The Samsung Galaxy J5 is a step down from the top of the range in the J series. You can tweak your hardware so that your CPU is clocked in a way that it can rival the top end device. Playing with the CPU should only be done by advanced Android users because you can easily clock it too much and fry the hardware. That’s not fair to you or the next person who buys your smartphone from eBay once you decide to sell it.
There are many applications out there that can help you overclock your Android operating system on the Samsung Galaxy J5 smartphone. Some of our favorites that we would suggest checking out include the No Frill CPU Control app, Android Overclock, CPU Control, CPU Clock / Hotplug, and the Kernel Tweaker (required root).
The most popular of the bunch of probably the No Frills version which is ironic considering we usually shy away from anything no frills. No frills usually refer to something that is of a lesser quality.
The firmware build number that the rooting method in this guide is based on is the LMY48B.J500YXXU1AOI2 firmware. It does not mean you need to be running that same firmware on your smartphone according to the rooting tool developer, Chainfire. He gives us that information so we can use it as an indicator only.
Files You Need
- Download the new CF-Auto-Root file for the SM-J500Y smartphone running Android 5.1.1 from here. Also, download the Samsung USB Drivers from here.
- You must have a Windows computer to use this guide. The CF-Auto-Root can only be flashed by using the Odin flashing application, and the Odin app is only available for Windows.
- You are about to void the Samsung warranty when you choose to root the Galaxy J5 smartphone. You can get the warranty working again, but you’ll need to unroot by flashing the stock ROM. You can download the stock ROMs free — usually from the Sam Mobile website — but the download speed is purposefully extremely slow. The reason they do that is to entice you into paying a subscription fee for the faster download. That’s a little heads up for what you are in for when you want to flash the stock ROM to get the warranty working again.
Rooting the Samsung Galaxy J5 SM-J500Y smartphone running the Android 5.1.1 Lollipop update
- Enable the USB Debugging Mode on the Samsung Galaxy J5 smartphone so you can use the USB cable to connect your device to the computer.
- Extract the Chainfire CF-Auto-Root file to the desktop of the computer so you can use the rooting and Odin files.
- Download and install the Samsung USB Drivers for mobile phones from the files section above and have them running on your computer before you continue with the next step.
- Double-click on the Odin flashing app from the desktop of the computer.
- Do not make any changes to the default settings you get from the app user interface.
- Turn off the Samsung Galaxy J5 smartphone and then reboot it to download mode by pressing the hardware button combination for that mode.
- Connect the Galaxy J5 smartphone to the computer with the USB cable.
- Check that you can see the blue or yellow ID: COM port from your Odin user-interface.
- Click the AP button from the Odin user interface and browse the desktop for the J5’s tar.md5 file.
- Click the Start button and the rooting will begin.
- Wait until you can see the smartphone display say that it is installing the SuperSU, cleaning up the cache partition and then reflashing the stock recovery.
- Wait until the Odin flashing app user interface on the computer shows a green box with a pass message inside before unplugging your device from the computer.
In conclusion, that’s how to root the Samsung Galaxy J5 SM-J500Y device running the Android 5.1.1 Lollipop software update. The smartphone will now reboot all by itself, and you will find the SuperSU app available from your list of applications. Open the Google Play Store and download the root checker app to make sure everything went as planned.
Furthermore, anyone who is finishing the root checker app saying that the device is not rooted might be suffering from a smartphone that did not get into recovery mode after the flashing. Try flashing the file again and booting to recovery mode manually by using the hardware key combination and it should mean your device is now rooted.
Moreover, anyone with the Samsung Galaxy J5 smartphone which is still not finding it rooted can try installing one of the other versions of the Odin flashing application and seeing if that fixes the problem. There are reports of some versions of the Odin app working for some devices while it won’t work for others. Try a few versions of Odin and one will eventually work.