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Comment by qrbLPHiKpiux | Hacker News Reader

Re water damage: Louis Rossmann had a video up where he was repairing someone Mac. He was looking through his microscope while narrating, showing us what he sees. Said something like, "Oh, there is it. No water? Riiiight... People lie. People lie all the time. If Mother Theresa could get away with lying, she would."

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Right before Sprint bought Nextel, dooming both companies, I worked in what they called a “repair store”, taking apart phones and replacing bits and pieces (rubber keypads, boards, displays, most of the gadget)

We saw this all the time: my phone never got wet. Crack it open with the ol’ spudger, find a blue-green mess.

Had one lady bring hers in smelly like pee: her cat.

Had another pull it out of her cleavage: full of salty crystals and moisture.

I never went off that stupid paper, since the moisture of the PacNW air during rainy season is enough to set them off.

But yeah people treat their expensive, sensitive gadgets like shit

Is the moisture in the air in humid places enough to actually do damage too, though?

The last time I was in an Apple store I was in Seattle getting a MBA battery replaced. The Apple employee told me there were indications of water exposure but no apparent board damage, so the humid Seattle air was probably to blame. Thankfully for me, they didn't refuse to replace the battery because of this.

But that experience leads me to believe those water indicators are considerably more sensitive than the electronics themselves. If I had gone in there complaining about some weird issue instead of simply wanting a new battery, would the lack of apparent corrosion on the board still lead that Apple employee to conclude that the board wasn't water damaged?

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