How to fix Galaxy Tab A 10.1 won’t turn on | troubleshooting Galaxy Tab A 10.1 (2019) No Power issue
The Galaxy Tab A 10.1 is one of the best mid-range tablets that you can buy for your basic digital needs. It is cost-effective for its size and specifications and generally reliable. However, some users have reported trouble with it. In this troubleshooting article, we’ll show the things that you can do if your Galaxy Tab A 10.1 won’t turn on.
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How to fix Galaxy Tab A 10.1 won’t turn on | troubleshooting Galaxy Tab A 10.1 (2019) No Power issue
If your Galaxy Tab A 10.1 won’t turn on and you have no idea how to fix it, there are a number of troubleshooting steps that you can try. Check out the steps below and be sure to follow them in the order presented.
Tab A 10.1 won’t turn on fix #1: Charge your phone
If your Tab A 10.1 won’t turn on for no obvious reason, what you want to do first is to charge it. Many Android users tend to panic immediately when their device won’t power back on after pressing the Power on button. If the device has become unresponsive and the screen stays black when you turn it on, it’s battery may have simply become too weak to work. Try charging it for at least 30 minutes to see what happens. Make sure not to press the Power button at this time to allow charging to proceed uninterrupted. If that doesn’t work still, continue with the rest of the troubleshooting steps below.
Tab A 10.1 won’t turn on fix #2: Force restart
All Samsung devices with power issues can benefit from a restart. Even in this extreme case, you don’t want to skip this simple solution. Here’s what you need to do: Press and hold the Volume Down button and the Power key at the same time for 10 seconds or until the device’s screen turns on.
Should that won’t change anything, you can then try these steps:
- Press and hold the Volume Down button first and don’t release it.
- While holding it down, press and hold the Power key.
- Keep both keys held down for 10 seconds or more.
Tab A 10.1 won’t turn on fix #3: Confirm charging accessories are working
There may be a problem with the current set of charging cable and adapter. The USB cable that comes with Samsung devices is composed of tiny wires inside. If there’s enough of these wires that got broken, charging may not occur as there’s enough power that can be transferred to the battery. To check if that’s the case, charge your phone using a new set of cable and adapter. If you see obvious signs of physical damage to the USB cable or adapter, consider getting a new pair.
Be sure that you are using the official Samsung accessories for this troubleshooting. Sometimes, third party accessories may be of inferior quality or does not meet minimum requirements set by Samsung. This can lead to erratic charging. If you can’t readily get a new cable and adapter, visit your local Samsung store and try to charge your device using their accessories. If your Galaxy Tab A 10.1 charges fine, consider buying new accessories.
Tab A 10.1 won’t turn on fix #4: Visually check the charging port
Another common reason why a Galaxy device fails to turn on is the lack of power and that’s because there’s something in the charging that prevents it to charge. This can sometimes happen if one of the following is true:
- There’s dirt or foreign object blocking the cable
- There’s damage in the charging port system
- Charging port is wet
Try to check the charging port using a magnifying tool if possible. If you see that there’s dirt, lint, or foreign object inside, that’s probably the reason why the battery has died. Once the battery has drained its power, the device no longer charges normally because something prevents it, or there may be damage to the charging port. If you think that there’s dirt inside the port, use a canned of compressed air to blow away dirt or lint. Avoid sticking anything inside in order not to damage the system.
Although the Galaxy Tab A 10.1 does not have water protection like the Samsung flagship phones, it’s charging port is relatively well-protected from small amount of moisture. If there’s water or liquid in the port, the phone won’t allow charging to avoid damaging the system.
Tab A 10.1 won’t turn on fix #5: Confirm screen is working
Screen troubles usually start after a device has been physically damaged, like when it’s dropped or hit by something hard. If your phone still makes a sound, vibrates, or shows LED light indicators although the screen stays black, there must be a hardware malfunction with the screen only. Try to force restart your phone to see if that helps. If nothing changes, have the screen replaced by Samsung.
