How to fix Samsung Galaxy Note 5 that’s slow, keeps freezing, randomly rebooting [Troubleshooting Guide & Potential Solutions]

• Read and understand why a premium phone like the #Samsung Galaxy Note 5 (#Note5) slows down after months of use and learn how to troubleshoot it in a bid to fix the problem.
• Understand the reason why your device freezes on its own after an update and learn the procedure that may be able to fix the issue.
• Learn how to troubleshoot your phone that reboots on its own without apparent reason or cause.

Performance related issues are very common given the fact that smartphones’ performance will deteriorate over time. The same is true even with premium devices like the Samsung Galaxy Note 5. We have received a lot of complaints from our readers saying that their phone became so slow after months of use, started to freeze after an update, and randomly reboots for some reason.

I will tackle these issues in this post, so if you are one of the owners of this phone and have recently been experiencing performance related problems, I suggest you continue reading below so as to understand why these issues occur and learn how to troubleshoot your phone in case one of them may occur to you in the future. For your convenience, here’s the list of the problems addressed in this article. Click on the link to jump to a specific section or problem.

• How to troubleshoot your Galaxy Note 5 that becomes really slow
• How to troubleshoot your Galaxy Note 5 that keeps freezing after an update
• How to troubleshoot your Galaxy Note 5 that reboots on its own randomly

But before jump right into our troubleshooting procedures, if you have other issues with your phone, make sure you drop by our troubleshooting page for we have already addressed a lot of problems with this device. Odds are that we have already provided solutions to your problem before and all you gotta do now is find issues that are similar with yours. Feel free to use our solutions and troubleshooting guides. If they don’t work for you or if you need further assistance, fill up our Android issues questionnaire and hit submit to contact us.

How to troubleshoot your Galaxy Note 5 that becomes really slow

Problem: Hi! I have the Galaxy Note 5, I downgraded from Note 7 due to factory defects of the latter. I bought it brand new and was actually expecting a lot from it. After a few months of use–light use–it seems that the device slowed down noticeably. The apps that get opened in a matter or second or two before now take almost a minute to load. The phone also has tendencies to lag or even freeze for a few seconds which I find really annoying because they occur no matter what I’m doing. I am hoping you guys can shed some information about this and hopefully you can help me fix the problem. Thanks.

Troubleshooting: We have to look at the possibilities to know what we’re up against but usually a phone as powerful as the Note 5 may slow down if there are already a lot of apps installed, it has accumulated a lot of data, some apps keeps crashing affecting the system or system caches or files got corrupted. Based on these possibilities, this is what you have to do to troubleshoot your device:

Step 1: Reboot your phone in safe mode immediately

That’s right! Isolate the problem immediately to know if it’s caused by your third-party apps or not. Booting up in safe mode will temporarily disable all third-party apps or the ones you downloaded and installed. Therefore, if your phone works properly while in this mode, then the problem must have been caused by one or some of the third-party apps. In which case, you have to find them and then uninstall everything you suspect.

Here’s how you boot your Galaxy Note 5 in Safe Mode:

1. Turn off the phone completely.
2. Press and hold the Power key.
3. Once ‘Samsung Galaxy Note5’ shows, release the Power key and immediately press and hold the Volume Down button.
4. The phone will restart but keep the Vol Down button pressed.
5. Once the phone has finished restarting, ‘Safe mode’ will be display in the lower-left corner of the screen.
6. You may now release the Volume Down button.

And here’s how you uninstall third-party apps:

1. From the Home screen, tap the Apps icon.
2. Find and touch the Play Store app.
3. Once inside the Play Store, you can search an app by category, or if you know the name of the app, just type it in the search field.
4. Once you found the desired app, tap on it.
5. Now touch the Install button, and then Accept.
6. For paid apps, tap the price and follow on-screen instructions.
7. Depending on the size of the app and the speed of your internet connection, it may take a few to several minutes for the app to be downloaded and installed.
8. The installation will be automated and you will be notified once finished, then you can use the app.

If you have a lot of apps installed on your device and don’t know which one is the culprit, the easiest way to fix the problem is through factory reset. However, you have to backup your files and data as they’ll all be deleted. Once you’re done backing up, follow these steps:

1. From the Home screen, tap the Apps icon.
2. Find and tap the Settings icon.
3. Under the ‘Personal’ section, find and tap Backup and reset.
4. Tap Factory data reset.
5. Touch Reset device to proceed with the reset.
6. Depending on the security lock you used, enter the PIN or password.
7. Tap Continue.
8. Touch Delete all to confirm your action.

