yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Galaxy S III General] Alf0903:
Thank you, just one quick question, did you flash XELLA alongside with one of the safe recoveries?

Saludos hasta mi hermosa ciudad Guadalajara!
[Galaxy S III General] Neil_JD:
SDS?

I'm pretty certain I've suffered SDS. It happened whilst I was out, phone was just in my pocket and then was dead. The notification LED was flashing, at first, then holding the power switch seemed to turn it off. After that it was completely dead, and can't even access the boot loader.

I've never taken it apart, so sent it straight off to the nearest official repair centre thinking it would be a straight forward matter to have it replaced under warranty.

They sent it back and said it was liquid damaged and couldn't be fixed.

I'm as sure as anyone can be sure that it hasn't been water damaged. It hasn't ever been splashed, dropped, or even been in a steamy room.

But the repair centre said it was definitely liquid damaged and sent me the attached liq.jpg showing said liquid damage. (I'm a noob so can't just link to it, sorry!).

I've now taken it apart to have a look at it myself.

Regarding the 3 places they say it is liquid damaged:

1. There is nothing to see on the USB socket shown on the right. No rust or marking's at all.

2. The colouration shown by the arrow at the bottom, and which also appears at the same place opposite, where the screws hold the board in place and to the other part of the plastic casing, seems to be due to a white sticker/adhesive.

3. The plastic IC has tiny bubbles on it, which in my non-expert opinion are not caused by liquid, but the IC overheating.

Elsewhere on both sides of the motherboard there are no visible signs of damage whatsoever.

In addition, the indicator sticker's under the battery, and also next to the headphone socket are both showing no liquid damage.

I can't possibly understand how liquid could get to the position of the IC without causing some more obvious damage to other parts of the phone on the way.

Is it possible that the damage highlighted has been caused by the presence of liquid, and the phone is not covered by warranty?

Or am I correct in thinking I should be covered by the warranty as this clearly isn't liquid damaged?

There are a couple of better photos I've taken in the attached zip.

Thanks in advance for any help or advice.
[Galaxy S III General] bligui:
I think it was wrong to take it apart now your warranty is really void should have tried a different center before.
[Galaxy S III General] Neil_JD:
I only took it apart after the repair centre took it apart first, in order to investigate the claim they made to me, which I fully believe to be incorrect.

It already cost £13 to send it and have it returned from the repair centre. I didn't fancy another £13 if they are just going to tell me the same thing.

If I put it back together now it will be no different to how it was when they returned it to me, so I don't see how they can know I've taken it apart (rather than the repair centre), and even if they can, as I only did after advice from an official repair centre that the Warranty was already void I don't think it's very valid to then use that against me.
[Galaxy S III General] chrizhaynes:
died today after update to XXELLA

hi guys.

My s3 has been crashing constantly for the last 3 weeks and having to restart. wiped and reflashed many times trying to fix it to no ovail.

I've been unrooted for a few days now to see if it was the problem and running fully stock but still the same.

today I flashed the new update XXELLA from unrooted stock and updated fine, 20 mins later crashed again so pulled battery restarted booted to just almost on and crashed again. now it gets stuck on the galaxy s3 boot screen and no further.

it wont go in to recovery at all, it goes into download mode but the product number is missing/ custom binary:no/ current binary:samsung official/ system status: custom? not rooted no product number?

I've flashed via odin a few firmware versions but all fail on there is no pit partition.

looks like carphone warehouse in the morning but hope they don't see the custom as rooted and void warrenty.

don't fancy trying using a pit file and re partition if its the NAND that corrupt and making it worse and defo no warrenty.

any ideas guy?

maybe this update doesn't stop the sudden death or unless mine was already on its way out.

got phone in may would probally be hw rw1.00 was running XXELL4 over to XXELLA
[Galaxy S III General] thegh0sts:
when did you get your phone?
[Galaxy S III General] chrizhaynes:
go it in may the first day it was available in the uk had to get a white one with the mess up of the blue
[Galaxy S III General] KPlax:
Perhaps the Nand chip was too damaged after a lot of time of use and when the fix arrived was too late.

Here are two options depending of time that the phone is running

Apply the fix and hope that your chip is healthy enough to live until the end of the phone live, 2 or more years

Don´t do nothing and use your warranty for a Main PCB replacement and then apply the fix.

