Blackberry

[Narendra]

Hello,
Is it possible to repair water damaged Blackberry Curve?
The key pad is messed up, can not do the unlock!
Please advise
Thank you.

[guy]

Is it fully dried out?

Try leaving it a few days in a warm place, buried in a bowl of uncooked rice. That will help draw out any residual water.

If you are lucky, trying to switch it back on while it was damp may not have killed it.

[MartyBartfast]

I took mine swimming in the Mediteranean a few years ago. It carried on working but the salt water had got into the battery terminals and dissolved them (it was still in my wet pocket for a couple of hours before I realised I had it with me) so when I came to remove the battery to dry it out properly the terminals were more or less gone.

Luckily it was a works one

[Narendra]

Mine is fully dried out and it works, the power is on but does not unlock and while typing the word, 'Blackberry', two figures show up,' b' and '£'

The chemicals in water could have jammed on the circuit board and short circuited the electricity. Watched the video how to dismantle it but its complicated so I'll just dip it in isopropile propanoll and see how it goes.

[Nuke]

I took mine swimming .... It carried on working but the salt water had got into the battery terminals ... when I came to remove the battery to dry it out properly the terminals were more or less gone.

If it has got salt (or any other) water in it you should not just dry it out. You should put it in a jug of distilled water asap (tap water if you've no distilled - until you can get to a Boots), with several changes, to get the salt out first, then dry in warm air for a couple of days before switching back on. Salts and impurities in water (even tap water) not only corrode but also leave deposits which cause subtle shorts even when dry, and continue to attract moisture from the air.

Soaking in distilled water is a last resort though, like it sounds Narendra needs; if you think it is just a superficial spill then see if it works after just mopping up.

[Narendra]

THank you very much for your reply.

I have dismantled the Blackberry and as you have suggested, soaked the logic board in distilled water and dried it and waiting for the 99% isopropyle to arrive. I want to dip the circuit board in it and then take it from there!

[Alex01UK]

Hello,
Is it possible to repair water damaged Blackberry Curve?
The key pad is messed up, can not do the unlock!
Please advise
Thank you.

Throw it in the rubbish bin. Eletronics and water mix fine, just rinse it off, take it all apart and dry it out thoroughly. It's only a prob if you drop it in the bog while having a slash. The urine corrodes the circuits. But if it's a Blackberry probs best to just flush it down the lav anyway, and claim on your insurance. There's a reason why Blackberry made the largest loss of any company ever last year! Better than aol! Remember them? %)

I've got a Samsung Galaxy Active! 1oo % dust proof can record under water! in HD! Whatever will they think of next. I started mine recording and flushed it down the bog......

[Narendra]

The Blackberry works again, fully repaired.
Cleaned the circuit
board with distilled water and Isopropyle separately, each time for about 20 minutes. Isopropyle is a dangerous substance, liquid, highly irritant and inflammable, needed to be careful there!

Changed the housing too.

Had taken this to two repair shops, both had said it can not be repaired.

But its done!
Any idea how to unlock this?

[Alex01UK]

The Blackberry works again, fully repaired.
Cleaned the circuit
board with distilled water and Isopropyle separately, each time for about 20 minutes. Isopropyle is a dangerous substance, liquid, highly irritant and inflammable, needed to be careful there!

Changed the housing too.

Had taken this to two repair shops, both had said it can not be repaired.

But its done!
Any idea how to unlock this?

How long did you spend fixing it? Anything is possible, it just doesn't make commercial sense to do certain things. If you budget £15 / hour and work out how long you spent, and then add the cost of the chemicals etc. Would you have paid that amount, if they had quoted you that? Also, a lot of places want to sell you another phone, so of course they are right, it can't be fixed.....

Also, a lot of places like to give you a fixed price to fix things, and they have no idea how long it might take. As well, as all this, whilst they are fixing your phone, they are losing money because they could be fixing somebody elses phone.... Of course, it might be that it can't be fixed after all, so they spend 3 hours trying everything, and you return and you're not going to give them money if it is not fixed.

When I wiped my hard drive by accident, and my backup partition, [blame Linux Mint Debian! I did everything right, removed my Linux partition, instructed Mint to use the empty space on my hard drive, and for some reason it used the whole hard drive, wiping my restore partition too, so I had to pay somebody because I didn't have a Windows disk] My backup dvds didn't work [typical!] and I'd misplaced my 16 gig usb hard drive, so this guy quoted me £15 to back up about 8 gigs of music, and reinstall Windows 7 Home Premium. It took him 2 days.....

[Narendra]

It did not take long, the propanol arrived late due to holidays.

