yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Galaxy S III General] gspears:
No quote, just common sense. According to CNet Samsung sold over 40 million S3s in it's first 6 months alone. And probably all of these had the bad firmware because it took that long for people to start having problems. One percent of that figure is 400,000. In this thread there have been maybe a hundred or if you really want to be generous a couple of hundred with this issue. Even if you add in all the people that might have had this problem and never figured out what it was, getting to that 400,000 number is quite a stretch. Plus, if you have 400,000 S3s dropping like flies the press would have a field day.

I didn't see it quoted anywhere but if you look at the numbers it only makes sense. I have no idea how many they've sold to this point, but you know it's a ton.
[Galaxy S III General] BaronInkjet:
So you just made it up, LOL! I figured...
[Galaxy S III General] guest365:
Mine is 1st batch, had external sdcard dmged about 9 months ago. Phone itself still working fine.
[Galaxy S III General] gspears:
I didn't make anything up. I said "probably" and went off the evidence I've observed over the last year I've been following this issue. I have the bad firmware and am very interested in this problem.

Instead of trolling the thread, why don't you do some research of your own to refute what I'm saying if you don't think I'm correct or my math is wrong. Your opinion is always welcome.

In other words, be helpful instead of criticizing.
[Galaxy S III General] t-shock:
HELP!
[Galaxy S III General] Bapak:
Hello everyone,

Today I received my phone and performed the eMMC Brickbug Check. The results:

eMMC chip

Type: 016G92

Date: 06/1997

FwRev: 0x30

So is that good or bad? Please let me know. I have never heard of this Chip & FvRew, and the Date (06/1997) is confusing me.

Thank you!

Bapak
[Galaxy S III General] Simonna:
As OP says devices with:

eMMC: VTU00M

FW Rev: 0xF1

Are affected

So I think you're mixing up something, because I didn't find any info about YMMV (like you said) on google.
[Galaxy S III General] Bapak:
Can anyone please answer this? I really appreciate it. :)

Bapak
[Galaxy S III General] gspears:
Sorry, that's an English abbreviation. YMMV means Your Mileage May Vary, meaning that everything I talked about in my post is my experience and you might very well have a different experience.

---------- Post added at 01:14 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:01 PM ----------

I've never seen this either. What device is it? I believe there is a thread specifically for the emmc check program, you might see if you can find it and ask there.

Sorry I'm not more help.
[Galaxy S III General] Bapak:
The device is Galaxy S3 i9300 (16 gb).

I don't see a link anywhere for that thread.

No problem. I've been told on other forums that this chip is "regular" and safe from SD, but I just wanted to get a third opinion. :)

Bapak
[Galaxy S III General] gspears:
I hope for your sake it's true. What does the brickbug app say? Sane or insane?
[Galaxy S III General] Bapak:
Well, I don't know of any case where a chip other than VTU00M with FwRev 0xF1 has caused SD. That's why the 32 GB versions as well as the LTE versions aren't affected by this at all.

This particular chip (016G92) also seems to be built in the Nexus 4, and some LG phones.

Sane chip. :cool:

And 4.1.2 has already been installed on it. I didn't need to do any updates.
[Galaxy S III General] gspears:
Sounds like you're good to go! :highfive: Good luck with it.
[Galaxy S III General] Fissionmailedgf:
Hey guys, my 16GB Galaxy S3 was suffering from the SDS and was rooted on 4.1.1 firmware. It started freezing and eventually it wouldn't respond unless I took out the battery and put it back in. Finally even that didn't work, so I sent it in to Samsung.

Luckily, it was still in warranty and they were able to repair it. I believe they changed the motherboard. Anyway, I finally got it back of course factory reset and it was 4.1.2 firmware which I assumed fixed the issue. Unfortunately, my phone has started freezing again and it won't respond to anything unless I take off the cover, take out the battery and put it back in.

It's a but frustrating because I thought my phone was finally fixed, I uninstalled Chrome, the Facebook app, and turned off the SwiftKey Flow since apparently it caused the issue but it's still happening :/

I ran the emmc app with these results

Type:MAG4FB

Date:07/2012

FwRev:0xf1

Brick Bug? No, sane chip.

I was wondering what I should do. Is there anything I can do to fix this on my own? Would a factory reset potentially fix it? Has this happened to anyone else even after a repair? Or should I just send it into Samsung again? Thanks so much for reading this guy's and any help would be greatly appreciated :)
[Galaxy S III General] doodles77:
Hi everyone,

I've just heard about SDS and am a bit concerned about my S3.

