Cell phone repair man claims that Samsung deliberately destroys their motherboard, phone restarts every 5 minutes

[jesper0120]

Hi everyone.
I am new to this forum, and I am thinking I might get decent replies here.

I went to a highly trusted cell phone repair shop in Madrid this evening. The man in the shop has 5.0 out of 5.0 in reviews on Google business (over 400 reviews).

Since I have previously heard that manufacturers deliberately implement the opposite of fail saves, i.e. intended fails, on their devices, the story I heard tonight did not make me doubt the story.

Anyway, short story short : the repair man claims that the motherboard has deliberate fails so if I wanted my phone to be repaired we would have to replace the motherboard.

Sure, it is completely possible that the repair man has only decent knowledge of IC repairs.
I saw a microscope meaning at least he works with repairing things smaller than a regular magnifying glass can help with. We initiated the potential phone repair by performing a software update

The first time I updated the phone since I bought it. His recommendation was for me to immediately backup my data and go find a new phone.

Since I heard this story before and it was repeated by a man that most likely has very high credibility, I am asking in this forum, if this story is true, what manufacturers can I buy a new phone from that has much higher credibility for long lasting phones? I am interested in either Android or an operating system that has a credibility of not having intelligence surveillance.

OR, if this story is not true, and my phone problem (the phone restarts by itself approximately every 5 minutes) is real and can be fixed, how do I fix it?

If you believe I am not asking the right question, can you suggest improvements to my post?

PS. If you have ever heard the story about light bulbs, then this story is not unbelievable. To me it makes sense, that greedy companies actually do this to their customers.

Apple and Samsung fined for deliberately slowing down phones

Italian investigation found software updates ‘significantly reduced performance’, hastening new purchases

www.theguardian.com

PPS. Since above is fact, the step from deliberately slowing down phones to actually destroying the electronics is not too far.

 

[tismydroid]

I have a Samsung 5 bought in 2015 that still works. My son has a Samsung 10 bought in 2019 that he has used every day since then. It seems that if Samsung was deliberately causing their phones to fail, these would be not be working. But phones and technology are not perfect. Sometimes devices fail.

A few questions we need in order to help you. How old is your phone? Did you buy it new, used or refurbished? What specific phone do you have?

Your phone's problems could caused by not installing the updates since you've had it. The updates are meant to keep your phone working properly and to prevent malware & viruses that can ruin your phone.

There are also other things that could cause your phone to repeatedly restart; installed apps that are not working properly, not enough storage or memory due to too many apps running at the same time, etc. You could try uninstalling any apps you don't use.

Depending on how old your phone is, you could try doing a factory data reset but you will want to save & back up any data, photos, files that you don't want to lose before you do the reset. The factory data reset will remove everything on your phone except the operating system. After the reset you will have to re-install everything back on your phone.

 

[jesper0120]

Thank you.
I was looking at all my photos today. I was lucky. The phone only restarted occasionally.
Using gallery or file explorers does not seem to trigger restarts.

And after the phone had all these strange restarts I uninstalled all apps I am not using any longer that I do not wanna keep. That was like a 20 apps or so. And it did not seem to have changed anything.

I bought the phone brand new.
Model number SM-G980F/DS

Storage : 102.7 GB / 128 GB
Memory : 3.6 GB / 8GB right after restart

The repair man at the phone repair shop said there is not much he can do to do a full backup if the phone restarts every 5 minutes. Did he exaggerate?

When I am trying to connect my phone to the computer I do not get a USB connection that I used to do.
THOUGH I have full access through Microsoft Phone Link (PC) and whatever app corresponds to this app on the phone. Though I haven't figured out a way to transfer files from the phone to the computer. I can SAVE AS one picture at the time from the MS Phone Link app but it will take forever since I have over 1000 pictures, AFTER removing unwanted photos.

Suggestions?

 

[Laura Knotek]

Have you tried a different USB port on your PC and a different USB cable to connect the phone and PC?

 

[Mooncatt]

If a company, especially one as public and well known as Samsung, was deliberately sabotaging their phones, it would be headline news all over the world. It wouldn't be just a few rumors spread around. That would be enough to kill a company. My suggestion is to steer clear of that supposed well respect repair man, because it sounds like he's blowing smoke.

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! That old article about Apple and Samsung being fined has more nuance than just "planned obsolescence." For Apple, the issue was that as their phones got older, the batteries naturally would also get older and therefore deteriorate with age (which is to be expected). They would eventually get to a point where if a certain amount of overly stressful demand was placed on the battery (i.e., high CPU workload), the phone might unexpectedly shut down as a way to protect the battery from damage. The reason why Apple updated the phone to throttle performance was to prevent this from happening -- they just weren't very upfront about why they were doing this.

Mobile tech doesn't have a very long lifespan for a number of reasons. First, there's the battery, as discussed above, and since removable batteries are a thing of the past, a phone becomes less useful as the battery deteriorates (unless you pay to get it replaced).

Second, hardware tech (e.g., CPUs, graphics chips, RAM) continues to advance quickly, so a device will unavoidably become relatively obsolete as tech progresses. Since software development often progresses to take advantage of the capabilities of newer hardware, that software might not work as well on older tech.

Third, silicon tends to have a finite lifespan. SD cards, for example, will eventually fail after a certain number of read-write operations. The same thing can happen with onboard memory, but that typically lasts much longer than a card -- but age can still cause problems, and besides that, hardware can just plain fail, since it's not foolproof.

 

[jesper0120]

@Laura Knotek the USB cable works, because the phone is charging with it.
It is very unlikely that the data part has stopped working and the power part is still intact.
Thank you for the question.

