[Q] Sudden Death Syndrome on ATT GS3 i747?

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Top5a

Member
Dec 28, 2010
7
0
The best part about spending 30 minutes typing a post is having your browser crash. Anyway, if you have any further questions because this is going to be a bit brief, let me know.

My background: Fairly well-versed in Android, custom ROMs, flashing, rooting, doing development work on Android, reading directions, decent google-fu and RTFMing. But I really need help on this one. The phone in question is my primary phone, which I actually like to keep as stock because I don't want anything mucking up on it. It's 20 months old (daily usage), running stock 4.1.1, which was rooted about 17 months ago with cf autoroot, which I needed for development purposes. For the past 10 months, I have been using an extended aftermarket battery, because when traveling and thusly using navigation, gtranslate, lots of messaging, and whatnot with a bright screen whilst outdoors, I was tired of having my phone leave me without a communications device at 8pm.

Recent changes to phone: Several weeks ago, before another bout of traveling, I did my usual *#197328640# perso256 disable (one of the reasons that I like keeping my phone at 4.1.1), and voila -- carrier unlock.

What happened: Things were going swimmingly for a few weeks, when one day, I was out and about, typing something into google translate, and the screen just went black. It was early midday, and the phone was at 90% battery (extended battery life ftmfw). Every now and then, when doing serious multitasking (and, mind you, since the early days of owning this phone, as well as through the entire life of my GS1, which still works, by the way), my GS3 would occasionally reboot of its own accord. I thought nothing of this, except it just being a hallmark of samsung phones, and a minor inconvenience, at worst. This time, however, it failed to power back on. I removed the battery, held in power button in an attempt to discharge any residual power, and put the battery back in. Nothing. Panic. No ssung logo, no vibration, no lights, nothing. Just the black screen staring back at me. There was no moisture, and no trauma to the phone... nothing, save for a ridiculous sinking sensation.

Symptoms: Phone completely unresponsive. I tried a charged stock GS3 battery, and the symptoms are the same. If I plug the phone in without a battery, the led lights up red for a time, and that's it. Even though I haven't modded this phone at all, with the exception of the rooting almost 2 years ago, I tried everything I could think of and read online. vol up + power + home. vol down + power + home. Leaving the battery out for a while. So much reading through these forums and some others online. When I plug it in in windows (even though I primarily use linux), I get the QHSUSB_DLOAD problem, so I do not think it is a problem with the power button? Or maybe the power button can be permanently depressed or something that would cause this? Anyway, I've installed QHSUSB_DLOAD windows drivers, but don't want to start flashing things until I know there isn't another longshot option to get this to work. I even loaded up linux and ran pblclear, which allegedly attempts to knock HTC phones out of being stuck in QHSUSB_DLOAD mode. Didn't work, but figured it was worth a shot, and seemed relatively harmless.

Why I don't even know if it's SDS: The reason I'm asking this is because I'm completely at a loss. SDS appears to affect i9000s after 150-200 days, OR when people incorrectly flash a ROM, or something happens during flashing or modification. My phone is an ATT i747 has been fully operative for 600+ days, and I haven't done any flashing, rooting, whathaveyou in nearly two years (and it was just that simple autoroot that I ran once).

What I'm wondering: I really want to get this phone working, because of hundreds of images, notes, data, etc. that I have accrued over the past few years. Most of my videos and larger files were on my sd card, but literally hundreds of memories and works in progress that I would do insane things for were saved to the phone. I'm an idiot for not backing it up, but I wasn't doing anything to the phone, so wasn't expecting such a catastrophe. Will JTAG work? What about a debricking microsd image? Most of the ones I can find are for 4.1.2 or 4.1.3 -- are there any for 4.1.1? I'm nearly certain 4.1.1 is my version, because IICR 4.1.2 and 4.1.3 don't even have the perso256 disable menu, and it's why I had not upgraded to them. It seems like the microsd rewrites would wipe the contents, and then I would have to quickly attempt a recovery on the data? Or have there been any cases with similar failures that are something else dying on the board? To be perfectly honest, if it appears to be an issue with the board, it's not beyond my ability to perform BGA rework and remove the emmc entirely, and transplant it onto a new board, but I would ///really/// like to avoid that.

Thanks for reading... :angel:

Edit:

Additional information: I forgot to mention that I have found pages such as this samsung-galaxy-s3-sgh-i747-i747m-repair-dead-boot-1755452 [I'm afraid you'll have to google it because I can't post links if you want to look TT^TT] which have files that say, for example, "Samsung SGH-I747 Repair Boot Supported" if using JTAG. So, if there aren't suggestions about how I can fix my phone with an sdcard unbrick, or something else, does anyone know whether or not doing a boot repair will unbrick a phone without wiping the ROM itself? Thanks again~~
 
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thorur

Member
Nov 13, 2010
11
2
The best part about spending 30 minutes typing a post is having your browser crash. Anyway, if you have any further questions because this is going to be a bit brief, let me know.

