Attempting to repair water damaged SGSII, steps taken so far: need help!

[TheBlackRabbit]

I have a water damaged SGSII, the entire phone was not submerged, mainly just near the battery area.

Phone Symptoms:
- Everything works fine except the phone's screen will turn on randomly on its own, then stay on. If you tap power to turn the screen back off, it will sometimes turn back on after 30 seconds, sometimes 10 minutes.

-The phone goes into battery drain HyperDrive once you pull it out of your pocket and notice that it has frozen in the screen on position. It goes from full battery to nearly dead in around 45 minutes in this state, otherwise BL is good.

What I did:

Took phone completely apart. Scrubbed using toothbrush and 91% isopropyl alcohol and put it back together. Phone acted slightly "improved" but still not fixed.

Took phone apart again, scrubbed harder this time with a washcloth as well.

What next? Considering this is probably going to be my last resort I suppose, I was thinking of going with a high grit sandpaper and try to walk the line between removing corrosion and removing vital components to the phone - just scrub the hell out of it. Thoughts?

 

[Oyeve]

Put in rice for a day or two.

 

[Kenmitch]

Put in rice for a day or two.

^^^ This

And for clarification uncooked rice

 

[TheBlackRabbit]

yeah, I have heard of that before, but figured letting it sit in the sun taken apart for 2 days would have also done the trick. I guess I'll give it a shot.

Should I still scrub the hell out of it? Guess test it after the rice first. It doesn't take all that long but I Really want this phone to get to stay in one piece!

 

[etrigan420]

yeah, I have heard of that before, but figured letting it sit in the sun taken apart for 2 days would have also done the trick. I guess I'll give it a shot.

Should I still scrub the hell out of it? Guess test it after the rice first. It doesn't take all that long but I Really want this phone to get to stay in one piece!

We tried the rice trick after my (then) 3 year old dumped my wifes phone into a crock pot full of beef stew.

It actually worked, although we *did* need to purchase a new battery for it.

 

[VashHT]

How long did you let it dry for? You need to wait a while WITHOUT turning it on. If you turn it on while water is still trapped inside then it may damage components. From the sounds of it you might have done this already but I've seen electronics come back from worse than a partial submersion in water.

A big thing is to be patient, my gf dropped her htc aria into a cup of pop and I told her to let it dry out. I took it apart and cleaned up all I could but it still acted weird for like a week but now it works fine (and still is like 6 months later). The more you turn it on the more chances you have of damaging something while its still wet inside, so if you have an old phone I'd use that for a little while and just give it time to dry out.

 

[TheBlackRabbit]

Damn...this has been going on since November. Sounds like I am probably screwed. Unfortunately I tried turning it on out of instinct and hope right after the incident, repeatedly, and only then started reading about the different methods of bring a phone back.

But WTH I'll give it a shot