My S3 only has 3 weeks of use and perhaps the better choce would be apply the fix and hope that the wear of the chip is not too severe to affect the life of the phone
[Galaxy S III General] Alf0903:
I think it was a little to late for the cure to be applied, furthermore, I think everyone with the affected eMMC chip and Fw (VTU00M FwRev 0xf1) should wait for the SDS to happen in order to have it fixed on warranty, and so you can apply the safe ROM, Kernel and Recovery on a helthy device, think of as this:

You just have a brand new Ferrari (being your device) witha perfectly healthy engine (your eMMC chip), but you always have it fueled in the very same fuel sation, not knowing the fuel delivered to your car is damaging your car's engine (the fuel being the fault eMMC chip Fw), after 150 days or so your find that you have been damaging your engine by using faulty fuel, and your engine won't dye if you change the fuel station, but by doing so you are not reverting back the damge already done.

If you flash the safe stuff to your device, it won't be fixed, it has already been said, that the ROM, Kernel, and recovery are in fact jus a work around the faulty FW, so the damge has been done, so I would advise to wait for the unavoidable, and once your device has been fixed, then use the vaccine, in a perfectly healthy device.

Just my point of view!

Best regards!
[Galaxy S III General] KPlax:
That´s the question for me, if with 3 weeks of use it´s enough to kill the chip in 6 or more months
[Galaxy S III General] mjb:
I think you should both read this post carefully
[Galaxy S III General] cyberdroxxx:
+1
[Galaxy S III General] James554:
Seems like a weakness somewhere on the motherboard. Mine died on charge about a month ago. No led no nothing bought in late May.
[Galaxy S III General] perry04:
My Phone laggs every time i close an app.. Could it be a sign for sd? Stock Kernel XXELLA, omega 36.. Not very much apps in Background

-Galaxy s3 with tapatalk-
[Galaxy S III General] shethsa:
Neil - looks like you're an unfortunate victim of svc center apathy - just like many of us are in India.

Its a joke - because i had a very similar experience with the svc center guys alleging water-logging whereas I insisted there was none. Ultimately I had to pay the equivalent of $140 for a so-called new motherboard. Which is now giving more problems than earlier - frequent reboots many times a day, high heating up, and battery life as short as 6-7 hours.
[Galaxy S III General] Kjc99:
Does anyone know if CWM will get patched I am definitely a flashoholic but I haven't booted into recovery in 3 days because I'm scared :'( Any recoveries patched besides philz

Galaxy S3

Omega Rom V36h
[Galaxy S III General] windozeanti:
Why did you thanks him for the wrong information?
[Galaxy S III General] gauravinvouge:
Hi shethsa, any luck with CUSTOMER CARE,they have suddenly sat quietly not replying for a while although i was also away for some work but have send them mail today also.
[Galaxy S III General] shethsa:
Gaurav, they have finally taken by phone (with the so called new motherboard) for checking and given me a temp s2. Hoping to get an answer from them today for a final resolution.
[Galaxy S III General] fitipardi:
Hi,

I read or heard somewhere that someone did the same, he did not know how it had penetrated the phone and it seems that moisture entered the headphone cable, because to sport with the phone.

But really i dont know if that is posible

Regards

Enviado desde el bar con una birra en la otra mano
[Galaxy S III General] jvc73:
Sorry that does indeed appear as water damage.
[Galaxy S III General] "D":
Update #2

229 Days and no Problems and I'm happy :)

regards "D"
[Galaxy S III General] KPlax:
What is your chip date ?

a lot of the death s3 have the 4/ 2012 chip , others have the 6 /2012 version .
[Galaxy S III General] "D":
5/2012 chip......
[Galaxy S III General] enricomemo:
Sadly happened to me too

Hi everybody, unfortunately I experienced the Galaxy S3 sudden death:

- It happened abroad, while I was in Morocco and counting on my Sygic to navigate by car ... a little bit of panic at the first, then I remembered it is still possible to ask for directions and drive with a paper road map!

- My handset has been bought on July the 2nd, activated on July the 5th and died on January the 2nd ... almost 150 days since first activation.

- Just few seconds before it died I experienced a certain slowness, I was trying to take some pictures and the camera app was barely responding, so I put it in my pocket and a few minutes later it was dead: no signal, no recharging, no led, anything.

- I tried to find an assistance centre (in Morocco!) and found someone proposed me to re-flash the phone from scratch. He tried very hardly and managed to turn it on in some way, but the re-flash process took several hours, he tried 2-3 times, but every time, after reaching a certain point, it went off again. So he gave it back to me, bricked as before.

Now it is at the assistance centre in Italy and I'm waiting for it to be repaired, I'll keep you informed on repair times and new eMMC codes.

