How to fix Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge black screen of death [Troubleshooting Guide]

• Understand why your #Samsung #Galaxy S7 Edge (#S7Edge) has a black screen and unresponsive but its LED is blinking. Learn how to troubleshoot the problem and eventually fix it.

• Know what to do if your device is suffering from black screen of death (BSoD).

 

Among the most common screen- and power-related issues with the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge is the black screen of death (BSoD), which leaves the phone unresponsive to button presses and screen taps. The display is black, hence the name, but there are times when the screen flickers from time to time.

Apparently, it’s worse than any screen issues that have been reported except broken digitizers and totally damaged LCDs. More often, the owner doesn’t know why it happened and mostly said they just found out their phones won’t respond with their screens black. Here’s one of the messages we received from our readers that best describes this issue…

“Hey guys. I don’t know if you can help me with my problem but I just want to ask for help as I have no one to turn to except an expensive technician. My phone is Galaxy S7 Edge, which I purchased 3 months ago and my problem is that the screen is black, it won’t respond when I tap it, nothing happens when I press the power key but there’s blue light blinking. I would surely appreciate if you can help me. Thanks in advance.”

In the case I cited above, the phone’s screen is black but the LED is blinking with blue light, which means the user has some unread messages, notifications, etc. This is one of the variations of the problem. The worst case is when the screen is black with no lights blinking or something. We will try to look into these problems.

Before we go deeper into our troubleshooting, for those who have other issues with their Galaxy S7 Edge, please visit our troubleshooting page as we have already addressed a lot of issues with this device. There may already be some solutions to your problem or we may already have drafted a troubleshooting guide for it.

For our readers who need further assistance, we are always willing to help. You can reach out to us by completing our Android issues questionnaire. But please provide as much information as possible so that we can give you more accurate solutions. It’s a free service so don’t worry about anything.

Troubleshooting Galaxy S7 Edge black screen with lights blinking

As to the problem above, more often it’s caused by a system crash that left the phone unresponsive to button and touch commands. Issues like this can be fixed by the forced reboot procedure.

Press and hold the Volume Down button together with the Power key for 10 seconds. The phone will reboot normally provided there’s enough battery left to power up it’s components.

It’s easy to fix this problem but it’s possible it will occur again in the future. The worse thing is that it often occurs during the time you badly need a phone. My concern is what if your phone freezes when there’s emergency?

It is therefore, imperative you fix the issue now than suffer the consequences later. You need to find out what caused it and my first suggestion is to boot your device in safe mode and continue using it for a day or two to see if the problem happens again. Here’s how you boot your device in safe mode if you don’t know how…

1. Press and hold the Power key.
2. As soon as you can see the ‘Samsung Galaxy S7 EDGE’ on the screen, release the Power key and immediately hold the Volume Down key.
3. Continue holding the Volume Down button until the device finishes rebooting.
4. You may release it when you can see ‘Safe mode’ in the bottom left corner of the screen.

If the problem happens again even in safe mode, then one or some of the pre-installed apps may have issues with the system or it could be a firmware issue and a serious one. On the other hand, if the black screen issue doesn’t occur, then there’s one or two of the downloaded apps that may have crashed and resulted to this problem. You need to find them and uninstall them to be safe. Begin your search with your recent downloads and then go after the apps you’ve downloaded a long time ago but haven’t been used recently. If there are apps that need to be updated, then update them.

The key to fixing this problem is proper observation. Once you’ve done something, closely observe your phone to see if the problem got fixed or not. And lastly, if you might want to try to reset the phone (well, assuming the phone can boot up in recovery mode). It will delete everything in it but if this is all you need to do to fix the problem, then you have no other option:

1. Turn off your Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge.
2. 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.
3. When the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge shows on the screen, release the Power key but continue holding the Home and Volume Up keys.
4. 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.
5. Using the Volume Down key, navigate through the options and highlight ‘wipe data / factory reset.’
6. Once highlighted, you may press the Power key to select it.
7. Now highlight the option ‘Yes — delete all user data’ using the Volume Down key and press the Power button to select it.
8. Wait until your phone is finished doing the Master Reset. Once completed, highlight ‘Reboot system now’ and press the Power key.
9. The phone will now reboot longer than usual.

I hope this simple troubleshooting guide can help you fix the black screen with lights blinking issue.

Troubleshooting Galaxy S7 Edge black screen of death

This one here is the real black screen of death; display won’t flicker, no lights, no nothing. This problem can be as simple as a system crash or as complicated as faulty hardware. Keen observation and thorough troubleshooting is necessary to know the cause or the culprit and to eventually fix the problem.

That said, please try to follow these steps…

Step 1: Forced reboot

As I said, it can be just a simple firmware crash issue and just like the problem I cited above, I want you to do the forced reboot procedure to see if the phone reboots normally. Press and hold the Volume Down and Power keys together for 10 seconds.

If it really is a system crash problem and if the phone still has enough battery to power up its components and run the firmware, then it will turn on, otherwise, do the next step.

Step 2: Charge the phone

It’s too early to jump into a conclusion that it’s a firmware issue. It might be just a drained battery that rendered your phone unresponsive. Therefore, it’s time you tried charging it. Aside from the obvious reason that we suspect the battery got drained, this step will also tell you if the device responds when it detects current is flowing through its circuits.

If the phone doesn’t charge, I suggest you read our posts that specifically address this problem and its kinds.

• How to troubleshoot Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge that’s not charging & other power-related issues
• How to fix a Samsung Galaxy S7 that’s not charging & other charging issues

Here’s one tip: when you plug the phone and it won’t charge, leave it plugged in for 10 minutes and then do the forced reboot procedure while it’s plugged in.

Step 3: Attempt to turn the phone on

If your handset charges but won’t turn on, then do everything to bring it back to life. You have a couple of things to try to confirm if your phone can still power up its hardware or not.

RELEVANT POST: How to fix Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge that won’t turn on [Troubleshooting Guide]

Try booting it in safe mode – I provided the step by step instructions above on how to do this. The reason why I want you to do this is because sometimes third-party apps and services crash, which may also cause the firmware to crash or become unresponsive.

Boot it up in recovery mode – Booting the phone in recovery mode will power up all its hardware components without running the user interface. So, if the hardware is fine and if there’s enough battery, then the phone should be able to boot up. Here’s how you boot your device in recovery mode…

1. Turn off your Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge.
2. 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.
3. When the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge shows on the screen, release the Power key but continue holding the Home and Volume Up keys.
4. 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.

Step 4: Send the phone in for repair

After doing all these steps and the phone remains unresponsive and its display black, it’s time you sent it or brought it to a local shop to be repaired. We technicians can do tests to determine what really is the problem with your device. As far as doing your part is concerned, you’ve done enough but sadly, the device is suffering from a serious issue.

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