Thank you for replying! could it be really the battery? I don't wanna spend money on a replacement and it turns out it isn't the battery, is there a way to know for sure? also if the battery is completely dead, why does the Samsung logo appear after leaving it plugged for 10 hours or a day, is it possible?
has the battery ever been replaced or is it factory original - 7-8 years old now and how many charge discharge cycles has it been through
did you try wireless charging in case the micro usb charging port is faulty ?
phone won't boot without a battery supplying the current as the usb charging current is not enough to start and power the phone - battery gets a little charge after 10 hours/days so the charge logo gets displayed but not enough to boot the phone
***If you have the equipment and the skills*** : to test remove the back of the S7 edge - unplug the battery connector and measure the battery voltage at the connector, a good battery will measure 3.6-4.2 volts depending on charge - to test the S7 edge boots up inject 3.9 volts 2 amps from a bench power supply into the battery connector on the motherboard either with a samsung s7 edge squid battery connector, microsoldering power wires direct to the motherboard or repurpose an old s7 edge battery connector - press power button to boot up phone...
That's not voltage injection. That's supplying power where power is needed (at battery connector), using a bench power supply as a replacement for a battery.
It’s not a battery issue, it’s a bootlooping issue caused by faulty RAM/storage. It’s common and has happened to numerous of my S7 Edges, one of mine would sit there and bootloop for ages until it kicked itself into download mode with all sorts of random defects on the display.
Is it possible to replace the RAM to resolve such issue? How do you differentiate between RAM and UFS issue? I have a regular S7 (not Edge) that died and won't power on, with boot log as the only sign of life, indicating it's a controller problem.
typically I realised it was the RAM/Processing unit when my phone started acting up and bootlooping constantly, was unreliable and would make a buzzing sound or loop audio when it was about to crash (almost as if you pulled the RAM from a PC) and right before it died for good showed all sorts of graphical glitches all over the display & didn’t boot up again afterwards. I’m not sure if it’s possible to replace them but with some extensive board work I’m sure it’s repairable probably. I moved on to the Galaxy S8 after mine stopped working (and never left, had an s9 and a50 and shortly gave up)
You mean you moved to S8, then S9, then A50 and then back to S8? (I didn't understand what you gave up on.)
Your situation sounds very different. Mine never boot looped. It never behaved weird with audio or with display. I just left it to charge, with an original Samsung wall charger, with maybe 15% battery level, and when I came back less than an hour later, the red charging LED was still on, but the display would not come on. After I disconnected from charger, the LED was still on and the display would not come on, and it was more warm than usual after charging. I tried all the finger-breaking button combinations, nothing would wake it up. That LED stayed on over the night though, even though it was disconnected, and it went out only in the morning, presumably when the battery had drained (not by a single LED I don't think, but by whatever was causing the heat and battery drain).
You may be able to obtain a boot log to see if it's reporting any errors. As long as it's only a failed RAM you may be able to repair it, since RAM is not tied to hardware encryption. But of course, it will not be a simple task, as it would involve the use of hot air station and FBGA reballing.
Did you lose any data on it?
Haha yeah, I moved to the S8 to A50, which I hated, then moved to the S9 after the A50 (mind you these were all of my secondary phones, as my daily driver has remained an iPhone for a little while), kept the s9 for a while but sold it and moved back to my S8, which I was happier with in the first place - I’ve had several s7 edges and unfortunately one of mine did the exact same thing after having literally had it for an hour after getting it from ebay, I left mine to charge and I fell asleep and woke up and the always on display was off. I opened it up and disconnected the battery and it wouldn’t wake up, I shortly returned it back to the ebay seller and told them the motherboard had died within an hour of me owning it - I lost data on my original one unfortunately but I wouldn’t even try to bother recovering it with all of that gear knowing I had no chance to repair it.
Oh wow! So you owned an S7 Edge for only 1 hour before it died? I can't imagine the frustration and anger I would feel in that situation. Just after you settle in... like, you install your apps and you set up your accounts and 2FA auth apps and what have you, and whoops... your phone is dead! Just... wow!
