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