Black screen, but complete boot? Tab3 8.0 WiFi - Galaxy Tab 3 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

I have a client that has brought me a Tab 3 8" WiFi SM-T310. Supposedly there was either a low battery situation, or an update where the tablet was plugged in, left to charge, and when they came back there was nothing but a black screen. The customer is desperate to get the pictures off of the device(guess what, no SD card and no Drive sync!). Here is the weird thing I've encountered. The tablet shows NOTHING on the display except the backlight, but fully boots 100% to the lock screen including sound. I mean no Samsung logo, nothing when going to recovery/download mode, just black with a backlight and the softkeys light up. It's recognized by Kies and Windows once at the lock screen, however it's inaccessible as there is a password on the device and like most consumers they never enabled USB debug. Running 4.4.? I have already tried pulling the battery, the power and vol +/- reset and reseating the LCD cable. From what I can tell the digitizer works, but not being able to see anything on the screen makes it a moot point.
Basically my question is, besides throwing an LCD at it and hoping for the best, or doing a full firmware reflash from Kies and praying for a data recovery, is there any way to pull data off the internal storage? The customer doesn't care about the tablet, just the pictures. Really stumped at this one.

UTMorpheus said:
I have a client that has brought me a Tab 3 8" WiFi SM-T310. Supposedly there was either a low battery situation, or an update where the tablet was plugged in, left to charge, and when they came back there was nothing but a black screen. The customer is desperate to get the pictures off of the device(guess what, no SD card and no Drive sync!). Here is the weird thing I've encountered. The tablet shows NOTHING on the display except the backlight, but fully boots 100% to the lock screen including sound. I mean no Samsung logo, nothing when going to recovery/download mode, just black with a backlight and the softkeys light up. It's recognized by Kies and Windows once at the lock screen, however it's inaccessible as there is a password on the device and like most consumers they never enabled USB debug. Running 4.4.? I have already tried pulling the battery, the power and vol +/- reset and reseating the LCD cable. From what I can tell the digitizer works, but not being able to see anything on the screen makes it a moot point.
Basically my question is, besides throwing an LCD at it and hoping for the best, or doing a full firmware reflash from Kies and praying for a data recovery, is there any way to pull data off the internal storage? The customer doesn't care about the tablet, just the pictures. Really stumped at this one.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am respodning here, because it is one of the first google hits after search. So i right now have this device. You can plug it via HDMI and it works normally. So that's for anybody seeking data recovery in this situation.
Sorry for my broken English.

Related

Red screen of death

Well, something very odd just happened to my samsung focus (at&t) when I rebooted it. After the samsung screen shows, a pure red screen shows up for about 2 seconds and then it goes black. when I push the power button (or hold it) it simply goes back to the red screen again! Naturally, I thought to battery pull which simply put it back onto the samsung screen only to then go back to the red screen again.
I then thought 'maybe this is some sort of glitched state that it is in (it does seem to be stable in this state of redness, the capacitive buttons seem to give haptic feedback when pressed and the power button turns the screen off and on) so I decided to battery pull again and then connect it to my pc to see if it would detect that the phone was in this special "mode". after the battery pull, the phone booted back as normal??? It had about 89% power according to the battery percentage app when I rebooted??
it is fine now, but WTF was that anyway??
EDIT: ok, now it gets weirder, I got it to go into this state and quickly connected my usb cable to the computer and... zune pops up and it goes to that screen with the phone wanting to sync, but the phone being grayed out?? when I dragged a picture to my device, IT STARTED TO SYNC WITH DEVICE! It didn't even get an error and, after a successful reboot to the actual phone, THE PICTURE WAS ON MY DEVICE??? oh, and btw, it boots insainly fast when it is in redscreen mode...
i am now seriously confused beyond all hope
happened to my omnia 7 yesterday.
Just as well since i was going to flash the new rom anyways (and i did.. hasnt happened yet)
I think...it happened when i took my sim out.. i put it in and dont think it happened.
Might have to do with samsung. Other than Dell, Samsung has proven to be the weakest OEM in terms of hardware/software/firmware reliability.
I had this after I tried the 16Bit gradient hack. Setting the values back to 16 solve the red screen problem.
Wow... Ur right! Thanks for the fix =D
Sent from my mailbox
it is related to the 16 bit banding reg hack. It has been discussed/mentioned in that thread several times...
Has happened to me 3 or 4 times in the last month, ever since I changed the values to fix the banding on my Samsung Focus.
Just yank the battery and restart, hasn't been a continuous problem for me, and definitely a small trade-off to get rid of banding, IMO.
Same over here
Now that you mention it. I have the same RSOD problem with my Omnia 7 after the 32 colour bit hack. In my case it will happen after I have switch the phone off for the night and switch it back on in the morning. It's fine when the phone is switched off and on again.

