We’ve all been there at some point. A phone or a laptop; maybe even a camera or a game console. Falls in the toilet, lands in a puddle, a swimming pool, a jacuzzi, you name it.
So, there’s no real way to dance around this, the device almost certainly needs to be disassembled and cleaned – at a minimum. However, for various reasons you may not be able to drop everything, jump in the car and have tires squealing all the way to your nearest repair centre, so what can you do right now when it happens?
Thankfully, there’s a number of things that can be done (or that shouldn’t be done) in the meantime which will help, so we’ve broken these down below to help you should you find yourself with a drenched device.
- Power Off
So, this one may or may not be common knowledge, but first and foremost (after taking the device out of the water it fell in) you should dry the outside of the device, and remove the battery where possible, although there are less and less devices on the market that allow you to do this. If you can’t remove the battery, carefully power off the device as quickly as possible.
- Do Not Use Heat.
So, our instincts may tell us that using a hair dryer or applying other forms of heat will help to dry out the device, but this is the last thing you should do. Heat in itself can cause damage, and the air blowing on the device may force liquid into other parts which may get damaged.
- Rice or No?
From reading online, you would swear that dropping the liquid damaged device into a bag of (uncooked) rice is the solution to all of life’s problems. Read another website and it will tell you that this is a myth. The truth is somewhere in between. Rice is great for removing humidity in the air, so will help absorb some of the moisture, but we have had to replace ports and headphone jacks on phones that were damaged by the rice used, as it softened and ended up in the ports. So, wrap the device in a paper towel, then put it in rice. Use a sealed bag or container to store the device in the rice to stop the rice from absorbing liquid from the air rather than from the device.
- The moment of Truth.
Finally, after the device has spent a minimum of 24 hours in rice, you have some options available to you. If the device has vital data stored on it, or anything which makes it absolutely vital that it survive, the best chance you have is to bring it to a repair centre. Here, the internals of the phone will be fully cleaned before an attempt is made to power it on. However, if you don’t have time, or for whatever reason want to chance it, cross your fingers and press the power button. If it boots like normal, you may not be out of the woods yet, and only time will tell if it will continue to function. If it’s still dead, then the only real option available is to be bring it to a repair centre for repair.
If you find yourself in this predicament today, let us know, and see what we can do to help! Fill in a short Quick Estimate to find out more!