yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Galaxy S III General] rockler:
I don't usually do OTA updates and no Wi-Fi in my apartment at Qatar, I prefer Kies because its done through the PC :)

Thanks for clearing that up, I'll update my device via Kies :) :good:
[Galaxy S III General] SiriusCybernetik:
Fight for your right! Take a picture of your phone, with the moisture sticker intact, next to a newspaper with today's date. And tell the repair center that you intend to send your file to your country's consumer association if they don't fulfil their obligations.

Next time, take pictures before sending it in and inform the shop or repair center of the existence of your proof. They will be less tempted to fool you.

Also, if you are living in the EU, it is best for you to bring the device to the shop where you bought it, because they have legal obligations during the 2 years following the purchase to repair or replace and you have better protection than with the basic 1year Samsung warranty. The shops often play dumb, so you have to mention the EU directives concerning consumer protection and insist a lot.

See link below. (It is in french, but you can choose your language in the top right corner):

http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/consumers/protection_of_consumers/l32022_fr.htm
[Galaxy S III General] braintheboss:
I think there is a lot of confusion ... I have the damn chip and my phone is June 8 (over 7 months) and is perfect ... If we know that only affected the chips of the day April 13, why not have brought an application to read the data from the chip? Because many people have that chip though we are not affected because it is not that date ...

PS: I do not think that by now my phone will die ...

---------- Post added at 02:26 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:21 PM ----------

Where is moisture sticker? And a user put a EU directive that no software modifications void the warranty ... Anyone know what is directive?
[Galaxy S III General] SiriusCybernetik:
This is not true, it does not affect 'chips' of a certain day. The date you most probably refer to, is the internal revision date. The app you are asking for exists (discussed in another thread), it has turned out that all chips with revision 0x1f have this particular date.

I do not have a direct link to any directive that mentions 'alterations of preinstalled software and resulting warranty impacts'

I believe that this particular point is just a subpart of a directive. Use Google...

http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/consumers/protection_of_consumers/l32022_en.htm

Edit: according to this Wikipedia article on android-rooting, it is part of 1999/44/CE.
[Galaxy S III General] vickyclewis:
How do I revert the BL to an older version? Can You give Me the steps?
[Galaxy S III General] chris2busy:
What if i ask the seller to update to the latest official version? (phone's ota or kies-not custom or from odin).Before he sells it to me.

Will that be safe?OP says that any chip , given that it runs on fw XXELA is safe, right?
[Galaxy S III General] vickyclewis:
Never mind I got it.... For those searching the link is here.... I tried the CWM way.... Worked like a charm....

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2083860
[Galaxy S III General] Reb00tas:
Got my phone back and working again :D

My samsung died cause this "sudden death" Used Omega rom and syiah kernel.

But no problem they just fixed it and send it back :D
[Galaxy S III General] yahyoh:
J/K nice to see ur device back to life :D
[Galaxy S III General] chris2busy:
none can say with certainty about this?
[Galaxy S III General] pickandwhammy:
Nothing is certain. And in Samsung service centres they usually use ODIN.
[Galaxy S III General] nex86:
wait a sec. Samsung uses Odin??

I thought Odin is inofficial? :eek:
[Galaxy S III General] AxelCM1:
Is official

Enviado desde mi GT-I9300 usando Tapatalk 2
[Galaxy S III General] nex86:
oh wow. but only until a specific version right? I believe it was 1.85 ?
[Galaxy S III General] Product F(RED):
Nope, ODIN is an official Samsung tool.
[Galaxy S III General] pickandwhammy:
No, ODIN is an official Samsung tool. On most other devices, apart from Android and recovery, there's another 'mode' called fastboot. While booted into this mode, you can flash ROMs etc via ADB. Samsung devices do not support fastboot, and have their own kind of mode called "download mode" and instead of ADB use ODIN to flash ROMs.
[Galaxy S III General] s_h_a_g_g_y:
Just got my S3 Back today.

The note with it says:

Jonathan,One of our engineers at our approved service centre,has diagnosed the fault Defective / electrical component / module and completed a successful repair.

The Following part(s)/action were undertaken:

GH82-06521A/A/S ASSY-PBA MAIN(COMM)GT_I9300.

Means naff all to me but may help somebody else?

Now the phone is now on STOCK XXELLA.

Where do I got to root and custom rom with out getting the ! please.

