[AC Question]

~6 months old Tab S SM-T800. Started dropping battery charge randomly / charging extremely slowly (or not at all), shutting off and then finally wasn't able to turn on. Was returned and sent to repairs, came back with a changed battery charger/micro usb slot and reassurance that it does in fact work now.

Started up (at ~80% battery charge), worked for 5 minutes or so and then turned off. Started again with 2% battery, crashed, rebooted with 60%, crashed, was unable to start. Sent back for repairs.

Got it back today with only the screen changed (because they scratched it last time), saying that it must be a problem with the charger. Seemed to work at first, but crashed and rebooted several times, each with wildly different battery charge percentages. Seemed to work after that as long as charger was plugged in, but eventually crashed. Now I can't get past the initial charge % screen, before the tablet boots. Resetting to factory settings does nothing. It shuts off when the charger is unplugged, and does not work with USB connection to a PC. Attempting to power it on just restarts it back to the battery charge screen. No Samsung logo or anything.

Any suggestion on what to do before I send it back yet again? Will probably suggest a new unit this time, as it's obviously not getting fixed.

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central, and sorry to hear about your travails. That sounds like horrible service. Did they ever replace the battery itself? Another possibility is that the motherboard itself needs to be replaced. Have you tried calling Samsung directly and talking to a customer service rep?

[lmm32651]

I wish I had an answer to your problem because I have the same one. What I have found out, however, is that there is a temporary 'fix' that you can try. I stumbled on it by accident. The first time this happened, I had been reading it, pushed the button to turn off the screen to do something and when I tried to turn it back on it didn't work. I had charged it the night before and should have been at least 80% still remaining. Once my tablet refused to turn on, I of course tried to charge it again, thinking that maybe I had somehow not charged it enough. When this didn't work, I got mad at it and just let it sit for several days. Once the battery ran down completely I tried charging it again and once it was charged I was able to turn it back on and it came back to the state it was in when I last used it with the exception that I think I had to fix the date/time. Since the last time this happened, I had decided to NOT use the on/off button to turn it on/off because it seemed that every time I did I soon had the problem. A few days ago I accidentally turned the screen off with the button and knowing the problem immediately turned it back on, and it worked but within 24 hours it went dark and is lost again. I'm in the letting the battery run down phase and will give this another try. As long as I had been just closing the cover instead of turning the screen off with the button, it worked. My husband has the identical tablet and has had no trouble, I'm thinking I may see if Costco will take it back and try a different one. I love Samsung but haven't read good things about their tech support so haven't tried them yet, but I'm going to have to. I'm hoping maybe I'll get a miracle and find someone with an answer! Good luck with yours!

[fixer007]

My galaxy tab s 8.4 used to shut off randomly but it seemed app related. Only a few times it shut down for no apparent reason. But a quick restart and I could use it for hours with no problems. After I upgraded to Android version 5.0.2 a few weeks ago and tried a bunch of new video player apps my device kept shutting down. I uninstalled most new apps and I adjusted the auto display off to 10min but didn't help. Then I remembered turning off my screen saver, the dream screen setting, so I turned that back on and now it doesn't shutdown anymore. It's on the weather option but that probably doesn't matter. Note that my tablet is nearly always plugged into my computer's USB and I use Nova Launcher which reduces battery drain I believe. With brightness turned down when I'm not using it, it will actually charge off the computer USB plugin even though there's an x on the battery meaning that it's not charging I believe. Also note that when it was shutting down I had to hold power and volume down for 5 seconds or so to start it up. Battery usually says 99% or 100%, although the first few days I had it, I thought it missreported battery life one time. Anyways, it's been over a year at least now and it's still doing great almost like a second computer for downloading multiple files at the same time. Something my Moto G can't seem to do with just 1GB of ram. Seems like the 3gigs of rams helps alot. Didn't realize how awesome my Tab S was until I tried multitasking on my phone. Still a great phone for $200 but the Tab S is pretty much amazing as you all known, if you can keep it working I guess. Hoping we get marshmellow update soon. Also note I updated Nova Launcher thinking that might of been the problem, not sure if that helped anything. Good luck, hope info helps.