Samsung S4 VE I9515 wont turn on - Galaxy S 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Hello,
So let me give you a brief so you'd know everything - a few days ago, I'm gonna call it day 1, I walked under light rain with the phone in my pocket, it worked until the night of
Day 2 - started to lag a bit, it was like I was running some heavy apps and like the ram was insufficient. Restarted the phone, everything seemed normal.
Day 3 - Phone went off while was browsing. So I have to make a note here. I was running cm13 with android m and twrp 2..something and there were occasional reboots by itself rarely prior to Day 1. Also, I was using a supercharger (or whatever it is called, it is a charger that charges faster) for about a month.
So when the phone went off while I was browsing, it started by itself and stuck on the android loading. I restarted, cleared dalvik and regular cache - still stuck on boot. Flashed many times, changed the recovery to twrp, and still was stuck on rebooting and occasionally it didn't turn on. There were random occurrences of errors on flashing roms, which never happened before (for example, "cant mount system or data"). Within the time passing by, the phone started not to turn on when I tried to. By this time rarely got stuck on the first boot screen saying with the text "Samsung S4". Yesterday, Day 4, the phone never turned on, except one time. I don't remember doing anything special. I just pressed and held the power button and it turned on, but went off shortly after the android boot animation appeared.
Also there was times on Day 3, when I was trying to boot into the system, it got stuck on the android booting animation.
On and prior to Day 3, while I was charging, whenever it is on or off - I had the indicator light for charging. Now when I plug it in to charge - nothing happens.
To skip any unnecessary questions, I will make a short QA.
Q: Did you tried to boot into recovery/bootloader?
A: yes, nothing happens
Q: Any sign of life on adb while connected to a pc??
A: no
Q: Is battery dead?
A: I don't think so, but actually I'm not that sure. When I connect a separate led light to it, the led lights up Whatever, if it was a faulty battery when I plug the phone on the charger, it should've worked fine.
Q: Why don't you just buy a new phone?
A: I was planning to buy a new one, but after just 4 months when I have to renew my contract. I don't want to buy a phone off contract.
Q: Are you stupid, if you can't manage to fix it by yourself, why don't you give it to a repair?
A: I truly believe that the professionalism of repairers doesn't exist in my country via old experiences with them.
So in the worst scenario I will loose time by trying to fixing it and for 4 months I will use my old android phone.
In the best scenario, my almost 2 years old phone will revive.
Also, I have a multimeter - I can check the electricity. Just tell me what to check.
Thanks.

edbr said:
Hello,
So let me give you a brief so you'd know everything - a few days ago, I'm gonna call it day 1, I walked under light rain with the phone in my pocket, it worked until the night of
Day 2 - started to lag a bit, it was like I was running some heavy apps and like the ram was insufficient. Restarted the phone, everything seemed normal.
Day 3 - Phone went off while was browsing. So I have to make a note here. I was running cm13 with android m and twrp 2..something and there were occasional reboots by itself rarely prior to Day 1. Also, I was using a supercharger (or whatever it is called, it is a charger that charges faster) for about a month.
So when the phone went off while I was browsing, it started by itself and stuck on the android loading. I restarted, cleared dalvik and regular cache - still stuck on boot. Flashed many times, changed the recovery to twrp, and still was stuck on rebooting and occasionally it didn't turn on. There were random occurrences of errors on flashing roms, which never happened before (for example, "cant mount system or data"). Within the time passing by, the phone started not to turn on when I tried to. By this time rarely got stuck on the first boot screen saying with the text "Samsung S4". Yesterday, Day 4, the phone never turned on, except one time. I don't remember doing anything special. I just pressed and held the power button and it turned on, but went off shortly after the android boot animation appeared.
Also there was times on Day 3, when I was trying to boot into the system, it got stuck on the android booting animation.
On and prior to Day 3, while I was charging, whenever it is on or off - I had the indicator light for charging. Now when I plug it in to charge - nothing happens.
To skip any unnecessary questions, I will make a short QA.
Q: Did you tried to boot into recovery/bootloader?
A: yes, nothing happens
Q: Any sign of life on adb while connected to a pc??
A: no
Q: Is battery dead?
A: I don't think so, but actually I'm not that sure. When I connect a separate led light to it, the led lights up Whatever, if it was a faulty battery when I plug the phone on the charger, it should've worked fine.
Q: Why don't you just buy a new phone?
A: I was planning to buy a new one, but after just 4 months when I have to renew my contract. I don't want to buy a phone off contract.
Q: Are you stupid, if you can't manage to fix it by yourself, why don't you give it to a repair?
A: I truly believe that the professionalism of repairers doesn't exist in my country via old experiences with them.
So in the worst scenario I will loose time by trying to fixing it and for 4 months I will use my old android phone.
In the best scenario, my almost 2 years old phone will revive.
Also, I have a multimeter - I can check the electricity. Just tell me what to check.
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Probabily the rain damaged a part of your hardware. Did you solve?

