[Q] Hard briked S3 mini out of nowhere

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ScrewedImei

Member
Sep 21, 2013
12
0
I have the feeling I'm going to get repetitive here guys, but I've been reading the troubleshooting threads for over an hour and couldn't find an answer to help me.

Last saturday I was to lazy to move from the couch, so I watched as my S3 Mini ran out of battery. I got the "phone is turning off" screen as usual. Later I went to bed, but as I needed my alarm to go off in the morning I tried turning it on again, and nothing* happened. Plugged it on the wall, nothing*. Replaced the battery, nothing*. Gave it a good half hour plugged, and as you can guess, nothing*.

* when I say nothing, I mean it won't light up, won't vibrate, won't wink for me, won't load any kind of error, it's actually just like if you were trying to turn on a phone without any battery connected, no grasp of life comes from its poor soul.

The only moment I could see some action on the device is when I tried connecting it on the PC a few hours ago, as it installed drivers to Windows. Right after installing the drivers however, it won't show in the file explorer. I've tried to detect it with a few development tools such as ORT and Odin and there was no sucess either. Download or Recover mode will not work as well.
One thing I think worth mentioning, is that ever since I rooted it a couple of years ago, whenever I tried to recharge it while it was off, the standard "green charging battery" would never appear. What would appear on the screen was a freezed loading icon (the one that keeps roling again and again, but frozen). This particular issue never came off, even reseting it or installing new ROMs.
I always used Maclaw's, some of the latest 4.x, because I tought the 5.x was to heavy for the s3 minis.

I've read some about USB JIGs and stuff, but what makes me very curious is what the heck?! The phone was working just fine, the battery runs out and I have a brick? Is this possible? Can anyone tell me any work around?

I apologize for possible grammar mistakes.
 
Last edited:

bejunk

Senior Member
May 9, 2013
1,991
2,304
Berlin
I have the feeling I'm going to get repetitive here guys, but I've been reading the troubleshooting threads for over an hour and couldn't find an answer to help me.

Last saturday I was to lazy to move from the couch, so I watched as my S3 Mini ran out of battery. I got the "phone is turning off" screen as usual. Later I went to bed, but as I needed my alarm to go off in the morning I tried turning it on again, and nothing* happened. Plugged it on the wall, nothing*. Replaced the battery, nothing*. Gave it a good half hour plugged, and as you can guess, nothing*.

* when I say nothing, I mean it won't light up, won't vibrate, won't wink for me, won't load any kind of error, it's actually just like if you were trying to turn on a phone without any battery connected, no grasp of life comes from its poor soul.

The only moment I could see some action on the device is when I tried connecting it on the PC a few hours ago, as it installed drivers to Windows. Right after installing the drivers however, it won't show in the file explorer. I've tried to detect it with a few development tools such as ORT and Odin and there was no sucess either. Download or Recover mode will not work as well.
One thing I think worth mentioning, is that ever since I rooted it a couple of years ago, whenever I tried to recharge it while it was off, the standard "green charging battery" would never appear. What would appear on the screen was a freezed loading icon (the one that keeps roling again and again, but frozen). This particular issue never came off, even reseting it or installing new ROMs.
I always used Maclaw's, some of the latest 4.x, because I tought the 5.x was to heavy for the s3 minis.

I've read some about USB JIGs and stuff, but what makes me very curious is what the heck?! The phone was working just fine, the battery runs out and I have a brick? Is this possible? Can anyone tell me any work around?

I apologize for possible grammar mistakes.

try to plug in the phone into charger & leave it there like 20 mins or more. battery loads then.

then try access samsung download mode, if you cant the phone is probably useless (brick for ever) because itslike mthe last standing thing.

& sorry i say that but thats typically samsung behaviuor. there allways this kind of threads in the samsung forums of xda... other manufacturer can mostly be restored or atleast you know what make it dead.
 

ScrewedImei

Member
Sep 21, 2013
12
0
try to plug in the phone into charger & leave it there like 20 mins or more. battery loads then.

then try access samsung download mode, if you cant the phone is probably useless (brick for ever) because itslike mthe last standing thing.

& sorry i say that but thats typically samsung behaviuor. there allways this kind of threads in the samsung forums of xda... other manufacturer can mostly be restored or atleast you know what make it dead.

Hi there,

Thank you for your interest but I have passed this point already. Tried a brand new battery I had laying down in the drawer (which was fully charged with an universal charger) and there is no answer to any attempt of turning it on. Via recovery, download or normal boot.

Exactly the same problems happening to me.
This is my thread:
http://xdaforums.com/galaxy-s3-mini/help/sgs3-mini-dead-t3085031

Can you try to follow what appears on this link? (I can't by now because my PC is broken)
I think won't do nothing because you won't be able to access to the recovery mode on android, as me, but to try...
http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1840030

Hello there,

I'm sorry to hear I'm not the only one affected by this bug (lets call it a bug). This shows there is a lack of concern from Samsung on dealing with this issues, and thus we see that old programmed obsolescence.
I will try that later on the weekend, and I come back here with an report.

Cheers
 

bejunk

Senior Member
May 9, 2013
1,991
2,304
Berlin
Hi there,

Thank you for your interest but I have passed this point already. Tried a brand new battery I had laying down in the drawer (which was fully charged with an universal charger) and there is no answer to any attempt of turning it on. Via recovery, download or normal boot.



Hello there,

I'm sorry to hear I'm not the only one affected by this bug (lets call it a bug). This shows there is a lack of concern from Samsung on dealing with this issues, and thus we see that old programmed obsolescence.
I will try that later on the weekend, and I come back here with an report.

Cheers

this guide useless for you. how u want flash things with odin if u cant enter download mode at all??

im really sorry for you that this phone is dead. just can give you 1 advice, dont buy samsung in future.
 

CrashOverride93

Senior Member
May 18, 2013
351
156
I have been repaired my phone successfully!!!
I just needed to change two capacitors on its motherboard, and that's it.

Here the video where I have found the info and how to do that. It's in Spanish but easy to understand for you I think. But if you need some help, send me a PM.
 

ScrewedImei

Member
Sep 21, 2013
12
0
Hi everyone.

I have some news. It took me a while but I followed CrashOverride93's advice on that video. It actually solved one issue, as I now can turn it on, but now I have a second problem, I'm stuck on a boot loop, with acess to Download mode ONLY. No recovery.

Considering where my issue started, and where I am now, I have tried the following:

- Flashed via Odin stock ROM, kernel;
- flashed Wipe;
- flashed PARAM;
- three button combo.

So far I couldn't get it pass the boot loop. Any thoughts?