He Said We Saved His Life. It Was a Phone From 2015.Water-Damaged iPhone 6s — Short Repair and Display Power Fix, Downtown Los Angeles
It went into a kitchen sink. By the time it reached our counter it was bone dry and completely dead — no screen, no response, nothing on the charger. He wasn't attached to the phone. He was attached to what was on it, and he said so twice before he left. That changes how you work on a board: you aren't restoring an eleven-year-old handset, you're buying somebody one more chance at their own photos.
No charging current, but the bench supply pulled close to 1 A
Shorted parts removed, then the display power rail restored
Under two hours of bench work once it was opened
The job, on one card
What came in, what the meter said, and the two separate faults the water left behind.
| Model | iPhone 6s |
|---|---|
| Problem | Dropped in a kitchen sink. Dry by the time it arrived and completely dead — no display, no response, and no charging current on the cable |
| First reading | On the bench power supply the board pulled close to 1 A. A genuinely dead board draws almost nothing, so that number doesn't mean the end — it means a short, and a short can be found |
| Fault 1 — the short | Corrosion visible in several places. The thermal camera showed which parts were heating under power; those components came off, the short disappeared, and charging current settled to a normal, steady draw |
| Fault 2 — no picture | Still a black screen. Diode-mode readings at the display connector were normal, so the connector and its lines were healthy. The 5.7 V rail that feeds the screen was missing at the capacitors and filters around that connector. Replaced U4000, the part that supplies it, and the phone powered up |
| Data | Priority for this customer over the phone itself — it came back with the device |
| Price | Quoted after a free diagnosis · 424-270-4369 |
| Bench time | Under 2 hours of actual work · it waited five days for a free bench |
| Difficulty | Water damage is never one fault4 / 5 |
| Tech's note | He told me at the counter that the phone didn't matter, the data did. I
hear that a lot and it has never stopped landing. A water-damaged board isn't one repair — it's however many
repairs the water decided to make, and you don't learn the count until you're inside. This one had two: a short
pulling a full amp, and a missing display rail hiding behind it. The second one can't even show itself until the
first is fixed, which is exactly how boards like this get written off by someone who stops too early. I'll be straight about the part I'm not proud of. It sat here five days before I could get to it — we were buried, and this is the kind of job I don't want to start and then put down. When I finally sat with it, the whole thing took under two hours. He picked it up a little while ago, and on his way out he said we'd saved his life. He meant the photos. I know he meant the photos. I'm still taking the rest of the day in a good mood. |
What "it got wet and died" actually means
Dry is not the same as fixed, and dead is not the same as finished.
Drying it out isn't the repair
Air and rice remove the water. They do nothing about what the water started. Corrosion keeps working on pads and traces long after the outside feels dry, which is why a phone can seem fine for a day and then quit. Dry and dead usually means the damage is already done and simply waiting to be found.
One number separates dead from shorted
Put the board on a bench supply and watch the current. A truly dead board draws almost nothing. This one pulled close to a full amp, which means power is going somewhere it shouldn't — and somewhere is a place you can locate with a thermal camera. That reading is the difference between "it's gone" and "there's work to do."
Water rarely breaks one thing
Clear the short and the screen can still stay black, because that's a different circuit with its own supply. Each rail gets checked on its own terms — connector readings first, then the voltage that's supposed to arrive there. Stopping after the first repair is how a repairable board gets declared dead.
Two faults, found one at a time
Kill the short first, because nothing downstream can be trusted until it's gone.
The amp that shouldn't be there
Corrosion was visible in several places, but visible isn't the same as guilty — plenty of ugly-looking boards work fine. Under power, the thermal camera is what names the culprit: whatever is swallowing that current gets warm, and it gets warm first. Those parts came off the board, and the short went with them. Charging current settled into a normal, steady draw.
Then the screen, which was its own problem
Power was behaving and the screen was still black. Diode-mode readings at the display connector came back normal, so the connector and its lines were fine — that rules out a whole category of damage in about a minute. Next is the supply: the 5.7 V rail that feeds the screen should be present at the capacitors and filters around that connector, and it wasn't there at all. U4000 provides it. New one on, and the phone came up.
It turned on, and the data came home
Two faults, under two hours, and a phone that was written off when it arrived.
Back on, with everything on it
Short cleared, display rail restored, screen lit, and the phone running on its own again. For this customer the handset was never the point — the photos and messages on it were, and those came back with it. An iPhone 6s is eleven years old and worth very little on paper. What's stored on it is worth whatever it's worth to the person who owns it, and that is the number we actually work against.
What people ask about a water-damaged iPhone
Straight answers, as always.
My iPhone got wet and won't turn on. Is it worth repairing?
Often yes, and the honest answer comes from a meter rather than from looking at it. A board that draws no current at all is a harder case; a board that pulls current it shouldn't is shorted, and shorts can be traced and repaired. We check that before quoting anything, and the diagnosis is free. Here's another water-damage repair from our bench.
Can you get the data off it?
That's usually the real goal, and it's the one we aim at first. If the board can be brought back far enough to boot, the data comes back with it — that's what happened here. When a board is too far gone to run on its own, data work becomes a different and much harder job, which is another reason not to keep powering a wet phone on while you hope.
How much does water damage repair cost, and how long does it take?
Water damage isn't one fault, so we don't quote it sight unseen. We open it, find what's actually wrong, and then tell you the price and whether it's worth doing. The bench work on this one was under two hours; the honest range is same day to a few days depending on how many faults the water left and whether parts are needed. Diagnosis is free and there's no charge if we can't fix it.
I put it in rice for two days. Did that help?
Not really. Rice dries the parts of the phone you can reach, not the board under the shields, and corrosion continues the whole time. It also costs you the days when the repair would have been easiest. It isn't fatal — this iPhone 6s arrived completely dry and still came back — but sooner is always better than drier.
It's an old iPhone 6s. Do you still work on those?
Yes. Board-level repair doesn't care how old the phone is, and the people who bring us old phones are usually the ones with the most to lose on them. If a shop tells you a model is too old to look at, that's a business decision, not a technical verdict. See a dead device brought back by replacing one chip.
More board-level repairs from Downtown LA
Same bench, same philosophy, different devices.
Dropped your phone in water in Los Angeles?
Don't charge it, don't rice it, bring it in. Free diagnosis, board-level water damage repair, and the data treated as the thing that actually matters. FIXSTORY DTLA, 810 S Flower St, Suite B, Los Angeles. Booking ahead is best, but walk-ins are welcome — call 424-270-4369 and ask us anything.