Help Replaced Motherboard, Still Doesn't Charge

[Ethelwolf]

Hello, everyone. I had been having an issue for a while where I couldn't get my Galaxy S3 to charge properly. For a while, I had to finagle with it and find just the right angle to get any charge in it, though when bumped, the charge would break. I ended up trying to clean the charging port gently using a soft toothbrush, but after that I lost all ability to charge my phone. In response, I ordered a new (Virgin Mobile) motherboard with a clean ESN. Today I had the time to swap out the boards and (with what little power I have left in the battery) was able to boot up the phone and see that the board worked. However, the phone still won't charge at all. I thought the issue was with the charging port and that replacing the entire motherboard would be a simple way to fix it, but now I'm not sure what the issue is. Is there another problem that replacing the motherboard won't solve? Or is it possible that the charging port on this new motherboard is also busted?

Thanks in advance

 

[funkylogik]

So does the charging port come as part of the mobo? If so it sounds like you were unlucky and got a dud
Take it you've tried other chargers/cables?
An alternative would be to get a wireless charging kit or (cheaper) a wall charger and spare battery from Amazon etc

 

[codesplice]

It's entirely possible that you got a dud board, but I would hope that it's unlikely.

If you've tried multiple chargers AND cables, and you've swapped out the board (with the charging port), it could be an issue with the battery itself. Maybe try swapping that out?

 

[Ethelwolf]

Thanks for the advice, guys. I got the board off eBay from a seller who has sold a good number of boards and has positive feedback, so I'm hesitant to think it's a dud, but it is entirely possible. Tonight I'll be borrowing a friend's S3 and trying his battery in my phone to see if I can get a charge in it. I'll also be trying another cable (though I have two right now which have always worked in the past for me). The wall charger is a great idea (one I hadn't considered), but recently I've been developing Android apps in school so even though charging the battery directly definitely solves my problem, I still need to be able to connect physically to my computer for testing the apps outside of an emulator. Thanks for the quick response, I really appreciate it. I'll post an update tonight as to what happens with the battery and other cable. If that doesn't give me any more info then I may go ahead and order a new phone.

 

[funkylogik]

Cool cool good luck mate (and good luck with the app development)

 

[Ethelwolf]

Well, everyone. I couldn't find any solution to the issue I was having. Luckily, my warranty was still active! I mailed in the phone for repairs. Hopefully when it comes back, everything will work fine. Thanks for all the suggestions, in the future I plan on using that wireless charging one to prevent any other charging port problems! I figured I'd do one last post updating anyone looking at this thread so that if someone has the same problem later, they could see the end result I came to.

 

[funkylogik]

Oh well. At least it's still under warranty