Tab A 10.1 won’t turn on fix #6: Restart in Safe Mode
There are some cases wherein a Samsung Galaxy device may not turn on because of a bad app. To check if you’ve installed a rogue app that’s preventing the phone from turning on, you can try to restart it to safe mode. In this mode, only apps that came with the operating system will be allowed to run. All the rest that you’ve added will be blocked so if one of them is causing your tablet to not work, you should know it. Basically, the idea is that since no third party apps are running on safe mode and the tablet turns on, the root cause must be one of them. To boot your device to safe mode:
- With your Tab A 10.1 off, press and hold the Power key past the model name screen.
- When “SAMSUNG” appears on the screen, release the Power key.
- Immediately after releasing the Power key, press and hold the Volume down key.
- Continue to hold the Volume down key until the device finishes restarting.
- Safe mode will display in the bottom left corner of the screen.
- Release the Volume down key when you see Safe Mode.
If your Galaxy Tab A 10.1 turns on to safe mode successfully, that means that a third party app is preventing it from turning back on. To identify which of your apps is causing the problem, follow the steps below:
- Boot to safe mode.
- Check for the problem.
- 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.
- After you uninstall an app, restart the phone to normal mode and check for the problem.
- If your Tab A 10.1 still refuses to power back on, repeat steps 1-4.
Tab A 10.1 won’t turn on fix #7: Boot to Recovery Mode or Download Mode
Another possible reason why your Tab A 10.1 won’t turn on may have something to do with Android Operating System. Although it’s rare, updates or system-wide changes may sometimes cause severe coding problems that may prevent Android from booting up properly. This can manifest in failing to restart, being stuck in Samsung logo screen, or failing to power back on after turning off. If the cause of the problem is an Android OS glitch, you should still be able to restart the device to other software environments like Recovery Mode or Download Mode. These boot modes are independent of Android and are used by Samsung technicians to diagnose software problems. To check if you have an Android issue, consider booting your device to any of them. If your Tablet boots to Recovery mode, you may be able to fix the problem by wiping the cache partition or doing a factory reset. In Download MOde, the only thing that you can do there is to reflash the software. If you haven’t heard of the term flashing before or if you are not confident to do it yourself, you should seek help from Samsung.
Below are the ways to boot to Recovery Mode
How to boot a Galaxy Tab A 10.1 to Recovery Mode
- Turn off the device. This is important. If you can’t turn it off, you’ll never be able to boot to Recovery Mode. If you are not able to shut the device off regularly via the Power button, wait until the phone’s battery is drained. Then, charge the phone for 30 minutes before booting to Recovery Mode.
- Press and hold the Volume Up key and the Power key.
- When the Samsung Galaxy Tab A logo screen displays, release all of the keys.
- The Android Recovery screen should then show you several options like Reboot system now, Reboot to bootloader, Apply update from ADB, wipe data/factory reset, wipe cache partition, etc.
- To navigate to any of the options, just use the Volume Up and Down buttons. Then, once you’ve highlighted the desired action, press the Power button.
Remember, if the screen works in Recovery Mode, that’s a clear sign that you have an Android OS issue. Be sure to factory reset the device (wipe data/factory reset) in Recovery Mode to fix it.
Tab A 10.1 won’t turn on fix #8: Get help from Samsung
All of the troubleshooting steps above will only help if the cause of the trouble is software in nature. If nothing changed and your Tab A 10.1 still won’t turn on even after a factory reset, there must be a hardware malfunction causing it. Contact Samsung for repair appointment, or visit your nearest Samsung Service Center so your tablet can be examined.
If you are one of the users who encounters a problem with your device, let us know. We offer solutions for Android-related problems for free so if you have an issue with your Android device, simply fill in the short questionnaire in this link and we will try to publish our answers in the next posts. We cannot guarantee a quick response so if your issue is time sensitive, please find another way to resolve your problem.
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