Thanks
[Galaxy S III General] Ohamn:
Hi there!

You got your Main Board exchanged! (because that's where the fault causing SDS resides)

And also got your phone updated to the last software as well I guess.

// Ohamn
[Galaxy S III General] yahyoh:
yep thats true and its better and easier than fastboot + Sammy don't lock the BL like other companies :cowboy:
[Galaxy S III General] jshashwat93:
Just got my phone back from repair after i got Sudden Death on my phone on Friday. They have replaced the motherboard but unfortunately it is still VTU00M 0xf1. But the revision date has changed from 04/2012 to 09/2012 so i hope thats a good thing. I have attached the new image of emmc details here.

I am looking for some advise on what to do next. The phone is back to 4.0.4 stock official indian LH1 rom. So should i first update it via OTA to latest indian rom which is 4.1.1 or do the same via kies and then root and install siyah with dual boot to roms which have the fix or should i directly just root and flash the kernels and roms which have the fix? Thanks
[Galaxy S III General] g3ar:
dont wanna be a party breaker , but 0xf7 is "fixed" chip , so you are still on "vulnerable" chip
[Galaxy S III General] jshashwat93:
But doesnt revision date matter too? I mean it could be these have the fix right? And how many people even have 0xf7 to start with. I have seen almost everyone with 0xf1 only. Anyways can you tell me if i should update to official stock of my country from 4.0.4 (which is 4.1.1) or should i directly flash a 4.1.2 fixed rom?
[Galaxy S III General] cocous:
this We do not know definitely

other device is 32g that works well and other device is 16g different controler.

time will tell.....if is ok
[Galaxy S III General] optima:
well there goes my phone i was on the new bootloaders and i got a 16gb version had it on release
[Galaxy S III General] lininjim:
@optima welcome to the worst club mate :(

Mine has been dropped in with Three today who will ship it off tomorrow for repair. Will post back when it returns.
[Galaxy S III General] drakester09:
Flash 4.1.2, the 0xf1 is a sign that the real firmware date is different and your chip is susceptible to SDS
[Galaxy S III General] Rivafe:
I my phone is death sds. I was using omega rom. Can I take the phone to the store and use the warranty?
[Galaxy S III General] philgalaxs3:
Yes. Nobody can see if u installed custom ROM !
[Galaxy S III General] snicke:
Phone wiped?

My S3 just died completely. Unfortunately I have some photos on it that I like to get back. Feels like a stupid question but I want to get it confirmed: You guys that have had your phone in for a repair because of the "sudden death", was it totally wiped when you got it back? No photos, no trace at all from you?

Please also say how they repaired it (if you know).

Thanks.
[Galaxy S III General] pigglett:
Are your pics not saved to ext sd card ?
[Galaxy S III General] odoto:
the component that died is the eMMC or NAND chip, what is basically the storage of the phone... and in order to fix that they will replace the mainboard... so yes, all data that was not on the external SD is gone and can't be recovered, sorry
[Galaxy S III General] wshyang:
Just curious, now that we know what's causing the problem, is there a way to trigger a brick on my phone *immediately* and have them replace it with an updated motherboard while it is still in warranty…  rather than to have a ticking time bomb that may or may not go off and can potentially still fail just outside of warranty?

Will a zero wipe on /emmc do?
[Galaxy S III General] odoto:
http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=37016729&postcount=13

to how many more threads are you planning to post this? :P
[Galaxy S III General] syamsoul:
if my sgs3 died in exactly 6 months after first use... then claim for warranty, they change with the same board, is there any chance my sgs3 could be dead again in 6 months after that which my warranty maybe expired already.. just wondering
[Galaxy S III General] philgalaxs3:
If you run with kernel/recovery mentioned here : http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2091045 , it is unlikely that you have to claim for warranty twice .. even once I hope.
[Galaxy S III General] pickandwhammy:
Flash a patched ROM and kernel to be safe. If either of the two SDS theories are correct, your new device should not die. At least not by eMMC failure.
[Galaxy S III General] sharm:
Another one to add to the list. Noticed the blue light flashing so tried to turn the screen on with no result and had to pull the battery. Restarted the phone and about two hours later checked an email, ten minutes after that it was completely non-responsive (no charge light, could not enter recovery etc). Very impressed with Samsung customer service after sending it in last Thursday, I received a notification this afternoon that it is repaired and awaiting pick up by Australia Post.