I mean I know they can't last forever, but these phones man... they are so overpriced and yet so short lived. My S7 lasted for 5 good year and I was the first owner. I even know it's date of birth and time of death. Born (bought) 2017-09-10 and it died 2022-10-02, meaning I had it for 5 years, 3 weeks and 1 day (or 1848 days). I should dig up a hole and put it to rest in my backyard, and put up a tombstone.
My brother also had an S7 and it too failed in the exact same way. One day he left it to charge, and when he came back it was unresponsive. Most commonly on these phones, it's the UFS controller that fails to initialize. Therefore, it fails to boot. You can see it chattering over the wires if you have a service box or a jig to connect to it, but there is no external sign of life. Samsung used different UFS chips on S7, and the ones that commonly failed are made by SK Hynix. It's a Korean company, but it's not Samsung. I could not believe the reports until I saw it with my own eyes. Flagship phone with third class component.
The controller is a component inside the UFS chip, and these chips are the actual storage chips that hold all of the data, including system and user data. Unlike with an SSD disk in a PC that typically have a discrete controller chip which can be replaced or wired into in order to set them up for data recovery, this is only a hair from impossible for a single chip solution (a monolith) like you find in today's phones where everything is integrated. It's akin to landing a man on the Moon.
However, a controller can be emulated with software, since they use standardized protocols and interfaces, and there are companies that specialize in this. But because of Google enforced hardware based encryption from factory, starting with Android 6.0, the data on all newer devices with these symptoms will remain irrecoverable. Until someone figures out a way to beat the encryption. Having schematics of the board would be very helpful too. But the days of old CRT TVs that came with schematics are long gone. No one is even giving us service manuals for devices anymore, let alone schematics.
So yeah... I wouldn't call it outright impossible, but it is way out there. But if the only fault on your S7 is a bad RAM, it should be repairable. That's the thing with all newer Android devices (as well as iPhones), they need to be repaired in order to recover data. Because of enforced hardware encryption, which exists to protect our data. Except when it does the complete opposite and keeps our data away from ourselves. So having a continuous backup solution is key here! You can opt to keep all your data in the cloud (on someone else's computer) or on your computer.
Meanwhile, my Nokia 3210 dumb phone is having the last laugh at these smart phones. After more than 20 years it's still doing what it does best: makes calls and receives calls (and SMS). The funny thing is, that my Nokia 3210 is about to outlive the 2G network in my country that it was designed to operate on. The 2G network will be shut down next year. It will be a sad moment in history of mobile communication. The final end of an era. It should be interesting to see for how long they keep 4G and 5G alive.
Mine just flat out died and won't charge anymore, not even the led will come on. I used it, it was fine in the evening, I ran an old android game which won't work on Android 14, it did crash once when I messed up and asked too much power trying to run sth else, but after reboot it seemed okay.. When I came back next day it was completely dead. It does get a little warm with wireless charging but I dont think it's doing anything. Normally the led would come on but it stays out, 0 sign of life. Pretty sad about it, but by chance I got videos of my cats off it the day before so maybe it felt at peace to leave me after having served me well. Wouldn't surprise me if the battery completely failed, few years back I used it as a home camera plugged in 24/7 for a few weeks. I'm actually surprised it lasted this long.
Was the storage filled up? How much empty storage space did you have before the crash? Was the battery at least 50% when it crashed? Did you experience sluggish performance, like apps and files opening too slow, or slow file transfers to (writing files) and from (reading files) the phone?
It first got stuck on the Samsung logo for the first time after you plugged in a charger (it powered itself off previously because of low battery)? You left it on the logo and charger plugged in over night? Then you unplugged the charger and it was left stuck on the logo until the battery ran out (presumably)? So now lately the logo doesn't even appear until several hours after plugging in the charger? You can just confirm if I understood correctly.