If the battery is dead, the phone won't work.
The battery needs to have at least a bit of charge in order for the device to work, even if it is plugged in.
If the battery can't hold the charge, and the device uses more power than it gets, it turns off. I speak from experience.
These devices don't seem to work without a battery. Power goes to the battery, and the phone takes the power from there. Power doesn't go straight to the phone.
Anyway, I don't think a bit of light rain hurts the devices, especially if it was in your pocket. I walked through rain with my device in the pocket many times and no problem.
It looks to me that the hardware is failing. I don't believe that a faulty battery can cause a bootloop. I also don't believe that the power button causes a bootloop.
What I suggest would be:
1) Try going back to stock ROM.
2) Maybe try to get an S4 with a broken screen and switch the motherboards.

Related

Nexus 7 random reboot, screen jamming, making noise

HELP,
yesterday, I was using my nexus 7 for normal use, wasn't playing game, just browsing with chrome. the battery was 8 percent when I last saw it. I then proceed to charge it, but the thing suddenly just shut down itself. I thought I misread the battery percentage, so I charge it anyway. about an hour later, i checked on my nexus 7, turn it on, got to the boot screen, got to the home screen, use it for about 15 minutes, and suddenly, the screen black out, it was flickering like crazy, and making some white noise ish sound. I panicked so I hold down the power button and turn it off. I turn it on again, and after about 30 seconds, the same thing happened again. I was using motley's kernel with 520 GPU, and I thought, maybe my nexus 7 cant handle the GPU OC. So I went to recovery, tried playing with recovery for about a minute or so, but the screen didn't flicker at all on the recovery. So I flashed the 484 GPU version of motley's kernel. When I reboot to system, the same thing happened again. So I thought, maybe if I restore to my old backup, it would not be like this any more. so I wipe the data, dalvik, and cache, and I restore my old backup. But the same thing happened again, only this time, after I turn it off, it make a high pitched sound.
I waited for about 6 hours, and now when I turn my nexus 7 on again, it works normally.
So, what has happened to my nexus 7?
bump
I'd say it is the overclock. Graphic cards do some weird stuff when overclocked. You can burn up your GPU doing that and cause it to forever freak out. I always shied away from GPU overclocks.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda premium
would that cause any permanent damage?
keni.mardira said:
would that cause any permanent damage?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It should be ok if you reflash back to stock rom to make all the hardware back to reset mode. A warning always given when we try to flash rom with oc created.
i also experienced this one, also received a battery warning and then suddenly screen went blank. then same weird thing happened as the one above. I'm on paranoid android rom and i'm quite sure it's not overclocked or something. Was only able to get back to normal by holding the power button for around 15-20 seconds...
Happens to me
This will happen to me a lot when my nexus 7s battery dies, I plug the tablet in and then immediately try to start it up. It will work for around 30 seconds then look like an old TV without a signal. I am on stock everything, no rooting or custom Roms (yet). I always thought it had something to do with battery calibration being off and the tablet not having enough power to run, because it always works fine when I charge it before attempting to boot.
I have also noticed that every once in a while the screen will have a vertical line of pixels flicker.
Same thing happened to me yesterday...
I got the "low battery" warning and after some time the screen started flickering in many colors and there was a weird static noise.
I pushed the on/off button, but it wouldn't turn on again. After a few minutes of charging, I could turn it on again.
This isn't normal behaviour, is it? Shouldn't the N7 perform a regular shut-down when the battery has no juice left?
I'm on the rooted stock rom btw.
androidswagz said:
This will happen to me a lot when my nexus 7s battery dies, I plug the tablet in and then immediately try to start it up. It will work for around 30 seconds then look like an old TV without a signal. I am on stock everything, no rooting or custom Roms (yet). I always thought it had something to do with battery calibration being off and the tablet not having enough power to run, because it always works fine when I charge it before attempting to boot.
I have also noticed that every once in a while the screen will have a vertical line of pixels flicker.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1 bro. I am having the same problem. what do we need to do ? it is same with all nexus 7's . should we claim the warranty or just neglect it ? wat say ?
Aditya88 said:
+1 bro. I am having the same problem. what do we need to do ? it is same with all nexus 7's . should we claim the warranty or just neglect it ? wat say ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I faced the same problem. I dont know when the battery might have drained out, but on starting the tab on low battery, it suddenly started showing black screen with little grains and suddenly stopped with a noise. I charged, started the tab again while charging, and the battery reading stuck at 21% even after charging for 20 mins. Within 5 mins, it happened again. Now after 35 mins of charging, I start it again, it boots normal, and now its reading the battery percentage in an incremental value (started with 22%) and now its again stuck at 23%
