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Help Galaxy S3 Wifi Won't Turn On

  • Thread starter Thread starter AntC
  • Start date Start date
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AntC

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I'm having problems with turning Wifi on with my Galaxy S3, when i pull down the bar from the top and push the Wifi button, it switches from the grey to the darkened green state for 3-4 seconds, but then reverts to grey instead of going fully green. I'm not sure what caused this to happen but I've tried a number of things to resolve it without success so far:
- I've turned the phone off and on again, including removing the battery.
- I've completely backed up the phone and done a factory reset using the menus.
- I've tried a factory reset after booting through the Volume-Home-Power method.
- I've wiped the cache partition after booting through the Volume-Home-Power method.
- I've tried turning on and off again Flight mode.

I'm not sure what else to try. The phone is running Android 4.3, I haven't rooted it in any way.

Please let me know if there are any other suggestions, I'm willing to try things. I'd like to revert to 4.2 Android but I understand this isn't easy to do.

Thanks
Ant
 
Yeah you can't revert back to 4.2 afaik.
Have you tried, in settings, tapping the WORD "wifi" (not the switch) and connecting to your wifi from there?
 
If I tap the word then it sends me to a page where it says "To see available networks,turn on Wi-Fi". It has the slider at the top of the screen which behaves exactly as above, turns dark grey for a few seconds then goes back to off again :(
 
Any further suggestions on this? I'm out of ideas with it and my only out is a new handset, which is something I don't want to have to buy if I can avoid it :(
 
Hi

This is an off chance, but take the back off and with a watchmakers (very small) screwdriver, check that all the little screws around the outside are not loose. This worked in one case I know of - I think the antenna had become disconnected.
 
Thanks for the reply. I just took the back off and tried, and 2 of them did tighten up a bit, but still hasn't changed the Wifi. If i undid the screws and took the back off, if there anything underneath I could check to see if it's loose?
 
Hi

Probably, but I personally would leave that to someone familiar with disassembling phones!
 
Hmm I'm not sure if, if it is a hardware fault, whether the phone would indicate that wifi is turned on or not (if that makes sense).
My gut feeling is that it's a software issue
 
Not sure I quite follow, it looks like it's trying to turn it on and failing, I wonder (from my very basic appreciation of hardware) whether the CPU is attempting to initiate the WiFi and failing, because it can't contact the module?

I'd prefer it if it is software though, although not sure what the next step is given that I've already factory reset it?
 
Ok so curiousity got the better of me and i opened the phone up, very easy to do just a few screws and it all pops off. Nothing was loose that I could find, but i did notice the Wi-Fi module looked like it had some sort of moisture on it:

9urhq0.jpg

Is this normal? I had a look on ebay for a new motherboard and the first one I looked at had exactly the same markings!
 
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