Hey Folks,
I have a Samsung Galaxy SII (SGH-i777) that I used a couple of years ago. It was my first Android phone and I loved it very much (until corporate made me an iSheep).
The phone was retired to a shoe box for the last 1+ years and I recently dug it up so I could get it set up for my little bro who somehow recently fell on his phone with it in his pocket and shattered the screen (don't ask... I don't get it either).
Anyways long story short -- the phone sat idle for a long time, when I pulled it out it wouldn't boot up at all. Assumed that the battery had discharged so I plugged it in to see if it would start up. The battery logo would intermittently flash on the screen and show a drained battery logo but even letting the phone sit for a day did not provide me any results.
Fast forward 3-6 months. Today I replaced the charging board thinking that there was some issue with the USB connector on the phone that was preventing it from getting power. Once that was done I discovered that I was able to get the phone to boot into Odin mode. Great! No boot, no recovery, but download mode seemed to be better than nothing.
I have tried, in vain, to flash stock firmware to this phone via Odin, and even though all indicators point to it being successful, once I finish the Samsung logo comes up on the screen, goes off and that's it. I can see the 4 LEDs on the buttons at the bottom of the phone flash every 5 seconds as well as a faint flicker on the screen staggered between the LED flashes.
Looking for any further suggestions as to what I may be able to try. I have searched various sources on XDA and other sources but I haven't quite found anything that matches my exact symptoms.
Furthermore, I can't be sure what Kernel/ROM I was last running on this phone. Maybe Siyah kernel, maybe CM 10,1 with Flux kernel. Idk.
Any input is appreciated!
Seems I should mention this other detail --
With the battery in, I cannot get into download mode -- it just states 'Low Battery!! Can't Download!!" This is presumably due to the fact that the battery is completely discharged -- maybe incapable of holding a charge but perhaps this is indicative of a more serious hardware failure.
I'd guess the battery is completely shot.
I bought a replacement battery from here: http://www.ebay.com/itm/111014533334?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649
No problems with it.
bleggy said:
I'd guess the battery is completely shot.
I bought a replacement battery from here: http://www.ebay.com/itm/111014533334?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649
No problems with it.
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Click to collapse
Very likely --
Since you got me to shift focus here, a quick search is telling me that it won't boot without a battery due to a feedback circuit. This would explain the ability to go into download mode but the lack of boot / flashing LEDs I guess.
Can someone confirm?
If the phone was working normally when it was put away, I would expect it to be working normally when it was pulled it back out. Your story is a little confusing, but did you ever try booting the phone with a fully charged battery? In the circumstances you describe, that would be the first logical trouble shooting step. And if you haven't tried that, then it is still the next logical trouble shooting step. Also, you can't assume that the original battery that you left in the phone is still able to hold a charge. It still may be good, but you can't assume that for testing purposes. Incidentally, the battery should have been pulled from the phone before it was put away.
I do not get any indication that the original battery is actually charging. Charging icon just flashes on the screen briefly in between LED and screen flashes (again, presumably due to the battery being completely dead/incapable of holding a charge since I left it in the phone this entire time).
I guess I'll go ahead and buy another battery and see what happens.
It is my understanding then that this phone will not boot on the charger without battery due to a feedback circuit. Correct?
kleinschmizzy said:
I do not get any indication that the original battery is actually charging. Charging icon just flashes on the screen briefly in between LED and screen flashes (again, presumably due to the battery being completely dead/incapable of holding a charge since I left it in the phone this entire time).
I guess I'll go ahead and buy another battery and see what happens.
It is my understanding then that this phone will not boot on the charger without battery due to a feedback circuit. Correct?
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Even if the battery is good, but fully discharged, it may not charge in the phone. You would have to have an external charger. Phones are not consistent, and many phones probably would charge a fully discharged battery, but I have seen a number of people report that a fully discharged battery would cause the exact same behavior as you report. If it were mine, I wouldn't throw the battery away yet.
If you know anyone with an I777, you could borrow their fully charged battery for a few minutes just to see if your phone will boot.