Enrico
[Galaxy S III General] AILD:
I have a 5/2012 Is this a general other?
[Galaxy S III General] pickandwhammy:
Once your eMMC had been fried flashing whatever wouldn't fix it. Hopefully they'll cover you under warranty!
[Galaxy S III General] frufo2000:
After 196 days of working my Galaxy S3 died this morning :(
[Galaxy S III General] kaiur:
What ROM had you instaled?
[Galaxy S III General] AILD:
What rom you use it? Stock, customrom? Rooted Stock? What stockrom?
[Galaxy S III General] kaiur:
Sorry man. What ROM?
[Galaxy S III General] hickup:
Sorry to hear that, hope you'll get it repaired soon. But please provide more information like firmware, kernel etc. you were on when it died.

Thanks, regards

Hicks
[Galaxy S III General] Neil_JD:
Thank you for your reply.

The watermark sticker next to the headphone socket is intact, which bearing in mind the sensitivity of those sticker's is quite good evidence to suggest water did not enter here.

Thanks. Would it be possible to elaborate a little? I'd like to understand how water could cause plastic to bubble and melt, or how water is responsible for the colourisation of the ground track on the motherboard, exactly around the screw? Also given the lack of indication of water anywhere else, how water could have got to these areas without passing other areas first?
[Galaxy S III General] qavro:
condensation? fast transfer from very cold to hot areas?
[Galaxy S III General] vadonka:
i was installed Omega v36 (based on XXELLA), with perseus kernel (rumored that fix the SDS), and XXELLA bootloader too with Phiz CWM

everything is working great here, so far so good. no freeze, lag, slowdown.
[Galaxy S III General] AILD:
My settings are cm10.1 with the kernel fix and phiz fixed recovery. Yesterday, for the first time phone boot itself. I hope that fix working. Thank god my binary counter is 0 and offcial so i have my warranty.
[Galaxy S III General] enricomemo:
Android Revolution HD 17.1
[Galaxy S III General] danieldmm:
If eMMC its fried, for warranty propose it won't matter counter, rom, kernel, etc.

Samsung will not know wat the phone have installed. ;)

Enviado pela minha bomba i9300 através do TapaTalk.
[Galaxy S III General] dementor91:
does anyone know if MIUI roms ( for S3 ofcourse) suffer from this sudden death emmc bug? or it is just samsung's official base...
[Galaxy S III General] frufo2000:
Hi, i'm using the Stock ROM (T-Mobile Branded) with the latest Android Jelly Bean 4.1.1 Update provided by T-Mobile Germany. Unfortunately i don't know what Kernel i'm using.
[Galaxy S III General] AILD:
It is a different matter if you happen to half-dead = recovery is dead but you can go download mode but not flash anything.
[Galaxy S III General] danieldmm:
Did you read OP? It's kernel/Recovery problem, ask in your Rom thread if they have merged patch if they use it own kernel/Recovery.

Cheers

Enviado pela minha bomba i9300 através do TapaTalk.
[Galaxy S III General] phil.maly:
Finally back

Just to provide my 2 cents on that topic. On December 19th my SGS3 died like described in this thread.

At that time I was running CM10 nightlies from a couple of days before the 19th. Unfortunatly I can't tell what I had at the time in terms of Kernel, Radio,etc... I can only tell it was bought on the day of the launch in Switzerland at Orange, but it was not SIM-locked. It is a 16G model.

But what I can confirm that after 3 weeks, I got it back today. Repaired under waranty. Currently running:

- Android 4.1.2

- Base band i9300XXELL4

- Kernel 3.0.31-566833

- Version JZO54K.I9300XXELL4
[Galaxy S III General] hickup:
Thanks for your answer. But since it is 4.1.1, it is not the XXELLA base recently released by Samsung that is supposed to prevent SDS.

We are all still waiting for someone to report that issue running the new firmware. Ok, we're not literally waiting for a report but no-one knows if it's really a fix.

Again, sorry for your loss.

Viel Glück, dass Du bald Ersatz erhältst!

Hicks
[Galaxy S III General] drahad110:
L4CMus days

Hi guys..

