tried to go back to my Note 3

[nickdalzell]

...and realized why I stopped using it.

Long story:

I got the Note 3 July 2014 as part of an upgrade promotion. I originally had Galaxy S3 which I had for a year before that.

After the usual BS lag with TouchWiz and a disappointing upgrade to KitKat not giving me the new, improved TouchWiz found on the Galaxy S5, I decided to root and put a custom ROM known as HyperDrive Rls 8 which did give me the S5 TouchWiz and its improvements such as the updated S Health.

Then I went on vacation and visited a pet deer someone had (I'm a deer lover if you can't tell by my avatar) and for some odd reason he thought my Note 3 was a chew toy and as I tried to get a photo of him he put the thing in his mouth and drooled all over it. I quickly got it back and cleaned it off, but then it went dead. Took the battery out and let it dry and I got it to power back on, and I know S-Voice worked as I could launch her from the lock screen but the screen was dead, wouldn't light up. When I got home I got a Galaxy S4 as a temporary replacement until I could get the Note 3 peoperly dried off. A week later I tried popping my SIM back in and the Note 3's Super AMOLED screen came back to life.

But...now my phone was literally burning a hole in my pocket, once giving me a small burn on my leg, and also becoming unresponsive, freezing at the lockscreen, and only giving me six hours of standby (!) And the battery stats had 'Android OS' and 'Android system' being top of the list using around 70% and 45% each.

I would pull the battery and reset it and it would respond for up to an hour and start doing it all over again. I later bought an LG G3 and used that convinced the Note 3 had a hardware problem.

More recently I wanted to see if a factory reset would fix the Note 3 and it did. For a week. Excellent battery life and performance. Then it decided to start burning my leg and lagging and getting six to eight hours standby again. I have done everything I could to no avail. Factory reset? Nope. Clear cache and dalvik? Nope. Delete all Google apps? Nope. Turn off mobile data and use wifi? Nope. Battery pulls fix it for a hour or two and it does it again. CPU usage is always 80%+ but I cannot pinpoint one app causing it. It is so bad my Gear 2 stops communication with the phone reporting no connection even though Gear app says it's connected. If I battery pull it works until the phone gets red hot again. Texting is also unreliable. I can receive but have to battery pull before it allows me to send messages. Phone calls are fine. Playing music is fine. I can browse the web.

Here's another weird issue. If I try installing apps be it sideloading apk or using Play Store, they hang indefinitely at 'installing'. If I battery pull and try again just before it starts to lag, it will install fine. So now texting and installing are affected. Is it a defective device? Damaged from vacation? Why did it work fine a week awhile back before acting up?

 

[dynomot]

I reckon the deer killed it.

I had a Galaxy S3 that got dropped in some water for a split second. It was never the same afterwards. Sometimes it would work for days perfectly, other times it would get really hot like your Note 3, randomly unlock, lower the volume on its own, reboot etc. Then it would seemingly go back to working OK again. I came to the conclusion even the smallest "wetting" of the phone damaged it, who knows what shorting of micro electronics can do to them.

 

[nickdalzell]

I tried factory resetting again and did a full wipe. So far it is back to normal but I'll see how long. I'm curious about the battery stats being Android OS at 70% and Android System being 50‰ though. Whatever it was, all four CPU cores never got below 70 to 80% utilization. Nothing was installed other than stock app updates

Jack might have damaged it that's possible. I hope not as my Gear 2 is what I use when I'm not working and it's a nice watch but only works with the Note 3. I won't get another upgrade until 2016 and then I might get something more 'Waterproof' if you know what I mean

I did get rid of Google Maps when i did a wipe this time. i hear a lot about Maps eating battery but i never used it before. all i know is that the top two battery killers were Android OS and Android System. even 'screen', often the main killer on Samsung (seriously, i wish they'd ditch AMOLED and the oversaturated colors), was like bottom of the list, below Cell Standby and at only 2%.

EDIT (Update): it's burning a hole in my pocket now. around 5PM after working normally all day. all i did was open the Samsung Email app and delete four emails. i even tried closing it out of recent apps. it's hot, CPU on all four cores are back to using 70-80 percent. damn!

A reboot does not fix the issue. i wish i could pinpoint the cause. i'm out of options. Here it is, Android System at the very top. whatever is causing this is causing my phone's CPU load to always remain at 70-80 percent 24/7. battery will then last only six hours standby with screen off. lags like heck. and it gets EXTREMELY hot, you can't even touch the camera portion without risking a burn.



Now, i expect the phone to last six hours and go dead.

I will factory reset again and reinstall again, and this time try to never open the Samsung Email app. that's all i did before it went back to getting laggy, hot and eating battery again. for now though, here's the CPU load. all four cores are on the top of the notification shade (ROM feature)


As you can notice, the utilization is extremely high, and is pointed at Android System currently, which means some core service is going in a runaround infinite loop that persists even after a reboot.

EDIT AGAIN: Factory reset and everything is back to normal again. no obscene CPU load anymore. what i am not understanding is what a factory reset is actually doing that i'm not doing or seem incapable of doing in my diagnosis of this issue. something is setting off some core service but at random and it can happen again. i have yet to find anything running during the issue that stands out. no apps are installed, only updates to Google apps. First time it happened i assumed WatchON started it. now it's Email that's suspect. When this issue happens, it pegs the CPU cores, causes extreme heat around the camera area at the rear of the phone, and lags all to heck, text messages and the messaging app from Samsung cease to work, or freeze up, or receive and do not send, i lose the ability to play MP3 files (player tells me they're 'unsupported' yet play fine after a factory reset) and the installer won't work so i can't install apps.