Friday 29 March 2019

Techonology: Samsung Galaxy Note 4 emmc failed, no pit, DIY fix [SOLVED]

Note 4 Europe version
Image from Locky's English Playground
My mum left me this Note 4 Europe version a year ago and it just kept refusing to be switched on. Sometimes it flashed the logo for a split second, sometimes it just froze on the boot screen, most of the time, nothing happened.

So I searched the internet, and found the craziest advice which I tried because there was nothing more to lose. It was the advice of freezing the phone in the freezer with a plastic bag over it. Hyperskeptical I was, I froze the phone in a Ziplock bag for 10 minutes and tried switching it on. It worked!!!! It booted up once smoothly into its usable state for like a minute before it crashes again. So I redid the process, this time, it booted up till it hit some EMMC error that I can't recall any more and stopped. I then tried to freeze the battery and phone separately, as well as freezing just one of them. The battery-only freeze didn't work, the phone-only freeze got me as far as the EMMC error and it could never boot to any usable state again.

EMMC chip on Motherboard in the centre of the photo
Image from Locky's English Playground
Desperate for more fail-worthy attempts (Wow! Can't believe I just thought of this word. Really like it. I am not the creator of this word though.), I found the following YouTube video and followed it, and WOW! I fixed my phone!!! So it was all because that the EMMC was designed and placed so close to the metal frame that somehow the electrical signals got disrupted, placing thin pieces of cardboard paper did the magic trick and the phone is resurrected! I gave the phone to my elder daughter and she is having fun with it! So if you have similar problem with your Note 4, this is the ultimate video guide.

Huge thanks to the creator of this video!



As to why the freezer method works, I am not quite sure, but I guess maybe freezing the phone's EMMC  long enough shrinks the chip just enough to separate itself from the metal frame temporarily. When the chip starts to expand again, the phone returns to its inoperable state.

All I know for sure is, I can put one more skill on my CV. What should I call this skill? Any suggestions?

References:
[FIX]Emmc failure , phone restarting and fre… | Samsung Galaxy Note 4

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