What to do if Galaxy Tab S5e won’t turn on | troubleshoot Galaxy Tab S5e not turning on
The Galaxy Tab S5e is among the top Tablets your money can buy at this time. It’s well-made and offers almost the same software and hardware experience any expensive devices of this class can provide. But like any other smartphone and tablet, it can also suffer one common flaw: failure to power on. If your Galaxy Tab S5e won’t turn on at this time, you must be looking for answers why this is so. More importantly, you must be actively searching for solutions to the problem. This post should give you the “hows” to fixing it. Find out what you need to do to solve the issue below.
What to do if Galaxy Tab S5e won’t turn on | troubleshoot Galaxy Tab S5e not turning on
If your Galaxy Tab S5e won’t turn on and you’re looking for ways to fix it, follow the solutions below.
Tab S5e won’t turn on fix #1: Check for physical damage
Samsung Galaxy devices are usually well checked before leaving the factory. While a tiny fraction out of millions released each year have defects that prevent them from booting up or turning on, more than 99% of them are pretty reliable. The most common reason why a Galaxy device may fail to power on is due to hardware damage. This happens if a user is careless enough to drop the device or hit it with something hard. In some cases, Galaxy devices without water resistance may fail to power back on when exposed to water, moisture, or liquid. If your Galaxy Tab S5e has visible signs of hardware damage or had been exposed to liquid, then repair may be necessary to bring it back to its working order. Depending on the damage, calling Samsung or visiting your local Samsung Service Center may be your number one option. Just remember, you are limited to doing a few software fixes to solve this type of problem. Software tweaks can’t fix a bad hardware like a broken screen or a water-damaged motherboard. If there’s obvious physical damage to your device, we highly recommend that you stop doing further software troubleshooting to save time. You want to instead talk to Samsung so you’ll be guided accordingly on what to do.
Tab S5e won’t turn on fix #2: Charge your phone
If there was no immediate incident that may have caused physical damage to the device, then the next troubleshooting step that you must do is to ensure that you top the battery off for at least 30 minutes. Charging this long should be more than enough to add power to the battery and allow it to turn the system back on. Many Android users usually don’t do this but in many instances, charging the device up is enough to resolve the issue.
Lithium-based batteries like the one in your Samsung Galaxy Tab S5e may sometimes drain its power to the point wherein it won’t be able to power up the system again. In some cases, such a situation may even lead to total battery loss causing complete breakdown. However, in most cases, a user simply needs to recharge the battery again to jumpstart it. If you haven’t tried it yet, we suggest that this is your first troubleshooting in this case. Make sure to charge your phone for at least 30 minutes before trying to turn it back on. Do not attempt to restart the phone while it’s still charging to allow more than enough minimum power to be added first. After 30 minutes, you can see if the phone turns back on. If nothing changes after charging for some time, proceed to the next troubleshooting step.
Tab S5e won’t turn on fix #3: Use another set of charging accessories
If your Galaxy Tab S5e still won’t turn on, the next thing that you want to check is the charging accessories. There may be a break or damage on the cable, or the adapter may be bad or wet. If you are not using the original cable or adapter, try to see if any one of them is the problem. Third party USB cables may sometimes break easily compared to original Samsung ones. The charging cable has many tiny wires inside and if there’s many of such wires broken inside, there may not be enough transfer of power during charging.
If you can’t readily find a set of original Samsung USB cable and adapter for your Tab S5e, visit your local Samsung retailer or Service Center and see if your phone charges there.
Tab S5e won’t turn on fix #4: Check the screen
Another possible reason why your phone may appear off at this time is a damaged screen. If the the phone still vibrates, makes sound notifications, or shows LED light, then there may be a problem with the screen. This usually happens when a device is dropped and the display is shattered. Basically, what’s happening is that the screen is damaged but the motherboard is still working normally. However, since the screen is the gateway to the system, it needs to be fixed first so you can continue using your device. If the screen won’t come on at all, you’ll need to send the phone in to Samsung so it can be repaired first. If all is well inside, then your phone should work normally after that.
Tab S5e won’t turn on fix #5: Check the charging port
One other basic thing that you must do if your Galaxy Tab S5e won’t turn on is to visually inspect the charging port. This is the part where it’s most exposed to dirt, lint, debris, or foreign object that users don’t usually mind at all. If there’s something in the port that blocks the charging cable from making contact with the connectors, charging the phone may be slow or not possible at all. If your Tab S5e has depleted the battery and there’s a problem with the charging port, being unable to charge might be the root cause of the problem. If you think that the charging port is dirty, try cleaning it with a can of compressed air. Do not stick anything inside to avoid damaging the system.
