How to fix your new Samsung Galaxy S9 that won’t turn on (easy steps)

A brand new premium phone like the Samsung Galaxy S9 should work without a hitch but there are times when things occur and leave your phone unresponsive. Among the most commonly reported problems with powerful phones has something to do with their capability to turn on or boot up.

So, if you found your new Galaxy S9 with a black screen and won’t respond to whatever you do with it, it’s possible that the firmware has crashed. Don’t panic! This problem can easily be fixed and you may not need any help from a tech.

In this post, I will share with you the solution to this issue. So, if you’re one of the owners of this great phone, continue reading as the solution we present in this post may help you one way or another.

Before going further, if you found this post because you were trying to find a solution to your problem, then try to visit our Galaxy S9 troubleshooting page as we’ve already addressed most of the commonly reported issues with the phone. We’ve already provided solutions to some of the problems reported by our readers so try to find issues that are similar with yours and use the solutions we suggested. If they don’t work for you and if you need further assistance, fill up our Android issues questionnaire and hit submit.

Fix Galaxy S9 that no longer turns on

There are only a few things you should do to see if you can bring your device back to life. If, by the end of this troubleshooting, the phone still remains unresponsive, you should bring it to the service center. I believe that all brand new smartphones should work properly without any issues but that’s not the case, it should be the retailer or the manufacturer that needs to address the problem and not the users. Now, going back to trying things to make your phone turn on again, here’s what you should do…

Potential Solutions

The first thing you should is to force your phone to restart…

• Press and hold the Volume Down button and the Power key at the same time for 10 seconds or until the device’s screen turns on.

This procedure is what we call as Forced Restart and it’s very effective in dealing with system crashes and firmware glitches that often leave the phone unresponsive. If you’re familiar with the battery pull procedure we often do to phones with removable batteries, this is the counterpart of that and it can only be done to phones with non-removable batteries. The Galaxy S9 is hard-wired to perform or simulate battery disconnect provided the combination is done correctly. So, if the phone doesn’t respond the first time you tried this, do it a couple more times but if it still won’t respond, then try this.

1. Press and hold the Volume Down button first and don’t release it.
2. While holding it down, press and hold the Power key.
3. Keep both keys held down for 10 seconds or more.

This is basically the same as the first procedure above only that we’re making sure you’re pressing and holding the Volume Down button first before doing the same for the Power key because doing it otherwise won’t simulate battery disconnect. If, however, the phone is still not responding after this procedure, then you should try the next one.

Alternative Solution

At this point, we want to find out if the phone would respond to its charger because if it does, then allow the phone to charge for a few minutes and try to turn it on. However, if it suffered a crash, it’s normal that it won’t charge nor respond to its charger when connected. We want to give your phone a stable power source and then try to simulate battery disconnect and to sum that up, here’s what you should do…

1. Plug the charger to a working wall outlet.
2. Connect your Galaxy S9 to the charger using the original cable.
3. Leave it connected to the charger for a few minutes.
4. Now, press and hold the Volume Down button and the Power key at the same time for 10 seconds or until the device’s screen turns on.

If the phone is still not turning on after this, then try booting it up in Recovery Mode just to know if it can do that. It it does turn on in recovery mode, then the problem might be related to the firmware but if not, then it might be the hardware.

1. Press and hold the Volume Up key and the Bixby key, then press and hold the Power key.
2. When the Android logo displays, release all three keys.
3. An ‘Installing system update’ message will show for 30 – 60 seconds before the Android system recovery menu options appear.

Regardless whether the phone boots up in recovery mode or not, you should bring your device back to the store because obviously it has an issue. I’m sure you don’t want to deal with this kind of problem from day 1 so you must have the device replaced. But assuming your phone can boot up in recovery mode, I suggest you proceed with the master reset to wipe off all your personal information from your phone:

1. Turn off the device.
2. Press and hold the Volume Up key and the Bixby key, then press and hold the Power key.
3. 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).
4. Press the Volume down key several times to highlight ‘wipe data / factory reset’.
5. Press Power button to select.
6. Press the Volume down key until ‘Yes — delete all user data’ is highlighted.
7. Press Power button to select and start the master reset.
8. When the master reset is complete, ‘Reboot system now’ is highlighted.
9. Press the Power key to restart the device.

I hope that our solution may work for you. If you have other concerns you want to share with us, leave a comment below.

Connect with us

We are always open to your problems, questions and suggestions, so feel free to contact us by filling up this form. This is a free service we offer and we won’t charge you a penny for it. But please note that we receive hundreds of emails every day and it’s impossible for us to respond to every single one of them. But rest assured we read every message we receive. For those whom we’ve helped, please spread the word by sharing our posts to your friends or by simply liking our Facebook and Google+ page or follow us on Twitter.