iPhone Dead not responding to charge or buttons

[jctexasguy]

Let me start out by giving a little background on my wife's iPhone. Last week, it went through the washing machine. I had seen threads before about what I should do, and as soon as the phone was discovered we immidiatley stuck it in sealed bowl of rice and left it for several days and did not try to turn it on or plug it in. Friday night we took it out of the rice and tried to turn it on, it was unresponsive, I figured it would be and that hte battery was probably dead, so we plugged it in, and low and behold it booted up as normal and worked perfectly. We saw no traces of water under the screen. She let it charge for a few hours and used it just fine all weekend (ipod function an all), until last night (Monday), when the battery starting to die, so we plugged it in before we went to bed. She gets to work this morning and the phone is unresponsive to anything. She plugged in to the usb port on her computer and the phone is not recognizing that it is hooked up. She has held down the home button along with the power button to reset it, and it is doing nothing.

I know that I can't take it in because it has been water damaged, I wanted to see if ayone has any suggestions. I would think the battery is fine because the phone worked all weekend with no problems, and held a charge from Friday night until Monday night.

When we get home from work tongiht, I'm going to try and see if iTunes will recognize it on our home computer, because she doesn't have iTunes at work, Im hoping we can do something through there.

Thank you in advance for any suggestions.

 

[alexbates]

try putting it in recovery mode

 

[jctexasguy]

Thanks, I will give that a try.

I'm not sure if I mentioned it in my original post, but my wife said this morning when she took it off the charger it was on, but when she took it out at work it's dead, black screen and all.

 

[omgletmein]

Sounds like the phone was on and the mother board or spring board is broken.

 

[jctexasguy]

So when I got home the other night, I plugged it into our computer and got nothing. It only seems to react when I plug it into the wall charger, but even then all I will get is the black screen with the apple after holding the two buttons down. I was able last night to get the "connect to itunes screen to come up" and as soon as I did, I unplugged it and tried it again on the computer, and I got nothing. As soon as I take it off the wall charger, the screen goes blank again.

I just don't quite get why its doing this since it worked fine for several days after letting it dry out in the rice.

Any suggestions?

I will probably go ahead any buy a replacement phone this evening, but I've seen on ebay that people are selling broken iphones for parts. Would I at least be able to sell of her old one for a little bit of $$?

 

[DPA]

You can send it into a place like iResQ or Mission Repair and they will give you an estimate on how much it will cost to get fixed. If you don't want to fix it just let them know and they will send it back to you. I don't know about Mission Repair but iResQ is very reasonable in prices. You can also perform the fix on your own if you find it cheaper. Make sure you follow a guide if you decide to do so!

David

 

[Four20]

I think it needs more than a couple of days to get the water out(unless you're actively turning it). some people say it's good to shake it every now and then(to help push the water out)

 

[DPA]

I think it needs more than a couple of days to get the water out(unless you're actively turning it). some people say it's good to shake it every now and then(to help push the water out)

24 hours will do the trick in rice. After that try to empty any rice out of the holes like the headphone jack. Then dry it out with a hair dryer. Don't turn it on before you complete all the steps listed above! It may cause a short circut in on something like the motherboard! Then your iPhone will be fried and you would have to repair even more parts!

David

 

[DPA]

I have to agree with electronicguru here - you have got your work cut out to get it back up together. See what the site offers you and put it towards a replecement - quicker and easier in my opinion.

Best of Luck!!

I just checked the site and they said they'd give me $90 for a iPhone 3G 16GB that won't turn on. With the USB cord, headphones, and charger included. I think I would look into repairing it via iResQ, but ultimately it's up to you.

David

 

[Magnone]

I have the same problem as jctexasguy but in this case my iphone did not got wet i only disassemble the phone because i wanted to clean the microphone because when i was on a call my voice was very low.
I saw the how to disassemble iphone videos is not big deal, but when i cleaned the microphone and put all back together nothing happens except when connect to the wall charger i get the infinite apple logo loop, after several tries to put the iphone on recover mode got the connect to itunes logo, but when i disconnect it from wall charger to connect it to the computer the power goes out.
And one more thing when the iphone its plugged to the wall charger and the apple logo or connect to itunes logo shows up, i can hear a little noise from the inside of the iphone, its like a fax modem trying to connect sound, but it stops when it shuts down.

I think its more like a battery problem than a main boar problem

 

[middleisgold]

Just because it worked for a little bit and acted fine doesn't mean there wasn't still water inside. The water can corrode the circuits as well, so sometimes you'll have a phone that works for a month or three months or any random time and then just dies. It's possible it also short-circuited when you had a phone that still had moisture inside hooked up to an electrical outlet.