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Was caught in the rain on Sunday last week, and on Monday afternoon my phone stopped working. Was checking my email and the screen slowly turned purple, then black w/ the backlight on. I let it sit for a few days near some silica gel packets but when I plugged it in to charge the backlight did not come on. Here's the current status of the phone:

  • The screen is completely dark, no backlight.
  • Connected to my computer iTunes recognizes the phone, but says I need to unlock it.
  • The phone does not vibrate when the ring/silent switch is toggled.
  • Doesn't respond to headphone button, doesn't ring when called, iCloud "find my phone" does not report the phone as powered on.
  • Holding down power and home iTunes says the phone is in recovery mode.

To my knowledge it never directly got wet but the liquid contact indicators say otherwise. :(

Figuring I had nothing to lose, I opened the phone up, pulled the logic board and scrubbed everything with IPA.

There were signs of corrosion in the upper-right corner of the logic board near and on the screen connectors, and on the backside near the wifi module, see below. I thoroughly cleaned all these. I also removed the black cover on the underside of the logic board but found no signs of damage. I have not removed the EMI shields, but looking in the corners with a microscope there doesn't appear to be any signs of water intrusion near those components. I also took the back cover off the screen, removed the home button and selfie camera but found no evidence of water damage there.

Looking for suggestions on what to try next. Thanks!

enter image description here

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    My suggestion - it's liquid damaged; send it in to get repaired. Unless you have a BGA rework machine and the tech skills to diagnose and replaced components on the logic board, there's nothing you can do and defianatley nothing anyone can advise from looking at a pic
    – Allan
    Commented Oct 24, 2016 at 10:49
  • I have access to equipment that can do BGA rework.. was hoping for tips on what troubleshooting steps I should follow, common failures, etc.
    – moof2k
    Commented Oct 26, 2016 at 1:15
  • Update: I got the phone working again. I cleaned out the interior again with IPA, this time under a microscope. I then borrowed a friend's iPhone 6 screen and got the system back up. Replaced my screen with a new one and I'm back in business..
    – moof2k
    Commented Nov 7, 2016 at 23:12

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Here is the group I would have train you on how to repair micro electronics:

Their youtube channel is quite amazing in terms of the details and parts list and education/advice they offer for free. What their class offers is supervised training and not simply education.

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