Samsung mobile gone weird - any thoughts?

[swee'pea99]

My wife's Samsung S7 went distinctly odd yesterday - I wondered if anyone might be able to throw some light on it.

Ok, it started when she noticed that it was out cold. Black screen, unresponsive, the whole bit. Thinking maybe it had run out of charge, she plugged it in and left it for a minute before remembering that she'd charged it not that long earlier, so it couldn't be that. Picking it up, she found it was hot - like really hot...almost 'feels like it might burn you' hot. Put it out in the back garden to cool down for a bit, then brought it back in and tried turning it on. It came on - hooray! - but proved to be on only 2% charge. Plugged it in, an hour later it was still on 2%. Still worked, when plugged in, but simply wouldn't charge. And that's how it stayed the whole evening. Thought the battery was clearly shot, but on the basic principle 'why not?', left it on the charging pad overnight, and whaddya know - it now seems to be 100% charged and completely back to normal.

For the moment at least we're crossing fingers and sticking with wait & see, but if only out of curiosity I'm wondering if anyone might know what it was all about.

Any thoughts welcome.

 

[Slick]

Mine has done the same on occasion but I have never used the charging pad. Mine foes it when I plug in the fast charger the wrong way round when it actually takes away what little charge that was there. I suspect something similar has happened with your wife's.

 

[ColinJ]

Maybe an app had crashed in some tight loop that was running the phone's CPU at full-speed and not getting out of it to update the screen? That would explain the device getting hot, the battery going flat, and maybe the blank screen.

I'm not quite sure why it wouldn't still be trying to run the crashed app though...

 

[MartinQ]

From a quick google
https://eu.community.samsung.com/t5/other-smartphones/s7-black-screen-and-unresponsive/td-p/1563901
https://thedroidguy.com/fix-samsung...sponsive-screen-troubleshooting-guide-1071690

 

[mistyoptic]

My wife's Samsung S7 went distinctly odd yesterday - I wondered if anyone might be able to throw some light on it.

Ok, it started when she noticed that it was out cold. Black screen, unresponsive, the whole bit. Thinking maybe it had run out of charge, she plugged it in and left it for a minute before remembering that she'd charged it not that long earlier, so it couldn't be that. Picking it up, she found it was hot - like really hot...almost 'feels like it might burn you' hot. Put it out in the back garden to cool down for a bit, then brought it back in and tried turning it on. It came on - hooray! - but proved to be on only 2% charge. Plugged it in, an hour later it was still on 2%. Still worked, when plugged in, but simply wouldn't charge. And that's how it stayed the whole evening. Thought the battery was clearly shot, but on the basic principle 'why not?', left it on the charging pad overnight, and whaddya know - it now seems to be 100% charged and completely back to normal.

For the moment at least we're crossing fingers and sticking with wait & see, but if only out of curiosity I'm wondering if anyone might know what it was all about.

Any thoughts welcome.

Having had a, charging, lithium battery powered device catch fire on the desk in front of me, there's NO WAY I would have left that on charge and gone to bed

 

[swee'pea99]

Maybe an app had crashed in some tight loop that was running the phone's CPU at full-speed and not getting out of it to update the screen? That would explain the device getting hot, the battery going flat, and maybe the blank screen.

Yes....along similar lines, my first thought was 'update gone wrong'.

With hindsight maybe the overnight charge was a tad reckless. Still, all's well that ends well, what?

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

I have had similar things happen
i.e. 20% charge - plug it in for a while
take it off charge and zero charge
plug it in for a few minutes and restart - 100% charge

I put it down to dodgy connections between the charger plug and the phone socket
The problem with this is that the problem could be a short inside - and if it gets hot this would also suggest this could be true

I would try and clean the phone socket in case it is full of fluff - be VERY careful
and maybe try with a different charger - but don;t leave it unattended or on a flammable surface

 

[Cycleops]

Won't be supported for much longer anyway. Time for a new phone

 

[Tenkaykev]

I would try and clean the phone socket in case it is full of fluff - be VERY careful

My iPhone started playing up recently, not charging on occasion and random disconnects. I suspected fluff in the charging port and that turned out to be the cause. The charging port is at the bottom of the phone and I keep it in my trouser pocket. It was picking up minute amounts of “ trouser fluff each time I put it back in my pocket, and inserting the charging cable had been compacting the fluff. A careful dig around with a wooden cocktail stick managed to get it all out.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

My iPhone started playing up recently, not charging on occasion and random disconnects. I suspected fluff in the charging port and that turned out to be the cause. The charging port is at the bottom of the phone and I keep it in my trouser pocket. It was picking up minute amounts of “ trouser fluff each time I put it back in my pocket, and inserting the charging cable had been compacting the fluff. A careful dig around with a wooden cocktail stick managed to get it all out.

When I was an IT Technician in school I did that many times

the stuff kids keep in pockets and bags is not for the faint hearted

 

[oldwheels]

My Iphone 7plus did something similar but battery health was at 80% which apparently is ok. Went flat while turned off overnight and acted similarly for a few days. Since I could no longer trust it I upgrade the phone but kept the old one which now seems to hold the charge. If the new [to me ] one plays up it is only a matter of changing the sim card back.
Very mysterious.

 

[swee'pea99]

Interestingly, arguably, it seems quite back to its normal cheery self, which I have to say really surprises me, given how hot it got & how oddly it behaved when it first cooled down. I have got her a new phone...we'll stick this in a drawer somewhere as a backup.

My iPhone started playing up recently, not charging on occasion and random disconnects. I suspected fluff in the charging port and that turned out to be the cause. The charging port is at the bottom of the phone and I keep it in my trouser pocket. It was picking up minute amounts of “ trouser fluff each time I put it back in my pocket, and inserting the charging cable had been compacting the fluff. A careful dig around with a wooden cocktail stick managed to get it all out.

Been there done that. Many a time. My tool of choice is an old scalpel blade, which brings out goodness gracious great balls of fluff. But this wasn't that. It was clearly just One Of Those Things. Apparently over....