[Help] Display problem on cell phone

Hi,
not sure if this is the right place for my question, if it's not please
excuse me.

Here's my problem: my cellular (Sony Ericsson T68i) fell briefly into water.
I removed the battery and let it dry. The day after, it worked fine 100%.
After a few hours, the display went dark blue; it doesn't display anything.
The phone still works, only the screen doesn't although it is powered.
I disassembled the phone entirely today, rubbed the contacts especially
those for the display. Still the same.

Phone vendors tell me it's definitely broken (of course they would) but
actually my phone works 90%. What could the screen problem be? is it
hopeless? can I do something?

Thanks for your time & help
--
Fjordur

When water gets into electronic devices it establishes new paths for current
to flow. Pure water is an insulator but (practically speaking) there is no
such thing as pure water. Your phone has new and unwanted paths for current
to flow. Deionized water can be used to flush circuit boards, but this is
hardly is a viable path for you. Your phone is contaminated and might
become more disabled as time progresses. Or, it could dry out and heal!

hrKdnd9BzeYL3l3eRVn-tA@comcast.com, Charles Schuler
charleschuler@comcast.net 7/01/06 23:41:

> When water gets into electronic devices it establishes new paths for current
> to flow. Pure water is an insulator but (practically speaking) there is no
> such thing as pure water. Your phone has new and unwanted paths for current
> to flow.
I understand that, of course
> Deionized water can be used to flush circuit boards, but this is
> hardly is a viable path for you. Your phone is contaminated and might
> become more disabled as time progresses. Or, it could dry out and heal!
It *is* now dry, after 3 weeks or so, I guess. Or is it not? water still
left?
Or do you imply that even after water is evaporated some mineral salts are
left and create new circuits? in that case, things would be a (simple..!)
matter of rinsing, right?
The point is, the phone is functional, only the display is not althought
it's lit. So its only the display command circuits that don't work.
Nothing I can do?

--
Fjordur

Head to your local radio shack and get a can of electrical contact
cleaner and blast it out. Mine went snorkeling with me in Maui last
fall and I had never transferred my 60+ phone number list to the sim
card. Blasted it, reassembled, check for operation, no-go, disassemble
again...5 or 6 times I guess. Finally got it to work but like you with
no display. Luckily, a co-worker had the same phone and I was able to
blindly work my way through the menus, copy the numbers to my sim, then
transfer over to my new phone. No, I never did get the display going.
Hope it works for you.

"Fjordur" <Fjordur@free.fr> wrote in message
news:BFE6A1F9.10AE5%Fjordur@free.fr...
> hrKdnd9BzeYL3l3eRVn-tA@comcast.com, Charles Schuler
> charleschuler@comcast.net 7/01/06 23:41:
>
>> When water gets into electronic devices it establishes new paths for
>> current
>> to flow. Pure water is an insulator but (practically speaking) there is
>> no
>> such thing as pure water. Your phone has new and unwanted paths for
>> current
>> to flow.
> I understand that, of course
>> Deionized water can be used to flush circuit boards, but this is
>> hardly is a viable path for you. Your phone is contaminated and might
>> become more disabled as time progresses. Or, it could dry out and heal!
> It *is* now dry, after 3 weeks or so, I guess. Or is it not? water still
> left?
> Or do you imply that even after water is evaporated some mineral salts are
> left and create new circuits? in that case, things would be a (simple..!)
> matter of rinsing, right?
> The point is, the phone is functional, only the display is not althought
> it's lit. So its only the display command circuits that don't work.
> Nothing I can do?

You can try flushing it thoroughly with deionized water and then drying it
.... but you run the risk of making it worse. I have done several notebook
computers that had drinks poured onto the keyboards with mixed results.

1136715085.227192.135630@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups. com, 427Cobraman
quartermiler1320@yahoo.com 8/01/06 11:11:

> Head to your local radio shack and get a can of electrical contact
> cleaner and blast it out. Mine went snorkeling with me in Maui last
> fall
lucky you (for the snorkeling, not for taking your phone with you :-)
> and I had never transferred my 60+ phone number list to the sim
> card. Blasted it, reassembled, check for operation, no-go, disassemble
> again...5 or 6 times I guess. Finally got it to work but like you with
> no display. Luckily, a co-worker had the same phone and I was able to
> blindly work my way through the menus, copy the numbers to my sim, then
> transfer over to my new phone. No, I never did get the display going.
> Hope it works for you.
Hmmm...
Apparently there's not much hope.
I didn't think of tranferring the numbers to the sim card, always wondered
what's the use of it, now I know. I understand your sim card wasn't (too)
affected by the water.