You are correct that the phone will not boot on the charger when the battery is out, although you should be able to successfully flash firmware through Odin with the battery out, and the computer supplying the power, but still, as far as I know, it will not boot after the flash without a working battery.
The battery was indeed at fault. Ordered a new one on Amazon, popped it in and voila -- we're up and running.
Thanks for the input guys! Much appreciated!
Related
I was flashing a new rom. And after it said 100% on the phone it turned black and never lit up again. I waited i didnt pull out the usb. 15 min later i checked it again still black. i pulled the usb out. hit the power button and nothing happend. i did a hard reset and still the phone wount power on. The phone's charging led light wount even come on when i plug it up. So i assume i have bricked me phone ?
I have HSPL3
miri19v
froyostone 3.1v
is there any way to bring it back to life or do i toss it in the trash?
thanks for the help
i have also tried to go into boot loader and NIL!
from your use of the word 'trash' can i assume you have a tmous hd2? if so, what did you flash? was it a non tmous stock rom (meaning a bad radio)?
(oh, first job tho, check for bent battery pins)
the pins are fine. yeah i was actually flashing a stock tmou rom.
got the full filename for the rom you downloaded please? (just checking you havent downloaded a t mobile rom that isnt tmous)
the reason im pushing that line of enquiry is that the symptoms you describe are consistent with either
wrong radio (from the wrong stock rom)
bent battery pin
over discharged battery
to test the over discharged battery you can take it out, plug usb in with wall charger, then put battery in. this lets it charge without trying to turn on the phone. the light may not come one for some time, so leave it a good hour or two.
Hey Sam,
I'm having this issue too. I am relatively positive it's from an over-discharged battery. The phone conked out a few nights ago, and later when trying to charge it I got nothing - until yanking the battery for a bit, plugging in the charger, then popping in the battery. Now, every time the battery drains I have to do this.
Is the battery "damaged" now, or do you have any suggestions to fix the prob? I see this posted a bit but no one has any solutions that I've found.
Thanks!
Ryan
well i know the principals of these batteries, but not really the mechanics, so yes id guess the battery is defective, (but it could be the phones internal battery control circuits too, again just guessing) but no i dont know if there is a cure, other than try another battery, and if it cures it, ok, but if not then it would be a warranty issue.
are you using android? cos from what ive read it discharges quickly under android or something? (never used it so cant tell)
Walking out of work yesterday, I swapped my dying battery for my freshly charged one, and powered up the phone. I see the Samsung logo pop up, and then the CyanogenMod wheel start spinning, so I slip it in my pocket. I pull it out a couple of minutes later to check something, and the screen is black. I press the power button a few more times, and the Samsung logo shows up again. Apparently my phone was off. So I wait on it to boot up, but it never leaves the Samsung logo. It sits, and sits, and sits...for a good 30-45 seconds, it sits on that screen. And then it goes black. I try again, but nothing happens. I switch back to the dying-but-not-dead battery, still nothing. I leave it to sit on the seat of the car with no battery for the drive home, and try again. Nothing. I leave it to sit on the charger for a couple of hours, both with and without a battery. Nothing. I leave it "charging" overnight. It's warm in the morning, but still nothing. I can pull the battery and put it back in, hit the button, and a little while later it will heat up, as if it's running and something's hitting the CPU...but no vibrations from the phone, no sounds, no anything at all, other than the heat. I tried my jig just now, as it was in my desk at work. More nothing. The phone is cold, the battery is cold, it might as well be a rock.
So...any chance of saving this thing? I'm really hoping to hold out for Black Friday sales to replace it with an S4 or something. If I can get this thing to last me another two months, I'll be happy. If it goes belly up November 30, that's fine. I just hope I can make it last until then. I already had to throw down $50 to get my wife a limp-along phone off Craigslist...am I going to be stuck doing the same for me?
First see if you can boot into recovery and perform a wipe data/factory reset. If not, see if you can get into download mode. If you can, flash back to stock and see if that lets it boot. In any event, you should perform a wipe data/factory reset at the earliest possible moment, even if you have to reflash the firmware first. If you can get back to stock, you should be able to reinstall your custom firmware.