And yes, I have tried every USB connection on my computer, as well as attaching and detaching the cable in both ends multiple times.

@Mooncatt I spoke with another phone repair person that gave the same answers as the first one, except the "Samsung deliberately destroys the motherboard" part.

Finally @Mooncatt , @Laura Knotek , @tismydroid and @B. Diddy thank you for your input.

Do you have any other input, especially to what could get my phone to work again?

And I am repeating my question what manufacturers can I buy a new phone from that has much higher credibility for long lasting phones?

And my phone problem (the phone restarts by itself approximately every 5 minutes) if it is real and can be fixed, how do I fix it?

If you have all this, I wish you a phenomenal day!

PS. Onedrive backup seems to work, even though it is tedious.

 

[Laura Knotek]

How long have you owned this device? If it's been since its release, then it is over four years old now. Realistically, that is a better than average lifespan. The average lifespan of a smartphone is around 2.5 years. There aren't any brands or models that I'd recommend that have a longer lifespan.

 

[mustang7757]

Welcome to AC!
Have you tried the device in safe mode ?
Be careful with 3rd party repair shops some are shady.

I see you posted in the Android 10 forum , is it on Android 10? I think it gets Android 13

 

[B. Diddy]

the USB cable works, because the phone is charging with it.
It is very unlikely that the data part has stopped working and the power part is still intact.

I wouldn't dismiss this possibility so easily. This exact problem has happened to me, and I actually found on an unintentional teardown (the cable was starting to fall apart) that a couple of the wires had come loose from where they were supposed to attach in the plug part. Those wires were for data transfer. The ones that remained intact were for charging.

 

[jesper0120]

@Laura Knotek
Please see the attached picture for details about which software version my phone has. If I recall I have ONLY installed one software update, and that was some days ago. And I purchased the phone in August 2020 I believe.

@mustang7757 great suggestion. No I have not. Did not even know that possibility existed. Will try soon. The OneDrive backup seems to work better than expected, with fewer restarts than before.

@B. Diddy ok, I will see if I can get hold of another USB cable.

Thank you all for your feedback! Love this forum.
Have a great day!

 

[joeldf]

Let's go back a bit here.

Your S20 (I speak phone name, not model number) is still on Android 10? That should have been updating itself to 11, 12 and then finally up to 13 over a year ago. Now, your security updates have been reduced to quarterly releases, but it should still work.

I had an S20 FE, which was a few months newer than the regular S20 at the time, but I'd still be using it if I hadn't shattered the screen late last year. My son is still on an S9 (which is stuck on Android 10 One UI 2.5 - nothing newer for it).

So wholesale obsolescence is not the issue here. Isolated incidences are. It could be something is just failing, but it could be the software is crossed up and needs resetting.

Unless I missed it (and I do miss things a lot), I don't see that you tried a factory reset.

Next is trying to flash at least a more current OS.

Once you get the USB cable issue working. Without that, you may be stuck.

As far as newer devices are concerned, you really only have Samsung, and maybe Google Pixel, to chose from. I'm not familiar enough with the Chinese phones and how long-lasting they are. Nor do I know about Sony and Asus who seem to be getting squeezed out of the market these days.

 

[mustang7757]

@Laura Knotek
Please see the attached picture for details about which software version my phone has. If I recall I have ONLY installed one software update, and that was some days ago. And I purchased the phone in August 2020 I believe.

@mustang7757 great suggestion. No I have not. Did not even know that possibility existed. Will try soon. The OneDrive backup seems to work better than expected, with fewer restarts than before.

@B. Diddy ok, I will see if I can get hold of another USB cable.

Thank you all for your feedback! Love this forum.
Have a great day!

You need to get on the current Android version , have you checked in settings>software updates any available? If not your next steps to use Odin and Frija to download the latest Firmware

Let's go back a bit here.

Your S20 (I speak phone name, not model number) is still on Android 10? That should have been updating itself to 11, 12 and then finally up to 13 over a year ago. Now, your security updates have been reduced to quarterly releases, but it should still work.

I had an S20 FE, which was a few months newer than the regular S20 at the time, but I'd still be using it if I hadn't shattered the screen late last year. My son is still on an S9 (which is stuck on Android 10 One UI 2.5 - nothing newer for it).

So wholesale obsolescence is not the issue here. Isolated incidences are. It could be something is just failing, but it could be the software is crossed up and needs resetting.

Unless I missed it (and I do miss things a lot), I don't see that you tried a factory reset.

Next is trying to flash at least a more current OS.

Once you get the USB cable issue working. Without that, you may be stuck.

As far as newer devices are concerned, you really only have Samsung, and maybe Google Pixel, to chose from. I'm not familiar enough with the Chinese phones and how long-lasting they are. Nor do I know about Sony and Asus who seem to be getting squeezed out of the market these days.

Yeah that's what caught my attention right away.

 

[Golfdriver97]

I was thinking along the same lines as @B. Diddy that the cable is bad for at least data transfers. The cables do have different pins for charging and data. I have had good but old cables go bad for one or the other.

As for a different way to transfer your photos...I had originally thought using ADB, but I don't think that's going to work. I could have sworn that ADB had more functionality than it actually does in recovery, but it doesn't seem to. ADB commands don't work in the bootloader, and with the device rebooting frequently, this option won't work.

Every option I have thought of has run into a roadblock. Something somewhere trips it up. I'm going to admit, I can't think of anything to possibly help. I am more documenting some of the ideas I came up with so they are exhausted for future readers.