My background: Fairly well-versed in Android, custom ROMs, flashing, rooting, doing development work on Android, reading directions, decent google-fu and RTFMing. But I really need help on this one. The phone in question is my primary phone, which I actually like to keep as stock because I don't want anything mucking up on it. It's 20 months old (daily usage), running stock 4.1.1, which was rooted about 17 months ago with cf autoroot, which I needed for development purposes. For the past 10 months, I have been using an extended aftermarket battery, because when traveling and thusly using navigation, gtranslate, lots of messaging, and whatnot with a bright screen whilst outdoors, I was tired of having my phone leave me without a communications device at 8pm.

Recent changes to phone: Several weeks ago, before another bout of traveling, I did my usual *#197328640# perso256 disable (one of the reasons that I like keeping my phone at 4.1.1), and voila -- carrier unlock.

What happened: Things were going swimmingly for a few weeks, when one day, I was out and about, typing something into google translate, and the screen just went black. It was early midday, and the phone was at 90% battery (extended battery life ftmfw). Every now and then, when doing serious multitasking (and, mind you, since the early days of owning this phone, as well as through the entire life of my GS1, which still works, by the way), my GS3 would occasionally reboot of its own accord. I thought nothing of this, except it just being a hallmark of samsung phones, and a minor inconvenience, at worst. This time, however, it failed to power back on. I removed the battery, held in power button in an attempt to discharge any residual power, and put the battery back in. Nothing. Panic. No ssung logo, no vibration, no lights, nothing. Just the black screen staring back at me. There was no moisture, and no trauma to the phone... nothing, save for a ridiculous sinking sensation.

Symptoms: Phone completely unresponsive. I tried a charged stock GS3 battery, and the symptoms are the same. If I plug the phone in without a battery, the led lights up red for a time, and that's it. Even though I haven't modded this phone at all, with the exception of the rooting almost 2 years ago, I tried everything I could think of and read online. vol up + power + home. vol down + power + home. Leaving the battery out for a while. So much reading through these forums and some others online. When I plug it in in windows (even though I primarily use linux), I get the QHSUSB_DLOAD problem, so I do not think it is a problem with the power button? Or maybe the power button can be permanently depressed or something that would cause this? Anyway, I've installed QHSUSB_DLOAD windows drivers, but don't want to start flashing things until I know there isn't another longshot option to get this to work. I even loaded up linux and ran pblclear, which allegedly attempts to knock HTC phones out of being stuck in QHSUSB_DLOAD mode. Didn't work, but figured it was worth a shot, and seemed relatively harmless.

Why I don't even know if it's SDS: The reason I'm asking this is because I'm completely at a loss. SDS appears to affect i9000s after 150-200 days, OR when people incorrectly flash a ROM, or something happens during flashing or modification. My phone is an ATT i747 has been fully operative for 600+ days, and I haven't done any flashing, rooting, whathaveyou in nearly two years (and it was just that simple autoroot that I ran once).

What I'm wondering: I really want to get this phone working, because of hundreds of images, notes, data, etc. that I have accrued over the past few years. Most of my videos and larger files were on my sd card, but literally hundreds of memories and works in progress that I would do insane things for were saved to the phone. I'm an idiot for not backing it up, but I wasn't doing anything to the phone, so wasn't expecting such a catastrophe. Will JTAG work? What about a debricking microsd image? Most of the ones I can find are for 4.1.2 or 4.1.3 -- are there any for 4.1.1? I'm nearly certain 4.1.1 is my version, because IICR 4.1.2 and 4.1.3 don't even have the perso256 disable menu, and it's why I had not upgraded to them. It seems like the microsd rewrites would wipe the contents, and then I would have to quickly attempt a recovery on the data? Or have there been any cases with similar failures that are something else dying on the board? To be perfectly honest, if it appears to be an issue with the board, it's not beyond my ability to perform BGA rework and remove the emmc entirely, and transplant it onto a new board, but I would ///really/// like to avoid that.

