My Fairphone 3+ is dead

Hi! Just yesterday it seems that my cell phone died :slightly_frowning_face:. It was raining and I was walking in the countryside with my cell phone in my pocket. When at one point I went to pick it up to look at something and it didnā€™t turn on. I noticed that my pants were damp, not very wet, and when I removed the back cover of my Fairphone 3+ it had traces of water. Immediately after I put the mobile and the battery separately in a bowl with rice.
The next day I tried to put in charge and the red charging light did not come on . So I decided to disassemble my fairphone more to see if there were any traces of water left insideā€¦ and yes, there was humidity insideā€¦ and the square that detects humidity was red. But it is also that the white squares that are distributed in the back of the screen (I will add some photos) had some like white powderā€¦ like some oxidation process or a short circuit and it seems to me that this is going to have little solution. I ve tried to remove the powder with etanol but its sticked.
Iā€™ll try to dry it one more day responding repeatedly with a dryer with warm airā€¦ and tomorrow Iā€™ll turn it on again to see how it responds.

Do you recommend anything else?

Thanks!

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Sorry I forgot de pictures. Here they are.

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Welcome to the forum.

Sadly rice is not a great idea, unless it is a bag so dust canā€™t get into the phone. The phone ideally would be in a cool to warm flow of air for a day or more, and disassembled.

It is difficult for air to get into the modules hence the time it takes.

Use the iFixit guide to disassemble.

You may find red square that indicate water ingress, if this is the case then the warranty is void and you can go past step 7 in the iFixit guide.

Further see this page of links to other cases.

https://forum.fairphone.com/search?q=water

On a positive note, my daughter dropped her FP3 in the toilet and after drying it twice over a few days it has been working for over a year with the red square.

Warm air is very humid, a wet pocket next to your body is a dangerous place for unsealed electronics.

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Thanks for answering and the advices amoun.
And what about the squares that I paint in the picture with red circles? Do not seems that there have been a short circuit or some chemical process on that? Maybe because I tried to turn on the fairphoneā€¦

No they are not the indicators, there are only two.

White squares when not effected by water.
Top left corner
Far right, midway

I know the squares that I marked arent the indicators. Im just saying that this squares I marked were full of a white powder when I opened, and I wanted to know whyā€¦ :frowning:

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Havenā€™t come across that ??

It didnt work yetā€¦ I opened the phone and there is something that maybe is the key. IĀ“ve seen in some conectors this white/blue powderā€¦ And in the other part of the phone, where the conection occures, like a solid glue that envolves the conections. I dont know of thatĀ“s normalā€¦ I send pictures.
Thanks for trying to helpā€¦

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If that is a/the problem maybe a small brush, stiff toothbrush could scrub it, be sure to such up any debris

I tried but nohing hehe. Thanks.
Anybody know where is the hardware where the data is saved in my fairphone 3+? I want to take back my photos and videos. I have another fairphone 3+ā€¦

OK, I got it. It is the Samsung KMRH60014A-B614 LPDDR3 with 64 GB. Is there any way I can extract this memory chip and put in another fairphone?

No, thatā€™s not an option. Maybe a data recovery company, can desolder the chip and read the raw data, but just putting it into a new FP3 wonā€™t work.
And the data is encrypted too, so even the raw data wonā€™t be helpful.

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