Thanks to you all who contributed. I guess it really means "trash it and get
a new phone". Sh.t! (Sorry but I'm really p....d off)
--
Fjordur

On Sat, 07 Jan 2006 20:20:17 +0100, Fjordur <Fjordur@free.fr> wrote:

>Hi,
>not sure if this is the right place for my question, if it's not please
>excuse me.
>
>Here's my problem: my cellular (Sony Ericsson T68i) fell briefly into water.
>I removed the battery and let it dry. The day after, it worked fine 100%.
>After a few hours, the display went dark blue; it doesn't display anything.
>The phone still works, only the screen doesn't although it is powered.
>I disassembled the phone entirely today, rubbed the contacts especially
>those for the display. Still the same.
>
>Phone vendors tell me it's definitely broken (of course they would) but
>actually my phone works 90%. What could the screen problem be? is it
>hopeless? can I do something?
>
>Thanks for your time & help
LCD's are very complex devices, at this point it is hard to know
whether or not the screen or the drivers for the screen have failed.
The nature of the beast however is that it rarely pays to attempt
repair at the component level. High specialized equipment is required
for SMT repairs. At the factory, they can slap the PCB onto a
signature analysis system, and it will ID the failed component in
about 10 seconds, and they can decide if it is worth attempting
repair.

Fjordur wrote:

>Hi,
>not sure if this is the right place for my question, if it's not please
>excuse me.
>
>Here's my problem: my cellular (Sony Ericsson T68i) fell briefly into water.
>I removed the battery and let it dry. The day after, it worked fine 100%.
>After a few hours, the display went dark blue; it doesn't display anything.
>The phone still works, only the screen doesn't although it is powered.
>I disassembled the phone entirely today, rubbed the contacts especially
>those for the display. Still the same.
>
>Phone vendors tell me it's definitely broken (of course they would) but
>actually my phone works 90%. What could the screen problem be? is it
>hopeless? can I do something?
>
>Thanks for your time & help
>
>
My daughter had the same phone. The phone committed suicide.
Apparently when she was out of the room, she got a call. The phone
vibrated itself off a desk and landed directly into a glass of water
that was on the floor. I took it apart, tried drying it in an oven (low
temperature obviously), and spraying it with alcohol....all to no
avail. I ended up selling it on ebay for parts.

And if you think that a phone committing suicide is unusual, my daughter
has a friend that had the same phone that died in the exact same
method....although I think it may have fallen into a glass of tea.

OK, I understand fixing the phone is hopeless.
What about the battery? I take it there's no electronics in it, only
chemistry, as far as I can remember my physics courses.
Once in the water => forever lost, or not?
I'm asking because I have an opportunity to get a new phone which has no
battery: should I get it and use my [once soaked] battery? or is the battery
hurt?
--
Fjordur

I've been lucky with soaked cell phones. The faster you can drive out
the water, the better the odds of success. I use fairly high heat from
a blow dryer. I also use a microscope to look at as much of the
circuits I can get to and look for tiny rust spots or anything else
that doesn't look right, a sharpened toothpick is gentle enough to
clean whatever I see.
If the phone still has problems, I leave it powered up. The gentle heat
of internal working circuitry may be enough to drive off deeply hidden
moisture the blow dryer can't reach, This is especially true for the
display, which should not be exposed to the high heat of the blow
dryer.

The display is generally the item most prone to irreversable damage. It
depends on the design. Some displays allow water to wick in. Heat will
not help if this happens. Others are fairly water tight. I recently
salvaged a phone that fell in 3 feet of muddy water. It took 10 minutes
to find it and 2 hours to get high heat on it. The display appeared
lost but came back perfectly after sitting powered up 24 hours.

BTW, modern batteries may indeed have electronics inside them to watch
over charge conditions. My laptop battery has a well populated circuit
board aside from the usual thermal fuse.

Dennis Harper