Samsung Galaxy S3 Sudden Death Syndrome Decisions

[CAIT LINN]

Hi everyone, I've had my Galaxy s3 for a little over a year now and about three weeks ago it turned off and wouldn't turn back on. The phone would load to the starting screen and then die; but now only vibrates with no other interaction. Through research and chatting with an online Samsung agent I've learned that I have to send my phone into Samsung, without having a warranty, to see if it can be fixed. The agent I chatted with said that including shipping fees, the standard cost for a phone to be analyzed for issues is $70 and could be more depending on the problem. I also have a cracked screen so that is automatically a higher cost for repairs. The reason I am posting this thread is because I need some opinions on what to do. Would sending my phone in and having it repaired, if possible, be the best option? I would obviously like to spend as little as possible but I'm wondering if buying a new phone would save me money in the long run. I've read of this 'sudden death' problem and even though I love my Galaxy, I'm wondering if the same problem would occur with a new one down the road. If I were to shell out for a new phone, I would be interested in the Galaxy 5 or HTC One, trusting the Galaxy s5 doesn't have the same issue at the s3. Not to bash the iPhone but I really prefer Android so I wouldn't probably get an iPhone unless I could be swayed toward it being a more durable long lasting device. Anyway, if anyone could give me some insight on what to do that would be amazing. Thanks so much. :-[

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! Have you already tried a new battery?

 

[GSDer]

I've read of this 'sudden death' problem

What you're experiencing is not 'sudden death syndrome' - that was patched in the OS quite awhile ago.

If you assume the minimum costs at Samsung: $70 for diagnosis and ~$130 for the screen replacement, you're already looking at a $200 investment to get an old phone running. You can probably buy a new phone (depending on your region/carrier) off contract for a bit more than that (ex. Moto X, Moto G, Nexus 5).

Is just the glass cracked or were there also problems with touch registration or the display itself?

With the phone completely off, what happens when you connect a charger? Do you see a charging graphic showing the battery level and charging activity?

Sent from my rooted, debloated, deodexed Sinclair ZX-80 running CM -0.001 using Tapatalk

 

[CAIT LINN]

What you're experiencing is not 'sudden death syndrome' - that was patched in the OS quite awhile ago.

If you assume the minimum costs at Samsung: $70 for diagnosis and ~$130 for the screen replacement, you're already looking at a $200 investment to get an old phone running. You can probably buy a new phone (depending on your region/carrier) off contract for a bit more than that (ex. Moto X, Moto G, Nexus 5).

Is just the glass cracked or were there also problems with touch registration or the display itself?

With the phone completely off, what happens when you connect a charger? Do you see a charging graphic showing the battery level and charging activity?

Sent from my rooted, debloated, deodexed Sinclair ZX-80 running CM -0.001 using Tapatalk

Okay, either way its a brick. My screen is just cracked on the surface; shattered actually. I had no problems at all with the touch registration.

When I connect the charger I no longer see the battery on the screen. The red LED comes on, sometimes, and then off. Nothing on the screen but the phone does vibrate when I connect the charger or try the power button.

Even though some life still remains it seems to be pretty far gone.

If/when I do purchase a new device were the Moto X, Moto G, and Nexus 5 your recommendations or just some examples?

 

[CAIT LINN]

Welcome to Android Central! Have you already tried a new battery?

Thank you! No, I haven't. The Samsung agent I spoke with asked that and then asked if I had one handy to try but I didn't and he didn't recommend I buy one.

 

[B. Diddy]

Do you know anyone else with an S3? You could see if they would let you test out their battery for a few minutes.

Otherwise, the Moto X, Moto G, and Nexus 5 are all excellent phones to consider. The X is considered by many still to be the best phone around, with an excellent combination of performance, features, ergonomics, and battery life. The G is cheaper, but still a great value--performance is a little slower, and there's no 4G (but HSPA+ can be pretty fast). The Nexus 5 is an excellent phone, with the main weak point being a very average battery.

Posted via Android Central App.
Please excuse any typos or autocorrect derps.