I've installed the eMMC check and it says "YES. Insane chip".

My S3 is not rooted. According to the info in the "about device" section, my S3 has Android version 4.1.2. The baseband version says I9300XXEMG4.

Please can someone let me know if my S3 is ok or should I be worried? Do I need to do anything to it?

Thanks in advance.
[Galaxy S III General] Fygaroo:
You are as safe as you can be with the insane chip , that firmware contains the latest SDS fix so you should be ok .
[Galaxy S III General] doodles77:
Thanks for you reply Fygaroo, I'll keep my fingers crossed all is ok then!
[Galaxy S III General] Fygaroo:
Thats what i am doing for the past 5 months :(
[Galaxy S III General] .NetRolller 3D:
Strange, I've never seen a MAG4FB with 0xF1 before, only with 0xF7. Perhaps it's also affected? It's definitely the same chip generation as the VTU00M.
[Galaxy S III General] spotty357:
sudden death syndrome

My Sprint Galaxy S3 (16gb) died suddenly while I was using it. Everything was working fine then I put in a micro sd card, turned the phone over to press a button and viola, right before my eyes the screen went black. Then no amount of tinkering would bring it back to life. I was rooted but I can't remember what rom I was running. Sprint replaced it cause of total protection plan in place. Checked new phone with insane chip checker app at it says that my new phone has a good chip....
[Galaxy S III General] whixi:
Damn, ater reading hundred of posts about that problem I'm scared to buy S3 I9300 16GB. I wanted to upgrade to s3 because I just like the size. Not too big and not too small and also the price is not so high. I could get it for around 320EUR new from store.

Anyone bought it recently and got same problems as a lot of guys here? What would you do, buy s3 or get an alternative? If alternative, which one in that price range and similar dimensons? I'm lost with all this phones.
[Galaxy S III General] Fygaroo:
HTC One X is a bit smaller or you could buy S3 32gb version , there is also Nexus 4 but no micro sd support same as HTC one x, anyway i think you cant buy a galaxy s3 with the affected chip anymore they should all be sold out by now.
[Galaxy S III General] cfds:
Put me on the list to...

My S3 did have the insane chip but I was counting on the fact the only a few "unlucky" ones got affected...I know, ignoring the problem was a bad thing to do. Its completely dead, not responding to anything. The phone itself is as new, display no scratches and the back...like new but since long out of waranty!

Unreal...basically you can toss the thing in the bin.

It happend when I received an e-mail, the blue light flashing and when I wanted to check my mail it would fail to switch on...now I do realize that the last weeks before the event I suffered from several freezes and slowdowns and the phone did rebooted itself several times.

My initial reaction was never to buy a Samsung device again...they produced something with a (known) failure and their customers end up paying for the damage themself when the device is out of waranty.

The worst thing was that it happend the evening before I was going to be away/abroad for 6 weeks.

Ended buying a new S3 as I have a seidio belt clip for it...the S4 is thinner and I would not be able to re-use the clip.

What should I do with the old one...sending it in for a new board and then put it up for sale. It is in mint condition after all.

How much does Samsung charge for a new board/repair?
[Galaxy S III General] drmjp93:
Approx 100-125 USD

Why your phone even though insane chip with ofx7 version died?

Strange

CyanogenMod 10.2 | Googy-Max

www.dadabhagwan.org

i9300
[Galaxy S III General] GOSSIO:
Can somebody help

Is it a s.d.s or a type of brick?

the phone stucks on the samsung logo when turned on

can enter only to download mode

there is no product name in download mode

odin recognized the phone but when trying to flash a stock firmware

It isn't advancing anywhere.

The phone was bought in March

and never reflashed or rooted
[Galaxy S III General] Simonna:
Yes, it's called half SDS when you can go only into download mode
[Galaxy S III General] GOSSIO:
Is there a way to revive it
[Galaxy S III General] Simonna:
Only one way to revive it is to change it's motherboard.
[Galaxy S III General] GOSSIO:
Thanks for the quick reply
[Galaxy S III General] Bapak:
As was said more than a hundred times, it is only the VTU00M chip with 0xF1 firmware which causes the problem. If you have this chip with a different firmware (0xF7) then you are safe, and you're also safe if you have another chip.

