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Help Think my S3 is dying

C

cgfw201

Well-Known Member
Had it since June, worked perfectly until November.

It then started to go a bit slowly on occasions. Apps like App Cache Cleaner have helped in the short term, and the odd reset made things a bit better.

However, now it's turning itself off at random times, at least twice a day for no apparent reason, very frustrating. Requires battery removal and turning on to get going again.

I've got 3.5gb spare of internal memory and 15gb of my 32gb external SD card free as well so I don't think it's a space issue.

Anyone had similar issues?

(Stock JB 4.1.2, not rooted)
 
Probably time to just do a backup as best you can (sync and backup through kies) and do a factory reset to start from scratch.
 
silentwitness said:
is your phone hanging or turning off? do u happen to have a 16 gb version?
Click to expand...

Kind of both. I think it's just hanging as it does it when I'm using the phone/when the screen is turned on as well. When it hangs with the screen turned off if obviously looks like it's just turned itself off.
 
if u leave the phone does it start responding again on its own after about 5 to 25 mins? Is it the 16gb version? You could be facing the SDS fix working.
 
silentwitness said:
if u leave the phone does it start responding again on its own after about 5 to 25 mins? Is it the 16gb version? You could be facing the SDS fix working.
Click to expand...

Haven't left it that long to see if it responds, will do next time it hangs.

What is the SDS fix?
 
silentwitness said:
if u leave the phone does it start responding again on its own after about 5 to 25 mins? Is it the 16gb version? You could be facing the SDS fix working.
Click to expand...

That just sounds plain wrong to me. The fix was a firmware update sent out over a month ago. There should be no such thing as "the fix working" to cause a hangup. The applied fix partitions out part of the affected chip so it can't be accessed or written to, which is what was causing the SDS.

Sometimes (especially after the phones not been turned off for long periods of time) phones just hang. Just battery pull of need be and reboot.

cgfw201 said:
Haven't left it that long to see if it responds, will do next time it hangs.

What is the SDS fix?
Click to expand...

Info on the SDS (sudden death syndrome) that was occurring over the Christmas period.

Samsung Galaxy S3 Sudden Death Syndrome (SDS))
 
XplosiV said:
That just sounds plain wrong to me. The fix was a firmware update sent out over a month ago. There should be no such thing as "the fix working" to cause a hangup. The applied fix partitions out part of the affected chip so it can't be accessed or written to, which is what was causing the SDS.

Sometimes (especially after the phones not been turned off for long periods of time) phones just hang. Just battery pull of need be and reboot.
Click to expand...

well please tell that to the large number of people facing the issue(including me). I have done quite a bit of research on the sds issue. i was using the 4.1.2 firmware since it was released and started facing the hangups much later on.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2091045
 
silentwitness said:
well please tell that to the large number of people facing the issue(including me). I have done quite a bit of research on the sds issue. i was using the 4.1.2 firmware since it was released and started facing the hangups much later on.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2091045
Click to expand...

You might get hang ups due to the firmware update, but the SDS issue as you call it, will literally brick your phone, it will not boot into any mode bar odin mode. (not boot into a usable phone or recovery mode) and in odin mode the phone is not recognised by your pc, let alone kies.

I know this because my phone suffered, and had to be sent off to samsung to be patched and have the firmware re-flashed to unbrick the handset.

So, if you actually suffer from the SDS issue, your phone will brick.

If you suffer hangups, it's another issue entirely. (possibly due to a firmware update or an app conflict)

This extract from the link I provide might make it easier to understand and how the fix works

" If your eMMC chip is Type: VTU00M and FwRev: 0x1f, then you're at risk. Apparently there is a faulty spot of NAND on this eMMC that will hard brick the phone if written to. The patch allegedly partitions this potentially death dealing section of NAND out of use."
 
It's hung/crashed/turned itself off about 20 times this morning. Going to try and root it and do a Titanium Backup, factory reset and see if that helps.
 
A few weeks ago my phone started hanging and not waking up. Basically a soft reset or battery pull was the only solution. I've just updated via Kies to XXEMB1 and I haven't had a hang in the past 2 days.

Might be worth seeing if you can update?
 
8Ball said:
A few weeks ago my phone started hanging and not waking up. Basically a soft reset or battery pull was the only solution. I've just updated via Kies to XXEMB1 and I haven't had a hang in the past 2 days.

Might be worth seeing if you can update?
Click to expand...

+1.
I was having similar issues, only a few a day but still very frustrating. Got the latest update a couple of days ago and not a single issue since
 
Just saw this, and it caught my attention.
How exactly do you find out what your chip type is. I don't see anything like that in the "about" setting.
 
Factory Reset...still crashing and TitaniumBackup only decided to restore about half my apps so I'm buggered all round.

I'm on latest firmware so not sure above fix will work, Kies won't offer me anything new anyway.
 
silentwitness said:
assuming its not the issue with eMMC do u have a memory card in the phone? Try removing it and see if it works.
Click to expand...

I do...I took it out for the last hour and have just put it back in and the phone's crashed 5 minutes later.

What might this be? Got 20gb of photos on it.
 
could be an issue with the memory card which brand card is it and what size is it? I am using a 64gb class 10 sandisk card and have had no issues before which i was using a 32gb class 4 transcend and had no issues. Try and see if there are some softwares in the play store that let u check the memory card or best would be to run a chkdsk /f /r in windows.
 
D'oh ive got an insane chip :)
uploadfromtaptalk1361722354854.jpg
 
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