ZenFone 9 randomly restarts

[HelpingHand]

Hi all,
I bought an Asus ZenFone 9 from the UK online store. I started to migrate the apps from my old phone to the zf9 and once I finished I started to use my new ZenFone 9 as my main phone. However, I noticed around 3 dso that when i wentato unplug a fter charging the phone it looked as if it has been restarted. I thought it was a software update that somehow just did that so I didn't pay attention but then it repeated again and again every day since.

I started paying attention to it and started trying to disable certain features to see if that made a difference: disabled mobile data, left everything on and now I'm on airplane mode with WiFi on.

I upgraded to the latest version that was pushed some days ago hoping that it would magically solve the issue but... it didn't!

I quick Google Search revealed that sadly this issue is not that uncommon, and has already happened in the UK and Germany to other ZenFone 9 owners.

Is this a hardware problem? Is there a fix or a patch other than simply perform a factory reset and keep seeing the same issue? Can please someone from Asus look into this issue?
Plehank youase tell us some basic information before asking for help:
Model Name: ZenFone 9
Firmware Version: WW_32.2040.2040.23
Rooted or not: no
Frequency of Occurrence: every day
APP Name & APP Version (If your issue relates to the app): not related to an app
In addition to information above, please also provide as much details as you can, e.g., using scenario, what troubleshooting you've already done, screenshot, etc.
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Scenario: use the phone as usual, leave the phone idle a few times a day, at some point, when you try to use the phone after it sat idle for some time you'll notice that it had restarted because you'll be asked to enter your password again and about/ status will show an up time of just a few minutes

[HelpingHand]

frafa

Hi guys.

The new ZF9 arrived and i've just configured it. Updated to last firmwere and really few app istalled.

I'll let you all know.

P.S.

1st thing I notice, a clearer audio in phonecall (phone on the ear)- the previous had a terrible metallic sound.

View post

Thanks again for the update. Does the difference or the metallic sound apply to regular phone calls or calls via apps (Skype, Teams, Hangouts, WhatsApp, telegram..etc)?

[De_Funes]

Lots of new information in this discussion for today. I originally wanted to respond to this post by @HelpingHand and develop a discussion with him about what else can be tried. By the way, thank you very much for the detailed description of your attempts with factory reset of the phone. I see that the path does not lead here, so you have saved me quite a bit of time. I have some more ideas towards changing the phone settings that are valid after a factory reset... I have some more ideas towards the settings that are enabled only after inserting the SIM card (such as disable VoLTE, 5G, automatic 5G, automatic LTE operator aggregation or preferred network type [2G, 3G, 4G, 5G]). In short, I would rather believe that the device has a software problem when operating on 5G or VoLTE than that it is a HW bug on the motherboard.
But this post is kind of taking my breath away from being a beta tester and I'll just wait a month or two to see where things go. By the way, the path to this discussion forum is directly from phone settings -> support -> ZenTalk -> ZenFone 9. Right next to that is the Release Notes section -> ZenFone 9. I guess we still live in a normal world and if ASUS was aware hardware errors exactly as the post quoted above claims and he would normally fix this hardware error (by the way I couldn't find the post anywhere online), then I assume that he won't let us test everything possible and impossible in the official forum and will instead put an announcement in the Release Notes section about detected HW error, symptoms and solution method (repair, phone replacement, etc.). The moderators of the forum would surely be informed about the matter and direct us to this announcement.
Maybe I'm naive - I know, but since none of what I'm writing about is happening, then I still believe that this is a bug for which ASUS currently does not know the solution. This could be a hardware error as well as a software error that can be fixed by some future update.
De Funes

[frafa]

HelpingHand

https://zentalk.asus.com/en/discussion/comment/236427#Comment_236427

Thanks again for the update. Does the difference or the metallic sound apply to regular phone calls or calls via apps (Skype, Teams, Hangouts, WhatsApp, telegram..etc)?

View post

Regular phone call...
Some little puzzle pieces to HW + SIM problem??

[HelpingHand]

De Funes

Lots of new information in this discussion for today. I originally wanted to respond to this post by @HelpingHand and develop a discussion with him about what else can be tried. By the way, thank you very much for the detailed description of your attempts with factory reset of the phone. I see that the path does not lead here, so you have saved me quite a bit of time. I have some more ideas towards changing the phone settings that are valid after a factory reset... I have some more ideas towards the settings that are enabled only after inserting the SIM card (such as disable VoLTE, 5G, automatic 5G, automatic LTE operator aggregation or preferred network type [2G, 3G, 4G, 5G]). In short, I would rather believe that the device has a software problem when operating on 5G or VoLTE than that it is a HW bug on the motherboard.

But this post is kind of taking my breath away from being a beta tester and I'll just wait a month or two to see where things go. By the way, the path to this discussion forum is directly from phone settings -> support -> ZenTalk -> ZenFone 9. Right next to that is the Release Notes section -> ZenFone 9. I guess we still live in a normal world and if ASUS was aware hardware errors exactly as the post quoted above claims and he would normally fix this hardware error (by the way I couldn't find the post anywhere online), then I assume that he won't let us test everything possible and impossible in the official forum and will instead put an announcement in the Release Notes section about detected HW error, symptoms and solution method (repair, phone replacement, etc.). The moderators of the forum would surely be informed about the matter and direct us to this announcement.

Maybe I'm naive - I know, but since none of what I'm writing about is happening, then I still believe that this is a bug for which ASUS currently does not know the solution. This could be a hardware error as well as a software error that can be fixed by some future update.

De Funes

View post

Hi @De Funes Thanks again for your contribution. I agree with you. I think Asus doesn't know. Possibly, they just need to take all the phones with issue and test themselves.
I also agree with the fact that it could be SW or HW and we don't know. However, I have almost discarded the idea of this being a software issue because if that was the case this issue would be spread across more owners and not just a handful of them. Taking, for example, the case of Pawel who mentioned having exactly the same specs as others yet he doesn't see any issue. This is the same situation reported by other people in other forums. If this was a software problem, shouldn't all the users with a certain kind of phone be experiencing the same? shouldn't we see plenty of users with the same issue?
If we think of this as being a HW issue then it could easily explain that a small subset of phones are presenting the random reboot issue.
It could be the case that software can make things work if the HW is not behaving as expected but then it is still a HW problem solved via SW. Something interesting I read is that apart from using airplane mode to prevent the issue, keeping the phone "awake" also prevents the issue from happening for some people but then, why do we have to go through all this?, keeping the phone awake wouldn't contribute to deteriorate the battery life?
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@frafa I'm inclined to say that it is HW for the reasons mentioned above and in previous posts. I'm really looking forward to see how your new phone behaves. Then, you'll have proof that having the same phone/specs and installing the same apps by the same person have a different outcome.

[Dranivil]

@HelpingHand I've really only had 3 reboots in 1 month. The first 2 reboots had 4 or 5 days between them. I think in my case it may be software. I'm doing tests... But it will take me at least 2 weeks.