If the port is clear and there’s no visible damage to it at all, then you want to go ahead and proceed to the next troubleshooting step.
Tab S5e won’t turn on fix #6: Force reboot the device
Doing a soft reset is another way to jumpstart a non-working system. Soft reset means simulating the effects of a battery pull procedure. This type of restart is usually helpful in situation like the one you’re having. To soft reset your Galaxy Tab S5e:
- Press and hold the Power and Volume down key for up to 45 seconds.
- Wait as the device restarts.
In some Galaxy Tab S5e versions, there may be a slight different way to do the same procedure. Here’s how:
- Press and hold the Power and Volume Down buttons until the ‘Maintenance Boot Mode’ screen appears (approx. 10 seconds).
- From the ‘Maintenance Boot Mode’ screen, select Normal Boot. Utilize the volume buttons to cycle through the available options and the Power button to select.
- Wait for the process to complete. It may take up to 60 seconds.
Tab S5e won’t turn on fix #7: Boot to safe mode
Another possible reason for the problem may be a bad app. If your Galaxy Tab S5e won’t turn on after adding an app, you should consider deleting the said app and see if that will fix it. However, you’ll have to find a way to turn the phone on first in order to do that. This is where safe mode becomes useful. Safe mode blocks third party apps. If you can successfully restart your Tab S5e to safe mode, that’s a clear indication of a bad app problem. Follow the steps below to boot to safe mode:
- Turn the device off.
- Press and hold the Power key past the screen with the device name.
- When ‘SAMSUNG’ appears on the screen, release the Power key.
- Immediately after releasing the Power key, press and hold the Volume down key.
- Continue to hold the Volume down key until the device finishes restarting.
- Safe mode will display in the bottom left corner of the screen.
- Release the Volume down key when you see ‘Safe Mode’.
If your Galaxy Tab S5e wifi works normally on safe mode and you think that you have an app problem, you should investigate further. To identify the culprit, you can use the method of elimination. Here’s how:
- Boot to safe mode.
- Check for the problem.
- 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.
- After you uninstall an app, restart the phone to normal mode and check for the problem.
- If your Tab S5e is still problematic, repeat steps 1-4.
Tab S5e won’t turn on fix #8: Restart to alternate modes
Another possible reason why your Tab S5e won’t turn on may have something to do with Android Operating System. Although it’s rare, updates or system-wide changes may sometimes cause severe coding problems that may prevent Android from booting up properly. This can manifest in failing to restart, being stuck in Samsung logo screen, or failing to power back on after turning off. If the cause of the problem is an Android OS glitch, you should still be able to restart the device to other software environments like Recovery Mode or Download Mode. These boot modes are independent of Android and are used by Samsung technicians to diagnose software problems. To check if you have an Android issue, consider booting your device to any of them. If your Tablet boots to Recovery mode, you may be able to fix the problem by wiping the cache partition or doing a factory reset. In Download MOde, the only thing that you can do there is to reflash the software. If you haven’t heard of the term flashing before or if you are not confident to do it yourself, you should seek help from Samsung.
Below are the ways to boot to either Recovery Mode or Download Mode:
How to boot a Galaxy Tab S5e to Recovery Mode
- Turn off the device. This is important. If you can’t turn it off, you’ll never be able to boot to Recovery Mode. If you are not able to shut the device off regularly via the Power button, wait until the phone’s battery is drained. Then, charge the phone for 30 minutes before booting to Recovery Mode.
- Press and hold the Volume Up key and the Bixby key, then press and hold the Power key.
- When the green Android logo displays, release all keys (‘Installing system update’ will show for about 30 – 60 seconds before showing the Android system recovery menu options).
How to boot a Galaxy Tab S5e to Download Mode
- Turn off the device. This is important. If you can’t turn it off, you’ll never be able to boot to Recovery Mode. If you are not able to shut the device off regularly via the Power button, wait until the phone’s battery is drained. Then, charge the phone for 30 minutes before booting to Recovery Mode.
- Press and hold the Volume Down key and the Bixby key, then press and hold the Power key.
- You’ll know if you’re on Download Mode when you see a screen that says “Downloading….”
- Remember, if the screen works in any of these modes, that’s a clear sign that you have an Android OS issue. Be sure to factory reset the device in Recovery Mode to fix it.
Tab S5e won’t turn on fix #9: Repair
If you the problem won’t go away at all after trying all the suggestions above, you can assume that the cause is way deeper for you to solve. In this case, you want to work with Samsung to have it resolved. Visit your local Samsung store to set up repair appointment.