Nexus 7 Weirdness (freezing/rebooting/crackling speakers/hot)

[Jason Daniels2]

Last week my Nexus 7 2012 model started acting up after a year of working perfectly.

The tablet started freezing, which required me to hold the on/off button for a while to shut it down/reboot. Then it started freezing and rebooting itself. Then it started turning itself off when I'd leave it in standby mode when I went to sleep, requiring me to hold the on button for thirty to sixty seconds for it to boot up. Did a factory reset which made no improvement. Then not long after the factory reset the speakers went from normal to extremely quiet, which in turn changed to a loud crack/staticy noise. Once the speakers went all crackly the freezing stopped for about 4 days. So after four days of no sound and no freezing it started freezing up yet again. Did another factory reset, and everything returned to normal for about two hours. Then the freezing/rebooting/turning off started up again, then the speakers went all staticy again, and then freezing went away for another day. Today the freezing/rebooting/turning off restarted again, but the speakers sound fine.

And just now another issue has popped up, the lower back of the unit, where the speakers are, is extremely hot. As far as I know that's not an area that normally gets hot. Hot enough that a plasticy smell started coming out of the speaker slot. Seems to have cooled down now though.

I'm sending it in to asus for RMA on Friday, but was wondering if anyone has any idea what could be causing this. I'm running android 4.3, and not any crazy apps as far as I know. And was not gaming/video watching when I noticed how hot the lower back was. In fact it was sitting off on my nighttable.

Oh, also noticed apps I uninstall are now leaving the little icon on my screen, even though the app is gone. Have to manually delete the icons. Have never had this issue before.

 

[Jason Daniels2]

219 views and no comments...I guess my tablet issues really are out of the ordinary...lol.

 

[Jason Daniels2]

Wow, still no replies? No one has ever experienced what my tablet is doing before?

 

[Fr0gburp3r]

They just hate to admit something is wrong with their precious device.

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! For future reference, it can actually be helpful not to add on posts to your unanswered question, because then it drops off the "Unanswered Threads" list. Ambassadors (and others) often check the Unanswered Threads to see if there is anything that we can help with--but if the post drops off the list, then we'll only encounter it if we actually sift through the subforum that you posted in.

I know it was a joke, but I don't think people are refraining from admitting there is something wrong with their device. I just think this is a very unusual problem--I've never heard of these symptoms in the 2 years I've been on this forum. The RMA is the best thing to do. Otherwise, I would have suggested popping the back cover off to check all connections, but this might have voided your warranty, so don't bother.

 

[vannylu]

Finally I have found someone describing similar symptoms to what I've been suffering with!!! Did you resolve it? My suspicion is that there is something wrong with the speaker and I did find someone who seemed to have had a similar problem and they replaced the speaker and said it was OK after that.

I have had problems with it randomly freezing since just before Christmas. It didn't happen when I was doing anything particular that I could work out and often I would find it had gone off during the night so thought it might be an update causing it. It started freezing and gradually getting worse to the point that I was resetting it (by holding down the power button), it would come back to life then freeze again and go off. Eventually at the beginning of January I did a hard reset. It was OK for 24 hours then it did the same freezing thing, the unit got really hot around the power/speaker area and I did another hard reset. After the hard reset (can't remember if it was the first or second) the volume from the speakers was lower than it had previously been and I had to have the volume turned up to max to hear it properly. They weren't crackly but the sound quality def wasn't great and I could tell it wasn't how it was before but no-one else would particularly notice. After the second reset all seemed OK but I took it back to where I bought it hoping they would sort the speakers out. The guy was very helpful and tried loads of things with it but he couldn't hear a problem with the speakers and said as I was a week out of guarantee then I'd have to pay for it if I sent it off to be looked at. So I thought I'd just see how it went and if it got worse I'd send it off. All fine for about 3 weeks then all started over again. Beginning of Feb did hard reset, still freezing afterwards and then discovered it was really hot (not even plugged in - it was in my bag), hard reset again and the speakers worse again - barely audible this time. Apart from that it was all OK. Until last week and the whole process starts again. Have just done hard reset this evening and already frozen twice since that. Stupidly accepted the restore option so could be that it can't cope with all the installations. Still it didn't make any difference last time when I installed apps manually.

Would be really helpful to know how you got on with Asus and if they fixed it?

 

[misterchrisl]

I've had all of the crashing/freezing problems vannylu described, in almost exactly the same situations! I've done the same stuff (factory reset) etc. and the problem still continues. No speaker problems, though. It'd be interesting to hear if others have a solution!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk (because, sadly, my new Samsung Android phone turned out to be atrocious...)

 

[Don Kurfurst]

I am having almost the same symptoms on my 2012 32Gb Nexus 7. I have done factory restores twice in the last couple of months. I was hoping to find out if this is a software issue or a hardware issue. I'm on the fence whether I should buy a replacement as they are going for 159.00 but not sure what a repair would cost.

 

[Jason Daniels2]

OK, update for you guys. After my last post the tablet seemed to clear up about a week. No freezing, no speaker static, no heat. I began reinstalling apps, then again, out of the blue, all those symptoms came back again. I was attempting a factory reset yet again when the tablet froze up right in the middle of it. It started giving me errors during the reset, like Can't Read Drive E, Drive E Not Accessible, then it just froze up completely. After that all I could get to was the Google logo screen and the Boot menu. Recovery menu couldn't be loaded at all, giving a failure to boot error.