I have bought an S3 I9300 16GB a couple of weeks ago and luckily received a device with a completely different chip. I also suppose that the vast majority of the new devices that are being sold are either 1.) without the bad chip, or 2.) without the bad firmware. So if you buy a new S3, you will most likely (95% chance) get a "safe" device. The S3 is really a good phone, so my advice to you is this: Get a new S3, install the "eMMC Brickbug Check" app and see what chip/firmware it has. If you happen to have the bad firmware, you can return the phone and get your money back.

BUT... many people claim that the 4.1.2. update contains all the fixes which prevent SDS on the bad firmware. Some people say it's not true, but I have read on other forums where people swear that their S3 is from early 2012 and has absolutely no SDS symptoms, and that this is thanks to the 4.1.2 fixes. Of course the only way to be 100% safe is to have a different chip/firmware combo, but let's be clear, not every problem with the S3 should be labeled as SDS. It seems like anyone who has freezes on his S3 automatically labels it as "Sudden Death Syndrome", where there could be tons of other reasons for the problems.

My advice to you... get the phone, and do the eMMC check. Post back here on the forum.

You will most likely get a safe piece.
[Galaxy S III General] kosmasgr:
My phone :D never had sds :eek:

Sent from my GT-I9300
[Galaxy S III General] earthman5678:
The strange thing is my phone has VTU00M chip and 0xf1 firmware but the eMMC check program suggest that I have a sane chip! The date of the chip is 04/2012. I have another S3 that I purchased at the same time, died on me last week. Asked a non-Samsung service center, $80 to replace the chip. I'm waiting for my USB jig to see if I can revive the dead phone before replacing the chip.
[Galaxy S III General] Delgadovsky:
Hello everyone...

My S3 have the insane chip and i buy it in March. Until August everything is ok but now some times have lags (4-5 seconds) and get back to normal. Is this a sintome that mu S3 will died or possible some app that cause this??? I have install custom roms with the latest firmware installed but got no waranty.

There is any way that i can be sure what the problem is??? Thank you all
[Galaxy S III General] drmjp93:
I have recently for new s3 with ofx7 firmware, I played with phone, bootloader, kernel, recovery, even bricked - but phone never had any problems...

It's best phone for me and it's blazing fast after overclocking to just 1.6Ghz.

You may go for it.

CyanogenMod 10.2 | Googy-Max

www.dadabhagwan.org

i9300

---------- Post added at 05:05 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:03 PM ----------

Using googy max kernel - same I also don't have product name in download mode!

Phone is working perfectly

So am I in the midst of the upcoming problem?

Plz guide if I am..

CyanogenMod 10.2 | Googy-Max

www.dadabhagwan.org

i9300
[Galaxy S III General] danierakes:
Coming soon b prepare
[Galaxy S III General] kosmasgr:
haha :) is that sure ?

Sent from my GT-I9300
[Galaxy S III General] Isamu_Dyson:
Not certain but you better be prepared for the worst. My i9300 just got SDS'd. One salary down the drain. Samsung never again.
[Galaxy S III General] Simonna:
For how much time you were using it before SDS?
[Galaxy S III General] Isamu_Dyson:
I used it for 11 months... Started "stuttering" a couple months ago and fixed those symptoms writing new dummy files over and over again...
[Galaxy S III General] Fygaroo:
Some ppl already wrote that writing dummy files may actually hurt your device, flashing MB1 or newer should totally take care of SDS. My phone is 13 months old and i newer had any freezes or lags i flashed MB1 the moment it was out now using MC2.
[Galaxy S III General] Insaiyan:
Was wondering if someone could advise me here, as I'm not 100% sure that the phone has SDS.

Basically, the phone was running Carbon ROM nightlies with the latest CWM and updated radios. Out of the blue, the power button started to become very sensitive and is now to the point where it'll try to turn on, and then it will turn off as if the power button was still held. This leads me to believe it's just related to the power button and not necessarily SDS.

After much tinkering, I was able to use Odin to get it back to stock, but now it's stuck in boot loop, if it even gets that far. It will turn off after a few seconds of being turned on and I'm unable to get into the stock recovery mode to do a clean wipe.

The phone is the SGH-T999 and is beyond its one year warranty from T-Mobile. Any advice or suggestions is welcome.
[Galaxy S III General] Kedarik:
My I9305 randomly died today and it won't turn on. I've tried reinserting the battery and the screen is still completely black. What are my options?
[Galaxy S III General] dkionline:
SDS after all this updates? I don't know how you use your S3. I have mine 15 month without SDS and no lags in all this time. I Updated maybe 30 times and look everyday for new ones.