Thanks for reading... :angel:

Edit:

Additional information: I forgot to mention that I have found pages such as this samsung-galaxy-s3-sgh-i747-i747m-repair-dead-boot-1755452 [I'm afraid you'll have to google it because I can't post links if you want to look TT^TT] which have files that say, for example, "Samsung SGH-I747 Repair Boot Supported" if using JTAG. So, if there aren't suggestions about how I can fix my phone with an sdcard unbrick, or something else, does anyone know whether or not doing a boot repair will unbrick a phone without wiping the ROM itself? Thanks again~~

same thing just happened to my 20 month old att s3.i unlocked the bootloader and flashed a twrp recovery.the phone was on 4.1.1 and rooted.
now just a lifeless phone
 

Top5a

Member
Dec 28, 2010
7
0
same thing just happened to my 20 month old att s3.i unlocked the bootloader and flashed a twrp recovery.the phone was on 4.1.1 and rooted.
now just a lifeless phone

Did it die closely after the unlocking/flashing? Or a long time after? Or was the unlocking/flashing an attempt to save the phone? Ever get it fixed? I'm so anxious!
 

crazymonkey05

Senior Member
Apr 1, 2012
1,185
231
28
stilwell, OK
I never heard of qualcomm chips doing this. There is a app called emmc brickbug check on the market though it won't be of much use to you now.....but it allows you to check the mem. Controller chip and check if its a "sane chip" and allows you to probe the memory for any bad sectors.....its really quite a nice app

Sent from my ATT Samsung Galaxy SIII using TapaTalk
 

Top5a

Member
Dec 28, 2010
7
0
I never heard of qualcomm chips doing this. There is a app called emmc brickbug check on the market though it won't be of much use to you now.....but it allows you to check the mem. Controller chip and check if its a "sane chip" and allows you to probe the memory for any bad sectors.....its really quite a nice app

Sent from my ATT Samsung Galaxy SIII using TapaTalk

Well, thanks for the input! Makes me feel a better hopefully the emmc isn't completely fried. I just really want my files, and am continually irritated at myself for having been so stupid to not make backups.. although I have phones from 10+ years ago that have never completely died in such an unexpected manner. It's quite the agonizing wait for a JTAG programmer to come in the mail. If I can manage to get it to boot from SD, which I haven't been able to do so far, do you think it's logical for me to simply reflash the bootloader/CWM, then attempt boot? It shouldn't erase files, right?
 

crazymonkey05

Senior Member
Apr 1, 2012
1,185
231
28
stilwell, OK
You can try a bootloader and recovery flash which might yield results.....and the plus side of that is that it won't wipe the memory unless you format the /data partition or you do a full Odin restore with ROM kernel and everything

Sent from my ATT Samsung Galaxy SIII using TapaTalk
 

Top5a

Member
Dec 28, 2010
7
0
You can try a bootloader and recovery flash which might yield results.....and the plus side of that is that it won't wipe the memory unless you format the /data partition or you do a full Odin restore with ROM kernel and everything

Sent from my ATT Samsung Galaxy SIII using TapaTalk

I've also searched everywhere for a debrick image for 4.1.1 AT&T... anyone know where I can get one? All I can find are ones for 4.1.3 =\
 

Sidetracking

Member
Apr 2, 2012
40
3
EXACT same problem here, let me know if you find anything

(Btw, my phone also had the "power button stuck down" issue, but your phone will vibrate when you put the battery in if this is the issue.)
 
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crazymonkey05

Senior Member
Apr 1, 2012
1,185
231
28
stilwell, OK
If I'm not mistaken you will be able to Odin to 4.1.1 while using the 4.3 SD card debrick (again this is just guessing)

Sent from my ATT Samsung Galaxy SIII using TapaTalk
 

Top5a

Member
Dec 28, 2010
7
0
I've tried the SD card debricks for 4.3, and still nothing happens. Yea, I also don't get vibrate. As a long shot, I actually installed the qualcomm drivers and ran the qdload.sh script to attempt to send a signal which kicks the phone out of that mode (works on some... I want to say, HTC, phones), but, yea, I think the emmc just failed somehow. I'm hoping that the failure is just in the bootloader segment, and that by jtag reflashing the bootloader area, I should be able to boot. Either that, or even if one of the memory sectors died, hopefully it's not the one with my data partition. I still can't believe this ! Out of all the electronics I've ever used, aside from a hard drive or two, I've never had something like a phone just kick the bucket with no warning. gha !

Also, thanks for all the tips and stuff, guys and gals. Tell me if you figure out anything, and I'll let you know if I get it fixed with jtag.
 