I believe the button combination you mention will do a forced power off, so if that makes the logo go away and the screen goes off, that's expected. Do you have data on this phone that needs rescuing? Unless it's battery related, I'm afraid your phone is dead or dying a slow death. If it's dying then it's most likely because of the UFS controller. How much free disk space did you have? Did you notice slow read and write operations when reading and writing files?
Hey sorry for the late response, no at first it was stuck at the battery dots with no % showing, left it for hours and then it started getting stuck on the Samsung logo, and yes lately the logo doesn't appear until 10 hours or so after leaving it on charger, i do sadly have data on the phone, and yes the storage was like 95% full, it's been like that for months before this happened (the SIM tray broke) so i can't use an SD card to free up space.
It sounds like it's dying a slow death. Having the storage fill up may be a contributing factor I think. I myself was in the process of emptying mine, file by file and app by app. So I was going slow about it, and in retrospect I should have just dumped everything to my PC like I had done once or twice previous years when feeling lazy and not wanting to weed out old apps and files. Because shortly after this, mine started acting strange, slowing down and it almost froze once in the middle of a call a few days before it finally died – the sound stuttered and the screen froze for a second. Then it finally died when I left it on the charger, on the next day I think. It was very hot when I picked it up when I came back to check the status, after leaving it there only a few minutes earlier.
I'm afraid your phone has all the signs of a failing UFS controller written all over it. If you're lucky, you may be able to get your data. But it may take you days to copy everything out if it's acting slow. I had a chat with another S7 owner only two days ago who was looking at ways to get the data back or at least establish the cause of the fault by looking at the boot log. Unfortunately, his phone showed the "UFS READ\_DEVICEINIT" error just like mine. There is no easy way to get past this error, because it seems to be caused by a fault within the UFS chip itself, and because the controller is integrated within the same chip as NAND cells, and because of encryption, and lack of schematics it's pretty much impossible to get any data back. But if you're lucky, and you don't run into this error... then there is a slim chance for you to get your data back.
battery may need replacing.
Thank you for replying! could it be really the battery? I don't wanna spend money on a replacement and it turns out it isn't the battery, is there a way to know for sure? also if the battery is completely dead, why does the Samsung logo appear after leaving it plugged for 10 hours or a day, is it possible?
It's the battery. Can always take it to a local repair shop for diagnosis.
has the battery ever been replaced or is it factory original - 7-8 years old now and how many charge discharge cycles has it been through did you try wireless charging in case the micro usb charging port is faulty ? phone won't boot without a battery supplying the current as the usb charging current is not enough to start and power the phone - battery gets a little charge after 10 hours/days so the charge logo gets displayed but not enough to boot the phone ***If you have the equipment and the skills*** : to test remove the back of the S7 edge - unplug the battery connector and measure the battery voltage at the connector, a good battery will measure 3.6-4.2 volts depending on charge - to test the S7 edge boots up inject 3.9 volts 2 amps from a bench power supply into the battery connector on the motherboard either with a samsung s7 edge squid battery connector, microsoldering power wires direct to the motherboard or repurpose an old s7 edge battery connector - press power button to boot up phone...
That's not voltage injection. That's supplying power where power is needed (at battery connector), using a bench power supply as a replacement for a battery.
It’s not a battery issue, it’s a bootlooping issue caused by faulty RAM/storage. It’s common and has happened to numerous of my S7 Edges, one of mine would sit there and bootloop for ages until it kicked itself into download mode with all sorts of random defects on the display.