Purchased: 31/05/12

Died: 18/12/12

Model: 16gb White

ROM: Omega V33.1
[Galaxy S III General] pickandwhammy:
Did they give you a temporary handset? I'm a complete nomophobe and would probably just wither up and die if left without a smartphone tweaked to my liking.
[Galaxy S III General] pijindrin:
Just a rumour... I read in a tech forum that the most affected sg3 were white. The white ones were the first in the market. They (users from the forum) said that there were no blue, grey or red sg3 affected so far. What do you think? Just telling u what I read, so please don't complain if u know it isnt so.

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[Galaxy S III General] JohnM1973:
It isn't so, seems to be more an issue for 16gb models, regardless of device colour.
[Galaxy S III General] T0xic4u:
AW: **Ultimate GS3 sudden death thread**

All of them die. No matter what colour.

Taper di Tap with my S3 @190 days
[Galaxy S III General] pijindrin:
Yeah that's what I thought. As I said it was just a rumour

Enviado desde mi GT-I9300 usando Tapatalk 2
[Galaxy S III General] Ohamn:
My former "dead as a freaking Dodo" S3) is a blue one so the colour doesn't matter.

Let's not be inverted racists here and speak about that "whites" are worse than coloured ones!! :laugh:

// Ohamn
[Galaxy S III General] pijindrin:
Hahaha well said. May I ask if Anyone knows if paranoid android rom is safe? It's not in the list but I saw many roms ,which are not listed ,with XELLA base. I found like four different threads about paranoid android and got confused. Thanks for replying!

Enviado desde mi GT-I9300 usando Tapatalk 2
[Galaxy S III General] RectorReflector:
Hi guys,

My GS3 is almost 3 weeks off for repair. I just called the repaircenter asking for the status.

The part they are repairing is NOT the mainboard. I said I was wondering why all SDS victims gets a replaced mainboard and I don't.

He said it's a startup problem, I said it isn't. (Explained about SDS)

What do you think guys? Am I right, or is he?

I'm very confused now.
[Galaxy S III General] sgsboyo:
I'm now into my second week without my phone - having to use an old Sony Ericsson phone that I last used in 2010 :( Sent Samsung an email at the end of last week to ask how long I would have to wait for my phone to get repaired and returned to me and was told that they'd received it on 15th January (last Tuesday) and that "all repairs are currently taking 10 - 15 working days".

Life without my smart phone is less than ideal! LOL

(Samsung Repair Centre - Birmingham, UK)
[Galaxy S III General] CSeb95:
As far as I know, ROM is not involve. What you need to take care about is the Kernel and the Recovery, both must have the patch.
[Galaxy S III General] Helix751:
My S3 died last friday (18th) after 5 months of use. Currently in service for repair/replacement.

16GB Exynos Pebble Blue

Carrier: Entel (Chile)

ROM: 4.1.1 I9300UBDLJ2

Died suddenly while texting in WhatsApp. Screen froze, no response from touch screen or buttons and had to remove battery. Didin't respond after replacing it back.
[Galaxy S III General] Product F(RED):
I know this is may come off as sounding stupid, and I know that Samsung is doing this so they don't get in the news, but they should really issue a recall/replacement program. It's dangerous considering people depend on their phone for calling 911/112 in an emergency, and if it dies suddenly, it's an indirect danger.
[Galaxy S III General] pickandwhammy:
The problem is not widespread enough for a recall/advisory. Less than 500 reports on XDA, millions of devices sold. That's a less than 0.1% fault rate.
[Galaxy S III General] Nees3:
And how many of those 30 million people know what root/kernel/custom rom is? 0.1%? :)

90% of the users would wakeup and yell "mom, my phone doesnt work anymore" "dont worry honey, I'll bring it to the store to get it fixed"

And that other 10% will google for a solution, perhaos try some stuff, join a forum somewhere in the world and then still bring it to a repair center.
[Galaxy S III General] jshashwat93:
Ya hopefully it wont happen second time to the same person after getting the motherboard replaced.
[Galaxy S III General] kangoulius:
My S3 died on New Years day while on holiday in Australia. I took it to the Samsung service centre in Angel, London last Monday and upon my daily call them today they are only just looking at it. So it took 7 business days just for them to look at it. I have been 22 days without a smart phone and depending on how much longer I have to wait will just buy a new one and sell the repaired on when/if I ever get it back.

