Most of us have unfortunately had issues with wet technology before – often it ends in disaster. You CAN do a few things to try and ensure that your phone or computer has the best chance of surviving a water encounter.
Turn it off Immediately!
This might seem like a no-brainer, but you need to turn off your phone or computer as soon as you realize that it may have gotten wet at all.
THAT’S VERY IMPORTANT – even if your phone is still functional or your computer still seems to be going just fine, you need to turn them off before real damage DOES occur. The water may not be eating away at the metals in your phone, but it just has to reach the right leed or capacitor and it will blow up or short your entire system.
Real damage = real money, as legitimate liquid damage repairs are expensive, and sometimes it’s actually not possible to save anything and replacement is your only option. Water has got to be taken seriously with your electronics.
Take the battery out
If you have a smartphone with a removable battery you need to get it out of there as soon as you can. If you have an IPhone or can’t get it out yourself – find a local repair store to do it for you.
If you’ve got your laptop wet, pop the battery out of that immediately as well. A desktop PC doesn’t have a battery per-say but you should go ahead and switch off and unplug your power supply to ensure no energy moving through the machine. That’s where the real risk comes from.
Wipe it down
You’ve taken out the battery or disconnected the power supply – truly the only thing you can do next is gently try to wipe off any water that you can visibly see. Be careful to use a microfiber cloth or something that won’t leave residue on any components.
Leave it out to dry for a little while
Depending on how wet it got/how good you feel about the job you did drying out your phone, this can range from a few hours to a few days. If you dropped your phone in a lake and it took you ten minutes to find it – you’re going to at the very least need close to a week of drying time, and even then it’s likely that you’ve received some serious damage.
If you spilled only a few drops of water on the top of your PC case and then instantly switched it off and got everything drying – you’re still at risk of having fried something but chances are good once all the water is dry you should be back up and running just fine.
Turn it back on – and Hope!
Leaving it out to dry for a few days is the last “fixing” step – and then you’ll just have to hold your breath and hope for the best. Check again to ensure everything is dry and then put it all back together just like you took it apart. From there honestly if it’s a phone you may need to charge it back up to full, but if your computer doesn’t start right back up then you might be out of luck.
Good luck!
We hope these techniques get your phone back up to speed, but there are no guarantees with water. If you act fast and follow these instructions though, you’ve got a good chance to avoid liquid damage or at least save some of the more valuable components in your phone/computer.
Important: DO NOT put it in rice!
You’ve probably always heard that this is the thing to do, but we can ensure you it is NOT.
Your friend or cousin or sister dropped their phone in water, then gave it the rice treatment for two days and “Viola!” the phone worked again. That’s anecdotal advice, and if they had left it out drying on the shelf it also would have worked.
The idea of using uncooked rice to suck out the moisture makes sense, but in practice, it just doesn’t work as well as open air. Gazelle even did a thorough investigation testing the effectiveness of different household materials that are drying agents, and open-air was the best. Rice can’t get into those nooks and corners that you really need water to be removed from, while the open-air will hit every square inch of it.
We don’t work on phones at Buckeye PC but we do computer repair of all sorts – we would be more than happy to help you take everything apart, diagnose any issues, and get them resolved.
