Trackball light stuck on

[Guest bonne]

Hi all,

The trackball light on my Hero has been stuck on for a few days. It started when I got a few drops of rain on it the other day. I have a gel-coat cover thing which encases the back but the front buttons and trackball are still exposed.

It's still under warranty, so the question is do I send it back to HTC to fix (which means sending it O/S since I imported it originally) or do I just pull it apart myself and get whatever crap is in there out?

[Guest Dr. dre]

Hi all,

The trackball light on my Hero has been stuck on for a few days. It started when I got a few drops of rain on it the other day. I have a gel-coat cover thing which encases the back but the front buttons and trackball are still exposed.

It's still under warranty, so the question is do I send it back to HTC to fix (which means sending it O/S since I imported it originally) or do I just pull it apart myself and get whatever crap is in there out?

I think it will be better that you do it yourself because it just a small problem and you also know the cause of the problem, so I think you'll be able to fix it out yourself.

[Guest tdohappens]

interesting ... so i must spill water on my hero. i love the trackball when it lights up

my advice, don't take it apart yourself.

what if it's something you can't fix? (although the "crap" inside must be water but it should of dried up by now i guess)

what if you damage it when you try to open it? i'm not talking about major damage but something that htc will notice and would blame you for opening it. and of course there are the seals

just power off the phone, take out the battery and let it dry in a warm-ish [not hot] place

and try searching forums, maybe someone had this problem already [any htc phone with a trackball will do i think]

if my trackball was always on ... i would be so happy [southpark moment]

[Guest]

just power off the phone, take out the battery and let it dry in a warm-ish [not hot] place

and try searching forums, maybe someone had this problem already [any htc phone with a trackball will do i think]

if my trackball was always on ... i would be so happy [southpark moment]

Take the battery out of your phone and place the phone in a bag of rice and place on a radiator overnight. As the rice warms up any water in the phone will turn to vapour and be absorbed into the rice.

[Guest bonne]

Thanks for all the tips...

I'm pretty sure the water is gone now. I forgot to mention I took the back off, battery etc and blew it dry with a nitrogen gun and left it in a dry air box for a few hours (I work in a semiconductor lab) so it should be dry by now.

I have a feeling that the water might have washed some kind of crap down in there like a little bit of lint or paper or something from my pocket.

I took a look and there's a little "void" sticker over one of the screws so I guess they'd notice if I took it apart.

So tempting just to fix it myself, but if it broke for real later then I might not be able to get it fixed under warranty.

[Guest Higgsy]

Take the battery out of your phone and place the phone in a bag of rice and place on a radiator overnight. As the rice warms up any water in the phone will turn to vapour and be absorbed into the rice.

I like that one

[Guest bonne]

A colleague of mine once put a wet Wii controller into one of our vacuum chambers (which can easily go to 10-7 mbar) to remove the water by vacuum evaporation. Works really well.

I was tempted, but I'm not sure if all of the components (like the LCD) would handle a low vacuum very well.