The #Samsung Galaxy Note 7 (#Note7) is one of the most powerful and superbly designed smartphones this year but then it is certain many users will encounter a problem or two a few weeks after acquiring it. In fact, it already became controversial after reports that a unit reportedly caught fire while charging.
Among the most common issues with powerful smartphones are related to its power. Some units may fail to turn on after powering themselves off while others may not charge. In this post, I will tackle the former as I’ve already addressed the latter in my other post.
Possible Causes
Let’s try to look into the possible causes why a well-designed smartphone with high technical specs would one day refuse to turn back on and becomes unresponsive.
- The device’s firmware crashed
- Liquid and/or physical damage
- Drained battery
- Corrupt system cache and/or data
- Some apps crashed that also caused the system to crash
- Misconfiguration or its settings are messed up
- A serious hardware problem
Our troubleshooting will be based on these possible causes but before anything else, if you have other issues with your new phone, make sure you visit our Note 7 troubleshooting page for we list down every problem we address each week on that page. Find issues that are similar to yours and use the solutions we suggested. If they don’t work or if you can’t find related issues, then feel free to contact us by completing our Android issues questionnaire.
Troubleshooting Note 7 that won’t turn on
At this point, we don’t know what’s causing the problem with your phone and why it’s not turning on. We need to rule out one possibility after another and we should start with apps then go after the firmware and lastly, the hardware, although, strictly speaking, we really can’t do anything about the hardware because if we do, we might end up voiding the warranty and we don’t want that to happen, do we?
Step 1: Verify that it’s not just a system crash
Firmware crashes from time to time especially if you are a heavy user. The thing about a system crash is that more often, the screen turns black and the device itself won’t respond even if the charger is plugged in.
For users who don’t know exactly what’s happening, they’ll start to panic and when they do, they’ll ask for help saying their new Note 7 has a black screen, won’t turn on, won’t charge, not responding, etc. So, you see, a simple system crash can be reported in different ways and for us technicians who rely on what the customers are saying, it’s very hard to determine exactly what the problem is. That is why, we encourage our readers to do some basic and safe troubleshooting procedures so that they will have an idea what’s happening with their phones.
So, the first thing I want you to do is force restart your Samsung Galaxy Note 7 and since it doesn’t have a user-replaceable battery, you can’t just pull the battery out. Rather, you need to press and hold the Volume Down button and the Power key together for 10 seconds. Assuming the problem is a simple system crash and that there’s enough battery to power its components up, your phone should reboot.
Step 2: Attempt to charge the phone
You must do this in case the forced reboot procedure didn’t work. At this point, it’s still safe to assume it’s a firmware crash but the battery got drained completely that’s why the device couldn’t boot up. Therefore, connect the charger and leave the phone charging for, at least, 10 minutes. While doing so, try to check if the phone is heating up because if so, disconnect the charger right away and send the phone in for repair. Do not attempt to troubleshoot a unit that’s heating up while charging, it’s dangerous for now that Samsung hasn’t addressed the reported incident of one of the Note 7 units.
Assuming the phone isn’t heating up while plugged in but charging signs aren’t showing, then try to force reboot the device again. This time it may work but if it doesn’t, then we’re dealing with a charging issue. So, I suggest you try troubleshooting your phone that won’t charge.
Step 3: Attempt to boot your Note 7 in safe mode
You do this if your phone is charging fine but still won’t turn on. There’s a possibility that one of the third-party apps keeps crashing and causing havoc within the system. So, if the phone charges, there’s a chance it can successfully boot in safe mode so it’s worth trying…
- Press the Power key and hold it past the screen that shows the model name of the device.
- When Samsung logo appears, release the Power key and immediately press and hold the Volume down button.
- Continue holding the Volume Down button until the device successfully booted up.
- Once you see “Safe mode” on the bottom left corner of the display, release the Volume Down button.
If the phone successfully powered on in safe mode, you don’t have to worry so much about your phone anymore because apparently, everything in it is working but the some apps or the firmware. In this case, try to reboot it normally and see if it can now boot up and if not, wiping the cache partition may fix the problem:
- Turn off your Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge.
- Press and then hold the Home and Volume UP keys, then press and hold the Power key. NOTE: It doesn’t matter how long you press and hold the Home and Volume Up keys, it won’t affect the phone but by the time you press and hold the Power key, that’s when the phone starts to respond.
- When the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge shows on the screen, release the Power key but continue holding the Home and Volume Up keys.
- When the Android logo shows, you may release both keys and leave the phone be for about 30 to 60 seconds. NOTE: The “Installing system update” message may show on the screen for several seconds before displaying the Android system recovery menu. This is just the first phase of the entire process.
- Using the Volume Down button, highlight the option ‘wipe cache partition’ and press the Power key to select it.
- Use the Volume Down button again to highlight ‘yes’ and press the Power key to select.
- It may take a few seconds to completely wipe the cache partition so wait a little.
- Once completed, the option ‘Reboot system now’ must be highlighted, so press the Power button to restart your phone.
- The Note 7 will then boot up normally.
Step 4: Attempt to boot the phone up in recovery mode
If your phone won’t boot up in safe mode but charges fine, then it might be a firmware problem. Your next bet is to try to boot your device in recovery mode just to find out if it can. At this point, what’s more important is to know whether the phone can power up its components and booting in recovery mode will do that without loading Android’s interface.
- Press and then hold the Home and Volume UP keys, then press and hold the Power key. NOTE: It doesn’t matter how long you press and hold the Home and Volume Up keys, it won’t affect the phone but by the time you press and hold the Power key, that’s when the phone starts to respond.
- When the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge shows on the screen, release the Power key but continue holding the Home and Volume Up keys.
- When the Android logo shows, you may release both keys and leave the phone be for about 30 to 60 seconds. NOTE: The “Installing system update” message may show on the screen for several seconds before displaying the Android system recovery menu. This is just the first phase of the entire process.
If successful, you can immediately try to wipe the cache partition as instructed above or simply do the reset but please note that doing this will delete your data and files so proceed at your own risk.
Lastly, if you were able to bring the phone back to life but the problem keeps repeating, you really need to reset your phone but make sure you backup your files and data first.
- Backup your data and files saved in the phone’s internal storage.
- Remove your Google account to deactivate the anti-theft function of the phone.
- From the Home screen, tap the Apps icon.
- Find and touch Settings.
- Go to Cloud and accounts.
- Touch Backup and reset.
- Tap Factory data reset, then Reset device.
- If you have turned on the screen lock, enter your PIN or password.
- Touch Continue.
- Touch Delete All.
Step 5: Send the phone in for checkup or replacement
After doing all those steps above and the phone still refuses to turn back on, then you need to bring the phone back to the store to have it checked by the technician or be replaced with a new one depending on how bad the problem is.
As far as troubleshooting is concerned, you’ve already done everything that needs to be done and that’s more than enough because we can’t touch the device’s hardware as the warranty will be void and null if we do. Besides, this is a new phone and it should work without a hitch.
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