OT - Samsung Galaxy S3 soft brick and Odin

[David]

Following on from a post in December by Mr. Pounder.

My Samsung Galaxy S3 has just soft bricked itself for no apparent reason. It now freezes at the splash screen. It won't boot into recovery mode (Volume Up, Power, Home) but it will boot into Download Mode (Volume Down, Power, Home).

So web wisdom suggests downloading the stock ROM (but from where? - SamMobile seems one option) downloading Odin and then using Odin to load the ROM into your phone.

So has anyone done this successfully?

The phone was originally from 3 but is out of contract, unlocked, and currently using a Tesco SIM. The only ROM I can find so far is for/from Vodafone, but I assume this is better than nothing.

Cheers

Dave R

[Tim Watts]

I have - but if it won't go into download mode, I don't think it will help. You might try on one of the Samsung specialist forums...

[David]

So it will.

Samsung specialist fora don't seem that specialist from most of the posts.

The bits I gleaned from a couple led me to Odin, but they are all several years old.

Cheers

Dave R

[Theo]

You should be able to reflash both the recovery and system partitions with Odin

- download mode is what you need for that, so it should work. You can also choose to flash a non-stock recovery (eg ClockworkMod or TWRP) with Odin which allows more control (eg to root or install custom ROMs).

SamMobile would be the place I would go to get firmware. There usually isn't any particular problem with installing the wrong operator - just the preloaded apps might be different.

Theo

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Have you Googled on the model and fault? On the basis that you're unlikely to be the only one. But you might have to look through lots of rubbish to find the answer.

[Kellerman]

Download the Samsung Kies phone management software for the s3. Install it and look for the firmware recovery link in the software. Available from the samsumg website at

[Kellerman]

Bugger - that link wont lead to Kies 3 Try this one

[Chris Bartram]

Put Cyanogenmod on it.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Glad you've found a use for it. It's hopeless for what I wanted - sharing contact lists, etc.

[Tim Watts]

Sorry - I misread that - it won't go into RECOVERY but WILL go into download...

OK - try this:

With this stuff, I find the Youtube vids are very helpful.

You have a choice: grab the official firmware or use something like CyanogenMod.

For official, try

and

[Tim Watts]

If you can get the bastard to run - I never could, it has to be the worst POS ever. But, it's worth a try - you might get lucky...

Odin is the basic flasher, Kies is trying to be "iTunes" or whatever the Apple monolithic app is called.

[David]

Thanks for all the replies.

The Odin instructions included downloading and installing Kies3 first (I think to get the latest USB drivers) which I have done but it does seem to offer possible recovery options.

I was previously contemplating Cyanogen or similar just because the phone was getting so out of date - no Android updates for a long time. Perhaps the phone decided to help me make the decision.

My main (obvious) concern is that this sudden wobbler is due to failing hardware and I may be polishing a turd by reloading software.

Probably worth it in the short term whilst I try to decide which of the many mobile phones could be a suitable replacement.

I already have 3rd degree brain burns from looking at reviews.

Cheers

Dave R

[Tim+]

Makes me glad I have an iPhone. ;-)

Tim

[Tim Watts]

When your iPhone is 4 years old, you'll be starting to notice some new apps won't load from the store because they don't support the older non-updatable iOS.

At least with Android, you can always get a new OS, even if not from the manufacturer.

[Sangmo]

Wrong, because the iOS will still be updateable.

Wrong again.

[Tim Watts]

Bollocks.

I had an iPhone 3G. 4 years later, trying to palm it off onto on of the kids, a significant number of apps on the store refused to load.

And no, it was on the last available version of iOS for the model.

[Chris Bartram]

It's a vile piece of software. Bloated, slow, unreliable. The only use I've found for it is to get drivers required for Odin.

[Chris Bartram]

^^^This. So much this.

[Theo]

You could try, but obviously it'll only do stock firmware.

Give it a go, you have nothing to lose (beyond a bit of time fiddling).

I've had good results from CyanogenMod on a variety of phones, both official and unofficial builds.

I'd stick with the official builds for a first timer: the unofficial ones stuck up on a random forum often suffer from everything-works-except-... (which is fine if you didn't need the FM radio or whatever it was, but less good if it's power management that doesn't work)

So far CM is enabling my plan to keep an Android phone current for 4 years:

2x to 3x what the 'industry' expects.

Theo

[Mr Pounder Esquire]

In the end I gave up.