We have received quite a lot of complaints from our readers who own the Samsung Galaxy A5 and while we’ve already addressed the “not charging” issue, we are yet to tackle the power problem that’s experienced by many of the owners. This problem can also be called the “black screen of death” as the display stays blank no matter what you do and the phone is totally unresponsive or dead.
We’ve seen a lot of issues like this in the past and based on our experiences, this problem can range from a very simple to a complex one depending on how it occurs or what the situation was when the problem first showed up. So, in this post, we will walk you through in troubleshooting your Samsung Galaxy A5. We will consider every possibility and rule out each of them until we can pinpoint what the cause of the problem is and what needs to be done to fix it. Continue reading below if you’re one or the owners that’s haunted by this issue.
But before we go to our proper troubleshooting, if you happen to find this page because you were looking for solutions to a different problem, then I suggest you visit our Galaxy A5 troubleshooting page as we’ve already addressed the most commonly reported issues with this phone and you may find what you’re looking for in there. Feel free to use the solutions and workarounds we provided. If they don’t work for you or if you need further assistance, fill up our Android issues questionnaire and then hit submit and we’ll do our best to help you.
How to troubleshoot your Galaxy A5 that doesn’t turn on
Problem: I’ve been following your blog since last year when I bought the Galaxy S5 as a replacement to the phone I lost. This year, I bought the Galaxy A5 as an extra phone but it seems that it’s the one that’s having a problem instead of the old one. I woke up one day seeing it powered down so I tried turning it on but it won’t. Tried charging it, it won’t respond and I don’t know what to do about it anymore. Maybe buying was a mistake but if you guys can help me find a solution to this problem, I would surely appreciate it. Thanks.
Troubleshooting: For a phone that doesn’t turn on, there’s only so much we can do but we have to try our best to bring it back to life. That being said, here’s what you should do about it:
Step 1: Try the Forced Reboot procedure
This must be the first thing you need to do and it might be the only thing you can do when this problem starts to bug you. It is equivalent to the battery pull procedure we often do to phones with removable battery that crash. Your Galaxy A5 doesn’t have a user-removable battery so we can’t do the battery pull procedure.
To do this, simply press and hold the Volume Down and Power keys together for 10 seconds and assuming your phone still has enough battery and if the problem is indeed caused by a minor glitch or problem, then it should reboot without any more issues. However, if the problem still occurs after this, then move on to the next step.
Step 2: Charge your phone and do step 1 again
Plug the charger to the wall outlet and then connect your phone. I understand you already tried charging your phone to no avail. This time though, try charging your phone for around 5 minutes and then do the Forced Reboot while the device is plugged in. This rules out the possibility that the device’s firmware crashed with it’s battery completely drained. After this and the phone isn’t charging, then it is a charging issue and it’s very much possible the reason why the phone won’t turn on is because the battery is drained completely. Read the following post to address the problem:
Step 3: Attempt to start your phone in safe mode
Assuming your Galaxy A5 charges normally but still won’t turn on, then this is the next thing you should do. Booting in safe mode temporarily disables all third-party apps and it seems like this problem might be due to an app that causes conflicts in the system. So, I want you to try starting your phone up in safe mode to see if it’s capable of doing so. Remember, the problem is that the phone won’t turn on so if we can get it to start in safe mode, we’re already halfway there.
Here’s how you boot your phone in 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’.
Assuming your phone successfully booted up in safe mode, it’s clear that one or some of the third-party apps you installed is causing the problem. You have to find out which app causes conflict in the system and then update, reset or even uninstall it to fix the problem. Here’s how to do all those things:
How to update apps on your Galaxy A5
- From any Home screen, tap the Apps icon.
- Tap Play Store.
- Tap the Menu key and then tap My Apps. To keep your apps automatically updated, tap the Menu key, tap Settings, and then tap Auto-update apps to select the check box.
- Choose one of the following options:
- Tap Update [xx] to update all applications with updates available.
- Tap an individual application and then tap Update to update a single application.
How to clear app cache and data on you Galaxy A5
- From any Home screen, tap the Apps icon.
- Tap Settings.
- Tap Applications.
- Tap Application manager.
- Tap the desired application in the default list or tap MORE > Show system apps to display preinstalled apps.
- Tap Storage.
- Tap Clear data and then tap OK.
- Tap Clear cache.
How to uninstall applications from your Galaxy A5
- From any Home screen, tap the Apps icon.
- Tap Settings.
- Tap Applications.
- Tap Application manager.
- Tap the desired application
- Tap Uninstall.
- Tap Uninstall again to confirm.
Step 4: Attempt to start your phone up in Recovery mode
You only do this if the phone failed to boot up in safe mode. This is another environment available to all Android devices wherein the usual front-end interface isn’t loaded. For this problem, there are two procedures you can do when the phone successfully boots up in this mode–you can try wiping cache partition or doing the master reset.
How to start your phone up in Recovery mode and wipe cache partition
- Turn off the device.
- Press and hold the Volume Up key and the Home key, then press and hold the Power key.
- When the device logo screen displays, release only the Power key
- When the Android logo displays, release all keys (‘Installing system update’ will show for about 30 – 60 seconds before showing the Android system recovery menu options).
- Press the Volume down key several times key to highlight ‘wipe cache partition.’
- Press the Power key to select.
- Press the Volume down key to highlight ‘yes’ and press the Power key to select.
- When the wipe cache partition is complete, ‘Reboot system now’ is highlighted.
- Press the Power key to restart the device.
How to run your phone up in Recovery mode and do the master reset
- Turn off the device.
- Press and hold the Volume Up key and the Home key, then press and hold the Power key.
- When the device logo screen displays, release only the Power key
- When the Android logo displays, release all keys (‘Installing system update’ will show for about 30 – 60 seconds before showing the Android system recovery menu options).
- Press the Volume down key several times key to highlight ‘wipe data / factory reset.’
- Press Power button to select.
- Press the Volume down key until ‘Yes — delete all user data’ is highlighted.
- Press Power button to select and start the master reset.
- When the master reset is complete, ‘Reboot system now’ is highlighted.
- Press the Power key to restart the device.
If your phone failed to run in recovery mode or if the problem persists after doing all this, then you need help from a technician.
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