So far I can't convince it to acknowledge that it's even on. The only sign it's not 100% dead is that it warms up when plugged in. I have no idea if it's actually doing anything other than sending juice to the battery because there's nothing on the screen and no vibrations or sound to alert me that it's doing anything at all.
:-/
I'll add that my computer doesn't acknowledge the phone's existence. Linux desktop, lsusb shows nothing remotely Android/Samsung related. Granted, a failing microUSB port on the phone isn't helping, so I don't know how valid this particular test is.
So u are in the need to enter the fast boot mode or else try the official firmware installation by the help of SD card.....
Hit thanks if this helped you...
Sent from my Xperia U using xda app-developers app
...could you explain either of those? Fastboot, from what I can tell, is an HTC thing, and has nothing to do with Samsung phones in general nor the i777 in particular. As for firmware installation, is there a way to do this without any screen, PC connection, or feedback from the phone whatsoever?
nd_geek said:
...could you explain either of those? Fastboot, from what I can tell, is an HTC thing, and has nothing to do with Samsung phones in general nor the i777 in particular. As for firmware installation, is there a way to do this without any screen, PC connection, or feedback from the phone whatsoever?
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Some Samsung phones have fast boot. I think the S4 does. The I777 does not.
If you can get the phone into download mode, (and if your usb connection is working, which I think from what you said may be in question,) then you can use the Samsung tool, Odin3, to flash firmware. You would have to use a Windows computer since Odin does not work on Linux.
I think your main problem is that you have a failing USB port. You should consider buying a replacement and putting it in yourself. It is supposed to be fairly easy. Once you have that working, you should be able to recover your phone.
Could it be possible that whatever it was trying to run drained the battery and now it's just refusing to charge? I had almost an exact same situation happen to me. I ended up having to buy a cheapo external battery charger from amazon to charge the battery and finally get it to boot.
creepyncrawly said:
Some Samsung phones have fast boot. I think the S4 does. The I777 does not.
If you can get the phone into download mode, (and if your usb connection is working, which I think from what you said may be in question,) then you can use the Samsung tool, Odin3, to flash firmware. You would have to use a Windows computer since Odin does not work on Linux.
I think your main problem is that you have a failing USB port. You should consider buying a replacement and putting it in yourself. It is supposed to be fairly easy. Once you have that working, you should be able to recover your phone.
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Sadly, download mode doesn't seem likely. The phone is basically functionally a rock, with the limitation that it's probably easier to break than a rock. I may venture down the replacement USB road, although I'm a bit leery of spending money on the device, given that it won't even power on.
cicatriz63 said:
Could it be possible that whatever it was trying to run drained the battery and now it's just refusing to charge? I had almost an exact same situation happen to me. I ended up having to buy a cheapo external battery charger from amazon to charge the battery and finally get it to boot.
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Click to collapse
That's what I initially suspected, but I actually have a Samsung charger I bought off Amazon that came with a spare battery, and I've charged both batteries with it to full capacity. What does appear to be happening is that when it's generating heat, it's actually discharging the battery rather than charging, as a battery pulled from the phone takes much longer to charge on the external charger than one that has been charged from the charger, pulled, let sit, and put back in the charger. It's possible the phone refuses to power on until it can charge, though, because I too have had that issue in the past, and the only solution was to let it sit on the charger for a few hours. The first half-hour or so, nothing happened, but then eventually I'd get the battery charge animation. Sadly, letting the phone sit overnight did nothing this time around.
nd_geek said:
Sadly, download mode doesn't seem likely. The phone is basically functionally a rock, with the limitation that it's probably easier to break than a rock. I may venture down the replacement USB road, although I'm a bit leery of spending money on the device, given that it won't even power on.