 

[CAIT LINN]

Do you know anyone else with an S3? You could see if they would let you test out their battery for a few minutes.

Otherwise, the Moto X, Moto G, and Nexus 5 are all excellent phones to consider. The X is considered by many still to be the best phone around, with an excellent combination of performance, features, ergonomics, and battery life. The G is cheaper, but still a great value--performance is a little slower, and there's no 4G (but HSPA+ can be pretty fast). The Nexus 5 is an excellent phone, with the main weak point being a very average battery.

Posted via Android Central App.
Please excuse any typos or autocorrect derps.

Yeah luckily two of my friends have one as well. I'll be able to try one tomorrow.

I'm looking at the Moto X online and am in pure fascination at just the customization options for the device's physical color.
I know this is going way back on device's, but I loved my old Motorola Razor and haven't had a Motorola since. This is intriguing. I just need to start a fund for it now that I have a job haha.

 

[B. Diddy]

Motorola has always built very solid phones with excellent cell radios. If the Moto X is out of your price range, the Moto G may be the right device for you. $199 for the unlocked 16 GB Google Play Edition direct from Google. Don't try saving $20 to settle for the 8 GB version--that doesn't give you very much room to install large apps. https://forums.androidcentral.com/e...us/?playredirect=true&hl=en-US&token=m2sd6H1T

 

[yoely]

Yeah luckily two of my friends have one as well. I'll be able to try one tomorrow.

I'm having exactly the same issue with my phone.
did you try the battery?

 

[Makenna Lucy]

The same thing happens to my phone. MY power button has been broken for a long time so i used to just have it turn on again by taking out the battery and putting it back in. But now when I put the battery in, the phone just repetitively vibrates. I have tried everything. Sometime the red charging button will turn on, and if im lucky the battery charging screen will show up. But it has been like this for two days and im just going to get a new phone. It has done this before but i just did a hard reset on it and plugged it in and lucky would turn back on. Its useless now.

 

[Tiffany Kozlowski]

I know exactly how you feel. I had my galaxy for maybe close to a year or so when it died. It does the same thing yours does. Sometimes it turns on for a split second then turns right off. In my case though, although I loved my galaxy as well, I wasn't willing to send it in to get it fixed. all I really want to get from it are pictures and that isn't worth paying a lot of money. I went ahead and bought a new phone and actually went with the HTC One m8. I love it and have had little to no problems with it and the ones that do occour can easily be fixed by watching a video on youtube, and aren't even life or death problems. I highly recommend it if you do decide to just make the change. Worth the money.

 

[SheensAndbeans]

Hey there!

Did you ever get this worked out? It started happening to me last week and I have had my phone for about two years. Two co-workers of mine are also having the same issues and one has had hers less than a year and it just started bugging out today.

I ordered a new battery this morning before finding out two other GS3 owners were also having the same issue. What are the chances that three of us on the same work floor are having the same problem?! Weird.

Anyway, thanks for this because every other forum or blog talks about multiple battery issues, but the power on/off thing is literally mo only issue.
~Sheena

 

[Hecxa]

Seriously? My S3 started to freeze about month ago randomly. Not many times a day, maybe once a day or two. The screen remains black and the blue indicator light is slowly blinking. It recovers (Reboots) when pressing the power button for few seconds.

I have been thinking according to numerous other forum posts that this is the eMMC problem. I have had the phone for over two years now. I have tried numerous things like "Dummy file creator method" without any similar lockups and resetting the phone via it's own reset functions. Nothing has helped so far... I reinstalled the software yesterday via Kies and dangggg, the phone froze again during night. So again, early in the morning I made the full reset for the phone again (Factory defaults + cleaning data/cache) and NOW it is suggesting to install phone software update... Wondering what it is? There is no clear description what this update is about, the describtions does not have the information or any "release number" I can search for more information. Just speculating but I have the feeling that this is the update I installed over month ago, after which I started to experience the freezing problem.

I have always used the Samsung's factory firmware, no rooting etc. The Galaxy S3 has never frozen while I am doing something with it, never, ever.

