What to do when your new Samsung Galaxy Note 8 won’t turn on [Troubleshooting Guide]

The Samsung Galaxy Note 8 is a great device but it also has its shares of problems, errors and whatnot. It’s expected that you may encounter a problem or two while using a smartphone but do you know what to do when those problems occur?

In this post, I will walk you through in troubleshooting your new Note8 that won’t turn on. We will try to consider every possibility and rule them out one by one until we can easily determine what the problem is, what causes it and what we need to do to fix it and even prevent it from happening again in the future.

If you’re a new owner of this phone and are currently bugged by this problem, continue reading below as this post maybe able to help you.

However, if you are trying to find a solution to your problem, then try to visit our Galaxy Note8 troubleshooting page as we’ve already addressed some of the most common issues you may encounter. Try to find issues that are similar with yours and use the solutions we suggested. If they don’t work for you or if you need more help, feel free to contact us by completing our Android issues questionnaire and hit submit. We will try to find a solution to your problem and publish in on our site.

How to troubleshooting Galaxy Note8 that won’t turn on

There’s only so much we can do about a phone that doesn’t power on so all we can do is try some things that might bring the phone back to life. We also have to try to determine the cause why your new device no longer responds.

Step 1: Check for any signs of physical and liquid damages

If the phone got dropped prior to this problem, then it’s very much possible that the cause is physical damage and it would be very obvious because any physical impact that leaves the phone to malfunction should also leave dents, scratches or any physical deformities on the outside. These are the things you need to check and if you can find some, then don’t waste your time troubleshooting and bring your phone back to the store so that the tech and check it for you.

As to the liquid damage, there’s an indicator for it and you can find it inside the SIM card slot. Just pop the SIM tray out and look into the slot. There’s a small sticker in there. If the sticker is white, then the problem isn’t due to liquid damage, after all, it’s water-resistant. However, if the sticker turned pink, purple or red, that’s the sign your phone is suffering from liquid damage. Still, you have to bring the phone back to the store and everything will be up to the tech.

However, if you can’t find any sign of physical and liquid damage, then move on to the next step.

Step 2: Try charging your Galaxy Note8

It’s possible the battery got drained that’s why your phone can no longer power up. Plug the charger to the wall outlet that you know is working and then connect your phone to the charger using the original data cable.

Even if the phone is powered off, when it detects that there’s current flowing through circuits from the power adapter to its battery, the charging signs would show; the charging icon will be displayed on the screen and the LED at the top of the display will glow red. If none of these signs show, give your phone at least ten minutes to charge.

Another reason why you have to do this is for you to know if your phone’s hardware is working perfectly fine. If the phone doesn’t charge or doesn’t show those charging signs, then it’s possible the problem is with the hardware. Try doing the next step, but if the phone charges fine but won’t power up, move on to step 4.

Step 3: Do the Forced Reboot procedure while the phone is plugged in

The firmware plays a big role in the charging process contrary to what many believe that it’s just a hardware thing. The firmware or the operating system actually sees to it that correct electric current is being pushed to the battery especially that Galaxy devices now have adaptive fast charging capabilities. However, there are times when the firmware crashes and when it happens, the phone may not charge as the system no longer responds the way it should.

In case of crashes, the Forced Reboot procedure should be done to make the phone respond again. This procedure is actually the same as the battery pull method we often do to phones with removable batteries. But since your Note8 doesn’t have  removable battery, you have to press and hold a combination of keys to simulate the battery disconnect. In this case, press and hold the Volume Down and the Power keys together for 7 to 10 seconds while the phone is charging. If the phone boots up normally, then the problem was caused by a system crash and while we already brought the phone back to life, there’s no guarantee it won’t happen again. At least now you know what to do if it becomes unresponsive again.

Step 4: Try to run your Galaxy Note8 in Safe Mode

Assuming your phone charges fine but won’t boot up, there’s a big possibility that it’s actually just an issue with the firmware since the hardware responds well with the charger. So, you now have to try booting it up in an environment wherein only built-in apps and services are running and all third-party elements are temporarily disabled. If the problem is caused by one of the apps you downloaded, your phone may just boot up in this mode successfully and in which case, we’re already halfway to fixing the problem. Here’s how you run your Note8 in 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.

Assuming you’ve successfully brought your phone to boot up in this mode, you can relax now because clearly the problem isn’t that complex. All you need to do is recall the app you installed before the problem started and uninstall it because it’s probably the one that’s causing all this issues.

1. From the Home screen, swipe up on an empty spot to open the Apps tray.
2. Tap Settings > Apps.
3. Tap the desired application in the default list or tap 3 dots icon > Show system apps to display pre-installed apps.
4. Tap the desired application.
5. Tap Uninstall.
6. Tap Uninstall again to confirm.

If you’ve installed a lot of apps and you think it would be a lot easier and quicker to just reset your phone, then try to backup files and data you don’t want to lose and then go ahead with the reset. That would surely fix the problem…

1. From the Home screen, swipe up on an empty spot to open the Apps tray.
2. Tap Settings > Cloud and accounts.
3. Tap Backup and restore.
4. If desired, tap Back up my data to move the slider to ON or OFF.
5. If desired, tap Restore to move the slider to ON or OFF.
6. Tap the back button to the Settings menu and tap General Management > Reset > Factory data reset.
7. Tap Reset.
8. If you have screen lock turned on, enter your credentials.
9. Tap Continue.
10. Tap Delete all.

However, if your phone couldn’t boot up in safe mode, then you have to move on to the next step.

Step 5: Try booting your Note8 up in Recovery Mode

This is another environment you should try booting your phone up into should running in safe mode fail. Even if your phone is suffering from a serious firmware issue, it may still be able to boot into this mode considering it’s Android’s fail-safe. Once you’re in this mode, you can do a couple of procedures that have great impact on the phone’s firmware and may fix the problem with your device.

The first thing you should try while in this mode is to wipe the cache partition which deletes all system caches. It’s very effective in fixing issues related to corrupt caches and files.

How to boot your Note8 in Recovery Mode and wipe cache partition

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.

After this, the phone may take a little more time booting up as it will rebuild deleted caches. If you’ve successfully done this procedure but your phone can’t still boot up normally, you should consider doing the master reset. It will delete all your files and data that are saved in your phone’s internal storage but you don’t have much of an option right now…

How to boot your phone in Recovery mode and do the Master Reset

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 you cannot make your phone to boot in Recovery Mode or if it still won’t continue booting up normally after the reset, then it’s time to bring your phone back to the store and probably have it replaced.

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