Chosen Solution

Hi everyone, a friend has given me a Galaxy S3 saying it’s not working.

  1. I tried to boot it and I get a “white rain” effect. I have seen some people on the internet have this problem too, and it’s because of the EMMC chip.

  2. When I boot it in download mode I get the screen you can see in the image.

What is the better option? Should I sell it (the phone is in excellent conditions) or replace the motherboard (the cost looks high on eBay)? Do you know anyone who could repair the EMMC chip for cheap?

Dear uchika96 , Before touch the hardware you need clear understand that the fault can’t be fixed on software level. Try to flash using Odin tool : fallow the instructions if the firmware flashing gets failed try again to flash it as you mentioned snow rain effect comes due to fault of EMMC, if you have sound BGA reworking skills you can replace the chip Here you can buy item if required. i did EMMC replacement on 2014 December and phone still works fine. so many professional volunteers here will help you to fix your phone. let us know the result

The screen is all you need, the logic board isn’t worth much these days. In the UK I can pick these up for £15-£20 in my area. You can remove the eMMC and use an SD card as a replacement.

I think replacing hardwares would be your last option. Try fixing that by flashing in odin or sp flash tool before touching the hardwares.

I will replace emmc https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?s…

The root cause is a faulty firmware in the Samsung GT-I9300 eMMC chip (VTU00M) used in the first products, The solution is to update the eMMC firmware, I just did got the same problem and the solution works 100% Here is the explanation of the problem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OY7OlY0O… Hare is the step by step guide and the needed files to fix it: https://theandroid02.github.io/i9300-EMM… The only thing you need after is a valid EFS partion backup to be restored to the phone, for example via the TWRP > terminal > dd command if you have a valid dd backup copy of your original EFS partion.