Just my speculation over about the faulty update or what ever it is, but Sheena's post made me wonder even more now...

 

[Hecxa]

Seriously? My S3 started to freeze about month ago randomly. Not many times a day, maybe once a day or two. The screen remains black and the blue indicator light is slowly blinking. It recovers (Reboots) when pressing the power button for few seconds.

I have been thinking according to numerous other forum posts that this is the eMMC problem. I have had the phone for over two years now. I have tried numerous things like "Dummy file creator method" without any similar lockups and resetting the phone via it's own reset functions. Nothing has helped so far... I reinstalled the software yesterday via Kies and dangggg, the phone froze again during night. So again, early in the morning I made the full reset for the phone again (Factory defaults + cleaning data/cache) and NOW it is suggesting to install phone software update... Wondering what it is? There is no clear description what this update is about, the describtions does not have the information or any "release number" I can search for more information. Just speculating but I have the feeling that this is the update I installed over month ago, after which I started to experience the freezing problem.

I have always used the Samsung's factory firmware, no rooting etc. The Galaxy S3 has never frozen while I am doing something with it, never, ever.

Just my speculation over about the faulty update or what ever it is, but Sheena's post made me wonder even more now...

I posted this to another thread:

Ok then. This may be too early to report, but after latest try yesterday the S3 is still running without freezing nearly one full 24 hours.

This is something people may want to try:

1) Cache clean + reset to factory defaults
2) Only basic settings, no downloads from backup, S3 is "clean"
3) Using Kies to reupload latest firmare to the S3
4) Yet another cache clean + reset to factory defaults
5) Downloaded contacts and applications from the Samsung cloud backup

But ...

Not sure if that did the trick because I have done that before, but this time I made the firmware re-upload on a clean, factory defaulted phone. But, the true reason causing my S3 freezing may be the contacts list/file on the phone.

I have had some broken contacts on my list and have tried to remove/fix these using phone. Yesterday I did it succesfully using AirDroid. There were some contacts names like John Donuts named "John Don". I fixed them all via AirDroid. I suspect that because many applications today also go through your contacts, it may cause the freezing/crashing if the contacts list is corrupted somehow.

 

[Hecxa]

Go figure... aftert latest freezing I installed aLogrec in order to get something out of the phone while it freezes or before it. The S3 now has been up and running without freezing for nearly two days. The aLogrec applications animated "download" -icon is running on the notification are all the time like it should but today I noticed that the log file is very small, so pretty much nothing is written on it. The is just an error message, no phone activity is logged.

So what is keeping my S3 away from freezing so far??? The aLogrec process, the icon animation process or what??

Wrote an article about all of this:
mastokangas . fi/samsung-galaxy-s3-random-freezing

Makes me think that in my case it sure is not the phone itself that causes the freezes but some sort of software glitch.

 

[Owais Ali]

Hi everyone, I've had my Galaxy s3 for a little over a year now and about three weeks ago it turned off and wouldn't turn back on. The phone would load to the starting screen and then die; but now only vibrates with no other interaction. Through research and chatting with an online Samsung agent I've learned that I have to send my phone into Samsung, without having a warranty, to see if it can be fixed. The agent I chatted with said that including shipping fees, the standard cost for a phone to be analyzed for issues is $70 and could be more depending on the problem. I also have a cracked screen so that is automatically a higher cost for repairs. The reason I am posting this thread is because I need some opinions on what to do. Would sending my phone in and having it repaired, if possible, be the best option? I would obviously like to spend as little as possible but I'm wondering if buying a new phone would save me money in the long run. I've read of this 'sudden death' problem and even though I love my Galaxy, I'm wondering if the same problem would occur with a new one down the road. If I were to shell out for a new phone, I would be interested in the Galaxy 5 or HTC One, trusting the Galaxy s5 doesn't have the same issue at the s3. Not to bash the iPhone but I really prefer Android so I wouldn't probably get an iPhone unless I could be swayed toward it being a more durable long lasting device. Anyway, if anyone could give me some insight on what to do that would be amazing. Thanks so much. :-[

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