexpected wave, getting splashed on, or have drinks spill on it.

Use an Otter Box.

These are water resistant cases that are large in size. Most people do not like the size of these bricks, but if you find that you work around moisture, or frequent locations with lots of water (lake, rivers, or even home), you might consider keeping the iPhone in an otter box at those locations where it really doesn't matter if you need to put it in/out of your pocket.


Why can the cost vary to recover my iPhone?

There are multiple recovery techniques to recover a water damaged iPhone, and each one incurs an additional cost. These costs build as each step is taken, and higher risk occurs with each step. The more time invested in recovery, the more costs increase, thus, if your data is more critical than recovery it might take additional work to recover such data (if possible). Some damage can be resolved by replacing components, such as charging issues, speaker/mic issues, buttons, and/or headphone jack.

Data Recovery

If you do not have a backup of your information, and the only location your information is stored is the liquid-damaged iPhone, we might be able to recover the information from your device, depending on the extent of the damage. However, this can incur additional costs above what the repair would be without data services.


What are the methods used to recover a water damaged iPhone?

There are a variety of troubleshooting steps that we take, and depending on the damage details how far to go in recovery. Some of the steps are listed below.

Ensure the iPhone is completely Dry

Kill Corrosion

Clean Corrosion

Components Check

Advanced Recovery


Chance of Recovery

That all depends on the extent of the damage. We have resolved water damaged iPhones for as little as $25, and never go over the market value of components unless paid for in advance. For iPhones submerged in water/liquid, you chance of recovery is usually 50/50, however, we have a +60% success rate.


How long before my iPhone is recovered?

The processes involved can take up to a week to resolve the issues with your iPhone, if Advanced Recovery is needed. A 3-day minumum is recommended to dry out the iPhone before any attempts at powering on the device is made. If you turn it on at home, please understand without proper cleaning of the corrossion, further damage, so while it *might* turn on, you could completely kill your iPhone beyond chances of recovery by doing so.

What happens if my data and my iPhone cannot be recovered?

Once we have exhausted all option, or at your choice upfront, we can install a replacement iPhone 3G logic board. You will loose any information by replacing your logic board, unless data was recovered during the recovery process or restored from a backup on your computer. If you need data recovery services or information transfered over, please inform us at the time of repair (not included). If you need recovery services we will need to know any passcodes, whether the iPhone was jailbroken, and what kind of tools are installed on the device for SSH (or other remote) access. The iPhone 3G Logic Board is tested 100% functional ahead of time, so any further issues after transfering the logic board to your iPhone and your receipt are not included in this repair.