How to save a wet cellphone & fix the "red dot of death"?

My life never ceases to give me things to write about, I swear. I guess you can probably determine why it is I need an answer for this one. And PS, if anyone has an old cingular phone with a SIM slot that i can have, give me a holler at: amander(at)thingsiask.com and we’ll be BFF.

According to Yahoo! Answers, and About.com, this is what one should do.. luckily I was smart enough to know the basics (aka take out the battery and don’t turn it on) before looking it up:

1. Take out the cellphone as soon as quickly as possible
2. Remove the battery
3. Shake it, shake it like a polaroid picture.. c’mon shake it, shake, shake it..
4. Absorb excess water with something dry like a paper towel. Keep at it until the paper towels are no longer wet.
5. If there’s water inside the display, press on it to get it out, then absorb w/ paper towel.
6. Put the cellphone and battery out to dry near a sunny window or something, but not somewhere dumb like the oven or a radiator.
7. Let it dry for 24-72 hours. (You can probably determine this by how much water you needed to shake out). If water is still coming out, don’t turn it back on.

If you’re crafty:

• Get a tiny screwdriver and take the cellphone apart, then wipe down the components with rubbing alcohol (they’ll dry faster and it won’t damage the phone).
• If the phone was already submerged in water, you can literally submerge it in alcohol without any extra negative effects, just quicker drying

Fun tips:

• If your cellphone was off when it happened, it’s much more likely to survive
• If it fell in saltwater, rinse it in fresh water first (aka you’re probably screwed unless you’ve got a bottle of poland spring around).

And if you’re feeling like hitting up the warranty.. just check for the “red dot of death” and you can be sure it’s not going to get covered:

Unless you want to try the advice of some water-damage hackers:

“What most people don’t realize is that the warranty usually covers theft and loss. Get your phone wet? Lose it in a gutter, trash bin, Leave it at a bar, give it to a homeless guy, etc. now they have to replace it.” – Isaac

“I recently got screwed by this because there’s a red dot/bar on both my battery and my cell phone. I merely traded my battery for my wife’s and peeled off her Red dot which is a piece of cloth/sticker and pasted it with a little super glue in place of my red dot which I had promptly removed. Worked like a charm.” – Josh

“Place a piece of satin finish scotch tape over your water damage sticker to prevent the water damage sticker from voiding your warranty. This sticker can usually be found under your battery. It’s a small round white sticker, possibly with dots on it. If this sticker gets wet it changes color and your phone is marked for water damage. Remove the tape if you need to ever bring your cellphone in for repairs.” – MobileMistress

“I’ve had white dots go red. What did I do, I removed the dot. Techs shot me down. So I bought a new battery(which comes with its own new white dot), did a swap put on my phone, and tada replacement phone. Now what I did was not wrong it’s my dot and I’ll do what I want with it(theres people on ebay who will sell you an entire reel of unpunched limus paper for cheap dollars). Now if a tech would do a half decent job and open up the phone like back in the day, they would probably find that my phones problem was, the effect of verizon screwing with the software and the UI of my phone. But they would never admit that. Just keep telling poeple to *228 send and update your phone(cough CRIPPLE your phone+add banners).” – Jason

If anyone has a cingular phone with a SIM slot that i can have, give me a holler at: amander(at)thingsiask.com