[Q] Help!! a100 Blackscreen

i have a a100 with the latest flexreaper rom installed and im stuck with a pretty serious issue:
a couple of days ago the tab was acting real slow and sluggish and getting bad battery life didnt think nothing of it so i just rebooted a couple times and left it alone . all was good untill the battery hit 10% and i plugged it up using the factory ac adapter. the next day (maybe 6-7 hours later) i went to turn it on and nothing no vibrate no screen flash nothing; other than the power button turning blue as i pressed it and it would stay on for a couple hours but still no other response from the tablet.
im at my wits end on what could be wrong and now i got my wife with her foot on my neck till i get it fixed. can anyone help me?
ive tried to do a hard reset with the reset button tried to boot into recovery /bootloader no dice
(also my home button flashed a couple time i pressed the power button) dont know if its relevant but wanna get as much info out as possible
wondering if anyone can help me...
frenize said:
wondering if anyone can help me...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It may take awhile for someone to see this and form something to try, random bricking for no reason is rare, its almost always some error by the user. However have you attempted adb connection to it? Leave it powered off, connect to the PC you used to unlock the boot loader then power on. Does the PC make the USB connect sound? Does the Acer vibrate? Did the home key blink again?
It really sounds like your boot partition is wrecked which wouldn't normally happen outside of flashing. If boot loader is trash then it won't know what to do and just sit there. No recovery or anything else.
Tapatalked from my Galaxy S II.
pio_masaki said:
It may take awhile for someone to see this and form something to try, random bricking for no reason is rare, its almost always some error by the user. However have you attempted adb connection to it? Leave it powered off, connect to the PC you used to unlock the boot loader then power on. Does the PC make the USB connect sound? Does the Acer vibrate? Did the home key blink again?
It really sounds like your boot partition is wrecked which wouldn't normally happen outside of flashing. If boot loader is trash then it won't know what to do and just sit there. No recovery or anything else.
Tapatalked from my Galaxy S II.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
it made something like the connect sound but instead of the regular duh doom sound it did a dadadoom (kinda hard to describe the sound) but it was faster than ive ever heard the connect sound before which is weird. the tab didnt vibrate and it seems the home button blinks when the tab is dead and needs recharged
frenize said:
it made something like the connect sound but instead of the regular duh doom sound it did a dadadoom (kinda hard to describe the sound) but it was faster than ive ever heard the connect sound before which is weird. the tab didnt vibrate and it seems the home button blinks when the tab is dead and needs recharged
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah I know that sound it means USB connected but error for some reason. Its been shown if this thing dies all the way down it wont read the battery correctly and probably needs to be sent in. Before that I personally would unplug it open it up and remove the battery for awhile, maybe an hour then put it back and plug it in. But thats me, not the advice I'm giving. If you have warantee on it use that.
The batteries on a lot of devices and laptops etc have something of a fail safe, if the voltage drops below a certain point it trips to prevent cell damage, however it renders the battery useless.
I haven't searched out much past that if a reset is possible by us, but it seems the pack is trash after or needs sent in.
