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Help Vibration motor dead?

mydian

Android Expert
Apr 8, 2012
1,427
679
Chicagoland
Can someone please confirm for me that with vibration disabled (as in turned all the way down) that the phone still vibrates during boot up before I waste my time factory resetting my phone?

For some reason today the vibration quit working on my S5. It was just sitting on my desk. It worked fine the last time I picked it up, now nothing. No haptic feedback, no vibration while ringing, and no vibration during boot up. It wasn't dropped recently or abused in any way. I did install a couple apps today but already uninstalled those, and it was working after that anyway. It was just sitting on my desk wirelessly charging as usual and I went to unlock it and noticed no haptic feedback. I'm far from a noob and have checked every setting and tried testing vibration in the service menu. I bought it on ebay 8 months ago and it was supposedly new but I have my doubts Samsung will let me warranty it since I bought it on Ebay.

Thanks


edit: After testing this on my old S3 and wife's S4 yes it should vibrate during boot up so it looks like the vibration motor already died. How disappointing.
 
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It sure sounds like a dead vibration motor, which sucks. Honestly, I wouldn't buy anything of any kind off ebay, as they are notorious for being home to scams, and do very very little to stop them. Trust me, you're definitely better off buying your phone from the oem (Samsung) instead of from some dude on ebay. Hopefully you've gotten your phone replaced or fixed by now. If you haven't, I hope ebay or Samsung helps you out with this issue.

Because you bought it on ebay, it is very possible that the seller tapped (hacked) into your phone prior to selling it and disabled it. If that is true, he could've also been stealing your personal info, which I hope is not true. Vibration motors are (sometimes) replaceable, but not easy to replace.

Cheers!
 
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It sure sounds like a dead vibration motor, which sucks. Honestly, I wouldn't buy anything of any kind off ebay, as they are notorious for being home to scams, and do very very little to stop them. Trust me, you're definitely better off buying your phone from the oem (Samsung) instead of from some dude on ebay. Hopefully you've gotten your phone replaced or fixed by now. If you haven't, I hope ebay or Samsung helps you out with this issue.

Because you bought it on ebay, it is very possible that the seller tapped (hacked) into your phone prior to selling it and disabled it. If that is true, he could've also been stealing your personal info, which I hope is not true. Vibration motors are (sometimes) replaceable, but not easy to replace.

Cheers!

No I haven't got it fixed. I did purchase a Square Trade warranty so I'll probably make a claim at some point. It looks easy to replace provided you're comfortable taking the phone apart, I'm not since it will ruin the water proof seal so I may or may not make a claim on it. Maybe right before the warranty expires and then give it to one of my kids.

I'll never buy another "new" phone on Ebay again. I only did because I use Boost Mobile and they quit selling the S5 and I wanted a good phone with a removable battery. The phone was definitely new and sealed in the box. It still had kit kat on it and did the OTA to marshmallow so no tampering, since Marshmallow is picky about that. I also followed the instructions in this forum to make sure it wasn't counterfeit. I've had it for 7 months before the issue cropped up so who knows. Plenty of Google searching shows it's quite common for numerous devices so it's just one of those things.

Live and learn. Thanks.
 
Upvote 0
No I haven't got it fixed. I did purchase a Square Trade warranty so I'll probably make a claim at some point. It looks easy to replace provided you're comfortable taking the phone apart, I'm not since it will ruin the water proof seal so I may or may not make a claim on it. Maybe right before the warranty expires and then give it to one of my kids.

I'll never buy another "new" phone on Ebay again. I only did because I use Boost Mobile and they quit selling the S5 and I wanted a good phone with a removable battery. The phone was definitely new and sealed in the box. It still had kit kat on it and did the OTA to marshmallow so no tampering, since Marshmallow is picky about that. I also followed the instructions in this forum to make sure it wasn't counterfeit. I've had it for 7 months before the issue cropped up so who knows. Plenty of Google searching shows it's quite common for numerous devices so it's just one of those things.

Live and learn. Thanks.
Now that I'm thinking about it, how much was that phone selling for when you bought it? Low prices on expensive items are usually an indicator of a counterfeit or clone device. I've taken my Galaxy S7 apart to replace the battery and successfully retained the water proofing around the back cover, all I had to do was buy new adhesive and plop it back on. Very easy if you have experience in it. If you are still curious about whether or not the phone is a clone, there are tutorials everywhere on Google about how to identify cloned devices. I recommend checking out TechSmartt's video on it here.

But good to know you have a plan for it. Good luck on getting it fixed!

Cheers!
 
Upvote 0
Now that I'm thinking about it, how much was that phone selling for when you bought it? Low prices on expensive items are usually an indicator of a counterfeit or clone device. I've taken my Galaxy S7 apart to replace the battery and successfully retained the water proofing around the back cover, all I had to do was buy new adhesive and plop it back on. Very easy if you have experience in it. If you are still curious about whether or not the phone is a clone, there are tutorials everywhere on Google about how to identify cloned devices. I recommend checking out TechSmartt's video on it here.

But good to know you have a plan for it. Good luck on getting it fixed!

Cheers!

It's definitely not a clone. It was $339. About a month prior to me buying it Boost sold out of them at $349. I'm not interested in voiding my Square Trade warranty and know they will take care of it, but not having haptic feedback (I don't use vibrate for anything else) at this point really doesn't seem worth worrying about.
 
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