To start, I bought this phone used a few months ago. I'm traveling, my other phone was old and the camera was broken, and I wanted something that wouldn't be bricked if I fell into a river while hiking (it happened in the past; the current was faster and the river deeper than I anticipated). Anyways, so I got this S7 and the only issue seemed to be that the volume down key was a bit... off.
A few days ago, I went for a hike in here in the south of Spain, in the seemingly only place with some water... and... only thinking about the phone's supposed water-resistance, I went under a waterfall with it to take some video. It worked (although somewhat glitchy), then it displayed the volume mini-screen on the display as if I had pressed one of the volume buttons (I hadn't), and then it restarted. Into safe mode...
Since then, everything else besides the volume has worked without any flaw. I can use every other feature of the phone, but if I restart it, it ALWAYS starts into safe mode. Using the diagnostics screen (*#0*#), neither of the volume keys registers. I thought perhaps the volume down key was stuck as when I press the home and power buttons (without touching vol down), it takes a screenshot. So I took the back cover off and checked it.
The initially dodgy vol down button was a result of the previous owner breaking something and having the back cover taken off to fix it. They had reglued (rather than using the standard adhesive strip) the cover on and the glue had gotten into button's allocated space. Their shoddy gluing job was also the reason why water was able to enter so easily when I went under the waterfall... Anyways, I cleaned their glue out and detached the flex cable for the volume buttons. With no change. The phone still starts into safe mode and the screenshot is still taken without any need for the volume key.
My last thought was that if I hold the power and home key during startup, then maybe I can use the same process as a screenshot to get into download mode. Turns out I cannot...
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So, backstory and details aside, does anyone have any previous experiences like this? Could it, in fact, be the power buttons (I initially thought so, but the lack of change when detached makes me think otherwise)? Or did the water that seeped in maybe affect the motherboard and is there a place/method by which I could check this?
Any help on the issue would be greatly appreciated as I'm rather stumped at the moment.
A few days ago, I went for a hike in here in the south of Spain, in the seemingly only place with some water... and... only thinking about the phone's supposed water-resistance, I went under a waterfall with it to take some video. It worked (although somewhat glitchy), then it displayed the volume mini-screen on the display as if I had pressed one of the volume buttons (I hadn't), and then it restarted. Into safe mode...
Since then, everything else besides the volume has worked without any flaw. I can use every other feature of the phone, but if I restart it, it ALWAYS starts into safe mode. Using the diagnostics screen (*#0*#), neither of the volume keys registers. I thought perhaps the volume down key was stuck as when I press the home and power buttons (without touching vol down), it takes a screenshot. So I took the back cover off and checked it.
The initially dodgy vol down button was a result of the previous owner breaking something and having the back cover taken off to fix it. They had reglued (rather than using the standard adhesive strip) the cover on and the glue had gotten into button's allocated space. Their shoddy gluing job was also the reason why water was able to enter so easily when I went under the waterfall... Anyways, I cleaned their glue out and detached the flex cable for the volume buttons. With no change. The phone still starts into safe mode and the screenshot is still taken without any need for the volume key.
My last thought was that if I hold the power and home key during startup, then maybe I can use the same process as a screenshot to get into download mode. Turns out I cannot...
---------------------
So, backstory and details aside, does anyone have any previous experiences like this? Could it, in fact, be the power buttons (I initially thought so, but the lack of change when detached makes me think otherwise)? Or did the water that seeped in maybe affect the motherboard and is there a place/method by which I could check this?
Any help on the issue would be greatly appreciated as I'm rather stumped at the moment.
