My FP3 has serious problems

[richardhull]

My beloved Faiphone 3 has some serious problems - overheating, battery runs down quickly, very slow to initialise.
So for quite some time I had intermittent problems initialising on ‘waking up’ - I would get the messages “Quickstep not responding” and “System UI not responding”.
So just over two months ago I bought a new battery from Fairphone, and that seemed to settle things down until the last few days.
Now, the phone gets unusually hot, especially in an area on the middle left side of the back.
The battery is draining very fast, about 10% an hour.
When it is re-started the “Quickstep not responding” and “System UI not responding” messages appear for about 10-15 minutes before it finally settles down.
When I looked at the back I can see a dark mark on the metallic circuit line just above the Micro SD slot (there is no Micro SD card in the slot). This seems to be the area which gets hot.

So, is this repairable or is it the end of the line?
In hope,
Richard

[koumilak]

Hi richard,
there might be a loose contact/cold joint forming in or around your CPU/Memory circuit.
In that case, it might be the prelude to a sudden death.
First off, i’d recommend immediate and complete backup of all data that you might loose if you need to reset or if the phone stops working.

Also, it might be that the memory is getting full. It needs a bit of free space to function normally: if it’s at 99% used, it’s going to have problems that can culminate in a bricking.

So, my advice for now is :

• Backup
• Make space for memory: delete backed up photos, unused apps, etc.
• If there’s still a problem, you could try to reflow without waiting for the sudden death? i’m really not sure about this ; maybe wait if a real sudden death occurs

[urs_lesse]

Others also note this little bit of extra information:

I keep getting 'Quickstep not responding' message

Dear folk, Every few days, it seems, when I wake up my Fairphone 3, I either get a black screen for ages, or the phone is totally unresponsive, and then I get a message ‘Quickstep not responding’, and then it takes about 5 - 10 minutes before the phone becomes usable. This is increasingly annoying. It has been happening for over a year now, or maybe even longer. I have the latest system updates etc, and I just have the standard install, no special add-ons or anything. Any clues as to why th…

[OldRoutard]

And another example here:

Sudden battery drain out of nowhere

Hello, suddenly my FP3 has a very unusual battery drain. It went from about 100% down to 2% within 6h. Should have been at least 70% remaining. Yesterday everything was fine, today not. I tried tracing down the drain, not successful. There seems no unusual CPU usage. I even switched off the phone, opened it, removed battery and then reassembled it and switched it on again. Also I uninstalled a couple of apps I haven’t used since a while. It didn’t help. Now I even ru the phone in dark mod…

[yvmuell]

Not everything going crazy will turn into a sudden death I would say…

@richardhull try to run the phone in safe mode (dic:safemode )what disables all third party apps
Also try without SIM card.

[richardhull]

Thank you everyone.
I must have had a rogue app.
I followed the advice to delete unused apps (only about five but I can’t remember what they were unfortunately).
And I started up in Safe Mode and then back again in ordinary mode (which meant I had to re-assign my preferred SMS app).
And - fingers crossed and touch wood and all that - I haven’t any problems since then.
Once again thank you to all who replied.
Richard

[Alan_Pritchard]

Hello there. Very similar experience, overtaken by the ‘OK and let’s not charge any more’.

For me this behaviour came at some point after that forced Android version update - things went unstable since.

I have read elsewhere that a potential source for all these shenanigans is a failing power control IC on the motherboard. But I am no expert.

Am currently gong to buy the FP6, but I’d like to figure out the problem before getting any spare parts to extend my FP3 life as a backup phone…

[Alan_Pritchard]

Reassuring that this helped for you. Will give it a go. Might be running with too much memory in use as well, even though I have a decent sized SD card I probably haven’t set it up right. Putting some attention into this - assuming the phone is behaving and charged overnight.

[Jens1]

Do you have an angel or a meeting with FP3 next to you?

The Fairphone Angels Program and Map (Local support by community members)

The discussion and questions about this topic are located here Fairphone Angels are active volunteers in your area that offer their expertise to assist you. Most Angels cannot offer all services and as volunteers, they’re not always available. So don’t be mad if they don’t answer in time Consider opening a topic on the forum to receive help from other members for non-local or complicated issues. The Customer Service team from Fairphone is also there to he…

[Alan_Pritchard]

Yep, that’s where I looked, and got the email address from. I mailed them on the 5th June. I got a copy of the email, but otherwise no-one has replied.

[richardhull]

Hi Alan, Thank you replying.
I was wrong, my problem did not go away but it did get a bit better.
There are still times - maybe once every few days - when I take the phone out of standby, it is very sluggish and I get the messages ‘Quickstep not responding’ or ‘system UI not responding’ or an app does not respond, and I can feel it heating up on the back, just above the SIM and memory card slots. About a week ago it took about an hour before it settled down so I decided to trade up to FP5.
But I would like to keep this one going, if possible, as a back up, so I am going to check out the Angels programme (I hadn’t heard about that before).
Kind regards,
Richard

[Alan_Pritchard]

Best of luck. I have quite a good response on my other post, so I will try to document what I find out for others.