Galaxy S21 Freezing and Blank Screen

nighthawkRMX

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I have a Samsung s21 5g that is about 3 years old. A few months ago I got some debris in the charging port which physically broke the connector preventing it from charging. I bought a cheap third party part and had issues with cell reception/sim, so I paid up and replaced the charging port daughter board with a genuine Samsung from iFixit. It had been working flawlessly for a couple months, until last week.

The issue first started as the phone was freezing. It would just become unresponsive. I powered it down by the power/bixby button and vol down. It turned back on. This occured once again a few days later, same behavior but this time I got a message "System process not responding" message before it froze entirely. Thursday I was driving and all of a sudden my wireless android auto disconnected. I stopped and checked my phone, which had a blank screen. I pressed power/vol down, nothing happened. Plugged it into power, about 5 min down the road I try to turn it on and it turns on and works normally all of yesterday without any hitches.

Today I was just web browsing and then went to the home screen, where it freezes. It unfroze for a second to load the menu when I had swiped down, but then froze again. It eventually just went to a black screen. power/vol down, and then power, still a blank screen, won't show the samsung logo, anything. This is where i'm at now.

But what is interesting:

I pulled the back off, if I unplug the battery and then plug it back in, the phone will try to power on, every single time. Sometimes it freezes on the Samsung logo, sometimes it gets to the Samsung logo then black screen. Sometimes I get into android and can use it for a few seconds to a minute then freezes, often with a one ui and system process not responding message. Often eneds in a black screen. I have observed the phone is not actually turning off when the screen goes blank. I answered a phone call. 45 seconds into it the screen went black with the screen and side keys completely unresponsive. But the phone call never dropped until I told the other party to hang up since I could not.

I can get it into recovery mode on boot. I have cleared system cache, no change. I have looked at the log files but I don't know what to look for. I suspect there's some sort of hardware failure with the NAND or RAM, but am hopeful its a software or firmware bug there is some way to remedy. I am FAR more versed in the world of PCs than I am phones.

I do have a backup of this phone, that includes my photos, my contacts, documents, etc. However, this backup was last run just under 2 months ago, so it does miss my latest vacation photos, which I would really like to have. Google photos does not contain these photos. My main concern is that I really cannot afford a new phone right now, and would really love to know if there are ANY options to fix this, or what you think the issue may be?
 

qedded

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Sep 9, 2024
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Try clearing cache for One UI Home.

Device Care -> Storage -> Clear app cache.

Shut down device -> Connect phone to PC via cable -> Hold power and volume up button -> wipe cache (be careful) -> repair apps.

Good guardians -> App Booster -> Optimize.

These steps should fix any issues without a reset. If all these don't help them try a reset or just get rid of it.
 

nighthawkRMX

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Sep 8, 2024
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Was able to get the photos off of it in between freezes. I found if i gave it time after it completely crashed, I could use it for a little longer (like 2 min not 20 seconds) before a crash on the next boot.

Cleared cache from recovery menu, completely reset from recovery menu, and reflashed firmware/OS from ODIN on a PC. The flash and reset succeeded, but its still malfunctioning and freezes well before you can complete setup. Sometimes it will start without pulling the battery, but only if its shut down prior to it freezing and requiring hard reset keys to power it off.

I hoped this phone would last a little longer than it did. The battery lost over 25% of its capacity, the screen has significant burn in, the loudspeaker volume fluctuates randomly, and the charger port already failed and had to be replaced. I guess I had too high of expectations, but this was the first proper expensive phone I ever purchased so I thought Id get a long lifespan out of it. I guess just shy of 3 years is considered a good run by some. I did take great care of it, cosmetically it looks almost new.

For now I'm back to my 4.5 year old moto g stylus after getting the coverage transferred over. Despite being an old cheap phone with a lot of physical damage, it still works fine. Just outdated and extremely slow.

Looking at Pixel 8s since theyre discounted right now following the 9s release. I like the advertised software support, hope that translates into the expectation the phone will last that length of time, or close.