I know, I know, another bootloop thread. I've been reading dozens of them and I can't find my problem, please forgive me.
My wife's phone was stolen, and so we bought a used one from a stranger after seeing a listing on a local sales site (gumtree). Bad call - they demo'd it for us, but we didn't power it off and on before buying. After parting with cash, we find the phone won't boot unless it's plugged in to AC power (and not USB). All it does is loop grey/green battery logos over and over. Sometimes vibrating, sometimes not, but it would never break the loop, except to enter download mode, unless I connected it to AC power.
If I did boot it, I couldn't do some stuff, like enable USB debugging - it flat out wouldn't allow me to check that box. So I checked the kernel, and it seemed to have a weird kernel installed, so I thought it was time to just re-flash with the official firmware.
Well, first I wanted to try SlimROM, but I couldn't get to CWM Recovery (which was already installed) reliably, and on the rare instance where I could get it to come up, I couldn't navigate to extSD where the slim files were, nor mount USB storage (the PC wouldn't recognize it).
So I decided to try and re-flash to stock, using ODIN and the official samsung FW that worked well on my own GS2. This worked, after a fashion - I could get it to boot if I applied AC power, but things were badly broken. It'd reboot a minute or two after the setup began, and so I was forced to suspect either hardware failure or something that survived a complete wipe and flash.
So I thought kernel. The only one I had lying around that I knew worked was an old jeboo kernel. I flashed it with ODIN, and presto - it worked! The thing booted and stayed stable.
But I still have that accursed battery loop when the phone's off, the battery needs to be yanked to keep it actually powered down. And there are other bugs, like the screen comes on after you turn it off with the power button. Just once, but now it can't be powered down and ignored - you turn the screen off and wait to see if it comes back on and do it again.
And it's confused about charging - this morning it reported the AC adaptor was a USB charger, and this evening it thinks both USB and the AC adaptor are both AC (in the battery info settings screen).
And the only way to get it to boot reliably now is to remove the battery and plug it back in, at which point it boots as normal.
So, after all that long winded four-hours-of-tears-and-anger story, my question is this: What's the battery boot loop all about? Why does the screen flicker constantly when it's charging via AC? Why does it take -twenty seconds- to recognize it has been plugged in to power?
I can't install CWM, it won't enter recovery or boot successfully (no loop, just hangs on the yellow triangle screen). Before I start randomly applying new ROMs via odin, I'd like to find out more about my problem.
Please, can anyone shed light on this? I thought I knew what I was doing but I'm coming up empty here.
My wife's phone was stolen, and so we bought a used one from a stranger after seeing a listing on a local sales site (gumtree). Bad call - they demo'd it for us, but we didn't power it off and on before buying. After parting with cash, we find the phone won't boot unless it's plugged in to AC power (and not USB). All it does is loop grey/green battery logos over and over. Sometimes vibrating, sometimes not, but it would never break the loop, except to enter download mode, unless I connected it to AC power.
If I did boot it, I couldn't do some stuff, like enable USB debugging - it flat out wouldn't allow me to check that box. So I checked the kernel, and it seemed to have a weird kernel installed, so I thought it was time to just re-flash with the official firmware.
Well, first I wanted to try SlimROM, but I couldn't get to CWM Recovery (which was already installed) reliably, and on the rare instance where I could get it to come up, I couldn't navigate to extSD where the slim files were, nor mount USB storage (the PC wouldn't recognize it).
So I decided to try and re-flash to stock, using ODIN and the official samsung FW that worked well on my own GS2. This worked, after a fashion - I could get it to boot if I applied AC power, but things were badly broken. It'd reboot a minute or two after the setup began, and so I was forced to suspect either hardware failure or something that survived a complete wipe and flash.
So I thought kernel. The only one I had lying around that I knew worked was an old jeboo kernel. I flashed it with ODIN, and presto - it worked! The thing booted and stayed stable.
But I still have that accursed battery loop when the phone's off, the battery needs to be yanked to keep it actually powered down. And there are other bugs, like the screen comes on after you turn it off with the power button. Just once, but now it can't be powered down and ignored - you turn the screen off and wait to see if it comes back on and do it again.
And it's confused about charging - this morning it reported the AC adaptor was a USB charger, and this evening it thinks both USB and the AC adaptor are both AC (in the battery info settings screen).
And the only way to get it to boot reliably now is to remove the battery and plug it back in, at which point it boots as normal.
So, after all that long winded four-hours-of-tears-and-anger story, my question is this: What's the battery boot loop all about? Why does the screen flicker constantly when it's charging via AC? Why does it take -twenty seconds- to recognize it has been plugged in to power?
I can't install CWM, it won't enter recovery or boot successfully (no loop, just hangs on the yellow triangle screen). Before I start randomly applying new ROMs via odin, I'd like to find out more about my problem.
Please, can anyone shed light on this? I thought I knew what I was doing but I'm coming up empty here.
