Hi everyone, I am looking to troubleshoot my T-Mobile Galaxy S4 which I believe has suffered from a Power IC malfunction. It has all the symptoms that relate to a broken power button, which of I already sent in for repair and that didn't seem to fix the problem. The guy installed a brand new power button and the problem still persists. Continued researching and it might be a broken Power IC chip.
The phone will power on for a second and display the Samsung logo, then shut off and reboot itself and sometimes be in a constant vibration cycle like it's trying to power on. Sometimes it just freezes on the Samsung logo and will not continue past that. Sometimes if I'm lucky, it will boot up like normal but once it gets to the T-Mobile splash screen, the screen will distort and then reboot itself where it will just go through either of the symptoms already mentioned. Weird thing is, I am still able to boot into recovery and download mode fine without any reboots or anything. I have tried flashing numerous stock firmwares/ROMs via download mode/recovery in hope maybe that'll correct something, but to no avail.
The problem happened shortly after I accidentally dropped my phone getting out of the car. The phone worked fine for a day and then one day while driving, the phone did something crazy and froze up, displayed the power menu, and then shut off by itself. Then after that is when all the problems happened. I took the phone apart and cleaned the power button. Rubbed the contacts with rubbing alcohol and even tried to get inside the power button with some. Took a can of air and sprayed the button until it was dry. I think that was my mistake because I think some alcohol got onto, or into the power IC located near the power button and fried something.
Looking for possible answers as to what could have caused this. The phone will not charge normally unless I boot into recovery/download mode. Plugging the phone in while powered off displays the charging icon with the grey battery and a circle in the middle but doesn't continue past that and reboots itself after a while. Tried a different battery as well and it's all the same symptoms which is why it's something internally.
On a side note, if anybody has experience with replacing the Power IC and would like to offer their service to me, we can arrange a price and continue from there. Please be a reputable member though. Thanks for reading. Hope to resolve this annoying issue.
