[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] Nostalgic-Link:
Hello:

So, the bottom line up front is I need help solving a problem with my now third, new Verizon Samsung Galaxy S4--it keeps restarting on its own, at random times, but most often after I lock the screen.

To go in more depth, if you think you may know the solution: I purchased the S4 when it first came out, some time in 2013 (not sure specifically, but it was new) and it worked just fine for 13 months (1 month past the warranty of course); this was back in August, when I got the latest Android update pushed to my phone from Verizon (4.4.2). A couple of weeks later, I would occasionally get overheating warnings that would very quickly disappear (like within a few seconds), and then the device started restarting itself... I cannot predict when it will restart, it's random, but like I said above, it usually happens most right after I lock the screen by pressing the right side button once. I started looking around on the internet for a solution then, but only found a couple of videos from earlier in 2013 where people were having battery problems (Google search has been letting me down more and more as the years pass). One day while at work, I was listening to Pandora as I always have with the phone in my front pocket, as I always have. A few hours later when I got home, not having taken the phone out of my front pocket since those last few hours at work, I went to answer a text message I had received; when I unlocked the phone, the screen was black, except for a small bit of white showing through some cracks UNDER the LCD, UNDER the screen protector, INSIDE my Otterbox Defender... the phone appeared to be working still, but the screen and touch screen did not. At that point I was pretty damn irritated and tried to find answers for a week with no luck... I called Verizon, they sent me on a goose chase to Samsung, who sent me back to Verizon, who got me in a conference call with Samsung and then left the call, and then Samsung ultimately said I would need to pay for repairs to the phone... SO... I went back to Verizon who again said I would have to talk to Samsung, but instead I just settled to giving Asurion (my phone insurance through Verizon, whom I pay an extra $9 monthly) $99 as a deductible to get a replacement S4...

Two days later I receive a brand new S4... spend hours setting it up the way I had my prior one... wasting tons of my valueable time to do so and bandwidth from my Concast ISP and the data cap they've decided to give us... one week later, the phone starts restarting itself... and this one did it more often than my prior one... EVERYTHING is up to date, minus a good amount of useless bloatware apps I never use from Samsung, like "Watch On," which I ignore... but everything necessary, I update. So, I go back to Asurion, who quickly ships me a 3rd S4...

Two days later I receive that third, brand new S4... spend hours setting it up the way I had my prior one... and now, this one is also restarting itself randomly. Interestingly, when I visited family for Thanksgiving, it restarted itself over and over and over much more frequently than when I'm at my place... at my family's place, they have very poor reception, and my phone usually has to work more to try to get the signal... IDK what the deal is, but maybe that information can be helpful to y'all.

Other things to note:

1) When I check the "RAM manager" by holding down the home button and then choosing "Task Manager", the phone is always using at least 800MB of 1.77GB of RAM... even when I choose "Clear memory" and it tells me 30 something apps have been closed... it jumps right back up to 800-900MB of usage.

2) I've tried factory resets on all three phones; with the first one where the screen cracked inside, I hooked the phone up via HDMI... within a couple of days, the restarting begins.

3) With the first replacement I received, I could not sent text messages with the default messenger app... and shortly after trying, it would restart.

4) I have used the same SIM card with all three phones since the issue began, when I first got the 4.2.2 update... I do not suspect the SIM card is the problem, but I'm also not savy with the phone... I know my way around it, but I'm not in the know.

5) I thought maybe it started because of some apps I had been trying, so I had deleted them, and the problem still persists.

6) I constantly have a Pebble Bluetooth smart watch connected to the phone... I have since I got it last Spring (2014).

7) I have never rooted the S4, overclocked it, underclocked it, or modded it in anyway because I do not know how, and I was afraid of what could happen in the future with whatever ROM I did flash onto the device if Verizon tried to push an update to it... I just don't know anything about the whole process, and I'm assuming it requires a lot of know how and babysitting of the device... I just want it to work.

8) I've replaced the battery twice; it doesn't seem to be the problem.

9) I've cleared the cache through the boot manager thing gotten to by holding a combo of buttons on the device while it's rebooting... it did not help.

Edit: 10) Today while I was listening to Pandora in the car, the audio began to skip and scratch, and then it paused for a moment, and then the phone restarted itself.

11) I forgot to mention that the reboot process itself is very fast compared to a manual restart performed by me... the phone will go black, the Samsung color rings will show a second after that, the logo appears then, the screen flashes the red Verizon logo, and then the devices is ready to be used... it's less than 10 seconds.

I've been searching around on the internet for about two months now while dealing with the problem and I can't find anything useful. Does anyone here know what my issue is and how I can fix it? Is there a way to pull error logs / information from the S4 somehow to give to someone to diagnose, like DxDiags on PC? I don't know how to read that stuff myself, but I know it can be very useful... I just don't know how to find that info inside of these very locked down ****boxes we call smartphones...

I truly appreciate any help I can get--sorry I can't offer anything in return; if I can't find a solution, I'm just going to go to my backup phone from 2011 (Droid X), and I will definitely never purchase another Samsung device, especially after they blamed me as the cause of the problem without even seeing the phone...

Thanks.