What to do if your phone won’t turn on

A smartphone that suddenly stops working can seriously ruin your mood. It seems that half an hour ago everything was in order, but now the phone does not turn on, does not want to respond to any keystrokes. And to understand what to do and where to turn is not so easy. Whether it was earlier, at the dawn of the era of mobile phones: you could also remove the battery, recharge it in the “frog” (an external battery charger), press the keys to understand exactly what the problem was. Yes, and it was much easier to disassemble the device – you arm yourself with a simple Phillips screwdriver and get to work. Now everything is more complicated: a modern smartphone that has turned into a “brick” simply plunges the owner into a stupor. What happened? Maybe the sensor is not working? Dead battery? How to get to it if the phone cover cannot be opened? And sometimes the smartphone starts to vibrate with a black screen, thinks at the time of loading and shows a branded apple or android for a long time.

There is good news: in some cases, the problem can really be dealt with without contacting specialists. It is not worth burying a phone that does not turn on right away. In this article, we will explain why this happens and explain how to deal with the problem yourself, at home and without complicated tools.

Check if liquid has entered the smartphone

If the screen of the smartphone is dark, it does not respond to the power button, but starts to vibrate, water may have got inside the device. If you have given your phone to someone else, check if it has been dropped in liquid or exposed to rain. If this was the case, then it is better to turn off the phone and dry it. How to do this, you can read here. Do not try to turn on a flooded phone or put it on charge. Water is an excellent conductor of electric current, going the wrong way, it can burn the contacts of the microcircuits.

Check charging and battery

The phone is dead and will not turn on anymore, even after you “feed” it with electricity. The situation is quite common. There are several options here. First, it’s the charger. Perhaps you are using the wrong charger, or the wire has frayed somewhere. It happens that the socket does not work. Therefore, the first thing to do is to exclude seemingly obvious options: try to charge the phone from another charger, connect to another power source. Waited an hour and nothing helped? The problem may be in the battery. For example, the phone is too discharged (you tried to turn it on several times after being discharged, the device was left discharged for too long, it was in extreme cold or heat). Sometimes in such cases, the smartphone will not charge from a regular outlet. In this case, you need to either remove the battery and use an external charger to revive it, or try to charge the phone from a power bank.

Obvious advice: don’t rush to turn on your phone and panic. If the battery is almost empty, the device will take some time to start working. It is better to leave the phone alone for a couple of hours.

Remove the memory card and SIM card, and try to turn on the phone without them

Sometimes the reason that the phone does not turn on can be a “failed” memory card or SIM card, or rather, the contacts that connect them to the phone. To dismiss this option, you need to remove them and then try to start the phone again. If in this case the phone boots up, then you need to try to exchange the SIM card with the operator, change the flash drive. If the problem persists, you will have to contact the service center to understand where the catch lies.

Let the smartphone cool down and try turning it on after 2-3 hours

Another possible reason why the smartphone may remain deaf to your calls is that it has overheated due to long work or being in the sun / frost. In this case, you need to leave the phone at rest for 2-3 hours and then try again to connect it to charging or press the power button. During this time, all the details will cool down and, perhaps, the phone will return to life.

Force your smartphone to reboot

If your phone worked normally during the day, and then showed the screen of death or does not respond to touch at all, you can force a reboot. This will get rid of the error that has occurred, which prevents the software from loading.

How to restart an iPhone that won’t turn on

For the new iPhone X model, you need to quickly press and release the volume up button, then do the same with the volume down button. After that, keep the power button pressed.

On the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus, simply hold and release the volume up key, then do the same with the volume up button. Then press and hold the side button until the Apple logo appears on the screen.

For models 7 and 7 Plus, you need to press the side button and the one that reduces the volume together, also until the apple logo appears. On older models, press the Home button and the top button together.

How to restart your Android phone

In order for a phone that does not want to turn on to enter recovery mode, you must hold down the power button and the volume down key at the same time. Hold them for 10-25 seconds. In most newer Android systems, the device will start rebooting into recovery mode and prompt the user to choose what they want to do: reboot or go into recovery mode. Choose a forced reboot (hard reset).

Connect your phone to your computer or laptop

Sometimes, in order to revive a frozen phone, it is enough to connect it with a USB cable to a computer. Then the software will find the device and send its commands to it, which can revive the device.

Reset your phone to factory settings

If the phone behaves strangely, vibrates, the screen lights up and goes blank, you can perform a factory reset. This will help if the error is due to a misbehaving application, memory overload. Attention, in this case, all data that is on the phone’s disk will be lost: contacts, photos, messages, passwords, and so on. If you didn’t back up, this could be a potential problem. But if other options still did not help, it is better to lose some information than devices. In any case, we recommend backing up your device more frequently, at least once every two weeks.

How to reset iPhone to factory settings

To solve the problem, you will need a cable, a computer with iTunes installed. The device must be connected to the computer and press the buttons to force reboot. When you press the final combination, you need to wait until the recovery mode appears on the screen and follow the prompts of the program. In the future, the computer will offer to restore the settings from the backup that you saved earlier.

How to reset settings on Android

Several key combinations can be used to force reset an unpowered phone. These are “volume up and power”, “volume down and power”, “volume keys – power – home” – most often the last combination is used for tablets. An inscription will appear on the screen stating that it is entering Recovery mode, after which you need to select the factory reset item (factory reset). The smartphone will reboot and can start working.

Update the firmware of the phone or vice versa roll back to the old OS

If the phone does not turn on, then the firmware will have to be downloaded from the Internet on the computer. Then proceed as in the previous paragraph. For iPhone firmware can be downloaded directly from iTunes. At the very beginning of work, you need to select the “update” item and specify the path to the downloaded firmware. For the phone, you need to download the firmware in advance, connect the device to the computer with a cable and follow the instructions that appear.

Contact the service center

If none of the tips helped bring the device back to life, contact a service center for diagnostics. Here they can check whether the power reaches all the elements on the motherboard and in which elements the problem has occurred. It may help to replace the screen (if the problem is due to the fact that the matrix or sensor does not work), the battery or its contacts.