Samsung Galaxy J7 turned off on its own and would no longer power up [Troubleshooting Guide]

We’ve been receiving a lot of complaints from our readers about a couple of power-related issues. The first one happens when the phone turns off by itself and refuses to come back on while the second is when the phone gets stuck during the boot up process. I just want to make a distinction between these two problems because they’re not the same. When the phone won’t turn on, there’s a chance that it’s a hardware problem but if it refuses to boot up successfully, it may be just a firmware issue.

In this post, I will tackle the first issue–phone turns off and won’t turn back on–with the Samsung Galaxy J7 being the subject of our troubleshooting. This is for the benefit of our readers who reached out to us asking for help. If you’re one of the owners of this phone and are currently bugged by a similar issue, continue reading as you may find this article helpful.

Before anything else though, if you have other issues with your device, then visit our Galaxy J7 troubleshooting page for we have already addressed several common problems with this phone. Odds are that there are already existing solutions to your problems so just take time finding issues that are similar with yours. If you can’t find one or if you need further assistance, feel free to contact us by completing our Android issues questionnaire. Please provide us with as much information as possible so that it would also be easier for us to troubleshoot the problem. Don’t worry as we offer this service for free, so all you have to do is give us sufficient information about the problem.

Troubleshooting Galaxy J7 that turned off and would no longer turn on

The purpose of this troubleshooting guide is to determine the reason why your phone turned off by itself and to find a solution that will bring your phone back to life. We will try to consider every possibility and rule them out one by one until we can get your phone to power up again. With all that being said, here’s what you have to do about this problem…

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Perform the Force Reboot procedure

It’s a very simple procedure but you won’t believe how effective it is in fixing firmware and hardware-related issues like this. What it does is basically refresh your phone’s memory but aside from that, it will force your phone to shutdown and restart just like when you pull the battery out of a phone; it will “power shock” the device.

It’s important that you begin your troubleshooting by doing this procedure because there’s always a possibility that this problem is due to a system crash and if it is indeed the case, it’s the only thing that you should do to bring the phone back to life.

Press and hold the Volume Down and the Power keys together for 10 seconds and your phone may reboot. If you can’t make the device to start up, try doing it again but this time press and hold the Volume Down button first and without letting go of it, press and hold the Power key and keep both keys held for 10 seconds. If the phone boots up, then problem solved but if not, move on to the next step.

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Verify it’s not due to physical or liquid damage

Physical damage can of course, damage your phone but any force that would render a device useless should leave a mark on the outside. So try to find scratches, dents and cracks on the case of your phone. As the owner, you should be the first one to know if the phone got dropped or fell on a hard surface and if the problem happened shortly after that, then it’s almost certain that physical damage is the cause why your J7 turned off and won’t turn back on.

As to liquid damage, the best thing you can do is look into the USB/charger port to find some traces of water. But regardless whether the port is wet or not, you should get a cotton swab and clean around the area or insert a small piece of tissue to absorb to moist if any. Then remove the SIM card tray and look into the slot to find the Liquid Damage Indicator (LDI). If it’s white, then there’s no liquid damage but if it turned red, pink or purple, it’s apparent the cause of the problem is liquid damage.

Should there be signs of either physical or liquid damage, you should bring your phone to the service center so that the technician can check on it. There’s no need to continue your troubleshooting because there’s nothing much you can do about it.

Make sure it’s not just a drained battery issue

After seeing to it that the problem isn’t due to physical and liquid damage, it’s time to make sure it’s not about a drained battery. If you let your phone drain its battery completely, there’s a tendency that the system will crash shortly before it’s powered down due to insufficient power. The thing about running the phone until it’s battery is completely depleted is that the firmware and its hardware components may not shut down simultaneously like when you manually turn it off that’s there’s always a tendency that the system will crash.

Now, about the system crash, when it happens, your phone will not respond to whatever you do with it; it won’t respond when you press the power key, it won’t charge and will remain unresponsive. In this case however, the first step may take care of it but if the battery got completely depleted, there’s no way your phone will start the way it should.

So, at this point, you need to try to charge your phone and make sure the charger is plugged into a working wall outlet. I understand your phone may not respond to it but let it be for 5 minutes. If the charging signs won’t show after that, do what you did in step 1: press and hold the Vol Down and Power keys together for 10 seconds. There’s a big chance the phone will start up because this time, it’s plugged into a stable power source and doing the forced reboot procedure may bring it back to life. If the phone remains unresponsive, then move on to the next step.

Try to run the phone in Safe mode

This is something you should try especially if everything else before this failed to power up your phone. If the problem is due to some apps, then you may be able to bring your phone back to life by running it in safe mode. Here’s how you do it…

  1. Turn the device off.
  2. Press and hold the Power key past the screen with the device name.
  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 successfully, consider the problem solved and the next thing you should do is find the app that’s causing the problem and then uninstall it:

  1. Turn the device off.
  2. Press and hold the Power key past the screen with the device name.
  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’.

Should the phone remain unresponsive even if you’re trying to boot it up in safe mode, then try the next step.

Try to boot your phone in Recovery mode

This is just another environment you can try to bring the phone to boot up into but unlike safe mode, the odds are higher that your phone will be able to boot up into it since it’s the fail-safe of almost all Android devices. So even if your device currently have some serious firmware issues, you may still be able to boot it up in this mode and if successful, you can try wiping the cache partition and doing the master reset.

How to run your phone in recovery mode and wipe cache partition

  1. Turn off the device.
  2. Press and hold the Volume Up key and the Home key, then press and hold the Power key.
  3. 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).
  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 to highlight “yes” and press the Power key to select.
  7. When the wipe cache partition is complete, “Reboot system now” is highlighted.
  8. Press the Power key to restart the device.

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 Home key, then press and hold the Power key.
  3. 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).
  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.

Consult a technician

After doing everything above and your phone still remains unresponsive, then you should bring the phone to the service center so that the tech can do further tests that would determine the problem. He might still be able to fix the problem and bring your phone back to life. If not, then he may recommend using the warranty for your benefit.

I hope that this troubleshooting guide can help you one way or another. Should you have other concerns, don’t hesitate to contact us any time.

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