The Samsung Galaxy S5 was a pretty revolutionary phone for its time, so the fact that it’s still being used by some people nowadays doesn’t come as a surprise. On the other side, being an older model automatically means that problems will appear more often.
For example, a lot of users are complaining that their Samsung Galaxy S5 keeps restarting and they have mixed feelings about what should they do: try to fix it or get a newer phone.
Well, getting a newer phone will always be the best choice, but why spend some money when you can fix the Galaxy S5?
Below you will find a guide on how to approach this issue, including all the known solution for the handset’s restarting problems, so you can solve them on your own, in just a few minutes.
Why is my Samsung Galaxy S5 restarting?
Before going through all the solutions, let’s take some time and understand which are the reasons why your phone is restarting all of a sudden.
- Hardware problems: power button might be stuck and acting on its own
- Faulty apps: an app installed from an unsafe source is messing with the phone’s software
- A glitch in the software: in most cases, this is caused by the cached data
- Corrupted firmware: it happens especially when you update the software using a firmware from an unverified source
Let’s take each of these causes and see how they can be overcome.
Check the physical power button
Let’s not forget that we’re talking about a phone launched in 2014. Over the years, if the device was constantly used and turned on and off more than it should, the power button could be a bit used. Therefore, it’s not making a perfect contact or acting on its own.
Verify the button and if you notice that it can be pressed way to easy, take it to a service. A faulty button can press itself while carrying the phone in your pocket, for example. The same thing goes for a phone that requires additional force to be pressed: take it to an authorized service center and have it checked. It won’t cost a fortune and you will be able to still use your phone for a while.
Boot the phone in safe mode and see if it happens because of an app
We’re all downloading apps from various places, for various reasons, even though Google doesn’t recommend this. Well, this could be one of the reasons why your Samsung Galaxy S5 keeps restarting.
In order to be sure that it’s an app causing your problems, our recommendation is to boot the phone in Safe Mode and see how it works. If the sudden restarts are gone, it’s obvious that an app is to blame.
Booting the phone in Safe Mode can be done by following these steps:
- Turn off your phone
- Press and hold the Power Button
- As soon as you see the Samsung Galaxy S5 logo on the screen, release the Power Button
- Immediately after releasing this button, press and hold the Volume Down key
- Continue holding the Volume Down key until the restart is finished
- You should now see Safe Mode written in the bottom left corner of the screen
- Release the Volume Down key
Use the phone as you usually do for a while and see if it keeps restarting. If the issue seems to be gone, it’s all good. It means that one of the apps you installed was causing this. Therefore, the next step is to uninstall anything you got from other sources than Google Play and see if the issue persists.
On the other side, if the phone keeps restarting even in Safe Mode, it means that it’s something else causing this situation, so you need to proceed to the next step.
Wipe the cache partition
As mentioned above, a glitch in the system could also be one of the reasons why a Samsung Galaxy S5 keeps restarting. But there’s no need to worry, since this issue, despite sounding complicated, can be easily solved, in a few steps.
Specifically, everything you need to do is to wipe the cached data the phone stored up. Then, start using the phone as usual and see if the restarting issue is still present.
- Turn off your phone
- Press and hold the Power Button, Volume Up key, and Home Button, at the same time
- As soon as you see the Samsung logo, with Recovery booting written in blue at the top of the screen, release all buttons
- Wait for a few moments, until you are taken to the Android System Recovery screen
- Using the volume rocker, scroll through the list and select Wipe Cache Partition
- Confirm your selection using the Power Button
- Wait for a few moments until you see a notification at the bottom of the screen, in yellow, showing that the cache has been wiped
- Use the volume rocker to highlight Reboot System Now
- Confirm your selection using the Power Button
- Wait until the phone reboots, with a clean system cache
Hard reset your phone
This is the ultimate solution if the Samsung Galaxy S5 keeps restarting, as it can fix all firmware-based issues, by taking the phone back to its initial state, like when it was new. Specifically, we’re talking about a hard reset, which can be done by following these steps:
- Turn off your phone
- Press and hold the Power Button, Volume Up key, and Home Button, at the same time
- When you feel a short vibration, release the Power Button, while keeping the other two buttons pressed
- When you see the Android System Recovery screen, release the Volume Up key and Home Button
- Use the volume rocker and highlight the Wipe data / Factory reset option
- Confirm your selection using the Power Button
- Use the volume rocker and select the Yes – delete all user data option
- Confirm again using the Power Button and start the master reset
- Wait for a few minutes, until the process is completed
- Highlight the Reboot system now option
- Confirm the operation using the Power Button
Your phone is now like almost brand new, in terms of software, so unless you’re dealing with a battery issue, it should work fine.
On the other side, if the problem persists, it means that you have a faulty battery which needs replacement. You should find an original Samsung Galaxy S5 battery relatively easily and replace the one you’re currently using. Obviously, if this doesn’t solve the problem either, you should better take the phone to a service and see if it’s not dealing with a serious hardware issue. Or look for a new phone.
Let us know which one of these tips helped you solve your problem, using the comments section below!
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