Samsung S3 sudden death - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / repair

author: jamesg77
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: November 09, 2014, 08:39:26 pm
content: Hi all,I'm by no means any good with electronics to this level and could do with some help!My wife's Samsung s3 suffered what is termed as 'sudden death syndrome' I.E. it's dead, wont charge wont power up, nada! Its an easy fix to swap out the main board and bring it back to life... BUT.... that means losing the memory chip..... Which contains the video of bringing my son home from the hospital when he was born and meeting the family for the first time!!!!!!I don't care about the phone, long since upgraded. I spoke directly with Samsung and they couldn't help.Can somebody point me in the right direction of someone, somewhere who has the skills to either pull the data of the memory, or let me know to just give up?Thanks in advanceJim

author: Porto
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: November 09, 2014, 10:16:09 pm
content: Are you sure the phone itself is dead and it's not a faulty usb (charging) issue or just a plain dead (instant blew up) battery?Have you tried another battery?Have you tried another charger? (is the LED lit with charger connected?)Unfortunately, you didn't made a backup of your internal SD memory. It's a tiny onboard SMD chip so it willbe hell to power the IC and tap the information out of it without the use of the phone's motherboard itself!I guess you need to look for a respectable data-recovery service.

author: IanJ
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 09, 2014, 10:48:04 pm
content: Hi,If it was me I'd try to power the motherboard directly.......and if still no joy would buy another working S3 and move the memory ic across.Hope you are successful.Ian.

author: jamesg77
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: November 10, 2014, 09:17:36 am
content: Thanks for the replies.It is sadly totally dead, swapping batteries etc doesn't help. and I believe its a known issue with a certain firmware version.Ianj, I like the idea of swapping the memory from one board to another and do have a donor s3 I'd sacrifice to the cause. Would you (or anyone for that matter) happen to know of any company that could do this for me? Like I say, this is a bit beyond my skills and I wouldn't have the tools necessary.Thanks all.Jim

author: rob77
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 10, 2014, 09:21:31 am
content: if the content is really important, then get yourself a working S3 (same HW revision - but probably there's only one revision) and swap the flash chips. (smd rework gear and skills are a MUST for this).

author: HackedFridgeMagnet
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 10, 2014, 11:15:33 am
content: probably mention what country you are in.there is a little flag you put in your profile.

author: redtails
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: November 10, 2014, 02:43:35 pm
content: A friend's S3 had a damaged voltage regulator on the main boardIf the hardware issue you're having with your phone has anything to do with the power-related parts on the main board, it is worthwhile to open the phone up and measure voltage rails with your multimeter. However, due to the extremely fine pitch of the galaxy s3's internals, it is a very difficult fix. The GS3's power comes from MAX77693 and MAX77686, which are both BGA devices. Capacitors surrounding the power chips should provide some accessibility to the power rails, though a quick google search did not reveal to me which capacitor is connected to what rail.I strongly advice against trying to transplant the nand chip as it is (you guessed it) really fine-pitched BGA. However, if you have access to a working GS3, it is possible to carefully open it up, measure various parts to try and identify the power rails, and feed (for example) 3.3v directly to those components of your broken gs3. With a bit of luck, only the 3v3 rail is broken and you're able to temporarily revive your phone by putting it on life-support.There are also companies that specialize in data-recovery from USB sticks which should have no issue getting the data off of your GS3, though they will charge extortionately high prices.

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 10, 2014, 02:49:32 pm
content: Yeah, it is much easier to fix this board if something power related is dead. Replacing nand is not easy, and it likely it is underfilled too what makes it even more difficult.