How to fix Galaxy S8 slow performance issue: takes a very long time to boot up

Another annoying issue anyone can encounter in using a smartphone is poor performance. In Today’s troubleshooting episode, we’ll deal with poor performance issue on the #GalaxyS8. We include one particular scenario and their solutions. If you have encountered a similar experience on your S8, be sure to read right through this post to get help.

Problem #1: How to recover  data if Galaxy S8 screen is not working

So my phone was working fine 3 days ago. Calling, Texting, charging etc. So after about 5 hrs my phone battery dropped down to 4%. My battery usually never does that quick so I put it on the charger, go to text my friend back and it freezes. So I turn it off n when I try to turn it back on it, it won’t come on… I thought maybe it just died. So I left it on the charger and the led light was red showing that its charging. So I power it on and it’s just a black a screen. I can still hear my notifications. Text messages and phone calls but cant see anything. So I call the phone company and nothing is working to get it to reboot and turn on. so I got a replacement phone but I still have important stuff on my own phone. Kayla Millard

Solution: Unlike a computer that can be connected to another monitor so you can navigate the operating system and access your data, your smartphone entirely depends on a good working screen in order to, first, unlock itself and then receive touch inputs. Your Galaxy S8 screen is not just a monitor that displays images but also act as the main tool to receive commands (touch inputs) from you. The screen is basically composed of three major parts — digitizer, monitor, and digitizer flex cable. Without the monitor, you won’t see any images on the screen at all. The digitizer is a thin transparent layer on top of the monitor that receive touch inputs. Without it, you won’t be able to unlock the screen and hence, gain access to your files. In other words, If your phone screen assembly is malfunctioning, like what you have right now, you won’t be able to unlock the system and move files to and from the device. If you want to recover your data, you should have the screen assembly fixed first.

Problem #2: How to fix Galaxy S8 slow performance issue: takes a very long time to boot up

Hi. I just discovered this issue when i tried to turn off my galaxy S8 phone. It will take me 10 minutes to turn it on. What happened was i tried pressing the power button and the phone does not respond. First workaround i did was connect my phone to the charger but seems the charger does not respond as well. A minute ago. The samsung galaxy animation went up and it went down. Then went up again and went down again.. it took me 10min to turn my phone on. And i don’t know how i did it. I just keep pressing the power button while it connected to the charger. Please help me with this problem. This issue happened today august 14. Hope to hear from you soon.

Solution: Slow performance is not caused by one factor alone. There are a number of reasons why your phone may not be working as expected and these are the possible causes:

  • system cache is corrupted
  • RAM is low
  • Storage capacity is low
  • third party app
  • unknown software bug
  • firmware / coding issue
  • hardware malfunction

In order to troubleshoot your device, follow our suggestions below.

Solution #1: Force Reboot

Sometimes, this simple procedure can fix bugs that developed after the system has run for a long time. By manually forcing your S8 to reboot, you’re basically simulating a battery pull, which, in older mobiles with removable battery packs, was an effective way to refresh the system. If you haven’t tried this one yet, here are the steps that you can do:

  1. Press and hold the Power + Volume Down buttons for approximately 10 seconds or until the device power cycles. Allow several seconds for the Maintenance Boot Mode screen to appear.
  2. From the Maintenance Boot Mode screen, select Normal Boot. You can use the volume buttons to cycle through the available options and the lower left button (below the volume buttons) to select. Wait for up to 90 seconds for the reset to complete.

Solution #2: Clear the cache partition

Updates can sometimes impact a special cache called system cache, causing all sorts of problems. If you’ve recently installed an update or app, there’s a chance that the system cache may not be in good shape. To ensure that your phone system cache is working, you need to clear the cache partition where it’s stored. Here’s how:

  1. Turn off the device.
  2. Press and hold the Volume Up key and the Bixby key, then press and hold the Power key.
  3. When the green Android logo displays, release all keys (‘Installing system update’ will show for about 30 – 60 seconds before showing the Android system recovery menu options).
  4. Press the Volume down key several times to highlight ‘wipe cache partition’.
  5. Press Power button to select.
  6. Press the Volume down key until ‘yes’ is highlighted and press the Power button.
  7. When the wipe cache partition is complete, “Reboot system now” is highlighted.
  8. Press the Power key to restart the device.