Has anyone taken their phone to Angel? If so how long did you wait?

Cheers
[Galaxy S III General] pickandwhammy:
Valid point! But really, not 90%! I don't think kids get gifted S3s that often :p

In any case, even if the actual rate is ten times what I'd said earlier, their success rate is STILL 99%; hardly enough for even admitting to it being their fault (it can be blamed on low yield/faulty hardware, moisture, whatever).
[Galaxy S III General] Helix751:
Really??

Well, I feel better now.. </sarcasm mode off>

I have talked to my carrier support staff and they have absolutely no idea on what the heck is going on with this issue.

They are receiving dead bricks and are still carrying out tests to see how to revive them and are unnecessarily delaying replacements.

This misinformation just has to come to an end and the manufacturer, Samsung, is responsible of spreading timely, official and accurate information on this more than serious issue.

Samsung SHOULD and MUST definitely issue a press or public statement about this issue. It's certainly a massive problem, which even earned itself its own Wikipedia entry, not localized to just a small subset of phones or geographical area. In fact, most of the affected users won't post to XDA reporting their SDS issues, so pretending reports based on forum or blog postings are an accurate index on the fault rate is ridiculous and most certainly underestimate its impact.

We the users and customers (people

and

carriers as well) need to be

officially updated

on:

* Official acknowledge of the problem;

* What is actually happening (root causes for the problem and its effect on the device);

* How many devices (and where) are potentially affected. Conversely, which devices are safe from this issue.;

* Probability of being affected;

* What is being done (by Samsung) to fix and prevent this further (fix developments, recall program, others?);

* ETA for carriers deploying a final fix (if any);

and maybe also

* Acknowledging the ever-growing community for spotting the faults and developing temporary fixes

Imho having my phone replaced is not a real solution, but an annoyance. I'm a business user and need to spend time going to customer support, using a replacement phone and then switching again to a factory-default device, reinstalling backups, 12+GB of apps and reconfiguring all the system once again. I shouldn't but I have to because of a manufacturer's fault for which it still keeps inexplicably silent.

A really p*ssed off user/customer.
[Galaxy S III General] Lui-g:
My phone had been freezing up quite regularly (since just before ELLA), and then also after ELLA.

Most recently, after a re-flashing of ELLA via Odin once more - it froze up about 8 times in a row whilst downloading Play updates (see my previous post).

The odd thing, is that after that, I flashed it a couple more times (still ELLA), and decided not to root for a while. - The phone didn't freeze.

I loaded up many apps form the play store - no problems.

I re-introduced my 64GB sd card - no problems.

I re-rooted with CF-auto root, - no problems.

I've retrieved many (but not all) of my apps with Titanium and the phone just works!... it hasn't frozen ONCE in many days since that last flash!

Note that I did run eMMC Check's "Check Memory" just after flashing & rooting once, and all was fine.

So here's some interesting questions:

1) Could all my experienced freezes be non-SDS related? Are there any on-board crash logs we can check?

The freezes I was getting a lot are a frozen screen whilst in use, and a completely non-responsive device, except for power button held down, which reboots after a few seconds.

In December (pre-Ella) I had just ONE complete non-responsive device requiring battery removal, and after that it went into a boot loop. (re-flashing revived it, but brought in the other freezes, despite many re-flashes, until this last one.)

If I understood correctly, the current theories for the SDS problem are akin to a bad sector on a traditional hard drive, or over-use of a "memory cell" in a SSD for which TRIM is used.

Assuming the above is correct, I can see how flashing the firmware on a "bad sector" could cause crashes, and even brick the device.

2) When you flash a device, does it always use the same "physical" location on the memory chip, or is it completely random every time?

Your thoughts/knowledge are very welcome. :cyclops:
[Galaxy S III General] fulcrum1971:
Just got my wife's S3 from the service centre after sudden death. Surprisingly the internal storage is now 32 gigs instead of 16. Any reason why? Fw rev 0xf0

sent from my Note 2.
[Galaxy S III General] sodeknetters:
Mine was delivered near the end of June. Don't think mine was one of the first, because I remember clearly I had to wait more than a week longer than the vodafone sales rep. had told me on the phone. Apparently scoring the sell was more imporant to her than my customer satisfaction, because she told me the phone could ship right away (that it was in stock).. and it didn't. I felt cheated quite a bit when they informed me the phone would actually only be shipped when new shipment would arrive a week later or so.
[Galaxy S III General] Motogp1:
I tried a jig and it did nothing, if the mother boards are dieing then nothing will work.
[Galaxy S III General] Obagleyfreer:
This website could be of interest to anyone with a UK or Euro handset that has died :)

www.freesamsungrepairs.com
[Galaxy S III General] robogo1982:
Anyone of you who sent their phone in for repairs got it back yet?
[Galaxy S III General] pedropac72:
Yes. Quite people yet including me. No problem with warranty. They change mainboard.

