iPhone washing machine problem. Fixable?

[Typhoon]

So..

Boss came up to me today and told me that his littlest put his iPhone 6 in the washing machine, uh oh!

I've told him not to try and power it on so it doesn't surge the boards, also told him to stick it in rice for a day or two!

The phone is off obviously now but the flashlight on the back is constantly on.. this seem's like sort of good news to me that the phone still has power, correct?

My question is;

If the phone doesn't dry out as you'd hope etc, is it possible for him to buy another iPhone 6 and take his "hard drive" out of the broken one and put it in to the new one? ie; how is it fitted? Soldered to the board? Do Apple have any protection against people trying to do this?

He has 6500 photos and for some reason, nothing backed up to iCloud. This could be because he didn't turn it on but without having access to the phone and the settings, we'll never know!

Just trying to weigh up our options on the picture recovery!

Cheers guys

 

[Addicted]

There is no "harddrive" it's a memory chip on the main board, you have no chance of recovering it imo.

See the red chip on Step 17: https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iPhone 6 Teardown/29213

aka:

You could probably try putting that board in a new phone, but you could also kill the new phone doing it if that's knackered.

 

[Typhoon]

Cheers mate! Yeah, didn't know how to word it to be perfectly honest! I just have a feeling the board may have been shorted out which in theory would make it pointless replacing the whole board in the 'new' phone. Is each memory chip encoded to each board or are they 'universal'? Do you know how they are seated?

 

[Addicted]

Cheers mate! Yeah, didn't know how to word it to be perfectly honest! I just have a feeling the board may have been shorted out which in theory would make it pointless replacing the whole board in the 'new' phone. Is each memory chip encoded to each board or are they 'universal'? Do you know how they are seated?

Pass to all of them I'm afraid (not sure), but if it's like some of the newer things I've soldered, not a chance in hell of even getting it off, nevermind onto a new board

Hopefully the rice trick will do the job!

 

[Typhoon]

Cheers mate, it's appreciated! I'll update you :up:

 

[bloke]

the rice thing is a complete myth.

 

[Rich..]

So this doesn't work then?

 

[Addicted]

the rice thing is a complete myth.

No it isn't. Rice absorbs water. Sure there's other things that absorb more water, but it works.

 

[paul the 6th]

if he can afford another iPhone he should be able to sync it to his computer and/or retrieve stuff from the cloud (if he had cloud enabled and recently backed up his phone) he should be ok I woulda thought?

 

[Knuckles]

Put it in rice, in an airing cupboard/over a radiator. And leave it for a week or two to completely dry before considering switching it on.

That's all I'd try. Fingers crossed.

 

[-Jamie-]

if he can afford another iPhone he should be able to sync it to his computer and/or retrieve stuff from the cloud (if he had cloud enabled and recently backed up his phone) he should be ok I woulda thought?

Did you even bother to rear the OP?

 

[CrippsCorner]

Rearing the OP isn't going to fix anything.

 

[Munson]

Oh reary?

 

[paul the 6th]

Not sure why I need to rear Typhoon?

I read as far as the line before "he had 6500 photos not backed up"... Please accept my upmost sincerest apologies for missing this. It won't happen again.

 

[Addicted]

Why bother replying if you just read the thread title - you'd have some very interesting replies lol!

 

[Goodj]

Whether it's a phone or a laptop, if you wash it, it's going to be fucked.
Level of fucked? Well, anywhere from a rattly microphone to a totally dead brick.

Basically,it if it's not turning on now, you're not getting any data off of it.

 

[Tom]

Impossible to repair. The 6's are a touch more resistant to water but a washing machine would f**k it.
Putting a new board in it would just make it a new phone? You aren't going to manage to get hold of chips and then fit them.

 

[sn00p]

Pass to all of them I'm afraid (not sure), but if it's like some of the newer things I've soldered, not a chance in hell of even getting it off, nevermind onto a new board 😧

Easy peasy.

1. Infrared reflow on the memory device and remove it from the fucked board.
2. Clean up bottom of removed memory device and reball (and reflow device)
3. Infrared BGA reflow and remove the memory device on doner board.
4. Clean up pads on doner board.
5. Apply solder paste to removed device (or the PCB, whichever is easiest)
6. Place part onto doner board and reflow.

You'll need several hundred thousands of pounds worth of kit though and it won't work as the encryption keys for the flash will be CPU specific.

Not sure the OP will want to go to that those extremes though! lol

We had a company come to us because they needed some BGA's replaced on some of their stock, it was cheaper for us to do that work than it was for them to scrap the stock and we charged them a lot!