That's what I initially suspected, but I actually have a Samsung charger I bought off Amazon that came with a spare battery, and I've charged both batteries with it to full capacity. What does appear to be happening is that when it's generating heat, it's actually discharging the battery rather than charging, as a battery pulled from the phone takes much longer to charge on the external charger than one that has been charged from the charger, pulled, let sit, and put back in the charger. It's possible the phone refuses to power on until it can charge, though, because I too have had that issue in the past, and the only solution was to let it sit on the charger for a few hours. The first half-hour or so, nothing happened, but then eventually I'd get the battery charge animation. Sadly, letting the phone sit overnight did nothing this time around.
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So not even recovery mode works?
azeem40 said:
So not even recovery mode works?
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The phone doesn't power on. If I plug it in, it gets warm, but other than that, it shows no signs of life.
You've tried plugging it into the computer without battery in case power button went dead?
Sent from my GT-p511x
Piece of cake. Although the replacement is a bit lower MhA it's a lot better than the old battery
pepi4 said:
Piece of cake.
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That's nice to know. Is there a step-by-step guide for it?
Although the replacement is a bit lower MhA it's a lot better than the old battery
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Which replacement battery did you get?
http://www.batteryship.com/htmlos/htmlos.cgi/batteryship/catalog.html
You even get free tools and they are not junk
How to that I used ... Hard to get pass the women robot talking LOL
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3F0glSyvj2s
At first I wondered about this being a smaller battery if it would run down fast. It doesn't !!! Works very well !!!
I changed out my battery with one from the above site, but now every time I plug a USB cable in it to charge it immediately shuts off. Anyone have any ideas what could cause this? Wonder if I got a bad battery..
mpry1 said:
I changed out my battery with one from the above site, but now every time I plug a USB cable in it to charge it immediately shuts off. Anyone have any ideas what could cause this? Wonder if I got a bad battery..
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Click to collapse
That could be a bad/shorted battery. Mine is still going strong! I would try and reverse everything and start over. When I did mine my vol controls didn't work. Didn't have the connector snapped down good enough
I was looking at this one (still am actually although the one you got is cheaper):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3F0glSyvj2s
http://www.newpower99.com/Barnes_No...cement_Kit_p/barnes and noble nook tablet.htm
I am still trying to see if there is a setting that somehow caused my NT to freak out when the battery reaches 23%
But I have this bad feeling I will need to purchase a new battery. By the way, if the nook just shuts off watch the screen closely it usually says "battery too low" for a second before switching off. And if that is the case after plugging it in, you likely have a bad one and I would call the company to get a replacement.
I have been looking around and the only new replacement batteries I find are the two mentioned and both are 3200mh rather than 4000 of the original. How is your battery life since you changed it? Seems like it should be 1/4th what we had when new (or close to it). Or don't you really notice at this point? I have thought about ebay but then they are used batteries and you have no idea how many cycles are left, and likely hold 1/4th less anyway due to their age. *shurgs* not sure which way to go. As of now I am still having a "freak out" situation at about 23% (roughly). If it doesn't get any worse I can live with that, but from what I have read it will only get worse. :/
Anyone know of a battery app I could use to "adjust" the shut down threashold? I have one that will alert me to whatever I set so if I am not watching it will warn me so that will work if I don't have one that will actually shut it down. I know the "calibrating" apps don't do anything except delete the one file that is only usage stats from the last time it was plugged in, so I don't think there is a real way to calibrate it.
Update:
And on another note with the "spare parts" app the 'battery history' option errors with "the application spare parts ) process.com.andriod.spare_parts_ has topped unexpectedly, please try again." Is this normal? It is version 2.3.7. NT Hidden Settings app application settings/battery use works fine and shows the amount of everything that has used the battery since it was last plugged in/charged. Could this error be a sign of the problem with the phantom touches and inaccurate battery display? And if it is a sign of something broken, what and how do I fix it?
I received a replacement battery and it is doing the same thing, so somehow during the battery switch something got wonkey with my nook. It charges OK just powers off to do it. Since it's used by my kids now it's not essential to be on while charging, but I'd still like to figure this out.
mpry1 said:
I received a replacement battery and it is doing the same thing, so somehow during the battery switch something got wonkey with my nook. It charges OK just powers off to do it. Since it's used by my kids now it's not essential to be on while charging, but I'd still like to figure this out.