20 minutes to clean, left it immeresed the circuit board with distilled water another 20 min left the board immersed in propanol and about 20 min to reassemble it. All in all about one and half hours.
And it does not matter how long it took! I am 64 and it has given me satisfaction that I can do it.

You could have installed the linux mint on virtualbox. I have Xp installed on virtualbox with ubuntu as host.
The processor should be supporting virtualisation.

[Alex01UK]

> And it does not matter how long it took!

Yes it does! For example, assume I'm running a business fixing mobile phones. I want £15 an hour for my time. Now, you spent an hour and a half fixing your phone, so assuming it would take me exactly the same amount of time. I would charge you £22.50 for the time I spent working for you. With the sort of problem that you had, there is no guarantee that the phone could be fixed at all. You were lucky.

For example, assume I spent an hour and a half working for you, trying to fix your phone, and it was still not working. At what point do I give up? It's like flogging a dead horse. So you return the next day to the shop, I invoice you for £22.5o, you pay, and i give you your phone back, and it is still not working. Are you happy with the service I have provided for you? Would you reccomend me to your friends?

> I am 64 and it has given me satisfaction that I can do it.
Good for you.

> You could have installed the linux mint on virtualbox.
> I have Xp installed on virtualbox with ubuntu as host.
> The processor should be supporting virtualisation.

I give up! Why do I bother? Yes, I could have installed the Windows 7 version of Virtual box, and installed Mint to a Virtual machine, but I am sure you can see how silly this would be. I had a perfectly working system dual booting Windows 7 and Ubuntu Studio, but I had a few issues with Ubuntu, and I wanted to try Linux Mint Debian because it is a rolling release. I read through everything, making sure I did everything the correct order.

ie I downloaded the Cinnamon iso and made a cd. I then booted up using my USB hard drive, and removed all the linux partitions, leaving free space on the hard drive. I then booted off the cd, chose the something else option, and instructed the installer to use the available free space.

For some reason though, it decided to use the whole hard disk, and wiped my windows and my backup partition.

[purplepenguin]

> And it does not matter how long it took!

Yes it does! For example, assume I'm running a business.

I understand what you are saying from a business point of view. But he's not running a business. It's a personal project.

I never throw old or broken tech in the bin. It still has uses. Could be harvested for parts/hacked into something else. I have a box of old Nokia bricks in the attic. I have one attached to my house alarm's siren. When the siren goes off the phone calls me to let me know the alarm is going off.

I bet the vid of your phone being flushed is funny is it on YouTube?

@Narendra

Where did you buy the Isopropyle isn't it a kind of alcohol?

[Alex01UK]

> And it does not matter how long it took!

>> Yes it does! For example, assume I'm running a business.

> I understand what you are saying from a business point of view.
> But he's not running a business. It's a personal project.

???? The op went into two shops and asked them to fix his phone for him....

> I never throw old or broken tech in the bin. It still has uses.
> Could be harvested for parts/hacked into something else. I have
> a box of old Nokia bricks in the attic. I have one attached to my
> house alarm's siren. When the siren goes off the phone calls
> me to let me know the alarm is going off.

This is one of the problems with Linux I think. If you use old / failing hardware, don't be surprised when it stops working. It's a bad advert for Linux. These days, new hardware is cheap, and it's just false economy using old discarded hardware. It's old! There's a reason somebody gave it you for nothing....

> I bet the vid of your phone being flushed is funny is it on YouTube?

Never saw the phone again... %)

[purplepenguin]

I thought you told him to throw it in the bin in your first post.. Like I said I agree commercially it may not make sense. But for a project why not.

Just because something is old is not a reason to say it has no use or is failing.

I have collected the phones and other tech over several years. It cost me ten quid for a bit of credit so the phone can dial out, less than a fiver for the relay and a little bit of hock up wire that I already had. Compare this to an alarm monitoring service. I'm winning.

Another example. I upgrade my phone every year. Why throw the old ones away just because the screen or case is a bit worn? I have a couple of such phones working as IP cams one watching the front door so I can see who is knocking before I decide whether to open the door or not. the other watches the back garden when the kids are outside. Other than the original outlay for the phone when it was the current model this cost me a small amount of electricity to trickle charge the batts. A lot cheaper than a new IP cam off Amazon etc.

If the phones should ever fail (the one on the alarm has been there for around four years.) It would take me a few minutes to swap it out with another one.

Using an old phone or router + data plan guess who has a WiFi hotspot in his car.

Where's the false economy?

[Alex01UK]

Forget phones, I'm talking about computers & Linux. Not phones running Android. Computers ie towers and laptops.