[tapatalk]printed, scanned and faxed...[/tapatalk]
[Galaxy S III General] Fygaroo:
This is GT-I9300 forum so if you install a rom from here you will brick your phone , about the bootloop you should do a factory reset and wipe cashe in recovery then it will boot normaly . I think only the GT-I9300 has the SDS issue so you are probably sds safe.
[Galaxy S III General] elC0c0:
Hi all!

I'm having a really hard time trying to return to stock firmware in my Galaxy S3 i9300 (from Argentina).

Reading about this Sudden Death issue, I believe that's the issue I'm having, but let me explain exactly what's happening and you tell me :)

My phone was flashed with the FoxHound firmware and rooted.

Now I need to return to stock, as I'm planning to sell it and don't want any troubles with it.

I downloaded the Argentina FW from Samsung-Updates

Version: I9300UBEMH2

Tried to install it with Odin, but after successfully flashed my phone boots and displays the Samsung logo with some animation. And that's it. Nothing else happens.

Reboot, and the same thing again. Only the logo appears and then the phone freezes there.

This is a known cause of the Sudden Death issue, so that's why I assume this is my problem.

I tried with different ROMs, all Stock ones, until I was able to get it work with the I9300XXUFME3 (not sure which region is it, maybe Israel Hot Mobile based on some apps that I got installed and wallpaper)

But the thing is that now:

- the phone continues crashing every once in a while, then I need to remove battery to restart.

- This FW doesn't have spanish language, comes with a lot of strange apps

- is NOT stock! Is somewhat based on S4 and has some "improvements" to mimic the S4 layout and menus.

To recap:

- I just want to reinstall original FW from Argentina

- If possible, keep the phone rooted with the only purpose of un-locking it from current operator.

So, am I downloading the correct ROMs? Is there a tutorial out there I could follow (I believe I'm not the first one to experience this) :D

ANY help will be much appreciated!! I've been struggling with this issue for 2 days and I really need my phone back.

Thanks in advance!

German
[Galaxy S III General] earthman5678:
Mine certified SDS. Couldn't revive it with the USB JIG and the service center also confirmed chip is out. The symptom before SDS I had was the phone keep rebooting itself frequently or hang. So, watch out if your phone is giving such symptom.
[Galaxy S III General] elC0c0:
I believe I solve it! (or I'm the process of solving it :))

Installed latest firmware for Argentina, then made a cache wipe and data wipe since the phone wasn't passing the logo screen.

After that the phone started freezing every few minutes. I found a thread where explains that if you wait, the phone will un-freeze after 5-25 minutes.

So I decided to wait. And the phone un-freezed.

After this there's an App in the Play Store that creates Dummy files in the phone memory. I used that to fill-up the memory (11Gb free) over and over again until I noticed that the phone didn't freeze during the file-writing process. A couple of extra cycles to be sure and I started using my phone normally again.

Today the phone freezed 1 or 2 times (much better than once every 5 minutes!!)

So I believe I still need to use these dummy files to fill and then empty the phone's memory.

There was an extensive technical explanation about this workaround, just search the forum and you'll get it (I don't have the link at hand).

Now I hope the phone continues behaving normally...
[Galaxy S III General] teruna89:
Sudden Death....

I am confirm that my sg3 was dead.....in cannot turned on.....so what am i supposed to do??the warranty was over...
[Galaxy S III General] earthman5678:
In my case, the phone was completely dead, couldn't turn on or get into recovery mode. I think yours is a matter of time. If you can sell or trade it in, I suggest you do so before it turns into a brick. I got my repaired by replacing the memory chip. The technician added a few minor scar to the phone while at it, but at least it is now a working phone.
[Galaxy S III General] elC0c0:
Indeed, I have mine listed at my local Ebay site!
[Galaxy S III General] lubo_moravcik:
My S3 died last week. Plugged charger in and it was ok, looked back a few minutes later and there was a pic of a battery on the front with a wee circle as if it was charging, but nothing happened. Took out battery, tried new one, tried different chargers and nothing. Gave it into a guy to have a look and he connected it up and said he got so far then an 'error' message kept coming up.

It's now been sent away to Samsung.

Is this the dreaded sds thing that is being spoke of, or something not quite so sinister and therefore fixable???

it is the gt-19300. wasn't rooted, i don't know the firmware or any of that other techie stuff and can't check now as it's been sent away
[Galaxy S III General] brainvision:
LOOL! Note to myself: don't buy S3s from Argentina!!! :D:D:D

[ brvsn • ParanoidAndroid 3.99 on Nxs7.3G • Tapatalk.4 ]
[Galaxy S III General] elC0c0:
Day 3 since I fixed my S3.