Since this is a sealed unit you void warranty opening it (well unlocking the boot loader did too) so you can't send it in for repairs without paying for it.
I hope someone can jump in and help figure this out, and prove me wrong.
Tapatalked from my Galaxy S II.
Weird, This exact same thing happened to me. Used it in the morning and now after work it won't turn on. I had already tried disconnecting the battery, but hadn't thought to leave it disconnected for an hour. My tablet has been running the leaked ICS since it came out and The last factory reset it had was about a month ago. It was working fine up until this. The power button seems to be responding correctly, the issue is that after the LEDs light up, there is no vibration or display. I hope someone can help us with this issue.
EDIT:
It won't connect in ADB mode. It will only appear on my computer as an APX device and since there is no vibration I am unable to boot into fastboot. Any help or suggestions? All the threads I have found have involved booting into fastboot.
i am also having this problem. i set ti backup last night to save to box i turned it on this morning it.worked set it on the charger came back to a frozen screen. I turned it off now just a black screen it turns on or the home button dose but nothing comes up on the screen
same thing here.
max69power said:
i am also having this problem. i set ti backup last night to save to box i turned it on this morning it.worked set it on the charger came back to a frozen screen. I turned it off now just a black screen it turns on or the home button dose but nothing comes up on the screen
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have been using ICS the leaked one, and last night I was goint to check my email and it did not turn on, I though the battery died. I plugged to the charger and this morning I tried to turning it on but it failed. I did the reset pin but nothing. I connected to the computer and it was recognized as a APX device and installed a driver ACER Picasso USB recover but i cant access anything. I am a nob. Thanks
A100 blackscreen
i am also having this problem. last night. just a black screen it turns on or the home button dose but nothing comes up on the screen. :crying: Help!!!!!!
Has anyone tried holding the power button for a while? Laptops do this too, if someone felt ventures, try taking the battery out and hold the power button. No promises, might work.
sent from my ICONia
same here
Having the exactly same issue, here...
I also tried to hit the hardware reset button and it does not help.
If the screen is blank while powered on its in failsafe mode, in other words is bricked, has to go to Acer.
Tapatalked from my Galaxy S II.
This just happened to me a few weeks ago as well. If you are still under warranty send it in to Acer, thats what I did. I just got an email saying they had fixed it and were sending it back for free!!
At the time I was on the 9/02 JB build. I wonder if this issue is caused by faulty hardware or if it is an issue that was made by rooting and unlocking it? I don't know enough about this stuff to answer that though, but it does make me think whether I should root/unlock it when I get it back or leave it stock.
Also thanks Pio_masaki for helping me a few weeks back wasn't sure if I was even going to send it in until you said they most likely won't be able to tell.
I highly doubt they even CARE when sending these in. They will void for physical damage most likely.
tshm55 said:
Having the exactly same issue, here...
I also tried to hit the hardware reset button and it does not help.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ohmygod,
Same here, but it's 3 years ago. Sorry for digging the topic. Still no hope? I still keep the tablet and have just buy another refurbished mainboard to replace but still no vibrate and blacksreen still there.

