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Hello XDA, i've heard (and know) that you guys are quite good with phones, and was hoping someone would be able to help me out, i can't find anybody with the same problem.
So here it is:
Since i've been skiing, often when i lock my phone the screens keeps on coming on and staying on the lock screen, and just won't turn off, so it's an obvious baterry drainer and pontentially dangerous for the screen, so i've resosrted to putting a black background image.
Also when the battery gets "critically low" my phone comes up with the message and also vibrates, but keeps on repeating in, just doesn't stop !
I've also noticed that when this problem occurs when i go into battery saver in options the second box constantly flashes as does the estimate remaining time and time since last charge.
My battery is now really bad when this happens, but supprisingly is ok when this doesnt happen.
Has anybody else had this problem, or something similar? and could someone give me some advice (factory reset? which i don't really want to have to do :/ )
Thank You
and my phone is generaly a bit buggy when this happens, like suddenly turning off etc.
Since this happened after skiing, I'm guessing your phone got a bit wet, probably around either the power button or the battery (or both). You can try drying it out by putting it in some warm dry rice (an excellent dessicant) but that's something you do within minutes of it getting wet, not days, if you want to avoid permanent damage.
You could also try taking the battery out and carefully inspecting it, comparing it with the battery from another phone, etc. If it appears damaged in any way (swollen, discolored, corrosion on the contacts, etc.) you could try replacing the battery and seeing if that helps. You could also replace the phone, of course, but you'll probably have to buy it at retail price unless you've got insurance that covers liquid damage.
You could try a factory reset before replacing the phone, since you'll lose all your data anyhow, but this doesn't sounds nearly as much like a software problem as it does like a hardware problem. However, getting your data off is actually possible, using a tool like WP7 Root Tools (which is really awkward to use for backup, but it can be done). If you wait the next however-long for Heathcliff74 to release a version of Root Tools that supports elevating other apps, you'll be able to use a data backup tool that I wrote last year and am modifying to work via any full-permissions access.
Thank you for the reply.
The same problem actually happened in November also, but quickly went back to normal, but it's been a week now so it's getting a bit annoying.
I just rang samsung and she obviously said do a reset, so i think i'll do this but this will erase everything, i would just like to keep my contacts and messages tbh.
Havn't got time do research that yet but i'll look after, unless someone points me to something first, and i'll post back.
Thanks
You can make a backup of the phone before hard-reset. That way, if the reset doesnt' fix anything, at least you can restore the backup and be back where you were before deciding on your next step.
I can't get the Backup program to work, http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1103011
Keep getting "Le format de la chaîne d'entrée est incorrect."
And if i try the in the command prompt i just get a an error saying "updatewp.exe stopped working"
is there any other way of backing it up?
Thanks
Soo I have a big problem,
My sidekick 4g suddenly shut off and directly went into Download Bootloader. It would only stay in that window for about 3 seconds then restart. So I tried doing Odin but it would never stay in download mode long enough. After a while, the phone stopped turning on and now it does not even charge. I believe I have hard bricked the phone. When I leave it on the charger. I see no indication that it is charging but the battery gets warm. Is there any hope for me to fix this phone?
Please let me know ASAP. Thanks!
helodavelo said:
Soo I have a big problem,
My sidekick 4g suddenly shut off and directly went into Download Bootloader. It would only stay in that window for about 3 seconds then restart. So I tried doing Odin but it would never stay in download mode long enough. After a while, the phone stopped turning on and now it does not even charge. I believe I have hard bricked the phone. When I leave it on the charger. I see no indication that it is charging but the battery gets warm. Is there any hope for me to fix this phone?
Please let me know ASAP. Thanks!
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Click to collapse
Does the device even show up as a USB vendor/product id? See that with `lsusb` on Linux or the Device Manager on Windows.
It might be worth trying ayoteddy's FOOL PROOF WAY TO GET INTO DOWNLOAD MODE here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1186954
Perhaps if you trigger the phone to enter download mode that way, it won't just continually reboot...
Beyond that, I think you'll be looking at hardware-level fixes. If the phone isn't literally fried, it can almost certainly be repaired with JTAG. But that would involve a JTAG interface which I am guessing you don't already have.
You might be able to find someone who will JTAG for you for free, or for a fee. A local phone repair shop might have this capability.
If you're damn good with a soldering iron, or have a friend who is, there's also AdamOutler's "UnbrickableMod":
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1347984
That mod is not for the feint of heart, you need to take the phone almost entirely apart and do soldering work within the area of a grain of rice... but it is possible.