Enviado desde mi SGS3 reparado tras la Muerte Súbita usando Tapatalk
[Galaxy S III General] UncleBeer:
Yep. Of course once 'snakebit', I'm subconsciously waiting for it to happen again. :rolleyes:
[Galaxy S III General] vatvedt:
What happened: Charging. Green light pulsating

What ROM/Firmware: CM10

What kernel: Stock

OC or UV: No

Where phone was made: Korea (or at least that's what it says on the sticker under the battery)

Where battery was made: Fabricated in Korea, assembled in China

Edit: Phone now fixed, and on it's way back home (soon, not sent from repair yet). Parts changed:

KEY-POWER_V2 - White <- Power button

A/S ASSY-PBA MAIN(COMM)GT_I9300 <- Mainboard
[Galaxy S III General] MalboX:
Hi all,

I have the same "sudden death" syndrome on my french S3. It happened two days ago.

What happened: S3 unplugged, I was opening the gmail app to read a new email. The S3 froze and I had to remove the battery to reboot it. Since then, it stucks at first logo screen ("Samsung Galaxy SIII GT-I9300"). I can't access to recovery mode, only to download mode. Repair center tried Odin: "There is no PIT partition". Phone was a bit slow lately (had to restart it more than usual the past two weeks) but not sure if there is any link. I put it on (long) charges during nights but not always.

What ROM/Firmware: Stock ROM Europe France I9300XXDLJ2 (4.1.1). Not rooted. Full original (it's my professional phone so...).

What kernel: -

OC or UV: No, never.

Where phone was made: Made in China.

Where battery was made: Made in korea, assembled in China.

Bought : End of june (june 25th 2012).

Manufactured : Where do you find that day/time? Made in China.

French support level one (generic repair center) told me that warranty is void. I try to find out why via Samsung's french support Twitter account.
[Galaxy S III General] pedropac72:
Wow. Void why??!

Enviado desde mi SGS3 reparado tras la Muerte Súbita usando Tapatalk
[Galaxy S III General] MalboX:
Apparently, they believe that the PIT error only could happen if the S3 was rooted (and I repeat, it was not) so I lost warranty.

But this is a generic repair center (where Samsung phone support sent me after my first call), so it is not the definitive Samsung support opinion.

In France, if we send phone to support and Samsung estimates that warranty is void, they will send us an estimate of repair costs. I we don't agree, we have to pay (around 20€) to get the phone back so I'll try to know more before sending it and keep you guys updated on this particular point.
[Galaxy S III General] corb06:
My S3 also went dead 10 days ago. I got it on May 30 so it was 6 months and 4 days old.

I was talking on phone and when we were going to hang up the screen was black. I tried to press the powerbutton to turn on screen, no reaction. Then phone was completely dead. Nothing worked.

Day after I went to shop and they sent it to Samsung for repair. 6 days later I got it back, they had switched out the MainBoard on warranty.

Phone was Rooted, overclocked to 1.6 ghz, romed with FoxHound, Siyah 1.8.4 Kernel. Phone was bought in Sweden from Phonehouse.

My brothers S3 just went dead today! He is in Spain and bought his phone in late June from Vodaphone ES. Same symptoms, completely dead. He was also rooted, romed to Foxhound and Perseus Kernel. Overclocked to 1.6 ghz.

I am beinning to suspect there is a designflaw with the Mainboard. They seem to break after 5-6 monts of heavy use.
[Galaxy S III General] pedropac72:
Here in Spain I don't have news of anybody with this answer. In fact in our forum everybody is reporting that Samsung don't reject any terminal (perhaps one with humidity problems)

Seek any French Forum and get a big number of units broken. With and without rooting.

I am pretty sure you can give an strong answer to that bad excuse. Good luck and keep us informed pls.

Enviado desde mi SGS3 reparado tras la Muerte Súbita usando Tapatalk