Help my phone keeps getting hot for no reason

[gale65]

Today I had my phone on, not charging, and it started to feel hot. So I closed all recent apps, ran the device management tool (it was already at 100% for some reason), and rebooted. When it came back on the only thing I had open was the battery/temp widget and I sat there and watched as the temp kept going up until it was around 105 and the battery drained before my eyes. I deleted a bunch of unused apps and after that it seemed fine but these apps had been on my phone for at least a year so I honestly don't think they had anything to do with it. Well tonight it is getting hot again. Not charging, no apps open, recent apps closed, rebooted, etc. I even cleared the cache partition or whatever it's called (in recovery mode). It's almost up to 107 right now and I'm not using it at all. I don't really have the skill to change the battery on my own or the money to have anyone else do it. Are there any other tips I can try? It's still under the extended warranty but I don't know if this is a covered thing.

 

[denysemerchant]

I had the same issue with my phone over heating and it shut off drained 75% of my battery. I had no use of my phone during this. I called the extended insurance number and they sent me a new phone...

 

[psionandy]

First thing.....

BACK UP NOW.. if you have baby photos/your soul mates phone number/next weeks lottery numbers/cure for the common cold/an unrealsed Bowie track or whatever on your phone, then get it somewhere safe now.

Then I'd try a factory reset (assuming you haven't rooted it)...BUT DO NOT RESTORE YOUR APPS and see if the symptoms persist without any of your apps installed.

If it solves the problem, manually install apps one by one, pausing to see if the problem re-occurs.

If it DOESN'T fix the issue then @denysemerchant 's solution is the next step.

I had the same issue with my phone over heating and it shut off drained 75% of my battery. I had no use of my phone during this. I called the extended insurance number and they sent me a new phone...

 

[gale65]

It's under an extended warranty but they want me to send it in. I don't have a backup phone and I use my phone for our business so they said i can take it to a shop. I'm probably going to do that next week (the nearest one is over an hour away). If I have to I can try using one of my kids' old iphones while I send it in to squaretrade.

All of my photos back up automatically every night so no problem there. In order to see the actual temp I have to have at least a temp widget installed and running. I don't think it shows the temperature in the settings.

 

[Xavier Black]

And just so you know..after you send them your phone don't expect to have your same device back..99.99999999% of the times it will be a refurbish one..and of course they won't tell it to you so they don't have to explain them selves..

I don't know, it might be just me..but I would never send my phone else where and not knowing what's going on with IT, or what's being done into it..

I think you are better off fixing it your self..you don't have to be skilled to do it..watch YouTube you can do it with a hair dryer..

 

[gale65]

You can fix an overheating phone with a hair dryer? What?

 

[psionandy]

And just so you know..after you send them your phone don't expect to have your same device back..99.99999999% of the times it will be a refurbish one..and of course they won't tell it to you so they don't have to explain

That's called a warranty.... That's how they work.


Better to get it fixed properly than to mess around with a hair dryer

 

[mikedt]

Today I had my phone on, not charging, and it started to feel hot. So I closed all recent apps, ran the device management tool (it was already at 100% for some reason), and rebooted. When it came back on the only thing I had open was the battery/temp widget and I sat there and watched as the temp kept going up until it was around 105 and the battery drained before my eyes. I deleted a bunch of unused apps and after that it seemed fine but these apps had been on my phone for at least a year so I honestly don't think they had anything to do with it. Well tonight it is getting hot again. Not charging, no apps open, recent apps closed, rebooted, etc. I even cleared the cache partition or whatever it's called (in recovery mode). It's almost up to 107 right now and I'm not using it at all. I don't really have the skill to change the battery on my own or the money to have anyone else do it. Are there any other tips I can try? It's still under the extended warranty but I don't know if this is a covered thing.

Degrees C or degrees F? If it's F, well it's about 100F outside where I am, and phones don't seem to have any problem with it. If it's C, yeh I think that could be dangerously hot for a phone.

 

[gale65]

F. The following Saturday I was using an app for about 10 minutes and it hit 118 and the phone shut down. It hasn't gotten that hot since then though.

 

[gekaap]

I recently encountered this same problem, and believe I have now resolved it. I've been looking into this. Sharing my experience to help others and hopefully offer info that may better explain what has happened.

