[3FiddyZ]

Hi guys im new here. I have a Blackberry pearl 8100 and there was a snowstorm and it fell out of my pocket when i was getting out of my car... After an hour i went back to my car and noticed it on the ground in the snow, thank god nonone claimed it.

Anyway, i dried it, i left the battery in it after wiping it down dry, however, it was turning on fine but the buttons and track ball were not working at all, i was able to recive calls but i could not take them because the buttons would not work.

I let it sit for a couple of days and now when i plug the charger into the phone, i get a red light in top right corner, and a white screen with a picture of a battery and lightning bolt on it. The phone will not turn on. Do you think i need to replace the battery and it will work?

I also took it apart and wipped the chipset board down clean, it looked fine though...

I appreciate any help you can give me...thank you

[TheBigNewt]

I assume you can't connect it to DM to wipe it, eh? And I assume the buttons still don't work. If so I have a feeling it's toast. You could try for a refund and hope that the water sensor didn't get triggered (but it probably did). Have you thought about upgrading to the 8800 at all?

[paulmac]

I agree, it is probably lost. One of the most important things you can do for any cell phone if it gets wet is get the battery out as quickly as possible and then dry it out or let it dry out. It is not the water that is the issue, it is the electrical current combined with the water that does the damage. In your case the BB was sitting in the slush for an hour, turned on. Odds are the damage was done before you could get the battery out.

[sickmunkeyz]

If your pearl is from cingular..i will buy the phone broken or just the housing.

[Dr. Jerry]

I dropped my Pearl on the concrete getting it out of the case with the same result. I lost all button function. The phone would ring...but I couldn't answer it. I plugged it in and got the same screen you have. I don't think it was a water issue...as the same thing happened to me on the dry concrete. I called Cingular and they told me toast. I sent it in and got a new one.

[canonbomb1987]

Are the water sensors triggered?

[vherrera0079]

Similar thing happened to me. I went skiing and the weather was pretty harsh, about 15 F and a heavy snowstorm, and I made the mistake of answering a call. The blackberry got wet with snow and the buttons stopped working, or would do the wrong thing. I *immediately* took out the battery and put the blackberry to dry underneath an incandescent table lamp. Every 15 minutes or so, I put in the battery to check how it was doing, and the buttons slowly started coming back. A couple of hours later the blackberry was perfectly fine.

Moral of the story: take out the battery right away.