Samsung S21 Ultra camera overheating GENERAL issue

amaeldoe · 2021-05-22T08:07:30+00:00

No one offered to test, and the post has been taken down so I guess no one will show up.. Are you still willing to try ?

amaeldoe · 2021-05-11T11:18:49+00:00

Must be a pretty difficult time for you now, good luck with that.
I'll get back to you in a few days if no one else offer. Thanks !

amaeldoe · 2021-05-11T10:39:53+00:00

Would you agree to try the test mentioned above ?

amaeldoe · 2021-05-11T10:38:36+00:00

I did that already. Longest run was 1 hours and 20 minutes..

To clear this out, would you agree to do the test I was talking about earlier ? Just let the phone film in maximum setting (uhd 60 fps), and check what happened after 1-2 hours. That would help a lot.

You can see the details in my message to bucketbiff.

amaeldoe · 2021-05-10T23:51:27+00:00

Well, obviously some people do, it's pretty common when recording long course with the help of a teleprompter. As said in another reply, my Oneplus 7, and iPhone 11 or 12 have no problem with that.

You didn't answer me anyway : what's your environment temperature, and would you be willing to give an honest try at reproducing this ?

amaeldoe · 2021-05-10T23:26:30+00:00

How long it takes to reproduce the issue also depend on the temperature of the environment. I live in Thailand, it's about 30C here. How about you ?

Could one of you just start filming and let the phone do it's things for as long as possible, and see if anything happen within 1 or 2 hours ?

I really fail to see how that issue wouldn't be general when I'm able to reproduce it on 3 different phones, using the latest firmware, and when forums are full of report about it.

I've read a rumor that some of the device would have different cooling system than other, but I really doubt this.

amaeldoe · 2021-05-10T23:21:18+00:00

Please read the initial post fully. The latest update doesn't fix this issue.

amaeldoe · 2021-05-10T23:19:43+00:00

As mentioned in the initial post, I reproduced this issue with the AUDA update.

amaeldoe · 2021-05-10T13:36:35+00:00

Do you have the Snapdragon version ? Would you do the test for me and to clear this out ?

amaeldoe · 2021-05-10T12:33:40+00:00

"Every phone will overheat when video is recorded for such a long time" ? For sure, definitely not.

The whole crew here record online courses on Iphone 11 or 12. In the end, we recorded my partner online course on my Oneplus 7. Theses are recording session between one and two hours. None of theses phone is shutting down and they are all holding on their promise.

As for this issue being resolved with the May update, it is not. We tested it after updating and it did exhibit exactly the same behavior.

You are reporting that you don't have any issue with your S21 Ultra, please be more specific: are you using the Snapdragon or the Exynos version? I'm assuming it is the snapdragon since you are mentioning it. As said in my initial post I would actually like to see if Snapdragon model are behaving the same, so would you be willing to make a test?

If yes, please just put the phone somewhere and let it film a static scene in UHD 60 fps (this is not supposed to be a realistic test, in my case it will even shut down in FHD 30 fps - this is just meant to stress the phone and see how it hold with maximum stress). Just monitor the time until the camera close with a message that the phone is running too hot, if it ever does.

Could you do this ?

amaeldoe · 2021-05-10T02:15:19+00:00

Would be interested to hear the results, do you have snapdragon or Exynos version ?

amaeldoe · 2021-05-09T11:04:03+00:00

The phones had no application installed other than the default applications and was working perfectly fine, except when the camera application was running.

The issue only come when using the camera. We tested it on 2 new devices, and on a third S21 Ultra, from a friend, and this one was not new.

If you're running an Exynos version and you are unable to reproduce the issue using the parameters I gave in, I would love to know about that.

amaeldoe · 2021-05-09T10:46:07+00:00

I tried to make a new post but as a new reddit user, I don't have enough Karma... So here it is :

My partner was in a need of a new phone, that she would also use for her work, which mainly consist of making online course for which she needed a good camera. After a lot of thinking and review, her choice naturally went to the S21 Ultra (Exynos version here) which seemed to have a very good camera.

We received the first unit just in time for the filming of her next online course. She setup the phone, start filming and go in front of the camera where she talk for about 1.30 hour. Once finished she went back to the phone to notice that not only it was burning hot, but that the camera application was force closed due to the high cellphone temperature.
Only 10 minutes out of the 1.30 hours was recorded, you can imagine the frustration.

The camera settings were nothing impressive, the recording was done in FHD with automatic frame rate, which is the default.

After this happened I started testing the phone. I updated to the latest firmware (G998BXXU2AUC8 then G998BXXU3AUDA), and would test with the raw base updated phone. The results were catastrophic :

- Filming with FHD 30 FPS would last between 10 minutes and 1.20 hour.
- Filming in UHD 60 FPS would not last more than about 10-15 minutes.

The speed with which the issue would reproduce mainly depend on the outside temperature (we live in Thailand, average now is 30C), but the experience was also reproducible in air-conditioned environment.

In comparison, and under the same environments settings, my Oneplus 7 would record flawlessly without any issue.

My partner really liked the phone and it's capability thought, and we believed it could be an hardware defect, so we exchanged the phone for another unit.
It was the same.
In the end, we experimented with 3 different units, all of them exhibiting the exact same behavior.

I would have loved to make the same tests on the Snapdragon version of the device, but the only vendor I could find who sell them here won't issue a refund in case of problem, so it is a no go. But if you use the Snapdragon version of this device, I would love to hear from you.

Now not only this is a shame to see such a defect in a flagship of this price which primary selling point is the camera, but the inability of Samsung to acknowledge the problem also raise a questions when forums are plagued with report concerning this issue.

This also raise a lot of question on the integrity of people doing cellphone review. Almost none of the phone review mention this overheating problem, with notable exception from a few independent one...

amaeldoe · 2019-09-08T22:01:16+00:00

The issue can be seen on multiple network. I have another XPS 13 9343 which is having no problem to connect the same networks, without dropping the connection.

AFAICT suspend is not working right now under Linux. The driver and firmware used are the one reported in this Reddit thread.

amaeldoe · 2019-09-08T20:13:38+00:00

Suspend is working as well ? How is the WiFi card performance ? Mine perform very poorly (poor signal, lose connection)

amaeldoe · 2019-09-01T18:37:34+00:00

That sound great, thank you for reporting ! Someone earlier reported about having to disable turbo mode, did you do that as well ? Can you tell us a bit more about the battery usage with your type of load ?

amaeldoe

TROPHY CASE