My facts:

I do not have a recent update to Oreo. I am using a Verizon phone that I migrated to T-mobile and I receive no updates as a result.
I do not have background apps or data running. My phone is often on WiFi with mobile data turned off. I have minimal apps installed, and typically close them when done.
Phone is in excellent condition, and was bought 2 years ago, almost to the day that the problem began.
Full battery charge to start the morning would be down to 10% by lunch, despite not using the phone at all. Phone was persistently hot despite being in a cool, climate controlled environment.
Recent Battery Usage showed things like Android OS, Cell Standby, etc as top items, all at reasonable levels of 5% or less.
Similarly, App Power Monitor showed negligible battery drain from background apps, the highest being my email client showing "<0.01%".
Excessive heat and battery drain persisted even when booting into safe mode and after multiple restarts and fully powering down for a short period.

Investigation:

Standard guesswork solutions, such as deleting cache, were ineffective.

When applying power saver mode, my phone suggested that its full charge would last for only ~9 hours in normal mode, ~10 hours in "mid" power saving, and ~43 hours in max power saving. When applying power saving, the biggest power reduction appeared to occur when background CPU speed was limited, with an equally large reduction coming from turning off background data. To quantify these, the corresponding indicator numbers for all other modifications was single digits while CPU limiter and background data were assigned an indicator number of approximately 250 (for "max" power saver setting).

Max power saver mode effectively ended CPU usage, allowing the phone to return to a normal temperature, and battery drain appeared normal for what would be expected for that mode.

Resolution:

After having max power saver mode activated for two days I deactivated power saver. Battery drain has appeared to be normal ever since. Left overnight, charge went from high 90s to low 90s. With light usage charge remained in high 80s. Temperature remained normal. At 85% charge, phone suggested charge would last for 43 hours in normal mode (obviously dubious). Power monitor shows Cell Standby at 7% and Phone Idle at 5%, which is understandable but not quite what I would have expected. I was expecting the display to be a bigger contributor.

Hypothesis:

This problem appears to be native to S7 devices, and not caused by an Oreo update. At the most, I suspect that updates to Oreo may have "triggered" a hidden problem for some users, but the same problem arises without any updates as well. I suspect that the root cause of the problem is somewhere between the battery and CPU, possibly being caused by the battery sending more power to the device than is requested by CPU, which the CPU then attempted to utilize by churning some kind of idle process. Something akin to a door (i.e. a circuit) getting stuck in an open position--once the circuit was stuck open, the excessive heat buildup may have further reinforced the problem. Putting device on max power save mode for an extended period may have been successful at restoring normal operation between the battery and CPU.

Another possible (speculative) contributing factor on the periphery is an extended multi-day period of overcast weather that may be interfering with signal acquisition, causing more searching than normal. The weather has been enough to interfere with satellite TV signal and though I have not noticed any instances when phone signal was absent, it has been less than normal.

 

[davrob361]

Today I had my phone on, not charging, and it started to feel hot. So I closed all recent apps, ran the device management tool (it was already at 100% for some reason), and rebooted. When it came back on the only thing I had open was the battery/temp widget and I sat there and watched as the temp kept going up until it was around 105 and the battery drained before my eyes. I deleted a bunch of unused apps and after that it seemed fine but these apps had been on my phone for at least a year so I honestly don't think they had anything to do with it. Well tonight it is getting hot again. Not charging, no apps open, recent apps closed, rebooted, etc. I even cleared the cache partition or whatever it's called (in recovery mode). It's almost up to 107 right now and I'm not using it at all. I don't really have the skill to change the battery on my own or the money to have anyone else do it. Are there any other tips I can try? It's still under the extended warranty but I don't know if this is a covered thing.

Mine just a fairly big software update this morning and did get hot - OK now

 

[gale65]

Interesting. I'll have to try the max power saver trick. I have had it on the medium setting but it's so slow I have to take it off to use certain apps. I did get my phone "repaired" by the warranty company but it's still exactly the same. I wonder if they even did anything to it. They claim to have replaced the battery, the back, the glass and repaired the circuit board.

 

[gale65]

Nothing is helping but now I'm pretty sure they either didn't replace the battery or replaced it with one that wasn't new. Last night before I went to sleep I shut off all background apps, did the device maintenance, and set the battery to mid saving mode. I got no notifications during the night. 6 hours later I lost 12% of my battery. That cannot be right.

 

[yourfriend]

Usually this sort of behavior happens when you have a cryptojacker, which is a like a virus but for cryptomining

 

[gale65]

• would that stick even after factory resets? It's been factory reset 6 times since the end of July.

 

[yourfriend]

• would that stick even after factory resets? It's been factory reset 6 times since the end of July.