Step 2: If the phone is still slow in safe mode, do the Master Reset

Again, if the performance improved in safe mode, then third-party apps have to be blamed, otherwise, it could be one of the pre-installed apps or the firmware itself. However, since we cannot uninstall an app that was pre-installed, we have to go after the firmware since we really don’t know which app is causing the problem. Here’s how you reset your phone:

1. Turn off your Samsung Galaxy Note 5 completely.
2. Press and hold the Volume Up and the Home buttons first, and then press and hold the Power key.
3. Keep the three buttons pressed and when ‘Samsung Galaxy Note5’ shows, release the Power key but continue holding the other two.
4. Once the Android logo shows, release both the Volume Up and Home buttons.
5. The notice ‘Installing system update’ will show on the screen for 30 to 60 seconds before the Android system recovery screen is shown with its options.
6. Use the Volume Down key to highlight the option ‘Yes — delete all user data’ and press the Power key to select it.
7. When the process is complete, use the Volume Down key to highlight the option ‘Reboot system now’ and hit the Power key to restart the phone.
8. The reboot may take a little longer to complete but don’t worry and wait for the device to become active.

The reset is the ultimate fix for a smartphone that slowed down without apparent reason. I hope this guide can help you.

How to troubleshoot your Galaxy Note 5 that keeps freezing after an update

Problem: So there was this notification saying there’s an update available for my phone. I don’t know what an update is and I don’t understand how it works but I did download it and follow on-screen instructions. I don’t know if it was successful or not but shortly after that, my Note 5 started to freeze whenever it wants. When it does, I can’t do anything with it ’cause it just won’t respond. Not really a person who can understand problems with phones let alone fix them. So if you can just help me out with this, I would be very grateful for your kindness.

Troubleshooting: Freezing after an update is often caused by corrupt caches. More often, system caches get corrupted during or after firmware updates especially big ones. I’m not really sure if the update you downloaded was a major one or just some minor ones that bring security patches and other performance related improvements. With that being said, I want you to immediately delete the old system cache by wiping the cache partition from the Recovery Mode. This way, your device will create new caches that are perfectly compatible with the new system. Here’s how…

1. Turn off your Samsung Galaxy Note 5 completely.
2. Press and hold the Volume Up and the Home buttons first, and then press and hold the Power key.
3. Keep the three buttons pressed and when ‘Samsung Galaxy Note5’ shows, release the Power key but continue holding the other two.
4. Once the Android logo shows, release both the Volume Up and Home buttons.
5. The notice ‘Installing system update’ will show on the screen for 30 to 60 seconds before the Android system recovery screen is shown with its options.
6. Use the Volume Down key to highlight the option ‘wipe cache partition’ and press the Power key to select it.
7. When the process is complete, use the Volume Down key to highlight the option ‘Reboot system now’ and hit the Power key to restart the phone.
8. The reboot may take a little longer to complete but don’t worry and wait for the device to become active.

If this procedure, however, failed to fix the problem or get rid of the freezes, then I suggest you reboot your phone in safe mode and then backup your data and files and then do the master reset. That should do it.

How to troubleshoot your Galaxy Note 5 that reboots on its own randomly

Problem: I cannot understand why a premium phone like the Note 5 will keep restarting on its own. It started a few days ago while I was using the camera. I do use the camera everyday to take pictures and after more than a year, it’s the first time that it’s doing this. It just shuts down on its own and starts back up on its own. I haven’t noticed anything that could have triggered the problem but you know why this is happening, please explain it to me and if you know how to fix this, please help me. Thanks.

Troubleshooting: While it seems like the problem is caused by a firmware issue, we still have to find out if the battery has something to do with it. You may already have some idea what we’re going to do here but if not, here it is:

1. Charge your phone. Plug the charger to a wall outlet that you know works and then connect the cable to your phone, which in turn will charge. Leave the phone or continue using the device to see if it still reboots on its own. If it doesn’t, then it might be battery problem because as you can see, it no longer reboots when it has a stable power source. However, I suggest you continue troubleshooting before device to bring it to the store for checkup.
2. Boot it up in safe mode and observe. If the phone still reboots even while being charged, then it might be a firmware issue or some of your apps may be causing it. So try booting your phone up in safe mode and continue using it while it’s in that mode. If it doesn’t reboot, you have to find the apps that cause the problem and uninstall them, otherwise, the next step is necessary.
3. Do the master reset. You need to backup all your data and files first before following the steps above. If the problem still occurs after the reset, bring your phone to the shop and have it checked.

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