On a recent trip to Memphis I ran into a little water damage on my Galaxy S4, rendering it unable to charge reliably or sync with a PC. When plugged in it would either do nothing or display a message saying, “This charger is not compatible with this device…” Knowing that water damage often makes cell carriers unwilling to help, I began searching and came upon a cheap and relatively easy solution.
In my searches I saw that many others had suffered similar water damage, often with the same error messages. Several reported success with swapping the USB port of their Galaxy S4. It seemed a daunting task at first, but after watching a straightforward guide video it seemed like it might only take 15-20 minutes.
Replacement USB ports for the Galaxy S4 can be found on Ebay and Amazon for around $10 plus shipping, so if you’re willing to roll your sleeves up it’s a far cheaper solution than trying a smartphone repair shop.
Note: make sure you select the correct model number, as some have reported there are multiple nearly identical versions of the USB port but that choosing the wrong one caused the speaker phone not to work correctly.
In my case, this one worked like a charm with the Verizon S4 SCH-I545.
The guide video walks you through removing the plastic panel underneath the primary backing so you can access the USB port, and shows exactly how to pry parts up without damaging anything as well as how to reconnect everything when the new part is in place.
Took me about 25 minutes total, mostly because I ran into a minor snag while putting everything back together due to doing one of the final steps out of order. Overall it’s an easy repair if you go slow and touch carefully. Once my phone was back together I powered it on and voila — it charged every time and synced immediately with my PC.
If your Galaxy has stopped charging, give this repair a try. It might save you a much costlier visit to your cell carrier or a repair shop.
Thanks for the video Steve. I have the similar problem with my phone. It does charge when I plug in the USB cable if my phone is turned off. However, if the phone not powered off, it will not be charged (even though the phone still think it is charging). When I connect the phone to a PC USB port, the PC will not see the device. Although the symptoms are slight different from what you describe, I think your procedure should fix my problem. What do you think? Regards, Bruce
Hmm. With Android phones I’ve had when you plug in a charger cable while it’s off it turns the phone back on as it charges. Does yours try to do that or does it stay off while charging?
Other than that, if the PC doesn’t communicate with it it does sound like there’s an issue with the USB port. Not sure why it being off would make a difference, but it being unable to do anything while the phone is on is troubling.
When charging while the phone is off, the green battery symbol comes on showing the percentage of the charge status. The phone remains turned off. I have since purchased a separate battery charger so that I can just swap them out when the battery is empty. But I would rather get it fix because sending files via Blue Tooth is a rather painful and slow process.
Yeah that’s probably a good idea. Hardware issues of that caliber are unpredictable. It’s possible that you’ll be able to use the phone for quite awhile using your workaround with no further issues, but it’s also possible that this hardware malfunction will lead to other issues if not resolved.
On my phone the lack of charging quickly became the whole screen going green randomly and staying that way for random amounts of time. Fortunately I’d already ordered the replacement part when this started happening to me.
Hi Brian,
I have performed the replacement of the USB port per your video. However, I am still unable to sync the phone to my PC. I don’t think it is charging when the phone is on because the red light did not come on. If it is not the USB, what do you think it can be? Do you have any suggestion of what I should do next?
Regards,
Bruce