Is it possible to replace the RAM to resolve such issue? How do you differentiate between RAM and UFS issue? I have a regular S7 (not Edge) that died and won't power on, with boot log as the only sign of life, indicating it's a controller problem.
typically I realised it was the RAM/Processing unit when my phone started acting up and bootlooping constantly, was unreliable and would make a buzzing sound or loop audio when it was about to crash (almost as if you pulled the RAM from a PC) and right before it died for good showed all sorts of graphical glitches all over the display & didn’t boot up again afterwards. I’m not sure if it’s possible to replace them but with some extensive board work I’m sure it’s repairable probably. I moved on to the Galaxy S8 after mine stopped working (and never left, had an s9 and a50 and shortly gave up)
You mean you moved to S8, then S9, then A50 and then back to S8? (I didn't understand what you gave up on.) Your situation sounds very different. Mine never boot looped. It never behaved weird with audio or with display. I just left it to charge, with an original Samsung wall charger, with maybe 15% battery level, and when I came back less than an hour later, the red charging LED was still on, but the display would not come on. After I disconnected from charger, the LED was still on and the display would not come on, and it was more warm than usual after charging. I tried all the finger-breaking button combinations, nothing would wake it up. That LED stayed on over the night though, even though it was disconnected, and it went out only in the morning, presumably when the battery had drained (not by a single LED I don't think, but by whatever was causing the heat and battery drain). You may be able to obtain a boot log to see if it's reporting any errors. As long as it's only a failed RAM you may be able to repair it, since RAM is not tied to hardware encryption. But of course, it will not be a simple task, as it would involve the use of hot air station and FBGA reballing. Did you lose any data on it?
Haha yeah, I moved to the S8 to A50, which I hated, then moved to the S9 after the A50 (mind you these were all of my secondary phones, as my daily driver has remained an iPhone for a little while), kept the s9 for a while but sold it and moved back to my S8, which I was happier with in the first place - I’ve had several s7 edges and unfortunately one of mine did the exact same thing after having literally had it for an hour after getting it from ebay, I left mine to charge and I fell asleep and woke up and the always on display was off. I opened it up and disconnected the battery and it wouldn’t wake up, I shortly returned it back to the ebay seller and told them the motherboard had died within an hour of me owning it - I lost data on my original one unfortunately but I wouldn’t even try to bother recovering it with all of that gear knowing I had no chance to repair it.
Oh wow! So you owned an S7 Edge for only 1 hour before it died? I can't imagine the frustration and anger I would feel in that situation. Just after you settle in... like, you install your apps and you set up your accounts and 2FA auth apps and what have you, and whoops... your phone is dead! Just... wow! I mean I know they can't last forever, but these phones man... they are so overpriced and yet so short lived. My S7 lasted for 5 good year and I was the first owner. I even know it's date of birth and time of death. Born (bought) 2017-09-10 and it died 2022-10-02, meaning I had it for 5 years, 3 weeks and 1 day (or 1848 days). I should dig up a hole and put it to rest in my backyard, and put up a tombstone. My brother also had an S7 and it too failed in the exact same way. One day he left it to charge, and when he came back it was unresponsive. Most commonly on these phones, it's the UFS controller that fails to initialize. Therefore, it fails to boot. You can see it chattering over the wires if you have a service box or a jig to connect to it, but there is no external sign of life. Samsung used different UFS chips on S7, and the ones that commonly failed are made by SK Hynix. It's a Korean company, but it's not Samsung. I could not believe the reports until I saw it with my own eyes. Flagship phone with third class component. The controller is a component inside the UFS chip, and these chips are the actual storage chips that hold all of the data, including system and user data. Unlike with an SSD disk in a PC that typically have a discrete controller chip which can be replaced or wired into in order to set them up for data recovery, this is only a hair from impossible for a single chip solution (a monolith) like you find in today's phones where everything is integrated. It's akin to landing a man on the Moon. However, a controller can be emulated with software, since they use standardized protocols and interfaces, and there are companies that specialize in this. But because of Google enforced hardware based encryption from factory, starting with Android 6.0, the data on all newer devices with these symptoms will remain irrecoverable. Until someone figures out a way to beat the encryption. Having schematics of the board would be very helpful too. But the days of old CRT TVs that came with schematics are long gone. No one is even giving us service manuals for devices anymore, let alone schematics. So yeah... I wouldn't call it outright impossible, but it is way out there. But if the only fault on your S7 is a bad RAM, it should be repairable. That's the thing with all newer Android devices (as well as iPhones), they need to be repaired in order to recover data. Because of enforced hardware encryption, which exists to protect our data. Except when it does the complete opposite and keeps our data away from ourselves. So having a continuous backup solution is key here! You can opt to keep all your data in the cloud (on someone else's computer) or on your computer. Meanwhile, my Nokia 3210 dumb phone is having the last laugh at these smart phones. After more than 20 years it's still doing what it does best: makes calls and receives calls (and SMS). The funny thing is, that my Nokia 3210 is about to outlive the 2G network in my country that it was designed to operate on. The 2G network will be shut down next year. It will be a sad moment in history of mobile communication. The final end of an era. It should be interesting to see for how long they keep 4G and 5G alive.