Is this a HW related issue? Or do you think it is more of SW related issue? If it is more towards the HW side, we better have it replaced. Mine is C70 model.
bump
just happened to me... it may have run out of juice... didn't turn on when I tried, so I guess it did... then I put it on the charger, tried booting it, went away for a sec and when I came back I also got this black screen with some flicker and a static noise...
will now try to charge it over night before trying again...
Nexus 7/Google problems
I received my Nexus 7 on Aug 21 after hearing the rave reviews. It didn't come with app for a camera, so I downloaded one.
The camera didn't work. I re-booted it & it worked this time. Downloaded Skype - whole reason for getting the tablet - to stay in touch with family that is far away. Tried to Skype - camera wouldn't work. Rebooted - worked this time again (getting tired of having to reboot for something I want to use to work). On Sept 2, sent message to Google inquiring about camera & app I downloaded. Only response - "thank you for contacting...blah, blah, blah - check out Q&A." All along, the tablet would shut itself down & reboot randomly (battery fully charged sometimes). On Sept 13, I shut it down & charged it. After a full charge, I tried to power it back on. Tried again several times that night & then the next morning. Called Google (who I bought it from). Told them I didn't want a piece of junk that wouldn't work. He told me it was past my remorse period. (The only remorse I have is buying their piece of crap instead of a reputable one.) I finally did get it to come back on, but camera hasn’t work since even after a complete factory reset. Any way – in order to get this one fixed, I have to “buy” a new one, then send back the old one & be reimbursed. Is this a legitimate business practice?
hi,
since today i have the same issue. did nothing special, just swichting from g currents to chrome. stock rom, no modifications, not rooted, everything original
n7 suddenly had a black screen(battery was at 28%). nothing worked, no powerswitch(10-30 secs). when connected to original power supply and cable, it boots up.. google logo .. glowing X.. lockscreen. then, approx. 30 sec later it turns off again(screen black). usb cable still connected. after some time it comes up again.. and repeats the procedure. after some cycles it stops, and when i reconnect the usb calbe it starts over again. sometimes, before it turns black, it shows a flickering screen and sometimes fizzling sound.
any suggestions?
I had this same issue right after the 4.2 ota update, after leaving it on charge overnight it seems fine now after a couple of discharge / charge cycles
Its like after the update it was over estimating the battery level
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda premium
Same thing!
I have a completely stock Nexus 7, and the EXACT same problems are happening to me too! The first couple of times it happened my tablet would reboot normaly. But now, my tablet won't boot up at all. Any suggestions on what I should do? Also, remember, I have no mods installed.
Happening to me too.My N7 shut itself down because of low battery a couple hours ago and I haven't been able to get it to boot since. When I plug it into the charger it shows a flickering screen like a tv with no signal but with less white flickers. I've tried multiple chargers and cables but I could only get it to boot up a couple times and both times it did not show that it was charging even though it was plugged in and the battery was at 0% so as soon as it boots up it shuts itself down again because of low battery.
So now I've got it on the charger, screen all a'flicker, waiting for it to get a charge but I've got a feeling its not even charging because, like I said, the few times it has booted it showed the battery at 0% and not charging.
I guess I'll try to leave it alone for a while and see if it will start up after being plugged in for a bit.
EDIT: I let it sit there and charge for about an hour or so (with the screen flickering) and I was finally able to get it booted. It said it only had 3% battery but now it seems to be charging as fast as usual.
devhen said:
EDIT: I let it sit there and charge for about an hour or so (with the screen flickering) and I was finally able to get it booted. It said it only had 3% battery but now it seems to be charging as fast as usual.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yup... I've let mine sit there turned off and charging over night... helped!
Just had a problem with the Nexus 7 not charging when battery was likely fully depleted. Putting a charge cable in was automatically booting the Nexus 7 up and wouldn't charge shutting down right after. Loops going on and off. What I did was plug a charge cable in and hold power+both volumes and now I believe I am charging at the bootloader screen. It stays on so I will leave it like this and if it doesn't resolve the issue I will try recovery once it is charged.
I've just started having the same issue. Has happened twice when battery gets to 8%, suddenly jumps to 0, shuts down, then after a few seconds restarts itself. Gets to home screen for a few seconds, battery showing 8, then jumps to zero, switches off and has flickering blocks on screen with static noise. This keeps repeating, only way I have found to solve it is to load into bootloader, then select power off. Device charges normally then and once charged works fine. I am unlocked and rooted but running stock 4.2.1, think I'll just have to return it for a warranty claim.
Based on what you experienced, the lesson here is your device can't handle the GPU over clock of more than 446mhz or it will do some crazy stuff.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda app-developers app

