[Galaxy Note 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Street King:
First of all, hello to all Note 4 owners and my deepest sympathies to those affected by this "bug" (whatever it actually is).

I got used Note 4 in March 2016. It was trade in for my Sony Xperia and guy told me he had it for around a year. I liked this nice device. It had great display and served me very well. Excellent, even better term.

It was until December 2016 when dreaded bug appeared, and I knew nothing about it at the time. You already know it - lags, restarts, freezes, unable to turn on, going to download mode, harder and harder to start up...

How it happened is what amazes me most. I have 2 batteries, both original. I exchange them sometimes when I am on longer time without charger. This night (before it all happened) I let phone charge down to 0% because it showed false % in battery bar. It would die at 15% and not charge over 92% for example. This was factory battery and not my spare one I got later. I found out battery % is reset each time I let it charge down all the way, then after it shuts down I charge it up and it fixes the percentage bar temporarily. Anyway, as I was saying, that night (day before I experienced the bug) I wasn't in a good mood and phone died on me sometimes in the early night. I was annoyed and I started up the phone, it got to homescreen then shut off because it was empty. I did it again. This time it got to boot animation. Again. Again. How foolish of me. I did it until phone couldn't be turned on at all. Then I set it up to charge and left it overnight. Tomorrow I took it and left to work. It was peak 100%.

Around 10AM I got some messages on facebook messenger, and I wanted to check them out and reply, I took a break from working. In middle of my typing, phone simply froze. Froze, it wouldn't react to physical buttons, virtual keyboard, nothing. Screen was on non stop with frozen facebook messenger, virtual keyboard on screen and my unfinished message.

I took out battery and turned it back on. Phone was never the same since then... First "light" freezes and after second or two it "let's go" and all messages I typed appear instantly in messenger. Sometimes I press power button to wake device it wouldn't right away. It was getting harder and harder... after investigation I learned about this production "flaw" from samsung, I've read many pages about this error, many of those here on XDA (by the way community here is wonderful)...

I bought another device because Note was getting in state of unusable. I left it alone on table and it stand there for some time.

I couldn't give up it's wonderful screen, power, pretty TouchWiz... and after I've read a lot about this, I decided to buy new motherboard. I got one from ebay in late August and it arrived sometimes in middle September. 60 US dollars. I asked seller will all functions work, is IMEI blacklisted, is WI FI working, does it has good memory chip (which is culprit for bug it seems) and seller kept saying to me everything works, is tested one by one before shipping, and he said "it must work, 1 year warranty!" I smiled a bit, it's how he said it.

I ordered also some tools for disassembling phone as I wanted to do it myself. Very cheap, 7$ and there is everything there, really nice kit. It got to me before motherboard. Then it arrived. Same night I wanted to do it, I couldn't wait to use my note again. I missed it.

One friend at work which owns mobile store and repair, told me to wait until tomorrow, he will do it for cheap but I was not patient enough. I thought I can do it. After couple of youtube videos I started it... Bottom line is I didn't heat up the device to loosen the glue and I ended up breaking the screen... And couldn't attach screen to motherboard, because Samsung made it hard without removing the screen too. I went to my friend and he scolded me for not waiting few hours and eventually found me used screen for 75$ more... They are 150$ around but he took it from some friend of his own to help me because he felt sorry and he got that friend's phone, got out the screen and transplanted it to my motherboard and casing over for free. I have working Note again...

Now, I don't know what to do with it? Do I sell it? Use it? I felt free to attach some screenshots from it, to add up to collective knowledge of XDA (it was my intention with this story in the first place). Who knows... maybe some info from here might help someone, sometimes.

Phone info showed my phone (motherboard) is made in 01.2016. Brickbug check app can't identify the memory chip (shows production date as 11/1999 which is not possible for note 4). It is fast now, one screenshot proves it. Friend said he stress tested the board (whatever it means) and it seems fine. All functions work, I tested everything too. Board color looks different - shade of green is different. KNOX warranty void status 0x0.

What is opinion of fellow XDA's about this? Do I use this thing, sell it... it cost me more than it's worth, and selling it will be just extracting mere costs I invested. But I like the device... I feel like just going through with it, whatever happens this time... maybe my pain with emmc fail is over.

Maybe some other members reading this, can screenshot their brickbug check app statuses? Those which have "healthy" devices and those having emmc issues too? Maybe we can build database of good chips, and which devices may be "safe"... I will sure add my results here in attachments.

I wish everyone owning this good little device much luck and as less problems as possible...

PS Mods can move thread to some other one regarding this issue but I'd like it stays thread of it's own... but I will conform to decision of Mod team. This is wonderful and helping site, thanks goes to owners which built it and mod team keeping the order, as well as userbase for contributing to collective knowledge and "hacking" the android and devices in a good way.

StreetKing