But all the options assume that the only problem with the device is a bad flash -- damaged boot loader, bad kernel/recovery, etc. The way you describe your phone's demise, a hardware failure certainly seems like a possibility.
Good luck, I hope your device is not dead.
FWIW, SK4G goes for ~$100-200 on eBay these days depending on condition. Locally you could probably find lower prices.
Wow thanks for all the info but i tried ayoteddy. Since the phone doesnt even power on , i cant do what teddy says. And no, after a few failed odins, the comp doesn't even see the phone. But that's also because the phone doesn't turn on. I even put a charged bat. Still no go
helodavelo said:
Wow thanks for all the info but i tried ayoteddy. Since the phone doesnt even power on , i cant do what teddy says. And no, after a few failed odins, the comp doesn't even see the phone. But that's also because the phone doesn't turn on. I even put a charged bat. Still no go
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Click to collapse
It really sounds like a hardware failure.
If you are committed to trying everything to rescue your particular device, you could double down and try a new battery. You risk wasting whatever money you spend on it, of course.
If I recall correctly, the SK4G can't operate properly without some battery current, even when plugged into USB. And the other symptoms seem to leave the door open on battery problems -- sudden power down, brief signs of life which eventually cease, hot battery. The sudden failure of a lithium battery would hardly be unusual.
I have seen an issue very similar to this before. It turned out to be a loose connection inside the phone. Might want to disassemble and reassemble carefully to ensure that the connections are secure. Youtube has dis-assembly videos to guide you. You don't have to completely disassemble the phone, just til you reach the main board and secure the connections to it. If you don't feel like you can hand the task of dis-assembly you could always search for a local phone repair business, or even computer repair shop (they often do some phone repairs). Hope this helps
Hey there, I am trying to fix a SK4G with the exact same problems... download mode will show up, but then the screen will go blank again. I'm gonna look into what blk2dr suggested... did you ever fix yours, OP?
root? so Warranty it, not saying its the most "ethical way"
out of curiosity what was the last, well as samsung would put it, hac...ERRRR unsupported warranty voiding modification known to us as upgrade/flash eg. via cwm odin rom app add on modem kernel etc. that was done to the ol SK? or is it just straight up faulty craftsmanship from samsung...nooooo on a SK4g??? is that possible? lol moving a rom around from folder to root of sd once (zip prev passed md5 check) my 2nd or was it 3rd t839 had a lil hiccup that i didnt realize at the time made my custom Roms zip like 47kb smaller then it previously was and should of been, when flashing is 2nd nature and ur just moving it within the same sd card its already checked out on the md5 sum and ur dealing with a 200+/-mb file, whos gonna notice that minor change? to make a really long story just kinda long, into voodoo cwm flash, let it marinate... phone ran great for 4 days, then i decided i was going to clear cache davlik fix permish and reboot...yea went into cwm wiped wiped and half way thru fix permish phone crashed rebooted back into recov, when i tried to reboot sys it had your same exact issue. DL mode for just a second...then all black yet slightly backlit screen. could never get it to stay long enuff to odin back to stock, fullproof DL mode was a no go and of course the battery died, wouldnt recharge. i played dumb went to tmo store dude tesed phone with new batt my batt in other sk etc etc...anyways he charged my battery up enuff it flared back into dl mode for a few sec...my fix? hours and days headin into weeks of jackin with this thing i went with my cure all root REUPwarranty fix...flash a bad freakin bootloader thru odin and kill it once ad for all, DL mode only needs to be on about 4 sec, not long enough to go back to stock rom but long enuff to kill that B. prefered bootloader is i9000 haha works like a champ everytime to every rooted phone that had issues i needed a warranty exchange on(only been 4) seeing how i get a new phone every 3months on avg and always pay full price the ratio is tiny. yeah i know the trickle down effect raising costs from manufacture in long run yadayada. all is true, but i figure ive been kicked in the groin so many times by samsung,lg,moto,htc etc they can eat 1 every now and then. as a tmo employee in 07/08 i paid 500 upfront for the mda that got back ordered for 6 months had 2 bad dead spots in the touch screen within a month and screen went completely white in 3mnths. some employee/warranty fine print screwed me out of a new phone. and dont even get me started on the sidekick. 399 bucks for a phone that basically got abandoned 3 months later cuz it was junk compared to what it should be and breaks in high quanities. theyll still tax u 20 bucks and make u keep ur old battery and cover charger etc so im not losin any sleep, for real kill it for good, run it to the store get ur new err rebuilt refurb SK4g in 2 days then save up for a t989 s2 dl gmote/spashtop and poweramp on ur SK4g and let her roll as a wireless keyboard/mousepad for ur pc and let the voodoo and Pamp rock as a killer mp3 player. thats all the T-urd-839 is really good for anyways, oh yea and a mediocre bt controller for playin games on my S2's lol do the warranty, its samsung/TMOs fault for lettin this junk product get released, abandoning it and overcharging so many of us. Just do it, do it lol
pull battery, connect usb, hold power, volume up, volume down, camera, and tackpad and insert battery. It should FORCE the phone into download mode.