[Q] Nexus 4 turns off when unplugged with plenty of battery remaining

I was recently on vacation taking a "Photo Sphere" with my Nexus 4 and suddenly my phone just turned off. It didn't power down, it just suddenly was off. I felt the back of my phone and it was particularly hot right in the center of the phone. Since that event, my phone is highly unreliable when unplugged and will continue to immediately turn off when I either try to use the phone's camera, or sometimes: try to make a phone call, watch a video, and other random things. After the phone has powered off, it gets stuck in a reboot loop. The phone is bootable and works reliably when it is plugged in. When I am able to successfully reboot the phone, when plugged in, I can see that the battery has plenty of charge remaining. The phone will work for hours or minutes after it has been unplugged as long as I am doing very little with it.
Things I have tried so far have been rebooting into safe mode and formatting my phone with the stock Android 4.4.2 image. Both of these things have not worked out.
I'm trying to determine if I need a new phone if there is something else. Is there anything that would be indicated by a crash log and if so, how would I access that log.
Think it is a hardware issue
I can't help but think that this is a hardware issue. So, I just bought a new HTC One (M8). It is a fantastic phone. I am going to keep my glitchy Nexus 4 as a development/test device.

[SGH-I337 AT&T] Unmodified, Stock SGS4 boot loops, freezes, graphical bugs HELP!

