[Erik Sg]

Hello everyone. Due to some unfortunate circumstances I ended up taking an unintentional swim with my Key2. I took it completely apart and allowed it to dry, then inspected it before reassembling it and powering it on. The Blackberry logo appears on the screen like normal, and I can even enter the fastboot menu, so I know the screen functions. After proceeding past the boot logo the backlight remains on, but the screen stays black. After a while it would flash the backlight continuously at half second intervals with the navigation buttons on for about a minute, then turn off unless I press the power button again. I thought that it wasn't booting, but after leaving it for a while I happened to hear the notification sound! It turns out that it is booting into android, but without any video. I can unlock the phone with my PIN on the keyboard, then turn it on and off and hear the screen lock sound. I'm not sure why the screen would work before boot but not after booting, any ideas? I've purchased a USB-C to HDMI adapter to handle all my 2FA that I stupidly didn't save the codes for. Any other ideas of things I can try? Is this a software problem or a hardware problem? My first thought is software since the screen seems to work before booting...

[Dunt Dunt Dunt]

You can give it more time to "dry"...

My thought is it's hardware and something is faulting that the pre-boot doesn't care about, but that Android does... good chance that a screen replacement would fix it. But just a chance.

[boogywstew]

Hello everyone. Due to some unfortunate circumstances I ended up taking an unintentional swim with my Key2. I took it completely apart and allowed it to dry, then inspected it before reassembling it and powering it on. The Blackberry logo appears on the screen like normal, and I can even enter the fastboot menu, so I know the screen functions. After proceeding past the boot logo the backlight remains on, but the screen stays black. After a while it would flash the backlight continuously at half second intervals with the navigation buttons on for about a minute, then turn off unless I press the power button again. I thought that it wasn't booting, but after leaving it for a while I happened to hear the notification sound! It turns out that it is booting into android, but without any video. I can unlock the phone with my PIN on the keyboard, then turn it on and off and hear the screen lock sound. I'm not sure why the screen would work before boot but not after booting, any ideas? I've purchased a USB-C to HDMI adapter to handle all my 2FA that I stupidly didn't save the codes for. Any other ideas of things I can try? Is this a software problem or a hardware problem? My first thought is software since the screen seems to work before booting...

You could try cleaning the SIM card with alcohol and reinserting it. I dropped my Q10 into a bucket of flooring adhesive last year and actually pulled the back off, pulled the battery out and held the open back of my Q10 in running hot water immediately. I rinsed off the keyboard with hot tap water as well. It was that or nothing. If flooring glue starts to dry even a little, it turns into a bubblegum like waterproof mess. It is very similar to contact cement.
I shook the water out and used a hairdryer to dry it further. I used Q-Tips and alcohol to try and reach every place possible. I probably removed, cleaned and replaced the SIM card at least a half dozen times over the space of 2 - 3 days before the phone would work again. With each cleaning the phone came a little closer to working properly. I think there was glue residue in the SIM card holder and the only way to be rid of it was to keep inserting a clean SIM card.
Whatever I did worked. The phone returned to 100% within a week. That's my BlackBerry "kicks ***" story.

[Rootbrian]

Replace the screen, chances are the backlight is cooked. You can use a bright LED (Cree LED, not the cheapo type) flashlight to illuminate the screen, and if you see everything normally (abet, dim), that will confirm the backlight is malfunctioning.

Soaking the entire thing in isopropyl alcohol (99% and no less) would ensure all the water is completely displaced.

[Erik Sg]

You can give it more time to "dry"...

My thought is it's hardware and something is faulting that the pre-boot doesn't care about, but that Android does... good chance that a screen replacement would fix it. But just a chance.

No luck after giving it a few more days to dry. I've thought about replacing the screen, but if the problem ends up being another component I feel like I would've wasted the money for the new screen. I'll have to check to see what the return policies of the component sites are.

...Whatever I did worked. The phone returned to 100% within a week. That's my BlackBerry "kicks ***" story.

Wow, I'm surprised that worked! I'm not currently using the SIM card, and all of the water seems to be out of it by now.

Replace the screen, chances are the backlight is cooked. You can use a bright LED (Cree LED, not the cheapo type) flashlight to illuminate the screen, and if you see everything normally (abet, dim), that will confirm the backlight is malfunctioning.

Soaking the entire thing in isopropyl alcohol (99% and no less) would ensure all the water is completely displaced.

So the screen does work, including the backlight (not sure if I made that clear in my post). The thing is it only works before android boots. I can use the screen in the quickboot menu for example.

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Thanks for the replies everyone. I got the USB-C to HDMI dongle but couldn't get any video. I'm not sure if there is a prompt showing on the screen that I need to accept possibly. I am trying to enable developer options via screenshots to get the data off the phone, then I may go back to trying to get it working.