How to fix Galaxy Tab A won’t turn on | No Power or not responding

One of the common problems many smartphone users encounter is No Power issue. If you have a Galaxy Tab A that won’t turn on, this troubleshooting article will most likely help. Learn what to do if you don’t know how to deal with this issue.

How to fix Galaxy Tab A won’t turn on | No Power or not responding

If your Galaxy Tab A won’t turn on and you have no idea why, there’s a number of factors that you must consider. In this post, we’ll show you the potential solutions to try so you can identify and fix this issue

Galaxy Tab A won’t turn on fix #1: Charge device

If your Galaxy Tab A won’t turn on after using it normally and without problems before, there may be an easy solution — just charge it. Lithium-based batteries can run out of power and may fail to turn the device on even though it’s not completely drained. To check, charge the phone for at least 30 minutes before attempting to power it back. This should be enough to top the battery up and potentially power the device back on.

In case there’s a problem with your favorite outlet, try to plug in the charging adapter to another one. This should eliminate the possibility of the outlet causing the phone not to charge.

In some cases, doing a trickle charge may help. Trickle charge is charging your device by connecting it to a computer. This takes time but it can sometimes fix devices that won’t charge normally. Many times devices that are completely dead recover after 45 minutes to 2 hours using this trickle-charge method. After the device recovers, finish charging by plugging into a wall outlet.

While connected to the wall charger, press and hold the Power, Volume Up and Volume Down buttons for 1-2 full minutes. This process may help power on the device when only pressing the Power button is unsuccessful.

Galaxy Tab A won’t turn on fix #2: Use another set of charging accessories

Charging accessories can go bad just like phones do. If your Galaxy Tab A is still not turning on after leaving it charged for 30 minutes, the next step is to ensure that your charging cable and adapter are working. If you can borrow another set of original Samsung accessories, we highly recommend that you do so. The point is to check if the USB cable and/or adapter is the cause why the device is not charging. If possible, try to get the cable and adapter for your device and not for any other Samsung tablet. 

If nothing changes after that, proceed to the next troubleshooting steps below.

Galaxy Tab A won’t turn on fix #3: Check for hardware damage

The Galaxy Tab A is generally reliable but from time to time, some units may not work as expected. If your Galaxy Tab A won’t turn on, one of the first things that you want to check is the possibility that bad hardware may be to blame. Does your Galaxy Tab A has cracks or marks of hardware damage? Such things are usually the result of having dropped the device or hit the phone with something hard. These two are usually the reasons for serious hardware malfunction on phones. If your issue started after you dropped the device, you should consider getting help from Samsung. The most likely reason for it is a damaged hardware and there’s no amount of software tweaks that you can do to fix it. Visit your local Samsung store so a technician can give you professional advice.

If the device was never physically damaged, then go ahead with the rest of the troubleshooting.

Galaxy Tab A won’t turn on fix #4: Reboot device

Your Galaxy Tab A may have become unresponsive or frozen at this time. Try to perform a “battery pull” to see if you can unfreeze it. Here’s how it’s done:

  1. Press and hold the Power (upper right, on top of the volume rocker) and Volume down buttons until the Maintenance Boot Mode screen appears (approx. 10 seconds).
  2. From the Maintenance Boot Mode screen, select Normal Boot. Use the volume buttons to cycle through the available options and the Power button to select. The entire process may take up to 60 seconds to complete.

If the device won’t power on, press and hold the Power button for 5-10 seconds.

Note If the device powers on, but doesn’t hold a charge, power cycle the device then charge fully and re-test.

Galaxy Tab A won’t turn on fix #5: Check charging port

Another common reason why a Galaxy device fails to turn on is the lack of power and that’s because there’s something in the charging that prevents it to charge. Try to check the charging port using a magnifying tool if possible. If you see that there’s dirt, lint, or foreign object inside, that’s probably the reason why the battery has died. Use a canned of compressed air to blow away dirt or lint. Avoid sticking anything inside in order not to damage the system.

Sometimes, corrosion or presence of water or moisture may block charging. Make sure to dry the phone thoroughly especially the charging port. If you think that the port is wet, do not use compressed air to dry it out as that might push moisture deep inside. Instead, just let water to drip down for several hours. Water evaporates normally after several hours.

Another possible reason why the charging port may not be working properly is damaged or bent pin/s. Try to inspect the interior of the port using a magnifying tool to check. If you see a bent or damaged pin, have the device repaired by Samsung.

Galaxy Tab A won’t turn on fix #6: Restart to Safe Mode

If your Galaxy Tab A still won’t turn on, you should consider checking if it’s being caused by a bad third party app. Not all apps are created equal and sometimes, a malicious or poorly coded one may interfere with Android. If your Galaxy Tab A started having the problem after you install an app, that may be the cause. Try restarting to safe mode. If you can successfully boot your Galaxy Tab A to safe mode, you most likely have an app issue.

To boot the device to safe mode:

  1. With the device powered off, press and hold the Power and Volume Down buttons until the Samsung Galaxy Tab A screen appears.
  2. When “Samsung Galaxy Tab A” appears on the screen, release the Power button but continue to hold the Volume down button.
  3. Continue to hold the Volume down button until “Safe mode” appears in the lower-left of the unlock or home screen then release. This may take up to 45 seconds.
  4. If your device boots to Safe Mode fine, then you can most likely fix the problem by identifying the app and deleting it.

Remember that third-party applications are disabled in this mode so what you can use are pre-installed apps. If Galaxy Tab A restarts to safe mode successfully, that means that the problem is due to a bad app. Uninstall the app you recently installed and see if that will fix it. If the problem remains, use the process of elimination to identify the rogue app. Here’s how:

  1. Boot to safe mode.
  2. Check for the problem.
  3. Once you’ve confirmed that a third party app is to blame, you can start uninstalling apps individually. We suggest that you begin with the most recent ones you added.
  4. After you uninstall an app, restart the phone to normal mode and check for the problem.
  5. If your Galaxy Tab A still won’t turn on normally (but works on safe mode), repeat steps 1-4.

Galaxy Tab A won’t turn on fix #7:  Boot to Recovery

If you are unable to restart or boot the device to Safe Mode, your next step is to try booting to Recovery instead. There are two options that you can do in Recovery Mode. If either one of them works, you should be able to use the device again normally.

  1. With the device powered off, press and hold the Power, Home, and Volume Up buttons at the same time. 
  2. If successful, you should see the Recovery Mode menu on the screen.
  3. To fix the problem, consider refreshing the system cache first by selecting wipe cache partition
  4. If clearing the cache partition won’t help, do a factory reset by selecting wipe data/factory reset.

Keep in mind that factory reset will erase any unsaved personal data on your tablet. Unfortunately, at this stage, there’s just no way to create a backup of your files so be prepared to accept the fact that you’ll not be able to recover anything afterwards.

Galaxy Tab A won’t turn on fix #9: Repair

If your Galaxy Tab A still won’t turn on after doing all the suggestions above, the problem is probably caused by something more serious. As an end user, there’s only so much that you can do at this point so the best course of action for you would be to get help from Samsung. Visit your local Samsung store or their Service Center so the phone can be examined or repaired.


 

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