try it lol~
The issues started about 4 weeks ago when I fell in a lake with my MyTouch 4g in my pocket. The issue was that I hadn't realized that it had gotten drenched until about an hour later as I was trying to chase my daughters runaway puppy through the neighborhood at the time and she wouldn't stop for anything.
Needless to say, by the time I got home and realized what happened, my phone wouldn't unlock and the camera flash on the LED was in a permanent on state. I immediately pulled the battery, SIM card and SD card and put the phone and battery in a bag of rice (a trick I had read about here). I waited for a week and attempted to power the phone back on, but again the flash led came on and the phone did nothing.
Thinking it a lost cause I switched back to my oldest phone (an old Motorola Cliq XT) and rooted it so I at least had CM 7.2 on it, though it is so slow that I am yearning for my MyTouch back again so I can actually do things like use Reddit and surf the net on my phone again (I was without my actual computer for months at one point so I got in the habit of using my phone for about 90% of my surfing and whatnot).
The other day, however, I had a bright idea while bored at work. When I got home I attempted to turn my MyTouch back on, and to my surprise, it came to life! I quickly switched out the SIM and SD cards and flashed CM 7 onto it and tried to boot it up. To my joy it seemed to work, at first, however as soon as it went to sleep, the screen would not turn back on. It lights up, but there is no image, the touch screen works and the OS seems to be working since I can feel the tactile feedback when I unlock the phone. I was hoping that someone could tell me if I had actually killed my phone dead enough that it is beyond hope or not? If I have actually killed it I was wondering if anyone had advice for me on where I could pick up a replacement for cheap?
I already tried asking /r/android the other night and the only suggestion they had was to make the dog pay for a new phone. Amusing as that may be, she doesn't currently hold a job and thus has no way to compensate me for the damage.
Any and all advice is appreciated, thanks!
If you stalk Ebay you might find one with a cracked screen that still functions for cheap or something like that ,that will allow you to use a part from your phone to make it whole.. providing you know how to replace the screen or basic repairs,that is what i have done 4 times over the past 2 years..
Good Luck!!If you look long enough and bid right you can get one for a fair price ,I bought my last one for 20 dollars and replaced the screen after dropping it in my foyer and worked like a charm you just need to be careful opening it.I hope this helps as far as providing a potential solution to ur problem.again Good Luck!!
Sorry, you probably did. Phones can barely take a couple minutes of water, yours took a swim. Usually the rice is the only way to get it dry, if that didn't work....
Your screen could be damaged though. Your best bet would be to order a good phone at a pretty reasonable price off contract on sites like ebay or swappa, or if you're eligible for an upgrade, go for it.
Motorola Cliq XT? That was my first smart phone, can't say I miss it much lol. Of money is super tight I say get an optimus T and sell that pos. The optimus actually ran cm7 pottery l pretty well for having a 600 mghtz processor
Sent from my SGH-I747 using xda premium
Hello all
I come today with a question that i hope someone will have an answer for.
Week ago my Nexus 5 turned of and would not turn on, at all. Only times it showed signs of life was when it was charging. Then it would show the google logo for half a second and then turn of, then do the same thing forever. There was no way to enter the recovery or any other part of the phone.
This is how it looks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wNZfC1LSBA
After reading lots of stuff on the net and contacting Google and LG(with no help from either) i figured it was game over for the phone but i decided to send the phone for repair to a bigger city in my country some 400km away.
Here is where it gets interesting. Today my father delivered the phone and they fixed it literally in 3minutes. When my father asked what they had done, they said to him (or atleast thats how he understood it) that they have done a hardware reset. Apparently the phone got "blocked" somehow and they simply reseted the hardware.
My question is, what the hell is a hardware reset and how do i perform it myself???
I have tried EVERYTHING i could find on the internet to try and fix the phone before sending it, im not the greatest expert but id like to think i know my way around android more then the average user. I have to say again, the phone showed no signs of life, it was impossible to enter recovery so i have no idea how they could have done it.
I would really like to learn how to do this, so i am prepared if it happens in the future.
