How to fix your Samsung Galaxy S9 that went completely dead and not responding anymore (easy steps)

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If you’re familiar with the black screen of death issue with the Samsung Galaxy S9, then this is just one of the variants of that problem. In this issue, however, users may have encountered sluggishness, lags and freezes just before the phone turned off by itself and would no longer respond when the power key is pressed or held. Depending on the how the problem started, this might be just a very minor problem that you can fix on your own.

In this post, I will help you troubleshoot your Galaxy S9. We’ve already encountered similar issues in the past so I also have a thing or two to share with you which could make your phone work perfectly again. However, if this kind of problem started after the phone got dropped on a hard surface and has clear signs of liquid damage, then it’s better to bring it back to the store or shop so that a technician can check it up for you.

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Now, before anything else, if you have other issues with your phone, make sure you drop by our troubleshooting page for we have already provided solutions to hundreds of problems reported by our readers. Odds are that we may have already provided a solution to the problem you currently have so try to find issues that are similar with yours on that page and feel free to use the solutions we suggested. If they don’t work or if you need further assistance, fill up our Android issues questionnaire and hit submit to contact us.

How to troubleshoot an unresponsive Galaxy S9 with a black screen

The black screen of death may seem like a very serious hardware problem but more often than not, it’s just a very minor firmware-related issue. I have encountered quite a lot of similar issues in the past wherein the phones just turned off by themselves for some reason and would no longer turn on or respond no matter what you do. With all that being said, here’s what I suggest you do about it:

First solution: Forced reboot

This must be the first thing you should do. In fact, it could be the only thing you need to do to make your phone respond again. The forced reboot is actually a simulate battery pull procedure wherein your phone’s memory will be refreshed and all applications and services reloaded.

To do this, press both the volume down and power keys at the same time and hold them down together for 10 seconds or more. Your phone is hardwired to perform this procedure so as long as you’re doing it correctly, your Galaxy S9 should respond to it.

However, if it continues to be unresponsive, then try doing the following:

  1. Press and hold the volume down button first and don’t release it.
  2. Now, press and hold the power key while you’re holding down the volume button.
  3. Keep both keys held down together for 10 seconds or more.

Your phone should already be booting up by now provided that the problem is due to a firmware crash. However, if your phone is still not responding after this, then move on to the next solution.

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Second solution: Charge phone and do the Forced Restart again

Having a drained battery isn’t a problem at all because 90% of the time phones respond immediately when they’re connected to their chargers. However, it’s still possible that a drained battery will result to a firmware crash since some services and hardware components aren’t properly shut down when you allow your phone to run out of battery. If this happens, you’re already dealing with a couple of issues that both result to an unresponsive phone. That said, here’s what you should to do address this possibility:

  1. Plug the charger to a working wall outlet. It is imperative you use the wired charger.
  2. Using the original data / power cable, connect your S9 to its charger.
  3. Regardless whether the phone shows the charging signs or not, allow it to be connected to the charger for at least 10 minutes.
  4. Press and hold the volume down button and don’t go of it yet.
  5. Now press and hold the power key while holding down the volume down button.
  6. Keep both keys held down together for 10 seconds or more.

If the phone responds to this, then you may consider the problem as fixed but there’s still a guarantee that the issue may occur again. So, I suggest you backup your files and data and then reset your phone to prevent future occurrences of the problem:

  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 data / factory reset.
  5. Press Power button to select.
  6. Press the Volume down key until ‘Yes — delete all user data’ is highlighted.
  7. Press Power button to select and start the master reset.
  8. When the master reset is complete, “Reboot system now” is highlighted.
  9. Press the Power key to restart the device.

On the other hand, if the phone continues to be unresponsive after doing the second procedure, then you should bring it to the technician to have it checked as there’s always a possibility the problem is caused by physical and/or liquid damage.

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