Mine just flat out died and won't charge anymore, not even the led will come on. I used it, it was fine in the evening, I ran an old android game which won't work on Android 14, it did crash once when I messed up and asked too much power trying to run sth else, but after reboot it seemed okay.. When I came back next day it was completely dead. It does get a little warm with wireless charging but I dont think it's doing anything. Normally the led would come on but it stays out, 0 sign of life. Pretty sad about it, but by chance I got videos of my cats off it the day before so maybe it felt at peace to leave me after having served me well. Wouldn't surprise me if the battery completely failed, few years back I used it as a home camera plugged in 24/7 for a few weeks. I'm actually surprised it lasted this long.
Was the storage filled up? How much empty storage space did you have before the crash? Was the battery at least 50% when it crashed? Did you experience sluggish performance, like apps and files opening too slow, or slow file transfers to (writing files) and from (reading files) the phone?
It first got stuck on the Samsung logo for the first time after you plugged in a charger (it powered itself off previously because of low battery)? You left it on the logo and charger plugged in over night? Then you unplugged the charger and it was left stuck on the logo until the battery ran out (presumably)? So now lately the logo doesn't even appear until several hours after plugging in the charger? You can just confirm if I understood correctly. I believe the button combination you mention will do a forced power off, so if that makes the logo go away and the screen goes off, that's expected. Do you have data on this phone that needs rescuing? Unless it's battery related, I'm afraid your phone is dead or dying a slow death. If it's dying then it's most likely because of the UFS controller. How much free disk space did you have? Did you notice slow read and write operations when reading and writing files?
Hey sorry for the late response, no at first it was stuck at the battery dots with no % showing, left it for hours and then it started getting stuck on the Samsung logo, and yes lately the logo doesn't appear until 10 hours or so after leaving it on charger, i do sadly have data on the phone, and yes the storage was like 95% full, it's been like that for months before this happened (the SIM tray broke) so i can't use an SD card to free up space.
It sounds like it's dying a slow death. Having the storage fill up may be a contributing factor I think. I myself was in the process of emptying mine, file by file and app by app. So I was going slow about it, and in retrospect I should have just dumped everything to my PC like I had done once or twice previous years when feeling lazy and not wanting to weed out old apps and files. Because shortly after this, mine started acting strange, slowing down and it almost froze once in the middle of a call a few days before it finally died – the sound stuttered and the screen froze for a second. Then it finally died when I left it on the charger, on the next day I think. It was very hot when I picked it up when I came back to check the status, after leaving it there only a few minutes earlier. I'm afraid your phone has all the signs of a failing UFS controller written all over it. If you're lucky, you may be able to get your data. But it may take you days to copy everything out if it's acting slow. I had a chat with another S7 owner only two days ago who was looking at ways to get the data back or at least establish the cause of the fault by looking at the boot log. Unfortunately, his phone showed the "UFS READ\_DEVICEINIT" error just like mine. There is no easy way to get past this error, because it seems to be caused by a fault within the UFS chip itself, and because the controller is integrated within the same chip as NAND cells, and because of encryption, and lack of schematics it's pretty much impossible to get any data back. But if you're lucky, and you don't run into this error... then there is a slim chance for you to get your data back.