Please Help Diagnose an Audio Issue (FP3)

Help Fairphone 3
1

Hi there,

I have a Fairphone 3 and started having audio issues today after it was briefly submerged in some water.

For media like Youtube/Spotify I can’t hear anything at all now and also can’t hear audio during normal phonecalls. But the audio does still work for other things like the ringtone audio and during calls on “speaker phone mode” because it’s the lower side speaker. So I thought maybe the ear piece speaker was broken and the one at the lower side still works, but then shouldn’t YouTube/Spotify use the speaker at the lower part side of the phone? But media isn’t working.

Can you please tell me if the above makes sense and what part(s) of the phone might need replacing?

Thanks in advance

2

You don’t say what you have done since after submerging it.

You say broken but it may just be that it hasn’t dried enough. Was it clean water and have you put it somewhere with a strong airflow to dry ~ hairdryer on cold may help.

You also may want to take the phone apart and clean the contacts with maybe with isopropyl alcohol or any alcohol etc.

Failing all that see if you can find a Fairphone angel to swap the top module that has the loudspeaker.

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When drowning a phone or water getting into it in any other way, here is what to do:

#waterwiki
and maybe even more elaborate
iFixIT Water damage wiki
(more tips and articles on water damage on iFixIT)

  1. Turn off and DISASSEMBLE the phone (take out the battery) and leave it to really dry (for more than just a few hours) is the minimum.
  2. Cleaning the phone with Isopropanol (>90%) is advised
  3. NEVER use rice for drying the phone
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Hi there, thanks for the replies. The phone went into about two inches of clean water and was immediately disassembled and left to dry for approx 8 hours. No rice, alcohol or hair dryer has been used so far. Will try disassembling again to dry further.

I suppose my question was more about if it makes sense that the lower speaker is working for the ringtone and “speaker phone” mode but not for media like Spotify/YouTube. Would those tend to use different speakers on the Fairphone 3? Thanks.

5

I would have thought they use the same speaker as it is the larger and louder of the two, but I haven’t found an official text on speaker or microphone dedication ~ still looking etc.

6

Just an update that I took the FP3 apart again and removed the top module. Put all the pieces in front of a fan blowing cool air for a while. Put it all back together after another 24 hours and happy to report the speakers are all working properly again. Thanks all for your help

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