So far no crashes, no reboots, no freezes and no bootloops.

Also, I've been installing lots of apps (I don't backup apps, I reinstall them all after Flashing in case any of them was causing issues) and yet nothing went wrong.

Battery life seems to have improved also. Maybe I was used that the phone would lose about 10% after each crash, but I believe something else was fixed there.

So basically the solution of writing the dummy files over and over again is working.

If you need any help or have any questions about how I fix it, just let me know. Although everything came out from this forum :)
[Galaxy S III General] Fygaroo:
Like 15 mins ago i hear a message receive sound on my phone and since i got repeat notification it was playing it over and over again and after like 10 mins it stopped i though it was strange and i picked up my phone the led was blinking but i could not use the phone the screen was black and the unlock button and home button were not working , i read a lot of threads about SDS and all had the same issue blinking led and unresponsive phone so i almost **** myself i was sure my phone was dead but when i pressed the power button for 15 secs my phone started to boot and it booted normally everything was working , thought i should share my experience it may help prevent some hearth attacks.
[Galaxy S III General] mutn10:
I assume 10.1.3 (latest 4.2.2) Stable has the fix? I know the nightlies have it, but not sure about the stable.
[Galaxy S III General] earthman5678:
Mine started like that before it was certified SDS few months after.
[Galaxy S III General] Fygaroo:
Don't scare me man , what rom did you have and kernel was it stock or custom?
[Galaxy S III General] Smartie36:
Just found my s3 with the led pulsing blue, screen dead, don't know how long it had been like that and I only noticed as someone said they'd tried ringing me and I said I hadn't heard the phone ring! Took the battery out, phone booted up soon as i put the battery back in & running fine now.
[Galaxy S III General] Fygaroo:
I got a freeze when i opened my email this morning had to restart my phone, what kernel and rom are you using ?

I am thinking of exchanging this for LG 4x HD because i don't have the money for buying a new device if my S3 dies , i was sure s3 would last me at least 3 years :crying: in this situation i would say WHY ME but this thing happened to so many of us, dam samsung screwing people like this and i got this phone as a gift from my wife she sold her jewelry to buy it .
[Galaxy S III General] BLEK0TA:
Its shame for Samsung to produce and sell damaged emc chip. Big shame.
[Galaxy S III General] Smartie36:
Am running stock xxemh1, phone has never been rooted.
[Galaxy S III General] sandipn:
S3 died - Mainboard probs?

Hi,

Hi Sandip here from India, i have an s3 international variant for two months now and my phone is dead since last two days crying:

I flashed this two files accidentally last night , d2att_UCDMG2_firmware.zip and boot_CWM_I747UCDLK3.zip cause i was not able to flash some custom rom and hve read a thread about it but later on realized that its for AT&T Models only not international version.

After that my s3 is stuck on samsung screen with the blue light blinking endlessly still able to access recovery and download mode but not booting up, tried flashing stock rom 4.1.2 aswell but no use.

Took it to the samsung service center yesterday but he checked my flash counter and said that it wont be covered under a warranty cause flash counter was showing 18 counts , so after an hour he said its not a software problems and have to get your phone's motherboard replaced costing a heavy 112$ :crying:

So any of y'all think that flashing other s3 variant's file might have overheated or corrupted my mainboard or its a sudden death syndrome that we heard about s3? Any solution for it:confused::eek::crying:
[Galaxy S III General] drmjp93:
Wait sandip, your phone is okay.

Just flash the stock rom from sammobile.com

For i9300 AND CHOSE INU indian version

And your phone will cone to life

If this don't work then clear all cache,

All system data folder from recovery, and then flash original stock rom

CyanogenMod 10.2 | Googy-Max

www.dadabhagwan.org

i9300
[Galaxy S III General] clapton86:
Does LTE version (with 2gb of RAM) have this problem with sudden death?
[Galaxy S III General] reS28raM:
Does it really take so much less time typing a message compared to reading the first 12 lines in the OP? LOL

Anyway, not, you are safe. ;)

Inviato dal mio Galaxy S3 con Tapatalk 2
[Galaxy S III General] sandipn:
Is there anyway to reset binary counts without triangle away i.e. a jig cable or something?
[Galaxy S III General] dxppxd:
No. And its just so easy to use triangle away.