Water Damage and Phone Acting Weird?

Hi Cameron. Tom has a point in that every device is different and a large percentage of water damaged devices require extensive logic-board level troubleshooting, which is beyond a “DIY” repair. A good analogy would be changing the oil or doing a brake job on your car (perfect DIY repairs) and rebuilding a transmission.

That said, Apple will not do anything for you so there’s no real harm done in opening the phone and determining for yourself if this is something you can resolve or seek out professional help. This is what I generally recommend to folks that want to attempt to repair a water damaged device:

With water damage, you have to decontaminate the logic board before doing anything else, otherwise there will be latent issues down the road.

Not every water-damaged phone is recoverable and depending on the kind of liquid (salty, dirty, filthy), sometimes the success rate is quite low.

The water is inside the phone, on the logic board and under the shields, even under the IC's. The real problem is the mineral deposits that can cause short circuits or the corrosion that is taking place as the water evaporates. Leaving the power on the device accelerates the process. The longer you let a phone sit, the more time you are giving corrosion to damage your logic board. The saltier or harder the water is, the more damage will occur.

• Open your phone and remove the logic board (follow this guide)
• Inspect the logic board, especially around the connectors and look for corrosion.
• Inspect both sides of the board. Unfortunately, most of the board is covered in shields. That's usually where the damage is occurring. The back shields are cloth/paper so you can gently peel those off to have a closer look.
• Put your board in a container with >90% isopropyl alcohol and let it sit for a while.
• Use a soft brush, like a toothbrush and lightly brush away any corrosion you see.
• Rinse in alcohol and repeat.
• Let it air dry for a day.
• Re-assemble and hope for the best.

You should also replace the battery if it has swollen. Resist the temptation to pop it to let the gas out. A compromised Li-ion battery is a fire hazard. If the device appears to power up but behaves erratically, then use a tool like 3uTools to flash the firmware as it may be corrupted.

A professional repair shop that does water damage repair may be able to recover your phone or the data because they have access to pro-level ultrasonic baths and specialized cleaners as well as the skills to troubleshoot your board. Many shops have a no fix/no fee policy so you don't have to spend money to find out if the phone is fixable or not.