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Which battery did you get? And very strange it shuts off when you plug it in. Never seen or heard of that before. It should boot up if off. Or do you mean the screen goes off/goes to sleep but not full shut down when you plug it in? If it is going to sleep, that is likely a app or setting that is doing it. Not sure which but you might want to check any battery apps you have or your settings. It would also depend on which ROM you are running, stock (which I am running) or something else.
Both batteries were the one mentioned in the original post. It doesn't go to sleep when I plug it in, it completely shuts off like no power at all. It will not boot up until I unplug the USB from a power source, although it will fully charge while it is plugged in. I've never seen anything like this and I've been messing with android since my original moto droid 1.
mpry1 said:
Both batteries were the one mentioned in the original post. It doesn't go to sleep when I plug it in, it completely shuts off like no power at all. It will not boot up until I unplug the USB from a power source, although it will fully charge while it is plugged in. I've never seen anything like this and I've been messing with android since my original moto droid 1.
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Very strange indeed. The only thing I would say to do is turn the USB debugging on and off a few times, to see if that makes a difference. It shouldn't but if you tried two different brands of battery, sounds like it is the hardware on the nook. But that is one really weird bug.
Something interesting I discovered. While I did get a new battery, I decided to do some experimenting. Researching this issue a lot of people said you need to delete the "battery file". There even use to be a option in CWM to remove this file. The thing is the file is deleted every time you plug in the device. So that is not going to help.
Further digging found that some devices you need to plug them in and let them charge. Or run them down for say 20-30 minutes without sleeping then plug in and let it charge fully. For some devices this "resets" the battery management system.
What I found in my tests is the battery gets harder to charge with age. While the little n light might show green, it is likely only 80% charge sometimes 90%. And it takes awhile for it to really get to 100%. What I did was let it charge up to that full 100% which may take hours. I got a nice battery app that alerts me when it gets below 25% after that things can get crazy with phantom touches. I also have it set to give a audio alert when it reaches 100%, this way I know when it is fully charged.
I know the charge it fully (when it actually says 100% and I get a audio alert when this happens) before 50% or so has helped a lot. At one point the phantom touches started to happen at higher than 25% reaching almost 35%, last time I did a test to see when phantom touches started was 17% so it is much better. Not to the level when I bought the device, but still very useable.
I will put in the new battery sometime I am sure as it is taking longer and longer to reach the full 100% (but that is normal for lithium ion batteries.) it is certainly useable in this state and the phantom touch issue is not getting worse. I think the biggest issue was charging it until the n light went green and as the battery ages, the battery manger gets thrown off for some reason and charging to the true 100% helps recalibrate it.
Therefore I would run it for 20 minutes without letting it go to sleep, then charge until it is really full (usually leave it plugged in overnight and that should do it). Do this a few times and see if the battery is better.
Oh another thing I did. Power it off fully (hold down power button then tap shutoff) then plug it in to charge. Let the charger wake, reboot, and charge the device. This I also think helps recalibrate the system. Although I never did it when I ran it for 20 minutes then charged to full. But I am sure powering off then plugging in to charge at times made a difference as well.
I've just bought one of these batteries, hoping it'll be better than my old one.
It should be. It won't be quite as it was when it was new, as these new batteries don't have the capacity compared to the originals that B&N installed (perhaps a hour or two less runtime compared to the originals). But it will be better than a well used Nook Tablet battery that is fading fast.
I don't know if I need a new battery just yet, but I am experiencing the issue of the power being killed when plugging the Nook into the wall or USB (which means transfers over an SD card, which is a pain). I only spent $5 to get it and I can see why someone might have thought it was broken, since they probably plugged it in to charge it but it wouldn't turn on while plugged in. It does charge while off, however.
What I've noticed in my experience is that if I turn it on, I can plug it in while the Nook is on the N screen, and then it'll go to the Cynoboot screen still plugged in, but the second it goes to boot the OS it turns off.