[Q] USB issues - not charging - can't get into fastboot mode

Hello everyone,
having major USB issues on my GNex. It's not charging anymore, but when the phone is off, it displays a charging animation. I could get it to charge once since this occurred, I left it plugged in overnight on my Mac (phone turned off). Did the same thing last night, no charge at all.
Mac OSX does not recognize the device, my Windows machine keeps telling me something like "the connected device is not working properly and can't be used... ". This message pops up every few seconds, so I guess it's constantly connecting and disconnecting. I can't access the internal storage on both systems.
My first guess was a hardware defect. But when I try to boot into recovery mode, a screen instantly pops up that shows Andy and displays a message: "Downloading. Do not turn off target.". In the upper left corner it displays " ODIN MODE" in small red letters.
When I press the power button in this screen (there is a big arrow pointing to the button with "start" written in it) the phone just normally reboots.
I can't get into fastboot mode because of this. I can get into CWM Recovery when i use the reboot into recovery option built in the ROM.
I dunno much about Odin (next to nothing). Has it something to do with Samsungs Kies? Could it be that something has put my phone in this "ODIN MODE" and it constantly tries to download something, making the USB port unusable? The port is not completely broken, as the phone displays a charging animation when it's turned off... so there is some connectivity left!
Thoughts coming up that this could be some kind of software issue. If there is a possibility to get out of the Odin Mode, it may solve the problem.
The phone is unlocked and rooted, running AOKP Milestone 5 and franco kernel.
I tried to restore an older nandroid, but it did not change anything.
Would send it in for exchange, but not able to relock the bootloader due to no fastboot access. If it can be confirmed that this is a hardware problem, I have to pay for the repair, I'm fine with that.
Has anybody any ideas that could be helpful? Any help is much appreciated, thank you in advance!
Do a search and you will find at least 30 helpful threads. Basically you only need to replace your USB charging board and it works again. Should be a warranty issue, but Samsung has really been an ass on handling this issue lately and claiming water damage.
I have mentioned it many times here: this problem can be probably solved by thoroughly cleaning your USB with soft toothbrush.
True, I also cleaned my port but it only fixed it temporarily.
Thanks guys. Tried to clean the port, nothing changed.
Ordered an OEM charging board off ebay, hope changing it will fix the issue.
Only thing I'm wondering about is, that the phone is stuck in Odin Mode when I boot it up with Vol. - and the Power Switch. So I downloaded Odin but it does not recognize the phone...
I am also facing the same problem. I am currently using the phone by charging the battery externally. Can someone confirm that changing the USB flex cable is the solution ?
Just posted in another thread but it is definitely the USB port for me. Using an HTC Vision (Google g2)

Samsung Galaxy S2 won't boot to main menu, and has seizures.