So again called Asus support, had the guy update my RMA info, and sent it in. I have to say Asus phone support was really no help in trying to figure out the issues. All they try having you do is what any android forum would tell you to do. I explained what happened and the guy wanted me to try doing a factory reset even after I told him it froze during the factory reset. But it was only at the repair facility for three days, then they fedex'ed it back to me. The whole time from sending it out to getting it back was nine days, so not too bad. The paperwork they included with my fixed tablet (and they sent back my actual tablet, I have a small scratch on the metal bezel and it's still there) had no info on what was repaired other than a parts number, which after looking up seems to be a replacement motherboard. It cost nothing as luckily they just took my word on when it was purchased. Ordered it in late Dec 2012, actually received it in late January 2013, and the problems started in early February 2014. So the initial agent put the RMA as a warranty repair.

I'm guessing if you guys are experiencing the same problems as I was that it'll be a motherboard issue.

 

[vannylu]

Thanks for the update. After my last post all was OK till yesterday and did hard reset again today. Worked for about an hour then started freezing again but after another hard reset it now seems to be totally dead! I think I have no choice now but to send back to Asus and hope they won't charge me too much to fix it.

 

[rhiaction]

I have been having all the same issues Jason described with my 32gb (freezing which got progressively frequent for weeks, then crackly speakers, intense heat in the speaker area and burning smell) now it won't boot up unless it's plugged in and the freezing kicks in after seconds.

I am well outside my warranty sadly. Does anyone know what Asus charge for repairs? They won't tell me until I send it in but it seems like that costs ?45 before they even repair/replace anything.

Does it sound like a motherboard issue? If the Asus repair job is costly my next option is to see if I can fix it myself but I'm not exactly an expert! :/

 

[rhiaction]

Vannylu - have you got an update on your tablet? Did you send it back?

 

[nikostro]

Same thing happening to me (at least the first part is - I imagine the rest is likely to come.) Hoping to return it.

 

[Jason Daniels2]

Another update on my old tablet. Seems the mini usb port is now going. Everything was fine, plugged it in to charge it overnight, woke up to find the battery drained and the "plug in to charge" message up. After a bit of fiddling with the plug the battery charging indicator would come on, go off, repeat. It'll only charge now if I have the plug in at a slight angle (mini usb hole is a bit wobbly, not tight like it used to be). Called asus support and was told since it's not related to my other issues it would be approx $200 to fix. Told the guy screw you...lol. Locally it will cost $55 to get that fixed, but opted to buy a new 2012 replacement unit, that unfortunately has a really yellow tinted screen, so need to return/exchange that tomorrow.

 

[Michael Smits]

This really sucks. But it's nice to know I'm not alone! I've had my Nexus for two years. Cracked the glass/digitizer and rebuilt on my own (thank you eBay) and I JUST replaced the back (ditto eBay). I've just now gotten ALL the little peripherals I could want (like the cool little keyboard that snaps on as a rear case, complete with matching texture!) for my little wonder machine, and no sooner-- just 2 days ago, in fact -- it started doing all this crazy stuff you're talking about. At first I thought it because I dropped it, but the way it's acting seems more like a software issue. Oh, and my speakers went all crackly ever since we were bumped up to KitKat! I'm going to cross my fingers and head on over to "xda-developers" site, as they seem to be the authority on all things android. Good luck to all of us!!

 

[nicoc13]

Just joined the forum to reply, as I might have a solution.

I had exactly the same problem you guys have, suddenly (and increasingly) my device started to freezing, rebooting and turning itself off, and almost at the same time the speakers started to fail. The volume decreased dramatically and the sound turned to more noisy/staticy.

I tried to flash KitKat several times (also tried with custom rooms - no luck), and at some point it started giving me errors during the install. I decided to open the tablet to see if I there was something wrong in the inside, and noted that the speakers where extremely hot, really hot. There is a set of cords below that module that already looked a little toasted so I disconnected the speakers hoping that was the cause of the problem and to prevent more damages. Nothing changed.

Well today I installed Android Lollipop, have been using the tablet for a couple of hours and it worked perfectly. In some moments some apps became less responsive, but after a couple of seconds everything went to normal again. It seems like the problem that caused the entire system to crash is now limited in some way to each app.

I cannot assure this will be permanent, but seems like it will, as in none of my previews attempts I could use the tablet for so long without crashes. I'm guessing they have changed/optimized a part of the system that was causing the crashes. I'm crossing my finguers but it looks promising

UPDATE: Well, bad luck. After almost a day without problems, I decided to install some more apps and the tablet started crashing again. Anyway, I would say the performance in general is better with Lollipop.

 

[dean Park]

Please check my post (because picture)
Follow this link
https://plus.google.com/118407361297203209966/posts/84WgqjGzPb1

 

[MLee1951]

After a recent as update about 3 weeks ago, my Nexus 7 started having the above problems with freezing and rebooting. Also getting an error message "Google play service has stopped". Tried clearing out all the cache memory for Google Play Service didn't help. Done lots of hard boots, and during the boot, it had to optimize 104 apps. Never attempted a factory reset yet. Also, I tried to get rid of non essential apps that useless to me. Btw, I tried to uninstall the Google play service update, still didn't do anything. Since this 32gb tablet is over 3 years old, I am wondering if it is time to dump it, rather than trying to fix it. If you ask me, there is something wrong with the software.

 

[Alan Gray1]

Does anyone have solution for this. Mine is similar model and issue. Freezing, automatically restarting, gets really hot. I have iPad now but wanted to pass nexus to my son should I just reset? Or go back to previous version of android? Kit Kat seems to have ruined my nexus.