Hello everyone!
My parents contacted me asking for help with some phone issues that I thought would be minor but this is now something I have to submit to you guys because I just don't know how to tackle this issue;
I've got an unmodified, completely stock AT&T Samsung Galaxy S4 that has been owned since launch. My parents were initially complaining about how the phone stopped charging and wouldn't turn on. I thought, "Easy, dead battery, it's been 3 years so how could it not? It might not be delivering enough voltage for the SoC..." but i'm not sure that's the full story which is why I want your guys' opinion since this place is a wealth of knowledge.
Things that are known:
When you charge the phone, the basic "battery charging indicator" that is shown when Android is not booted into or powered on freezes, or sometimes does not detect a battery so does not even turn on. Doing battery pulls seems to change how the phone responds. This is what my parents were experiencing. I thought, either dead battery, dead micro-USB cable, AC adapter, or charging circuit within the phone. Since this was obviously a big job, I took the phone back home for this weekend to play with and now this is what i'm experiencing.
So I got the phone to charge using one of my AC adapters for some reason, despite using the supposed broken charging cable to transfer data successfully without corruption using my own phone (LG G2) to confirm if it was just the cable. So now the SGS4 has a battery that is 100% charged, I turn on the phone and tried various methods to get the phone to boot successfully back into android. The first obvious one was to boot into safe mode using PWR, letting go of PWR, and then pressing VOL UP. It booted ONCE or TWICE successfully into safe mode into android, it shut off after 5 seconds being into the system due to low battery. This was BEFORE I was able to successfully charge the battery to 100% with my AC adapter but has failed to boot since.
Now since I've been failing to get into safe mode as when I boot the phone up, the phone freezes or has graphical glitches at the Samsung post/splash logo as seen here:
After some desperation, I considered using KIES/Odin to reflash, but mostly I tried going into download mode to see if the phone would even go into it by doing PWR + VOL DOWN. It did get into download mode but it froze/restarted forcing a battery pull and ever since then I keep getting occasional error messages such as "System software not authorized by AT&T has been found on your phone.", or this screen with a Samsung logo and an open padlock. I notice sometimes that when I'm at this open padlock screen, it sometimes begins to boot into the system but quickly freezes when it plays the boot jingle:
At any rate, I ordered a new battery but I fear this might be EMMC corruption or just something I don't quite understand. The phone has valuable information that I have to recover despite my parents CANCELLING a backup of the phone, they failed to heed my due diligence and are now freaking out about the data (photos, contacts, etc). I just need the phone to boot so I can make a nandroid backup, export the contacts, transfer media off the phone and wipe this thing and start anew. However i've already let them know that it might not be possible. The most important thing is to get this thing out of this soft-brick?
Please help because I have no idea where to steer this ship from here on out aside from waiting to receive that new battery and hope these instability issues are caused by low voltage. I had an SGS2 which had the crazy EMMC bug so I'm hoping its not EMMC corruption.
Thanks for your time everyone! I'll update this thread to reflect new information as I play around with the phone.
Edit: Here is a video, I go through a lot of the same information posted in this thread but here it is.
https://youtu.be/EXUKU68CyQQ
Possible loose connection inside the phone? Was the phone every bumped, dropped, or exposed to moisture?
audit13 said:
Possible loose connection inside the phone? Was the phone every bumped, dropped, or exposed to moisture?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not that I know of. I'm going to check the water damage stickers if I can to ensure that's not the case but i've been told it was sudden. It had been dropped once before but had been working fine for quite some time up until recently.
Maybe the effects of the drop and manifesting themselves now?