I am much worried about this sudden death issue. As mine galaxy s3 contains VTU00M 0XF1, which is affected chip. and my bootloader is XXALF6. I am using CWM recovery i think old one. as, it is not touch based. I am currently using Omega Rom v35. I heard about this Sudden Death issue and I didn't flashed new version of XXELLA version of rom. Please help me how to deal with this problem... Any help will be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.
[Galaxy S III General] T0xic4u:
http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?p=36499838

Taper di Tap with my S3 @178 days
[Galaxy S III General] thedigger:
I just spoke to the samsung service centre to ask about the progress of my repair. I asked the tech if he knew what hte problem was as I'd noticed it quite a lot on google. He asked my symptoms and said "that sounds like sudden death", and said the "new firmware" which was sent out OTA in the last few days will resolve this issue.
[Galaxy S III General] liamR:
^ I got the feeling that his source is the net and not an official word from samsung. We need to see an official announcement from samsung to clarify all rumors.
[Galaxy S III General] pickandwhammy:
[YOUTUBE][/YOUTUBE]

Probably he's also got his info from XDA :silly:

To confirm we'd need a statement from Samsung.
[Galaxy S III General] AxelCM1:
Today I just got this patch, you will have the fix? because I had just upgraded to 4.1.2 5 days ago

Saudi Arabia (JED) GT-I9300 Galaxy S III update I9300XXELLB/I9300OJVELL3

Enviado desde mi GT-I9300 usando Tapatalk 2
[Galaxy S III General] Phillips139:
Returned from repair

Got mine back from repair a couple of days back, after completely bricked.

Repair report stated that they replaced the pmu (power management unit) and the pba? (mainboard?).

Still only 16GB unfortunately, and loaded with XXLA, which is now rooted and running fine (except the Samsung keyboard app kept coming in as default (cannot be deselected as an option) after every reboot until I froze it).
[Galaxy S III General] sale52:
PhilZ Touch 4 Recovery is patched, you can download it here
[Galaxy S III General] drahad110:
Hi. I read the post but still unsure how come I can upgrade to latest version of my rom. Actually I want to know the procedure. For example, should I 1st install latest version of Omega rom v36 and then install any other kernel which has fix for SDS, like perseus kernel.

Thanks in advance..
[Galaxy S III General] T0xic4u:
@drahad

Stop crosspostings. You got your answer in other topic.

Taper di Tap with my S3 @179 days
[Galaxy S III General] demlasjr:
4/2012 version here, over 6 months of use, never had custom firmware installed, never turned off or had problems with it :) it's just about luck
[Galaxy S III General] hermeson:
But anyone has any idea of how unbrick the s3 after sudden death? Or it's gone forever?
[Galaxy S III General] T0xic4u:
You know the meaning of "death".?

Taper di Tap with my S3 @179 days
[Galaxy S III General] jody2k:
Cant unbrick nand chip is dead, you need to send it for repair
[Galaxy S III General] fmtrx:
resurrection from death ?

This is doable. But only if you can find him to have your phone resurrected. His name is something like Jesus if i remember correctly.
[Galaxy S III General] dezeubby:
Omega v36 + Philz recovery + Perseus kernel = the best combination
[Galaxy S III General] hermeson:
Hahahaha ok ok I got it! Damn it! Cheers
[Galaxy S III General] joanquro:
Well, I have omega v36 and Perseus kernel, my recovery is still the old one, but I'm waiting for some bugs to be corrected before installing the Philz recovery.....

Enviado desde mi GT-I9300 usando Tapatalk 2
[Galaxy S III General] zscomp:
The only "bug" in Philz recovery is something visual.

Incorrectly shown version (3 instead of 4).

If you feel protected installing a recovery with this fix, dont let this stop you. :cowboy:
[Galaxy S III General] joanquro:
OK, thanks.

Enviado desde mi GT-I9300 usando Tapatalk 2
[Galaxy S III General] Ottoman52:
i just called they said they changed a part and they're now testing my phone .i hope i will get my phone tomarrow . i will post the eMMC version and the changed part here.
[Galaxy S III General] krivinash:
just one q:

do we have any 32 GB devices with SDS?

are they protected somehow?

thanks
[Galaxy S III General] sak500:
None in here at least. they are the blessed ones
[Galaxy S III General] krivinash:
thanks
[Galaxy S III General] InfX:
Thanks for mentioning Philz recovery here, besides having the kernel patch for SDS, it also got the advantage of exFAT support and ability to backup/restore to/from an external SD card, as well as ability to install CWM zips from external SD card. This alone justifies the switch for me.
[Galaxy S III General] gabrymr:
well that must be one of the funniest things I've read in this thread... Samsung Galaxy S3 died for your sins xD

OT: bought mine in december, it's XXELL4 with the same VTU00M chip, rev 0xF1 and the date of 09/2012. The biggest problem, due to crazy warranty problems here I'm too afraid to root it and use fixed kernel with it in case it goes south...

