Sort of Bricked iphone 4

[Lightfire228]

someone dropped their iphone 4 in salt water and im trying to fix it. it is running ios 5.1.1 and it was left in rice for 4 days. It works very well (physically) and i know that it can run. however, it keeps running in dfu mode or bricking itself, either one. everytime we get it working like a regular phone, it goes to sleep, and then we cannot get it to wake back up, and itunes does not even reconize it, nor does windows know that it is connected. i can get it into dfu mode (itunes says its in restore mode but the screen is still black without a backlight) by holding sleep + home button for aprox 10 seconds then holding home untill windows beeps saying it reconizes a usb connection. after that i try to restore, and weird stuff happens. if i try restoring it in this state, it sometimes does not go past the "preparing iphone for restore" phase usualy ending in an error. if i try running greenpoision (i know wrong firmware, i used it because it only requires dfu mode to start) and holding home+sleep when it turns on, i can get it into restore mode, then restoring always works, untill it nearly finishes but it (almost) always gives me some random error (1, 2009, and maybe 3194 but im not sure it happens here). when restoring it always turns the screen on. all the buttons work and the screen works. ive got it working right now and am going to use it and see if it hapens again. can someone plz explain why this is happening, and how to fix it, if possible
thanks

also, when i hit the sleep button it does not do this.

---------- EDIT ----------

It appears to have resloved itself with 2 successful restores, but i will see if it is overnight. it must have been a software issue when the saltwater made contact with the phone. i think that since the water was salt water, when the phone stored something into memory (it was on at the time), the cunductivness of the water distorted some memory, and cause the phone to brick itself, but i dont know if that memory would have been carried over during the restore. So my question is, can physical hardware damage cause a phone to brick itself, and still run completely normal when it is fully booted up?

[E63AMG]

Salt water is very conductive. You will have to take the phone apart and clean it with contact cleaner. Make sure that there are no traces of salt left behind. If you don't know how , get a professional to do it. Good luck!

[Lightfire228]

i dont have that option, nor do i have the money to pay someone else, but thanks for the reply

and its not working again

[demonknight9]

Originally Posted by Lightfire228

i dont have that option, nor do i have the money to pay someone else, but thanks for the reply

and its not working again

Then don't have a phone lol

You basically want an iPhone 4 for nothing? Not a nokia 3310 an iPhone 4 lol
Once the phone has been in contact with water it's just a matter of time until it does not work at all, I think that time is now when it comes to your phone. Throw it in the bin or try and swap it for something else.

[l8ter]

Salt water and electronics are not good, a hand reaches salt water on metal, especially if there is power in the game, the material is moved by electrolysis, on the other hand, salt is hygroscopic, ie it absorbs moisture from the air, so you do not really get it dry this way.

If you're lucky it's still only a bit little bit, "eaten" by the contacts and it works maybe for a while, maybe with a shorter battery life.

Sometimes you can save a device even if you rinse the battery / battery immediately, and the electronics with distilled water so that all salt is removed.

No pain no gain .If you have no money ,look for another phone to use .

Apple idevices are expensive and if you are unable to put up some money to clean the device you definately ppicked the wrong mobile to head for.

This is no personal attack even if it might sond like as if ,but no this is only the reality i was talking about.

If you buy an new iphone 4 you have to pay a minimum ammount of 350 - 500 bucks .

If you would have to spend 50 bucks for a proffesional cleaning , you still made a good pick .

But if you are unable to bring up that money ,don't say afterward's we didn't told you about the upcoming result in advance...

[Lightfire228]

thanks for the advice but i got it working with no lag or anything at all. its not crashing either. Im still trying to see if it will crash, but they already have another phone (the person who dropped it). i just want to buy it off of her if its working, for cheep. its no loss (money-wise) to me whether it works or not. but it would benifit me if it did, know what i mean?

either way, there is not much need for this thread anymore

thanks for the replies

[multipazz]

you should still wash the main board first in distill water and second in isopropanol alcohol

salt water is EXTREMELY corrosive and it will continue to rust if it is not wash properly

it may work for few weeks or months but it will fail sooner rather than later if not washed...

[l8ter]

Let him do it his own way ,some people are only learnig certain things if they experience things other people have talked and warned them before on their very own to learn that we are not just a

bunch of idiots ,that laugh our asses off if he was dat smart to listen on good meant suggestions or advices.


We have done our part here to help him ,that's all we can do for him,the rest is his thing to decide how to move on ..

[Lightfire228]

l8ter, you dont have to be a dick about it.

multipazz, i think it would be best to dip it in isopropanol, but i do not have the ability to take it apart, if thats what you were saying.

[l8ter]

Ok ,iam a dick and youre a nice guy with a soon even more damaged idevice .

If iam a dick for that ,fine.

You asked ,you refused the offered suggestions and now iam a dick .

You still got someting in da back to top this ? Imean this is hard to do but iam hardly to surprise anymore about what ive seen here yet .

I only statet the facts here .If you don't get along with the by you produced facts = fine !

But don't offend me dude.

Ps : A clue from your favorite dick , in our forum for the iphone 4 are video tutorials that show you how to disassemble an iphone 4 .also @ youtube and ifixit.com.

You know what ? It feels good to be a dick that doesn't depend on others to get my stuff PROPERLY done.

[fireishott1]

Originally Posted by Lightfire228

l8ter, you dont have to be a dick about it.

multipazz, i think it would be best to dip it in isopropanol, but i do not have the ability to take it apart, if thats what you were saying.

Woah, easy with the words pimpin, you just been here a for a short time. It's not called being a "dick" when people take time out of there day to give YOU help to YOUR problems and YOU don't take them.

I have fixed plenty of iPhones by taking apart and a nice bath with disteled water and isopropyl, once again you don't have an Idevice and come across a site like this with out having the nuts to get your hands dirty. If you are just one of the I googles this and found this site let me ask a question for my first post and then be a dick cause I don't like my answers. Then take YOUR problem some where else we are a great community that gives tuff love if you can't handle it BOUNCE and loose the address

[xsparky1x]

Well said fireishott1!!

[Lightfire228]

ok ill b the first to admit that my choice of wording was a bit inappropriate, and i am sorry. i didnt mean to offend, its just that your post seemed alittle offensive, and i should not have 'retaliated.' now that that has been said, i will take the phone appart when i have bought it, because they probably wont want me doing it if i havent bought it myself yet. and to make things clear, i thougt you needed a special tool to take it apart, because with ipods and iphones earlier than iphone 4 there are no external screws. that means that i would need a special tool to pop off the screen, but after youtubing it, thats not the case with the 4.
thanks for all the replies.

[Lightfire228]

This thread can be deleted, I got a new phone.