How to fix a waterlogged BB

My cherissed BB 8320 got water on it when I placed it on a restaurant table and the waiter tipped the water glass over it. After quickly drying it, the unit started to come to life again. Now, the unit generally works, except for the camera. Clicking on it, triggers the message: "Could not start the camera. Close other applications and try opening the camera again." The real problem is that the flash light is always on and it drains the battery very fast. In fact, the flash light remains on even when I turn the BB off.

I performed a master reset, which did not help. Also, I reloaded all applications with the same lack of success. I believe the camera unit is hopelessly damaged.

My questions are: Can I replace the camera? If not, can I somehow disable the flash light? (I did set the Default Flash Setting in the camera options to OFF, but that did not help). Any help will be appreciated

Make sure not to leave the battery in or try to turn your BB on because it will be a lost cause if it isn't already. Dry your BB in a warm place with the battery removed for 4-5 days. Also try placing it in a bag of dry rice to help draw out some of the water. After it is dried the camera may start to work. But do not try to turn it on until it has dried really good.

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The bag of rice works wonders and if you have a drawer full of old silica gel desiccants use those too (those little do not eat packets).

Good advice on drying, a tiny drop of moisture in the wrong place...

Pity they can not be totaly waterproof, but some of the most sensitive components should be epoxy encased.

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I found the pearl at least to pretty durable. Mine was totally submersed. I did a quick back up, transferred to an old BB I still had, while letting my pearl dry sans battery over an HVAC vent for a few days. Reverted back to pearl, and its been fine ever since. Your mileage may vary, but I find it hard to keep a good BB down.......

Dont necessarily blame the camera problem on the water. If you search the forum you will find tons of complaints of the same thing with no water mentioned. My camera stopped working 14 days into my trial for no reason with the same error message. It may be something else

Originally Posted by BBIronMan

The bag of rice works wonders and if you have a drawer full of old silica gel desiccants use those too (those little do not eat packets).

+1. Rice does really work great. It works the best right after the device gets wet, but it will dry up those tight spots you can't get with towels.

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We have a sailing family and people drop their phones into the drink fairly regularly. The good news is that when we are at the shore, there is a brisker at the cottage (metal bread box that heats at very low heat to keep your carbohydrates from getting stale quickly in the sea air). Empty out the crackers and pretzels and put your phone (minus battery and cover off) in overnight and say your prayers before bed and more often than not, we have found life in the morning.

Last night my daughter had a little, ahem, accident with her curve in the bathroom. She rescued the phone from the waters quickly and took it apart. No brisker here, though. My husband the engineer said we needed to get it dried out in an enclosed space heated to about 100 degrees. I put a space heater on the tile floor in the bathroom and put the phone, screen down, battery out, door off about 2 feet away in the corner. We let it go overnight, and in the morning we popped the battery in and it worked. It seemed pretty miraculous, because the screen had visible water inside it the night before. Display seems pretty good, and no obvious problems today. I will update in a month or so to let y'all know how it holds up.

I wish I would have known this a long time ago.

All of these are probably temporary solutions, once the water gets inside the effects (corrision) have begun and the ultimate demise might be inevitable(not trying to add insult to injury, just being realistic). Hope you have the insurance.

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Help - i spilt red wine on my blackberry curve, it turned on but keys are working propoerly, coming up with different symbols, can anyone advise?

help - i spilt coffee on my blackberry 8900 curve 2 days ago and everything on it works even though i had a bit of the trouble with the trackerball but i got it working again but i am having trouble with its bluetooth. it lets me send files to the devices already on my phone but it wont let me add any new devices to my phone. i want to know if there is anything around the house that i could use to fix it an how to fix it

http://forums.crackberry.com/f3/how-...en-wet-314679/ might offer some useful info

I think the key is, like many people have said, it must dry completely! My IT guy at my last job saved a 9700 that was dropped in water. He let it sit for almost five days all opened up, it started right up and everything worked.

When a blackberry gets wet you MUST take the battery out as quickly as you can without pressing any buttons. Let it dry for about three days. Get a loaner phone in the meantime.

I dropped my bb in a pitcher of beer during the NCAA championship game. I immediately took out the battery being careful not to push any buttons. Because it fell in beer, I put waterproof tape around the screen. With the battery out, I carefully washed the bb with distilled water. Then carefully flushed it with a dilute alcohol solution, this will help the water to evaporate and help prevent corrosion. I waited three days and finally turned on bb and it worked perfectly. Always remember to replace the battery though. A wet battery=bad time, even if it seems ok for a while. Replace the battery as soon as you can.

Unfortunately, if your camera was working before you got it wet, then it stopped after you got it wet, the damage is already done. My advice would make the restaurant pay for a replacement phone. Or, if you had insurance on it, get them to pay the insurance deductable.

My husband spilled a whole pint of beer on my Pearl which had been charging on my nightstand. I immediately tried to clean it off as it wasn't responding at all, and then took a hairdryer on the 'cool' setting to it (yes, I now know that's not recommended), however it did seem to come back to life and was working. Not knowing any better I put it back into the charger and it's not working again. The odd thing is that if I hold the trackball down and tap the screen the item I want will come up on the screen, so I was able to copy my contacts which hadn't been backed up using this method). The Pearl has been sitting sans battery in a container filled with rice now for 2 days and is showing no signs of improvement. I ordered a new Bold which should be arriving sometime this week. Any chances if I took them both into the store (Verizon) they might be able to recover and transfer my apps, etc to the new phone? If not I've lost everything since I'm a Mac user and wasn't aware that there was a BB back-up for Macs since last Nov. Thanks for any help/advice you can give (besides forcing my husband to use a sippy cup from now on).

Step 1: take out the battery
Step 2: submerge the BB in pure rubbing alcohol. If you already dried it, let it stand for a couple of days and occasionally swish it around.
Step 3: Let it dry for a couple of hours.
Step 4: Hit it with a hair dryer on moderate to high heat for a minute to evaporate any remaining alcohol.
Step 5: Start it up.

Never just take a wet device, dry it and start it up. That's an old wives tale and there's a reason it's so hit and miss. If it works, you got lucky. Nothing more.

And blasting a warm or even warmer hair dryer through the back of the device can't damage the electronics unless you leave it there for an hour. These things endure heat of at least 200C during assembly.

It's starting to respond after sitting in the rice for the past two days, although I have to press the trackball twice for the app to open/appear on the screen. Do you still recommend soaking it in pure rubbing alcohol? At this point since I've already ordered the new one I'd just like to be able to transfer everything from the damaged Pearl to the new Bold and not lose anything in the process. Thanks!

Originally Posted by cubiche

It's starting to respond after sitting in the rice for the past two days, although I have to press the trackball twice for the app to open/appear on the screen. Do you still recommend soaking it in pure rubbing alcohol? At this point since I've already ordered the new one I'd just like to be able to transfer everything from the damaged Pearl to the new Bold and not lose anything in the process. Thanks!

Always use the alcohol. drying it out and turning it on is the worst thing you can do despite what anyone tells you. Water will not damage electronics unless they are really high voltage, that's an old wives tale.

Minerals and impurities however will damage the circuits. Your goal is to clean them out of there before you restore power. Being that it already dried may mean you would have to take it apart and scrub it with alcohol first, but who knows if damage has already been done at this point.

Damage to the discrete components is not always evident, it may have just crippled some things. If you have nothing left to lose, try the alcohol or crack it open and scrub it with the same. Otherwise, maybe just leave it be.