Mobile phone + washing machine = bad

[Garda]

If any of you have ever wanted to know what happens when you put a mobile phone in the wash, don't bother trying to find out. It dies.

It was on when i put it in now won't turn on at all, sim card still works though.

Has this ever happened to anybody else. is there mabey a chance after all the crap inside dries that it might work again

For those interested it was a nokia 3120

[VaKo]

You need to dry it out 100%. If you can, take it all apart and leave it on some paper towels. The batt will probally be shot though. I have heard that if you can get it, pure alcohol on the circuit boards might dry it better, but this was something on Digg (don't blame me if it melts, explodes or your arrested for making a cell phone bomb). But usually, cell phone threw a washer = buy a new one.

[armadaender]

Put in your oven at about 110 degress ferhient and 'cook' it for about 20 minutes. Be sure to take the battery out thought.

I dropped my old nextel pos in the lake near my house at least 3 times and each time I got it to work again by doing the above. Of course, I'm not responsible if you screw it up though.

[jool]

If you had just dropped it in clean water and quickly gotten it out again you might have some luck with drying it out. But if it was in a washing machine for a full cycle with detergents I really think you are out of luck, it is just too harsh of an environment.

[Guest]

just as long as the screen part is screwed up from all the water it doesnt matter how long it has been in the water. The only thing that would be screwed up is the battry and most likly the screen. but just try it out really well before you try to turn it on. Make sure there isnt any water inside the phone and it will be fine.

[barrytone]

Although drying it out completely may work, it won't always :P

The screen could be damaged from the water and heat. Also, if the phone was turned on when it was put in the wash, some of the components may have fried :roll:

[YorkieBar]

Meh, just let it dry out :P, an old LG phone (Flip phone) of mine went into the wash once, while turned on all i did was let it dry off over a few days, and its still works :P or at least it did before i sold it.

So dont bin it, let it completely dry out first.

Another thing the longer it was in the wash the more likely it is to be shot, But you never know.

[Matt {Undead}]

If your on a contract I wouldnt try getting a free replacement, they have water marks to test to see if the phones been in water.

My sister dropped hers in the sink ages ago, my dad then used it and my sister got a new one, then he wanted a new one because some car charger fucked it up.

They found the watermark and told him he wd have to pay for a replacement.

[PoyBoy]

my brother went swimming with his. We just put it in a tupperware container with those silica packets that come in packaging. It works fine now.

[moonlit]

A friend dropped his old Samsung which he dropped in cider and coke (yeah, urgh... we used to drink stuff like that back then) and his phone was, needless to say, not gonna turn on... like most of his kit, I ended up with it and even after a few weeks of drying it wouldn't work... I threw it in a drawer and forgot about it...

...around 3 or 4 months later I dug it out again during a clean-up and plugged it in one last time and lo and behold, it worked! Ok, it died half a year later from a dead charger socket but it got another half a year's service from an already aging phone... :D

[jool]

Wow people on this forum seem to be really lucky with their phones. My response was based on how friends' phones have reacted to water. For instance one phone said *bzzzzt* in a very light rain while being used and it never lived again.

[Garda]

Ok. Still doesn't work yet.

i went to a nokia repair centre. The place disturbed me like fucking crazy. You get a ticket and wait in line. It seriously felt like waiting in the emergency room of a hospital. It was quiet, depressing and there were really old crappy magazines on a table for people to read. I don't think that i would have had to have waited too long, but i left anyway, the place was kinda too wierd.

anyway, i have my eye on a nice little LG. Problem is the one on display was pink. So mabey it's a chik's phone. Kinda like that lipstick on nokia had, with voice recognition. I'll see if they come in blue. Otherwise pink is like fucking gay

[degoba]

i left my old nokia out in the rain. I simply opened it up and let it dry for about 24 hours. Worked fine after that.

[Wallis]

Yeah, I think y'all might just be lucky...my dad dropped his into a puddle and it never turned on again, and he kept it for a while.

okay, full discloser, he dropped it from the top of his truck into a rather deep puddle.

he was really sad though. something about men and their startacs i guess.

[PoyBoy]

The problem isnt the water. Its the shit in the water that dries onto the circuits, shorting them out. As long as it was marginally clean, and not conductive, you have a chance

[rFayjW98ciLoNQLDZmFRKD]

it also depends if the phone is on too, nothing can short (posibly the battery) when the phon is off. A quick dissasbly and letting it dry usualy does the trick.

[Garda]

after about a week the phone is still dead.

for those out there interested this is the replacement

the samsung X150

$100 + i get $20 call credits with optus.

only problem is that it's locked to optus. The nokia was easy to unlock (unlock code you can find on the web) apparently this is harder.

i think i like this one better than the previous, even though it doesn't have java or gprs. That shit is so expensive that it's not worth it and i never used it anyway. (slashdot.org cost me $2 and didn't appear properly)

[phrax]

Yup, happened to me. Went straight through the wash in my jeans. Tried all kinds of things to kick start it again, but it was just dead.

Good phone too, now I've got a shocking LG phone on an even worse network.

[Kateweb]

only problem is that it's locked to optus. The nokia was easy to unlock (unlock code you can find on the web) apparently this is harder.

most carriers will give you an unlock code for free I know tmobil does I had to do that when I got my A630 of ebay, the funny thing was that it was a tmobil phone loked to cingular .