Quick fix for a Samsung Galaxy A7 that won’t turn on

Unless your Samsung Galaxy A7 suffered from some serious physical or liquid damage, fixing the problem that left your device unresponsive with a black screen would be easy. We’ve encountered this problem many times already wherein the phone won’t turn on no matter how many times or how long you press the Power key.

However, we’ve also encountered similar symptoms that were a result of a serious firmware and hardware issues. Having a phone with a black and unresponsive screen won’t tell us anything about the problem so we have to do some basic troubleshooting to determine the issue. There is however, one solution that you should try because it’s been so effective with many of our readers and that’s what I’m going to share with you today.

But before we proceed, if you have other issues with your phone and are looking for a solution for them, then visit our Galaxy A7 troubleshooting page for we have already addressed some of the most common problems with this device. Browse through the page to find issues that are similar with yours and use the solution we suggested. If they don’t work for you or if you need more assistance, then feel free to contact us by filling up our Android issues questionnaire.

Easy steps to fix Galaxy A7 that doesn’t power on

Most of the time, this problem is due to a system crash and we’ve received hundreds of complaints regarding this issue and the most common denominator is that the phone just turned off by itself and would no longer power back on when the Power button is pressed. Now, here’s the solution to this problem–Forced Restart.

YouTube video

Doing Forced Restart on Galaxy A7

If you’re old enough to have owned basic phones (I owned Nokia 3310 back then), those devices would crash from time to time and the most effective way to bring them back to life is to pull their batteries out for a few seconds then replace them and that would be the end of the problem.

Forced Restart has the same effect on your Samsung Galaxy A7. So, to fix this problem, all you gotta do is this:

  • Press and hold both Volume Down and Power keys together for 10 seconds.

Yes, that’s all you need to do to bring your Galaxy A7 back to life however, if it didn’t boot up after trying the method, try it again but this time do this:

  • Press and hold the Volume Down.
  • Without letting go of it, press and hold the Power key.
  • Keep both keys held for 10 seconds.

You know, when you press the Power key, the phone would respond to it immediately so you couldn’t do the combination. However, if you press the Volume Down first and the Power key, then that should result to the Forced Reboot.

After trying this method several times and your phone is still not responding let alone turning on, then you may try doing some troubleshooting to it.

RELATED POSTS:

Troubleshooting Galaxy A7 that won’t respond to Forced Restart

There’s no guarantee that we can bring your phone back to life with this troubleshooting but we still urge you to do it especially if your phone turned off by itself without any apparent reason or cause.

Check for possible physical / liquid damage

Checking the phone for physical damage is easy because any force that may render the phone useless should leave a mark on the outside. Look for scratches, dents and cracks because those are the most common signs of physical damage. If the phone looks flawless or even if there are light scratches and you know weren’t due to a drop, then your phone is free from physical damage.

As to liquid damage, the first thing you should check is the USB / charger port because it is often the gateway of water into your device. Look into it to find trace of moisture but regardless whether there’s moisture in there or not, try cleaning it up. Use a cotton swab or insert a small piece of tissue into it to absorb the moist. You may also blow into the port to get rid of any foreign objects.

To verify further if your device is really suffering from liquid damage, remove the SIM card tray and look into the SIM slot to find the Liquid Damage Indicator (LDI). It should tell you if your phone has liquid damage.

  • If the LDI is white, then there’s no liquid damage
  • If the LDI turned red, pink or purple, then liquid damage is obvious.

How does the phone reacts when charged?

Usually the phone should show charging signs when connected to its charger. So after verifying there’s no physical and liquid damage, plug the charger to a working wall outlet and connect your Galaxy A7 using its original cable to it. Give the phone at least 10 minutes to charge and try to turn it on. If it’s not responding still, do the forced restart while it’s plugged in because maybe the phone crashed when it lost power.

Try running your Galaxy A7 in Safe mode

This is an important thing to do especially if the phone is still not turning on after doing the previous steps. It’s possible the system crashed due to some apps and since we don’t have any idea which of the apps is causing the problem, it’s better to try running the phone in safe mode to temporarily disable all third-party apps:

  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.

If the phone boots up in this mode, then you can consider the problem as fixed and the next thing you should do is find the app that’s causing the problem and uninstall it.

  1. From the Home screen, tap 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 preinstalled apps.
  4. Tap the desired application.
  5. Tap Uninstall.
  6. Tap Uninstall again to confirm.

Try starting the phone up in Recovery mode

This is just another mode that you should try running your phone into to see if it responds as you can do a couple of procedures that may fix all the problems with your phone. If the problem is due to a firmware issue, there’s still a big chance you can bring the phone to boot up in this mode since the Android system recovery is the fail-safe for almost all Androids. Follow the procedures below to wipe cache partition and do the master reset.

How to boot Galaxy A7 in Recovery Mode and wipe cache partition

  1. Press and hold the Volume Up key and the Home key, then press and hold the Power key.
  2. When the Android logo displays, release all keys (‘Installing system update’ will show for about 30 – 60 seconds, then ‘No command’ before showing the Android system recovery menu options).
  3. Press the Volume down key several times to highlight “wipe cache partition”.
  4. Press Power button to select.
  5. Press the Volume down key to highlight “yes” and press the Power key to select.
  6. When the wipe cache partition is complete, “Reboot system now” is highlighted.
  7. Press the Power key to restart the device.

How to do the Master Reset on your Galaxy A7

Please note that all your personal files and data including your apps, contacts and messages will be deleted if you did this:

  1. Press and hold the Volume Up key and the Home key, then press and hold the Power key.
  2. When the Android logo displays, release all keys (‘Installing system update’ will show for about 30 – 60 seconds, then ‘No command’ before showing the Android system recovery menu options).
  3. Press the Volume down key several times to highlight “wipe data / factory reset.
  4. Press Power button to select.
  5. Press the Volume down key until ‘Yes — delete all user data’ is highlighted.
  6. Press Power button to select and start the master reset.
  7. When the master reset is complete, “Reboot system now” is highlighted.
  8. Press the Power key to restart the device.

Bring the phone to Samsung service center

After doing all the steps above and your phone still refuses to turn on, it’s time to bring it to a service center to have it fixed by a technician. As far as basic troubleshooting is concerned, you’ve done everything that you could do to no avail.

I hope that this troubleshooting guide can help you one way or another. Have a great day!

Posts you may also like to read:

TheDroidGuy Mailbag

🛠️If you have questions, check our Help section for details on how to submit your questions.💡


Posts You Might Like

Leave a Comment