Troubleshooting Touchscreen unresponsive after drying out

[cclazbah]

Hi All,

I have a Kindle Paperwhite third generation. It got wet a couple of months back - only briefly. I was surprised when it quit working but I stored it in the airing cupboard in a bag of rice since. Eventually it came back on. I can turn the screen on/off and hold the power button to restart but the touchscreen remains unresponsive. It's in aeroplane mode and not registered to amazon. If I connect it to my laptop it connects and I can add/remove books and the screen updates but still unresponsive.

Is it suitable to try jailbreaking it with no wifi/amazon account? I've never tried to jailbreak anything before. Any other ideas or tips.

Thank you!

[Junket]

Whether your Paperwhite can be jailbroken depends on the firmware version. Refer to the Open Sesame sticky thread in the sub-forum for details.

The latest Paperwhite 4 is waterproof, largely by virtue of having the circuitry conformal coated, where the circuit board is sealed with a plastic coating. Unfortunately your earlier model is not waterproof. Phones that get wet often have the same issue.

The 'put it in a bag of rice' advice is of dubious value. Often it's necessary to disassemble the device for better airflow, clean the circuit board of any water impurities that may deposited there, then put it in a low humidity cabinet with a desiccant like silica gel. And that may still fail if water has gotten inside an enclosed module.

If you're not willing to take your PW apart or have it serviced you could try using a hair drier to heat up the air in a sealable container - to remove as much humidity as possible. Then place the device and a generous amount of silica gel in the container and seal it for a day or two.

[NullNix]

Originally Posted by Junket

The 'put it in a bag of rice' advice is of dubious value. Often it's necessary to disassemble the device for better airflow, clean the circuit board of any water impurities that may deposited there, then put it in a low humidity cabinet with a desiccant like silica gel. And that may still fail if water has gotten inside an enclosed module.

Quite. It also very much matters what it's got wet with: if it's not distilled water, current flow may cause any deposited impurities to migrate, possibly causing shorts etc if they are conductive and there are enough of them.