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crazymonkey05

Senior Member
Apr 1, 2012
1,185
231
28
stilwell, OK
OK plz let us know how it goes! I don't want to sound rude but your phone would be the only snapdragon I have ever seen fail....and I've been using snapdragons since the s1 on a HTC wildfire s

Sent from my ATT Samsung Galaxy SIII using TapaTalk
 

Top5a

Member
Dec 28, 2010
7
0
OK plz let us know how it goes! I don't want to sound rude but your phone would be the only snapdragon I have ever seen fail....and I've been using snapdragons since the s1 on a HTC wildfire s

Sent from my ATT Samsung Galaxy SIII using TapaTalk

ZOMG SO RUDE >:D haha, j/k ;P Yea, no problem, dude/dudette! I know how it feels reading threads with no followup... I'm actually surprised that people have come out of the proverbial woodwork mentioning having similar problems to me ! It really sucks spending inordinate amounts of time reading threads and not arriving at a definitive conclusion... so, yea, I especially want to let people know if there is a fix, and/or how I did it.

So, with regard to what you said about the snapdragons not failing... yea. This is rekking my mind, tbh, because I've just never had a device insta-fail on me like this (aside from some old computer hard drives that were server backed up, but yea that's essentially par for the course on that medium [yay for S.M.A.R.T.]). Especially a device that I'd only had for less than 2 years, and though my GS3 has heavy usage, I treat it very well (no drops, water, etc.)... so, yea.

Also, a minority of people with whom I have spoken via the æther have also experienced similar emmc failures on i747s, as well ! Which I was not expecting. It's still insane, though, to believe that, out of such a small percentage of phones that could potentially experience SDS, and then which ones actually do experience it... and then to not even have an i9000 and /still/ experience it on an i747... I feel as though I've won the lotto. Except ****ty.

I'm waiting on parts to come in, then surgery will commence.
 

Helloworld294

Senior Member
Feb 25, 2012
1,281
354
Vancouver
Did you try going into download mode? If you can so that then the phone is fine. Another thing is try reflashing stock Odin which will erase msgs and stuff but not music or pics unless u tick "repartition".

Sent from my SGH-I747M using Tapatalk
 

Top5a

Member
Dec 28, 2010
7
0
Open serial port...OK
Connecting to the RIFF Box...OK
Firmware Version: 1.37, JTAG Manager Version: 1.56
Selected Resurrector: [Samsung I747 V1.0.5095.46594]

Connecting to the dead body...OK
Detected dead body ID: 0xhexhereisOK[redacted] - CORRECT!
Set I/O Voltage reads as 1.81V, TCK Frequency is 1 MHz

Resurrection sequence started.
Establish communication with the phone...OK
Initializing internal hardware configuration...OK
Uploading resurrector data into memory...OK
Starting communication with resurrector...OK

Detected an Initialized FLASH1 Chip, ID: 0x0015/0x0100 (000000, 0x000400000000 Bytes = 16.00 GB)
Detected an Initialized FLASH2 Chip, ID: 0x0015/0x0100 (000000, 0x000000080000 Bytes = 0.50 MB)

No Resurrection Data is available for the eMMC Chip with Capacity = 16.00GB
WARNING!!! Using Resurrection Data for the eMMC Chip with Capacity = 14,68GB

Flashing the dead body...
ERROR: DCC Loader has reported Error Code = 0x51 (0x000000). Trying to recover...OK
ERROR: DCC Loader has reported Error Code = 0x51 (0x000000). Trying to recover...OK
ERROR: DCC Loader has reported Error Code = 0x51 (0x000000). Trying to recover...OK
ERROR: Stopped due to multiple communication errors. Terminating at 0x0003AB3FBE00

Had to reduce the speed to that 2MHz/1MHz to get communication to work. So, 0x51 is a DCC power failure problem... but it is able to detect the initialized chips. So.. not really sure how to proceed at this point. I haven't checked the signal quality on my NRST line, which apparently can cause problems. Some people have increased the voltage from 1.8 to say 1.9, but doing something like that requires me to actually make my own resurrection file, which I haven't had the time to do yet.

Anyone seen a problem with something like this before?

The 000000 is somewhat unsettling, as the chip is apparently supposed to report some ID#? Although, the failures that I'm getting don't seem to be the typical ones that happen when the emmc becomes completely toasted.

Oh, yea... I can't seem to figure out wth is up with --> WARNING!!! Using Resurrection Data for the eMMC Chip with Capacity = 14,68GB

Like..... ??? I think I'm using the most up to date resurrector?!

EDIT: Dumping out the entire contents of the emmc (haven't had errors so far, but it will take a while at 1 MHz), into a bin file (this avoids the bad sectors in the bootloader).

Does anyone know what to do with the resultant *.bin file? I think that if I got another surrogate GS3, I'd be able to write that onto the phone, essentially cloning my dead phone. I'd like to avoid having to do that, though -- does anyone know how to write one of DCC bin jtag file dumps into a readable file system?
 
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