Captivate Power/Sleep button not working

[crystal4679]

I have had ALOT of issues with my Captivate, but at the end of the day, i LOVE it. BUT.. now my power/sleep button isnt working. When the phone goes to sleep, I have to either plug it into the charger or pull the battery in order to use it, which makes it almost useless to use. When this first started, it was almost like the button was stuck because it kept going to the power down screen without touching the phone. Of course my warranty expired about a month ago, so a replacement is out of the question. I have done a factory restore, and it helped for a few hours, then back to the issue. Has anyone else had this issue or any suggestions? 

[Wild Banchi ACE - Professor]

I'm sorry to hear that such a vital function of your phone is not working.

Your only option might be just to purchase another phone at your own expense because your warranty already expired. Unless someone else has an upgrade you can use on your account if you're on a family plan...

[tcourtney]

I have the same problem 8 (... Did you find a way to get your phone working again?

[morajoel7 · Accepted solution]

Since it's a hardware issue, I wasn't able to get it going again, although I was able to find a way around it.

First, I installed an app called "no lock", which allows me to wake up the phone utilizing my volume buttons. To put it to sleep, I found two options... the easiest being an widget called "screen off". And the second involves an app only available after rooting, called "virtual button bar", basically, you can access a power button from a fly out menu that is available from any screen or app. The former requires you to always go back to the screen you have it on to click and turn the screen off.

Ideally, I would love to get the button fixed, but this will do for now.

[Max69 ACE - Wizard]

My son's Captivate had the same problem. I took the phone apart and cleaned the power button with alcohol, now it works perfectly.

[Wild Banchi ACE - Professor]

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Max69 wrote:

My son's Captivate had the same problem. I took the phone apart and cleaned the power button with alcohol, now it works perfectly.

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It must have been jammed or stuck somehow, huh?

[crystal4679]

How exactly did you take it apart? I might try that

[candaceamelia]

morajoel7:

Thank you SOOOO much. I tried taking it apart and cleaning and all but that just was going nowhere fast...I found your simple bypass method am kind of eternally grateful. YOU ROCK!

-Candace 

[josempj]

Unfortunatelly as you said the best thing will be to fix the button however I didn't find a solution for it, therefore  I choose to made a combination of the Screen Off app, to turn off the screen and the No lock app, to turn it on by using the volume up key.

[Jenlynn81]

I am having the same problem and my phone is out if warranty. I could file it under insurance for $125 or send it to Samsung to be fixed for approx $70. And frankly I don't want to do either.

And to the person that took the phone apart to clean the power button.. Are you saying you took the screws out and litterally took the phone apart?

[Max69 ACE - Wizard]

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Jenlynn81 wrote:
I am having the same problem and my phone is out if warranty. I could file it under insurance for $125 or send it to Samsung to be fixed for approx $70. And frankly I don't want to do either.

And to the person that took the phone apart to clean the power button.. Are you saying you took the screws out and litterally took the phone apart?

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Yes, I took the entire phone apart. The power button is a micro switch on a circuit board, which I removed and flushed with rubbing alcohol to clean it.

You can find instructions for taking the phone apart on Youtube, but you'll need a T5 and a T6 screwdriver, and possibly a prying tool.