Quite possibly the most inconvenient thing that could ever happen with you is when your Samsung phone refuses to turn on. Internet and recharging issues are one thing, but they still aren’t as bad as having no power at all. Sometimes there’s a flashing light with nothing else but a black screen, but many times the LED doesn’t even activate either. If these symptoms match your case, then check out the following tips to try and reactivate your smartphone.

Why is my Samsung Galaxy not turning on?

When the Android is not turning on, we feel quite limited with the troubleshooting, but a phone that is soft-bricked doesn’t offer a lot of options when it comes to troubleshooting either. Let us find out the reasons why this can happen to your device:

• If your phone was in contact with water
• If your phone had a software crash then it may need a soft/hard reset, restore and software update.
• When was the last time your Samsung was switched on with a full battery? This could be the main reason why your phone is not turning on. All you need to do is charge your phone and if this does not work, you must replace the battery.

Here’s the Fix:

Clean the charging port of the phone

The first thing you will want to do in this case is to make sure that the charging port of the phone is free from any dirt or dust as this could possibly prevent the battery from being charged. Use a can of compressed air to clean the charging port.

Charge the phone

Once the port is clean the next step is to use the phone’s wall charger to charge the phone. Try charging it until the LED indicator of the device turns solid green.

Use a different charging cord

The USB charging cord is a fragile accessory that get damaged easily. In case the phone does not charge then try using a different USB charging cord as the one you are using might be damaged.

Use a different wall charger

To eliminate the possibility of the problem being caused by a faulty wall charger then try charging the phone with a wall charger that has been verified to work on another device.

Charge the phone from a computer USB port

In case the phone does not charge with a wall charger then try charging the phone from a computer USB port. If the phone charges, then one of the pins of the phone charging port could be damaged.

Perform a soft reset

Once the battery has been fully charged it’s time to check if the phone will turn on. Perform a soft reset. This is done by pressing and holding both power and volume down buttons for at least 10 seconds.

Check if the phone can start in Safe Mode

There are instances when the problem can be caused by an app you downloaded. To find out if this is what is causing the problem then you will have to start the phone in Safe Mode as only the pre-installed apps are allowed to run in this mode.

• Make sure that the phone is off.
• Press and hold the Power key past the screen with the device name.
• When ‘SAMSUNG’ appears on the screen, release the Power key.
• Immediately after releasing the Power key, press and hold the Volume down key.
• Continue to hold the Volume down key until the device finishes restarting.
• Safe mode will display in the bottom left corner of the screen.
• Release the Volume down key when you see ‘Safe Mode’

If the phone starts in this mode, then the problem could be caused by an app you downloaded. Find out what app this is and uninstall it.

Wipe the cache partition of the phone

Sometimes this problem can be caused by a corrupt system cached data. To eliminate this possibility then you will have to wipe the cache partition of the phone from the recovery mode.

• Turn off the phone.
• Press and hold the Volume Up key and the Home key, then press and hold the Power key.
• When the device logo screen displays, release only the Power key.
• When the Android logo displays, release all keys (‘Installing system update’ will show for about 30 – 60 seconds before showing the Android system recovery menu options).
• Press the Volume down key several times key to highlight ‘wipe cache partition’.
• Press the Power key to select.
• Press the Volume down key to highlight ‘yes’ and press the Power key to select.
• When the wipe cache partition is complete, ‘Reboot system now’ is highlighted.
• Press the Power key to restart the device.

Perform a factory reset

One last troubleshooting step to consider is a factory reset. Take note that if you perform this then your phone data will be deleted in the process.

• Make sure that the phone is off.
• Press and hold the Volume Up key and the Home key, then press and hold the Power key.
• When the device logo screen displays, release only the Power key
• When the Android logo displays, release all keys (‘Installing system update’ will show for about 30 – 60 seconds before showing the Android system recovery menu options).
• Press the Volume down key several times key to highlight ‘wipe data / factory reset.
• Press Power button to select.
• Press the Volume down key until ‘Yes — delete all user data’ is highlighted.
• Press Power button to select and start the master reset.
• When the master reset is complete, ‘Reboot system now’ is highlighted.
• Press the Power key to restart the device.

In case if the above steps fail to fix the problem then this is most likely caused by a faulty hardware component already. The best thing to do right now is to bring the phone to an expert like iMobile and have it checked.