How can I turn on my phone or get it to work again

Hi @garcewendall

The impurities in the water causes corrosion and provides circuit paths for the electricity which were not in the phone's operating design and could damage the components. The corrosion starts immediately and is ongoing until it is completely cleaned away

First do not try to charge or to turn on your phone and then remove the battery as soon as possible from the phone to minimize any further damage.

Then you need to dis-assemble the rest of the phone and clean all the affected parts using Isopropyl Alcohol 99%+ (available at electronics parts stores) to remove all traces of corrosion and water. If possible do not use "rubbing alcohol" as in some cases this is only 70% IPA or less, can contain additives which may leave residues and is not as effective. If you do have to use it check the label to verify the amount of IPA. The higher the percentage of IPA the better

Here is a link that describes the process. Electronics Water Damage

As always with electronics, especially surface mounted pcb be gentle when handling and especially when brushing away the corrosion. You do not want to remove any components from the board. Remove the shields that may be covering some components as the water may have got in under there. The ends of any flex cables and their connectors need to be cleaned as well

Hopefully after you have done all this the phone might possibly work correctly again.

Here is a teardown video that may help.

If this process seems too daunting, take your phone to a reputable, professional phone repair service, experienced in liquid damage repair and ask for a quote for a repair. If you decide to do this, do it sooner than later.

@garcewendall you have to treat it the same way as you would treat any other water damaged device.

Right now you should stop continuing to try to charge, sync or otherwise use your phone. This potentially can make a bad situation worse.This may further damage your phone.

The very first step I would take is to disassemble your phone. Use this guide Smontaggio Samsung galaxy A12 or this video to disassemble your phone. Now take a careful and close look at all components and connectors. Truly assess the damage. Look for major corrosion, evaluate the pins in the connectors etc,. Take a look at all connectors as well as cable ends. You will have to remove all the EMI shields from the two boards.. If you do not remove the shields, you are not cleaning the board.

Once you got the gross contamination cleaned, use 90%+ isopropyl alcohol and clean your parts some more. For a proper cleaning, use this guide. It was written for an Apple iPhone 3G but it is still pertinent to your phone as well. I can not stress the importance of a good cleaning enough, so do it over and over while replacing the alcohol after each cleaning. Do not use compressed air for the cleaning since that can drive liquid as well as corrosion particles into areas that will cause trouble later on. Do not use drinking water, if you need to use water, use sterile water. Also, you do not need to leave it to dry for a day. Isopropyl alcohol in the higher concentration will evaporate quickly and dissipate the water. The importance here is the cleaning. It would of course be best to get it professionally cleaned Do not forget to replace the battery. This is a must and not an option. It will fail if you do not take care of it now.

After that, reassemble your phone and re-evaluate. For as long as you have not cleaned your board and replaced the battery, everything is just a guess. Keep in mind that water damage is the hardest to troubleshoot and to repair.

On your model, I would choose to replace the charging board and the flex since those are common items to fail. If you are stuck at anytime, or come across an oddity, you can post pictures of that with your Question Aggiungere immagini ad una domanda

While you work on your phone, take lots of pictures. Once you are done with it, take those pictures and create a guide for iFixit. That will help the next person that has the same problem as you do. It's easy and fun to create these guides. https://ifixit.com/Guide/new The iFixit community will appreciate this.