Solution #3: Clear your phone’s memory

By memory, we mean your phone’s RAM. Android devices nowadays should be able to automatically manage RAM without user intervention but sometimes, this mechanism is not always implemented. ANdroid is a very complicated software environment and there are millions of things that can’t go wrong. Since Google, Samsung, or app developers can’t always anticipate all problems, there’s always a chance that bugs may develop. One of the ways for you to help the system perform properly is by clearing RAM manually from time to time. Here’s how it’s done in your S8:

  1. Open Settings app.
  2. Tap Device maintenance.
  3. Tap Memory.
  4. Tap Clean Now.

By doing the steps above, you are also effectively turning off apps that are running in the background. This should free the phone’s processor to do tasks and should effectively improve performance.

Solution #4: Verify if Power Saving Mode is enabled

Using one of the built-in Performance Modes can significantly slow down your phone’s processing power. Make sure that you use Optimized option under Performance mode. Here’s how:

  1. Open Settings app.
  2. Tap Device maintenance.
  3. Tap Performance mode
  4. Select Optimized (recommended).

Solution #5: Check for bad third party apps

Some apps may interfere with Android causing all sorts of issues. To check how your phone works when there are no third party apps allowed, you can boot it to safe mode. In this mode, all third party apps should be suspended and only pre-installed, those that came with the OS, should be allowed to run. If the phone works normally and doesn’t lag or becomes too slow in booting up, you can bet a third party app is behind it.

To boot up your device to Safe Mode:

  1. Turn the device off.
  2. Press and hold the Power key past the model name screen.
  3. When “SAMSUNG” appears on the screen, release the Power key.
  4. Immediately after releasing the Power key, press and hold the Volume down key.
  5. Continue to hold the Volume down key until the device finishes restarting.
  6. Safe mode will display in the bottom left corner of the screen.
  7. Release the Volume down key when you see Safe Mode.
  8. Observe how boot up performance to safe mode works. You can also allow the device to work for a few hours in safe mode to know if there’s a difference in overall performance.

To identify which of your apps is causing the trouble, you should boot the phone back to safe mode and follow these steps:

  1. Boot to safe mode.
  2. Check for the problem.
  3. Once you’ve confirmed that a third party app is to blame, you can start uninstalling apps individually. We suggest that you begin with the most recent ones you added.
  4. After you uninstall an app, restart the phone to normal mode and check for the problem.
  5. If your S8 is still problematic, repeat steps 1-4.

Solution #6: Wipe the phone

Should all the things we suggest above won’t work, don’t hesitate to do a factory reset. You have a serious issue as this means you won’t be able to use your phone normally. To see if the problem is caused by a software or operating system bug, wipe it clean with factory reset.

For reference, these are the steps on how to do it:

  1. Create a backup of your files.
  2. Turn off the device.
  3. Press and hold the Volume Up key and the Bixby key, then press and hold the Power key.
  4. When the green Android logo displays, release all keys (‘Installing system update’ will show for about 30 – 60 seconds before showing the Android system recovery menu options).
  5. Press the Volume down key several times to highlight ‘wipe data / factory reset’.
  6. Press Power button to select.
  7. Press the Volume down key until ‘Yes — delete all user data’ is highlighted.
  8. Press Power button to select and start the master reset.
  9. When the master reset is complete, ‘Reboot system now’ is highlighted.
  10. Press the Power key to restart the device.

Contact Samsung

If nothing changes after a factory reset, your problem is most likely caused by something beyond your ability to fix. It can be a firmware coding issue, or a hardware malfunction. Make sure to let Samsung know about the problem and get the help you need.

Problem #3: Galaxy S8 moisture detected error even when device is not wet

“Moisture has been detected in your charger/USB port. Make sure its dry before charging your phone. It may take some time to dry completely.” i had not had the charger in for hours before i got this message 2 days ago. I have cleaned the port, i also did the trick with clearing data in USB settings, which worked for a few hours then the message came back. I booted into safe mode and the message comes up after a few minutes. As far as i’m aware it didn’t get wet but even if it did surely it would have dried by now.

Solution: Make sure that your phone’s operating system is updated. If you manually restrict the phone to check for updates, be sure to go under Settings > Software update to check. If that won’t fix the issue at all, you can then try a factory reset. If that won’t help either, you can assume there’s either a problem with the physical charging port, or with the motherboard. For this case, you want to contact Samsung for help.


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