Droid Turbo 2 Sudden Shutdown + Boot loop

TLDR: are there any diagnostics I can do to verify that my battery needs to be replaced?
A few days ago, I turned on my phone to check the time and a half-second later it suddenly and instantly shutdown. I was not able to restart it at all. When I got home and plugged it in, it began a continuous boot loop, with only the motorola splash screen displaying, then nothing for a few seconds, then back to the splash screen over and over.
Fortunately, I was able to get to the"AP Fastboot Flash Mode" menu. I couldn't do anything from there on the phone itself though; every option just went into the boot loop again. I was able to get a fastboot connection with my PC and so reflashed the phone successfully.
After reflashing, it went into the boot loop again. I began looking for more solutions online and wasn't paying attention, but sometime in the next 5-10 minutes it made it to the login screen! I re-set up my phone and all seemed to be working fine!
Until the next day. I tapped an app and instead of opening, the phone immediately shutdown and went dead again. Took it home, plugged in, and it went into the boot loop again.
Anyway, I've read a few threads on here and elsewhere that the culprit may be the battery. I would like to have more than just a hunch before I shell out the money and time to replace the battery -- is there any way I can verify that the battery is indeed the problem? I didn't seem to be having any battery problems before - charging and usage seemed fine. I did drop the phone rather hard a few weeks ago, but didn't seem to effect anything (short term at least).
Also, could using a non-Droid Turbo 2 charger affect battery life? I actually got the phone used and didn't get the official charger with it, so I've been using just a random leftover one for ~6 months.
TIA!
walter77d said:
TLDR: are there any diagnostics I can do to verify that my battery needs to be replaced?
A few days ago, I turned on my phone to check the time and a half-second later it suddenly and instantly shutdown. I was not able to restart it at all. When I got home and plugged it in, it began a continuous boot loop, with only the motorola splash screen displaying, then nothing for a few seconds, then back to the splash screen over and over.
Fortunately, I was able to get to the"AP Fastboot Flash Mode" menu. I couldn't do anything from there on the phone itself though; every option just went into the boot loop again. I was able to get a fastboot connection with my PC and so reflashed the phone successfully.
After reflashing, it went into the boot loop again. I began looking for more solutions online and wasn't paying attention, but sometime in the next 5-10 minutes it made it to the login screen! I re-set up my phone and all seemed to be working fine!
Until the next day. I tapped an app and instead of opening, the phone immediately shutdown and went dead again. Took it home, plugged in, and it went into the boot loop again.
Anyway, I've read a few threads on here and elsewhere that the culprit may be the battery. I would like to have more than just a hunch before I shell out the money and time to replace the battery -- is there any way I can verify that the battery is indeed the problem? I didn't seem to be having any battery problems before - charging and usage seemed fine. I did drop the phone rather hard a few weeks ago, but didn't seem to effect anything (short term at least).
Also, could using a non-Droid Turbo 2 charger affect battery life? I actually got the phone used and didn't get the official charger with it, so I've been using just a random leftover one for ~6 months.
TIA!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try the apps such as Ampere which shows battery info.
I don't think so Non-Turbo charger can lead to affect the battery life but using a cheap charger does.

Help! Essential PH-1 no longer powers on?

Essential PH-1 has continued to be my daily driver for almost 5 years now.
I haven't backed up the data, not even to GDrive. Yes, quite dumb. I finally found time to start to look into backing up recently, with the ADB route.
For the past 2 or 3 years, rebooting was problematic where it'd take 5+ minutes or required pressing the Power button down for a second buzz from off state, releasing it only when the animation with small circles would start. It'd then boot up to completion.
Recently, after fully charging and booting up from off state, it started showing new symptom where it'd be stuck indefinitely the Essential logo splash screen. At that time, I was still able to go into bootloader/recovery menu.
I rebooted and let it continue stuck on the Essential logo, hoping maybe it'd just take longer. After an hour, I forced it to shut down and rebooted again and put it aside to wait for it.
Within less than 2 hours, I noticed the display went blank/black.
After that, regardless of how long I press the Power button, the phone would never wake up anymore.
Plugging in the Essential OEM power adapter also does not even show the LED turning on. Can't tell if the USB port was busted or not but would be surprised if it did as charging and data transfer had always gone through a magnetic plug that's permanently plugged-in to the USB port.
Bootloader was never unlocked and, as such, also never attempted to gain root access to Android.
It was running the official Android 10 ROM from February 2020 (?).
There was no smoke or any unusual smell.
1. Is this a known/previously reported problem? I'd like to read on what others who experienced the same may have tried to resurrect.
2. If, let us say, the problem is actually with the battery, would the phone not show any signs of life when plugged-in to power adapter?
3. What are the chances some other electronics may either have slowly deteriorated or have gotten fried inside that casing?
4. If it's never powering back on, are there instructions on how to de-solder the internal storage component to try to recover the data?
5. What other possibilities can cause an Android device to not even show any signs of life?
6. Any other ideas?
Appreciate help from the community, including any pointers even if referring to a different Android device.

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