Sound Problems
When people experience sound problems with there phone, they commonly confuse the speaker with the microphone.
SPEAKER problem- If you cant hear sound from the phone, or if the sound is distorted, the problem may be with the speaker.
MICROPHONE problem- If you can hear sound on your phone but nobody can hear you, the problem is the microphone.
If your phone recently got wet and you suddenly have a speaker problem, chances are that the circuit is damaged, rather then the actual speaker itself. Especially if there is no sound at all. If you cant hear any sound at all I would suspect the circuit is damaged rather then the speaker itself.
As with a microphone, lots of times if you dry the phone out, the microphone will kick back in and work once again, however to avoid permanent damage from occurring, its recommended to send the phone in for repair, even if the microphone kicks back in.
SPEAKERS
As you can see in the picture, there is a plastic yellow dust guard which has an airtight seal over the speaker. Even if liquid hits the speaker, its unlikely to enter the inner workings (where the sound is produced). Some speakers have a metal grill covering them, but under the grill, they have this same airtight seal.
So if the speaker fails after the phone got wet, that's most likely because the circuit itself is damaged- rather then the speaker.
This image shows what a phone looks like with the plastic covers removed. The red lines represent the audio circuit.
During normal operation, energy is carried from the circuit board, to the flex cable, to the LCD module, and finally up to the speaker.
If anything in this circuit is damaged, sound will not be produced.
After liquid makes contact with the phone, a process called oxidation starts. The longer it takes to dry, the more oxidation that will be produced. Oxidation is slightly conductive, so it effects the phones circuit by creating power problems.
As explained above, the oxidation process starts the moment the phone gets wet, and stops once the phone is dry. That doesn't mean that when the phone is dry, all damage is going to go away- it simply means that no further damage will occur. DRYING YOUR PHONE OUT IS NOT A METHOD OF REPAIR!
Lots of times liquid gets between the flex cable connectors. Its a very tight area so it doesn't dry out as easily, so lots of oxidation is created in this area (as shown to the left).
On that image, you can see the flex cable connector pins. Lets say the audio circuit uses pins 1 and 5. Since pin 5 is shorted out with oxidation, an audio leak is going to prevent any sound from passing to the flex cable.
Lots of people think that a replacement speaker will repair the phone, however after seeing this example, its obvious that replacing the speaker would not fix anything- because it is not the speaker that is damaged- its the flex cable.
The only way to properly repair the problem is to have the phone treated at a liquid damage repair facility, where all oxidation can be removed from the circuits.
Microphone problems:
The microphone circuit is much smaller then the speaker circuit, because all of the microphone's processes are carried out on the circuit board (doesn't have connections running through the flex cable). So the chances of your microphone failing is slightly lower, if you are going to have audio problems, its usually with the speaker, however the microphone circuit is still subject to damage if the right chips on the circuit board are exposed to liquid.
For best results, mail us your liquid damaged phone so all circuits can be inspected, to ensure that further damage will not occur. Or contact us if you have any questions that we didn't answer on our site.