 

[H182]

6500 pictures in less than 4 months? Impressive.

 

[Martin.]

6500 pictures in less than 4 months? Impressive.

Could have been years worth of photos transferred from phone to phone up until now.

 

[H182]

^If it is, then hopefully he can retrieve most of them off the old phone if he's still got it.

 

[Martin.]

^If it is, then hopefully he can retrieve most of them off the old phone if he's still got it.

Easy if he still has them yeah.


OP, my friend dropped her phone in the bath. Left it in a bowl of rice for a few days on top of the boiler. Works fine now. She didn't try to turn it on when it was wet though.

 

[Fudge]

The rice thing is a myth
Rice doesn't "suck" moisture out of things it just adsorbs moisture out of the air so it would be just as affective to keep it well ventilated with something like a lamp above to dry it

 

[JW-172]

I'm no tech wizard so will probably get shot down for this. But I've had a couple water drenched phones that were still recognised by a pc. They wouldn't turn on manually but would connect to a pc and allow me to get stuff off. May be worth a shot? As another poster said, water damage is odd as you never know what's damaged.

 

[dajones]

Don't those dodgy corner phone shops advertise ultrasonic repair? Don't know if its utter b****cks but suppose anything is work a try.

 

[DannyR]

the rice thing is a complete myth.

No it's not.

Put it in rice, in an airing cupboard/over a radiator. And leave it for a week or two to completely dry before considering switching it on.

That's all I'd try. Fingers crossed.

BIL missus did this and it worked a treat, two days in rice in airing cupboard then turned it on a few days later. This was about 18 months ago and she still uses it. Was on an iPhone 4S

 

[Munson]

The rice thing really is crap. It may or may not absorb water, but it's not like it's going to do it fast enough to prevent damage. One could argue it may speed up the drying process, but probably only by about an hour. Airing cupboard. One week. Or 6 days and 23 hours with rice. Lol.

 

[Addicted]

It entirely depends how much water is in it

I read some tests a few weeks back, and rice absorbed around 5mL of water after being in with it I think for 6 hours. If you can manage to get most of the water out already, it will help with the rest .

 

[ilovewilly]

No it's not.

BIL missus did this and it worked a treat, two days in rice in airing cupboard then turned it on a few days later. This was about 18 months ago and she still uses it. Was on an iPhone 4S

I had no rice so I put an iphone in a bowl of cashew nuts mixed with Trill 80/20 in an airing cupboard.

Similarly to rice, probably made absolutely no difference whatsoever and it was purely the airing cupboards gentle heat that did it, but cashew nuts are worth a shot.

My money would be on trifle sponge fingers.

 

[Typhoon]

Yeah, phone never turned back on! Someone has taken it to put it in a compound now (no idea?).

I think my bosses missus tried to turn it on after the washing machine but because I said 'I hope no one tried to power it up' she's not coming forward and saying she did because she's a bit thick.

Found out the phone was automatically backed up when plugged in to bosses macbook on the 21st December so it's not the end of the world - lost all of this years Christmas pictures but it could have been worse.

 

[Austin-182]

How has he took 6500 photos in such a short time, iphone 6 has only been out a few months?

 

[DannyR]

How has he took 6500 photos in such a short time, iphone 6 has only been out a few months?

Photos from the last however long he's had an icloud account.

 

[Typhoon]

How has he took 6500 photos in such a short time, iphone 6 has only been out a few months?

Since his iPhone 4.. iTunes back ups on to his 5, on to his 6.

Nature of work as well, he takes a fair few hundred photos a day sometimes.

 

[The Russian.]

How has he took 6500 photos in such a short time, iphone 6 has only been out a few months?

Itchy ****** trigger finger.


That is all.

 

[Rich..]

If he's used iTunes backups on all his phones why the worry about retrieving everything from this phone? Can't he just get a new phone and back it up from his iTunes? Sorry if this has already been asked haven't read all the thread.

 

[*Badger*]

Rice works.

When I spilt water on my 5 I turned it off straight away and threw it in the airing cupboard for about 5 hours, no better, in that time I read a few possible fixes, one was rice, the idea was, turn phone on, max screen brightness, disable auto lock and get it on charge, in a bag of dry rice for 72 hours. It worked, I still have a few dead pixels but I had a massive shadow over half the screen before it went in the rice. Having said that mine only had a cup full of water on it rather than a washing machine load full! But I also didn't notice it was wet straight away so still had a fair soak.