Thank you for your time
Factory reset?
Never dropped it or got water in it. Never tried to change the OS or anything like that either.
It started freezing and a soft reset would get it back up. Started happening more often and eventually none of the suggested resets would work and even when charging with the phone off it would freeze. I eventually managed to get it into the recovery boot (just the once) and it said E:/ failed to mount over and over. When i pressed a button it froze again and since then i haven't been able to get any response. Not even the little battery symbol or red light when it's on charge. It seems completely messed up and essentially a brick right now.
Any ideas? I can get it repaired via my UK network provider (O2) which would take a couple of weeks but would really like to back up and factory reset my stuff if possible as i have lots of personal data on my phone including passwords to peoples websites (i'm a web developer). As well as the ordinary things your girlfriend wouldn't want ending up on the net. My online banking and everything is on there. There's pictures with some famous people at Glastonbury and also some brilliant sporting events i was at that i'd never be able to get the vids/pics back.
With the failed to mount error, would that mean they'd have to factory reset it regardless of what happens and i'd have no chance to back it up either? I'd really rather not lose my files but i also don't want some random guy snooping through my stuff.
Thanks in advance for any replies guys!
Have you tried a different charging method?
From PC with a different USB lead for example
Leave it connected overnight and see how it is the next day
Thanks for the reply.
My girlfriend uses my charger to charge her blackberry as she lost hers and it works fine. I also tried leaving it for a few hours connected to the laptop using the USB connection from the original charger with no response whatsoever. My mother has as Samsung too... given the points i just told you, is it worth trying to borrow another charger still?
I'd reluctantly be happy even if i have to factory reset to save me having to wait for ages to get it back.
No, sounds like you can rule out the charger being the problem
Sounds like something inside the phone has fried, possibly the charging port if you can't even get an LED on, but considering the errors leading up to the fault it sounds more like the motherboard has died, which, unless you saved anything to external SD (MicroSD), contains the Internal storage where all your files are
More than likely, Samsung will just replace the board rather than fiddling around trying to repair that one, so unless it is something else at fault you can probably relax about them snooping, it'll end up in the recycling bin to be melted down for it's gold contacts never to be powered up again
I can't think of anything else you can try to get life out of it tbh other than opening it and charging the battery another way / replacing the battery with a charged one, but warranty is gone after that and not even sure how you would go about switching batteries tbh, if you can
If it is already out of warranty, you could find where the battery terminals connect to the motherboard, and put an alternate power source to them matching the battery voltage etc (Removing the battery first), might give you time to remove / erase / copy
Thanks again for the reply.
So you think the motherboard just progressively died? I hadn't mentioned this but a while ago i accidently left the phone on the radiator for a short while whilst working. It worked fine afterwards and when i asked on another forum they said if any damage was going on it would have restarted or gave an overheat message (which it didn't).
I guess i'll be sending it off to my network provider (O2 UK) then, it's still in warranty (just) so they should fix it or send me a new one. I've seen so much stuff on amateur porn sites of videos or pictures that probably weren't meant to be "released", leads me to having a fear about my girlfriend ending up on them. And like i said, passwords are stored on there to some websites i create for people so its not just my personal data but theirs. I don't really know how these businesses are run, i'd imagine they'd want to get as many phones done as possible... but knowing me if i was doing that job i'd probably have a snoop where i could lol.
powlesy6 said:
Thanks again for the reply.
So you think the motherboard just progressively died? I hadn't mentioned this but a while ago i accidently left the phone on the radiator for a short while whilst working. It worked fine afterwards and when i asked on another forum they said if any damage was going on it would have restarted or gave an overheat message (which it didn't).
I guess i'll be sending it off to my network provider (O2 UK) then, it's still in warranty (just) so they should fix it or send me a new one. I've seen so much stuff on amateur porn sites of videos or pictures that probably weren't meant to be "released", leads me to having a fear about my girlfriend ending up on them. And like i said, passwords are stored on there to some websites i create for people so its not just my personal data but theirs. I don't really know how these businesses are run, i'd imagine they'd want to get as many phones done as possible... but knowing me if i was doing that job i'd probably have a snoop where i could lol.
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If the phone powered on when you sent it in then no doubt somene would have a snoop, but if it is DOA they won't waste their time, they'll be getting thousands of phones a day to go through, yours will just be another number: Press power > Nothing > test with some USB device > Nothing > open > replace motherboard > test > working > job done
Something like that I would imagine
For future reference, get a MicroSD card for your replacement and save all media to that, then you don't have this problem if it dies