Fix Samsung Galaxy S7 that won't turn on, charge or respond after an update

Learn how to troubleshoot your Samsung Galaxy S7 (#GalaxyS7) that won’t turn on when you press the Power key.
Understand and troubleshoot the problem that prevents your phone from booting up normally.
What you need to do if your Galaxy S7 became unresponsive after an update.

We’ve been receiving a lot of messages from Samsung Galaxy S7 owners that have experienced power-related issues with their phones. In this post, I will address three of the most common issues such as; S7 won’t turn on, can’t boot up successfully and won’t respond.

These issues might be caused by firmware and hardware problems but you have to rule out the first possibility. Continue reading below so that you’d know how to deal with these issues as they might happen to your sooner or later.

If you have other issues with your phone, visit our Galaxy S7 troubleshooting page for we have already addressed a lot of issues with this device. Find ones that are similar or related to yours and use the solutions we suggested. If you need further assistance, you can always contact and provide us will all necessary information about the problem. Just fill up our questionnaire and we’ll do all research for you. Don’t worry, it’s free.

Troubleshoot Samsung Galaxy S7 that won’t turn on

Problem: “Hey droid guy. I have a problem with my new Samsung Galaxy S7. It updated its OS, turned off on its own and when I pressed the Power key to turn it on, it didn’t. So, I’m stuck with a phone that won’t turn on and I can’t do anything with it. I am hoping you guys can help me fix it. Thanks in advance.” — Jodi

Troubleshooting: Hi Jodi. Thanks for providing all the details. Apparently, the problem started after the phone updated its firmware. It is tempting to just immediately jump into a conclusion that the new firmware caused this problem. However, being a technician myself, I’ve seen issues that appeared to have very obvious causes but were actually caused by other factors. In this case though, there are only two possibilities; if it’s not the firmware that has the problem, then it must be the hardware. But I ask you to troubleshoot it and here’s what you need to do:

Step 1: Forced Reboot your Galaxy S7 to make sure it’s not a system crash issue

System crashes are among the most common reasons why a phone won’t turn on or respond to anything. The thing is, your device can’t get out of it without your intervention. So, for this kind of issues, first thing I would do is do the forced reboot procedure:

Press and hold the Volume Down and Power keys together for 10 seconds.
The phone will reboot successfully provided that it was just a system crash and that there’s enough battery left.

Step 2: Charge your phone as the battery might have just been drained

In your description, you mentioned that your device just turned off after the update and won’t respond when the Power key is hit. It could be because its battery was completely drained.

So, after you tried to force your phone to reboot and it didn’t respond, try to plug in the charger and see if the phone charges. Aside from the very obvious reason, you will also know how the phone responds when it senses electricity is flowing through its circuits.

If it doesn’t respond, leave it plugged in for ten minutes and then try the forced reboot procedure again followed by an attempt to turn it on normally.

Step 3: Boot your Galaxy S7 in safe mode

Booting in safe mode will temporarily disable all third-party apps. So, if one of your apps caused the problem, then it should successfully boot in safe mode.

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

Step 4: Try to boot your device in recovery mode

If your phone can’t boot in safe mode or if it’s still not responding when you hit the power key, you should try booting it in recovery mode to see if it can still power up its hardware.

In recovery, the front-end won’t be loaded but all components are powered up. If the issue is only with the firmware, then your device should boot in recovery mode without any issues.

Turn off your Samsung Galaxy S7.
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 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.

Step 5: Send the phone in for checkup and/or repair

You’ve done everything you could but your phone is still the turning on. At this point, you have no other choice but to send the phone in for repair or visit a local shop and have the phone checked.

You’re the owner, you know by yourself if the phone suffered physical or liquid damage and if so, then tell the tech about it. And since these damages aren’t covered by warranty, you would have to pay the tech and buy the component needed to make the phone work again.

Troubleshoot Samsung Galaxy S7 that’s not booting up

Problem: “I have the Galaxy S7 phone I bought 3 months ago. There was a small update I think about a few ago and it installed successfully, so I’m a bit confused right now why my phone cannot continue to power up to the Home screen just like before. To give you the details, when I power it up, the logo appears like it always does and then the screen goes blank. The phone is still powered on at this point because if I press the power key, it shuts down. Whatever I do, it just won’t go through. Can you help?” — Jen

Troubleshooting: If the phone turns on when you press the Power key but can’t successfully boot up to the Home screen, then it’s most likely a firmware issue especially if something significant happened just recently like firmware and app updates.

We really can’t be sure what happened to your phone but one thing is certain though, there was an update. At least, we have a suspect we can start our troubleshooting with. That said, I think it’s just the system caches that got corrupted and putting that into consideration, here are the things you can do to try to fix this problem:

Step 1: Wipe the cache partition on your Galaxy S7

System caches may have been corrupted during the recent update causing the phone to act abnormally after a few days. You can delete the caches without fear of having to lose your data and files. So, for this problem, that should be the first thing you should do:

Turn off your Samsung Galaxy S7.
Press and then hold the Home and Volume UP keys, then press and hold the Power key.
When the Samsung Galaxy S7 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.
Using the Volume Down key, navigate through the options and highlight ‘wipe cache partition.’
Once highlighted, you may press the Power key to select it.
Now highlight the option ‘Yes’ using the Volume Down key and press the Power button to select it.
Wait until your phone is finished doing the Master Reset. Once completed, highlight ‘Reboot system now’ and press the Power key.
The phone will now reboot longer than usual.

Step 2: Try to do the master reset

Assuming your phone can successfully boot into recovery mode and that wiping the cache partition didn’t fix the problem, then next thing you should do is do the master reset. It will bring the phone back to its default settings as well as formats the data partition. However, you need to make a backup of all your files and data as they’ll be deleted:

Turn off your Samsung Galaxy S7.
Press and then hold the Home and Volume UP keys, then press and hold the Power key.

When the Samsung Galaxy S7 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.

Using the Volume Down key, navigate through the options and highlight ‘wipe data / factory reset.’
Once highlighted, you may press the Power key to select it.
Now highlight the option ‘Yes — delete all user data’ using the Volume Down key and press the Power button to select it.
Wait until your phone is finished doing the Master Reset. Once completed, highlight ‘Reboot system now’ and press the Power key.
The phone will now reboot longer than usual.

Step 3: Have the phone checked by a technician

If the first two steps failed, then you have no other option but to have the device checked by an authorized technician. Perhaps, the firmware needs to be reinstalled and if you’re the one to do it, the warranty will be void.

Troubleshoot a Samsung Galaxy S7 that’s not responding

Problem: “Hello TDG. My new S7 just won’t respond when I try to turn it on. Here’s what actually happened. Last night, I left my phone on the table beside my bed with 76% battery left. I didn’t charge it because I know it would take just around 5% to get the phone through the night without using it. When I woke up, however, the screen is black and when I attempted to turn it on, it didn’t respond. So, I thought that for some reason the battery got drained. I tried charging it but those charging indicators won’t also turn on. Should I have it repaired? What’s the problem with it? Help me please.” — Rick

Troubleshooting: Hello Rick. It seems like the operating system of your phone crashed that’s why it became unresponsive. Basically, when the firmware crashes, the phone won’t respond to the usual procedure you use in turning it on. It won’t even detect the charger being plugged in. Since the Galaxy S7 has a non-removable battery, you can’t just do the popular battery pull procedure to soft reset the phone. Fortunately though, it can easily be fixed. All you need to do is press and hold the Volume Down and Power keys together for 10 seconds and your phone should reboot.

I don’t think there’s a problem with your phone at all. Just do the forced reboot procedure and everything will be fine.

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