Anyone have any ideas on why it would allow itself to be on until it tries to boot to the OS?
Hello all. It's been a long time since I've been to this section of XDA, glad to see it's still got some life left.
I'm trying to get my old i777 working so a friend of mine can borrow it. If I remember correctly, it was running an AOKP rom when I stored it well over a year ago, and it was fine. Today I went to turn it on, nothing. I started charging it, let it go for a few hours. It still won't turn on; instead it's acting a bit strange. Every few seconds the screen flashes either the gray battery charging logo, an instant dim flash of the entire screen (a slight gray, nothing bright), or the home/back/etc buttons flash for an instant. When the charge logo appears, the screen brightens just before it goes off. All buttons are unresponsive, my computer does not recognize it. I've been unsuccessful in finding any real help with Google and searching XDA. The only advice I found was to plug it in without the battery, then put the battery in. This did not help. Any feedback would be appreciated - this little phone has a lot of sentimental value to me. It's been through hell and back, it survived my ex (who managed to break a Nokia 3310 and Nokia 920). If I have to put it to rest, I guess it's earned it, but I'd like to keep it going for just a while longer.
Did you store it away with the battery in the phone? If so, in a year, the battery could be completely drained and in some cases, that can cause a problem with charging, as in will not charge. Possibilities to test, use a fully charged battery by charging the existing battery with an external charger, or by using another battery. This would be the first thing I would try.
I am also having such a problem from time to time, when my battery is complitely drained. I am using such a device to bring the battery back to life. Always helps.
I usually plug mine into a higher powered charger like my s6 one and that gets it out of the loop.
So, I am having some problems to give a second life to this device.
I bought twice a battery to replace. The first one was clearly a second hand battery sold as new, which lasted 6 months, after which, it started to grow bigger in volume and its performance dropped dramatically lasting half an hour working. I tried to get a refund but no luck.
After that experience I tried a second seller who promises nothing less than 2 years warranty for the battery (wow). I bought a new original one and installed it. It seem in mint condition so I thought it would do it.
It worked everything aparently fine. I even installed a new custom room (i must admit that i am not sure if i did it right) But it appartenly worked. I had cRdroid with android 10 running smoothly on the phone. Not sure at this point if I rebooted after that. I think so.
The nightmare started once the battery ran out (I did it on purpose to calibrate de battery). The phone didn't wake up again. I started to have a blinking red notification led. It seemed not to be charging at all and indicating some problem with EDL mode or with very low battery. The fact is after trying long time charging, several chargers and cables, etc, i managed to get a yellow led light.
But what I can get by now is:
-if I plug a charger with a (sometimes) notification of a stuck 50% level of battery (wtf), sometimes bootloop, sometimes black screen
-Entering in fastboot mode with (vol- + power)
-Not able to enter recovery
-If I try to swich on it does not react to power button in any way.
I tried to flash all stock files by using xiaomimitool but it does not boot system afterthat (although i can get to stock recovery once at least after that)
i tried flashing twrp and it says ok installed but I cannot enter afterwards
and so on..
do i throw the phone away?
btw, it is unlocked and it is rn4 global sd version (mido)
I would have checked the battery voltage before flashing anything.
For me, I would have also taken the old, dead battery and used the the BMS PCB and connector off that and a bench power supply to power it up as a check.
Renate said:
I would have checked the battery voltage before flashing anything.
For me, I would have also taken the old, dead battery and used the the BMS PCB and connector off that and a bench power supply to power it up as a check.
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Click to collapse
Hello (a bit late).
I find this to be something that I should have done more than a solution now the problem is here. Even tough I don't properly understand your proposition and I find I might not possess the tools that you explain.
I never though that replacing a battery would bring this problems.
I managed to bring back to life the battery. Now is working without problems, but only because I am avoiding the phone from completely discharge the battery and I am charging it before it dies. Otherwise I have the feeling that battery will go under voltage again.
Is there something I can do to avoid this? I have checked voltage with some app and lectures seem to be normal while its working: 4.38 v and going down while it discharges. I do not have the old battery.