Root [International] Distorted screen + won't boot

[Xyro]

Hey guys,

Last night I looked at my phone (which had been on charge for a while) and noticed that it was on the first S3 boot screen. So I assumed it had crashed and got stuck whilst rebooting, so I held the power button to reset it.

Problem is, it came back to the same screen, except this time the black background of the image was distorted - lots of red/green/blue dots on it. So I tried again, and it came back even worse... The third time, it settled on a completely distorted image and is now seemingly stuck like that.

The phone isn't booting, so far as I can tell. If I try to boot to recovery, I just see the same screen. If I boot into download mode, it actually works - the screen is no longer corrupt and it responds to button presses. (Although itnerestingly if I continue to hold Home + Vol Down + Power once the download screen appears, then it does distort).

I have tried plugging it into my PC. I don't see it as a MTP device (no suprises there), and ADB can't find it. It is however recognised by odin. I tried flashing a stock rom via odin, but it complained that there was no PIT found. (Which if I understand if something to do with the partitioning of the device.

Any ideas on how to solve this? Should I find a PIT image for my phone and flash that and the ROM together?

For background, my phone is a i9305 and was running paranoid android (4.2, IIRC).

 

[CDPlant]

Could you take a pic of what the corrupted screen looks like? (If you happen to still be on that screen.)

According to this (which I can't verify how reliable it is) there should be a PIT file in the stock ROM. Unfortunately I'm still at work and don't have a stock ROM to have a look at as it's on my laptop at home

 

[Xyro]

Could you take a pic of what the corrupted screen looks like? (If you happen to still be on that screen.)

According to this (which I can't verify how reliable it is) there should be a PIT file in the stock ROM. Unfortunately I'm still at work and don't have a stock ROM to have a look at as it's on my laptop at home

Once I get home I'll try and take a photo of it - the phone is off now but it behaves the same way each time I boot it now.

 

[Xyro]

Here are some low res pictures I took with my laptop's webcam:

The first is what I get when I try to boot: lots of white bars. The yellow and purple bands you can see are just an artefact of the webcam.

The second image is download mode - I first went into download mode with appeared normally, but then I continued to hold the buttons down and the result was that distorted image.

 

[CDPlant]

Sorry for the late reply. That is really weird, I've never seen anything like that before. The only thing I can think of that's causing it (because my colleague came across a similar thing on a Samsung) is that the ribbon cable connecting the screen has some slightly loose, but then again you could originally see the download mode screen without any problems, so it may not be that.

When the phone is on, can you receive any calls? (that is if it gets past the boot screen.) If something was loose inside, in theory you should be able to get calls and sound. If not then I think something else is wrong here, I'm just not sure what it is

 

[Xyro]

Sorry for the late reply. That is really weird, I've never seen anything like that before. The only thing I can think of that's causing it (because my colleague came across a similar thing on a Samsung) is that the ribbon cable connecting the screen has some slightly loose, but then again you could originally see the download mode screen without any problems, so it may not be that.

When the phone is on, can you receive any calls? (that is if it gets past the boot screen.) If something was loose inside, in theory you should be able to get calls and sound. If not then I think something else is wrong here, I'm just not sure what it is

I don't think it's booting. I tried hitting the volume up key to see if I heard anything (which I didn't), but I didn't try calling it. I'll give it a try.

 

[Xyro]

Ringing the phone didn't work (not that I expected it to). I also tried flashing the PIT file along with the rom via odin, but it failed to even start.

 

[Ollie_B]

Hi,

I got exactly the same problem.
Did you manage to solve it? could you please share..

The difference is my I9300 is unrooted running stock 4.1.2 XXEMG4.

TIA

 

[Xyro]

Hi,

I got exactly the same problem.
Did you manage to solve it? could you please share..

The difference is my I9300 is unrooted running stock 4.1.2 XXEMG4.

TIA

No, I didn't solve it. Nothing I tried had any effect, unfortunately.

In the end I had to send it to Samsung for repair. I'm not sure what was broken, as they didn't give me a report or anything, but they did manage to fix it.