I'm having a huge problem with my T-Mobile Galaxy S2, and not it won't even completely boot up. The issue had already been around, but never this bad. Usually, when I would use my phone, it would just randomly reboot on it's own. Now, I can't even get to the main home screen or menu. When the battery is inserted, the phone will automatically try to turn on. I'll get the Samsung screen, then the "Samsung Galaxy SII Android 4G T-Mobile screen", then the phone will glitch for a second, black screen, and it'll almost have a seizure from then on. When I say that, pretty much what happens is that the screen will go black, and it'll pulse with vibrations. It'll vibrate, stop for two seconds, vibrate some more, etc. That's all it'll do from there on. It won't try to turn on when I hold the power button, and the vibrations won't stop until I take the battery out. There is no water damage, and there's just normal wear on the phone. I've had the phone since the drop, and for the most part, it's been great until now.
The phone is not rooted, and I have not installed anything crazy. Come to think about it, I didn't really even have too many apps installed on it to begin with. The phone is under warranty, so I had T-Mobile send me a replacement. My main issue now is that I have content on there that wasn't on my SD card, but on the internal hard drive that I find extremely important, and want to keep. When I connect the phone to my computer, nothing comes up because I didn't "connect" it to the computer as you normally would have to do from the phone, before the extra drives pop up on the computer. Without getting into the main menu and manually connecting the phone to the computer so that the drive will pop up, what can I do?
I've tried taking the battery, sim card and memory card out, letting it sit for a few hours, and plug it back in, but it does the same thing. The battery isn't bad, because it plugs into the replacement phone that was sent to me, and works just fine. I've also plugged into my additional batteries, and it does the same thing. I can't do the "hard reset" where you hold volume up & down, then the power button because what happens is the phone will restart itself before I can get to that point. I tried it when I was on the phone with T-Mobile, and the associate at one of the retail locations tried when I went to get a loaner. I've tried hooking up the phone to the Kies software, but it won't recognize the old phone. It will recognize the new one with no problems though.
I am in no way am I well versed with the process of flashing it or installing different things on the phone. I just used it casually for phone calls, texts, web, and an occasional game or app. I'm just stating this so that if there are any specific tips that anyone could recommend, please if possible, explain in a bit more depth, because after I posted my title, I found the related threads, and most of the steps that were recommended to others that had problems sound a bit foreign to me. I just really want to recover the photos and documents that I had on the phone before I send it back to T-Mobile.
These are the threads that I've somewhat referenced so far:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1948094
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1457458x
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1813866
I can't seem to find anything with the same symptoms as my phone though. If anyone could let me know, that would be great. I just really want to get the content off my old phone, it's just extremely important to me. I'll be waiting on any replies. If you need and more information about what the phone is doing, or what I should try, please mention it. I will try to update this as I get replies, since I am supposed to send the phone back pretty soon. Thank you in advance.
You have a stuck or broken power button. Stick a toothpick or something into the power button whole and take out any gunk if there is. If that doesn't help, then you have a broken power button and you have to get your phone fixed.
Sent from my SGH-T989 using xda premium
So from what I understand your phone does not boot up to the home screen at all and you are trying to recover all the files from the internal storage? I've been in the same situation as you, although, with my previous android (Samsung Captivate) and I know how hectic this situation is...
If you can enter recovery mode still without the phone restarting itself and if you're willing to flash a custom rom that should help you get into the home screen to recover your files, as it shouldn't remove anything from the internal storage (just as long as you don't format the internal storage/system in recovery).
The phone 'seizure' you are experiencing may also be caused by physical damage, such as the internal memory becoming defective (hopefully not the case).
You mentioned that you can't turn on the phone with the power button and the phone only turns on when you place the battery... that's the same thing that happened with my old phone and it turned out that I had to disassemble the phone and clean/replace the power button. After that the phone turned on like normally again, however, I had to flash a new rom for it to properly boot up.
As a last resort, if you can enter 'Download Mode' via button combo or usb jig you can use Odin to flash a stock rom. However, the files you originally have in the phone will be removed, which you definitely do not want. But at least your phone will possibly work again.
At the moment, I don't think there is any way to recover the files you need from the internal memory without being able to boot up the phone to get it connected to your computer. If you do manage to boot to the home screen, but can't connect your phone to your computer. You can always do a wireless transfer to a cloud based storage such as Dropbox (you can use the android app) and just transfer your files from your phone through that.
I hope I am of some help to you, if I find any other solutions I'll let you know. Good luck!

Did my SPH-D710 brick itself? Won't power on; steady blue LED

Not sure if there's anyone left who browses this forum, but I guess it never hurts to try. If there's a better place to post this nowadays, please let me know!
I have been using my Samsung Galaxy S II Epic 4G Touch for about 9 years now. I never messed around with rooting or installing any custom stuff.
I don't remember what version of Android it was using; I'd assume it was whatever the latest official version was.
Last night, I was reading an ebook on my phone; nothing out of the ordinary. Phone seemed fine. Battery was at about 75% or so.
And then, for no discernible reason, the phone froze and became unresponsive. I tried rebooting, and when I did, a screen came up asking for a "PIN or password to access the encrypted device memory" or something like that.
I had never seen anything like that screen before.
I tried restarting again, but this time, the phone just straight up would not power on. The device's status/power light was a steady blue, not blinking.
If I held down the power button for about 5 seconds, the light would briefly turn off and then go right back to the steady blue. The phone's screen remained blank.
I tried using a different battery, but it made no difference. The phone simply wouldn't boot at all and would not give any indication that it was accepting a charge. I tried holding down the volume buttons and home button in addition to the power button, but it made no difference. Couldn't even get the Samsung splash screen.
I tried connecting it to the USB port of my laptop and desktop PC. Neither device could detect the phone.
So, I'm left wondering, did my phone just suddenly "brick" itself or experience a sudden hardware failure? Is there anything I can do to salvage my phone?
Thanks.

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