I hope stock update will arrive soon.
[Galaxy S III General] kosovito:
Is the ELLC rom the same fixeds than ELLA ???

Thanks!
[Galaxy S III General] kronnos:
Maybe it could be included in the first post the below method trough kies, considering that it does not show any modifications in dwn mode therefor does not void warranty if SDS (ofcorse if one does not root or flash after that).

"Method 2: via KIES

Open Kies -> Select Tools -> Select Firmware Upgrade and Initialization -> Enter Model "GT-I9300"

Enter Serial "RF1C56VAJYF".

It will download the latest Android from kies."
[Galaxy S III General] paulwilco:
Hi everyone, my S3 died last night. It was rooted running UltimaROM 8.1.1.

The strange thing is that last week it got stuck in a boot loop (at this point it had not been rooted or flashed before) so I took it to a Samsung repair centre and restored it back. After getting the phone back i rooted it and flashed the custom rom. This was fine for 3 days until last night while it was charging the phone just crashed. Odin jusy says 'pit file is missing'. I have taken it back to the samsung repair centre and they havent been able to restore it. And, of course, no warranty cover because its been rooted!

Anybody had any luck in the UK with claiming warranty on a rooted phone?

Ive had the phone about 4 months.
[Galaxy S III General] Rob2222:
You can assume yes. I've checked XXELL1/XXELL4/XXELL5/XXELL6/XXELLC and XXELLA stock kernels and all contains the VTU00M string and some strings that occur in the fix source code.

So atm we take this to assume with relative high possibility, that the fix is in these stock kernels already.

BR

Rob
[Galaxy S III General] DaniGalaxy:
My phone is back from repair center.

16gb bought 06/15 and died on 12/27.

Mobo replaced but still VTU00M chip, production date 09/12 though.

I wish the chip has a different (newer) firmware release date and i also can't say what was the production date of the previously dead emmc chip.
[Galaxy S III General] behemot24:
Obagleyfreer, is it a good idea that you edit the first post, in order to add a poll?

I'm curious how many XDA members that will view the thread from now on did already have their S3 dead by SDS.
[Galaxy S III General] Entropy512:
We know a reasonable amount about nonvolatile vs. volatile updating thanks to the 32kb-of-zeroes patch and Superbrick - but we will likely never know exactly what the bug is and what the patch is doing.

It's a hardware problem (more specifically, an eMMC firmware bug) not a system software problem. It fundamentally affects any device with the affected chip no matter what it's running. Basically, unless a kernel has specifically had a workaround for this chip added (and the workaround didn't exist until very recently), the device is at risk if it has the affected chip.
[Galaxy S III General] artesea:
My S3 bricked on Sat, but was taken to my nearest Vodafone shop on Monday and today it was returned with the board replaced. Checking the eMMC it's a VTU00M but with firmware 0xf7, dated 11/2012.
[Galaxy S III General] InfX:
Do we have any realistic "scientifically-based" assumptions. I mean, if it's a wear leveler reusing the same blocks over and over again, not applying the fix on CWM recovery won't do much damage. Random data being written to random locations or, even worse, a possible potential wear lever data structures damage is a totally different story, though.
[Galaxy S III General] DJ Palmis:
Yes, I read that You have experience on that event.

I did not know that vicissitude: It is a shame because it would be very interesting to study the issues and solutions (I love this low-level problems :) ).

The funny thing is that Italy has NO update! I have to void warranty flashing a firmware of other nations to prevent NAND bug!! :-/
[Galaxy S III General] Alf0903:
Thinking about your post, it is very SAD that Samsung is mostly worried about European SG3 owners, although this fact is comprehensible since EU has 2 years warranty, and everywhere else we have only 1 year, but that policy is quite an unfare treatment, here in Mexico and I think all latinamerican countries we have a serious problem with Samsung's updating procedure, we are quite away from EU countries, almost every european country are on 4.1.2 and must of us here in Latinamerica are stucked in 4.1 and if we want to up to date we have tobreak Samsung's rules in order to get the best from our dvices.

Such a shame!
[Galaxy S III General] sak500:
I made a poll thread since op of this thread couldn't add it. It's in my sig below.
[Galaxy S III General] CSeb95:
Hi,

Read this : http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=36530300&postcount=3004

and this : http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=36537218&postcount=3018

maybe it can help.
[Galaxy S III General] DJ Palmis:
Not Italy.. But (with the greatest of respect) Nigeria is allowed to upgrade.. I really don't undestrand the logic behind this choiches!