Been toying with your Galaxy S3 for quite some time? Chances are it has had its fair amount of 'hard work' since you first unboxed this flagship smartphone from Samsung. All the intensive surfing and game playing on any device, according to Android experts, fill up its cache.

Eventually, this bloated data unnecessarily residing on your S3 will leave the handset prone to slow downs and errors and one sure-fire way of clearing them up is opting for 'hard reset' or factory reset.

Gadget experts love to call this procedure as 'spring cleaning', which practically pushes your phone back in a state when it was first rolled out of the production line. Everything inside the device is shining new. In effect, S3 owners will be getting a new phone, issue-free on the side, without forking out a dollar.

Hard resetting is relatively easy but bear in mind that submitting the Galaxy S3 through the process will erase everything in it. The months you spent filling it up with apps, data plus personalised settings will be completely wiped out.

If you wish to retain some of these, the prudent thing to do is back up first. This too is made easier thanks to the hardwork of XDA Developers, the folks responsible for the Galaxy S3 Toolkit, which GeniusGeeks.com described as "a comprehensive all-in-one tool that can handle almost any task."

For detailed explanation of the Toolkit's benefits and instructions on its functions, head out to this link: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1703488.

Once you're done saving all the things you want to resurrect after the rebirth of your S3, check first that you have a fully-charged battery before proceeding to the main task. Note that you have three ways to go about it.

The first technique is triggered by pulling up the dial keys of your S3 and punching this combination: *2767*3855#. The phone will restart, which signals that the hard reset process has started. Expect cycle of reboots to follow but the most part, you just wait out and allow the task to complete itself.

The second method is by going through the S3's main menu. Tap the Settings on your phone then pull up the Back Up and Reset window. Then proceed to the Factory Data Reset and press Reset Device. Same as above, patiently wait out for the process to reach its final phase.

And the last option is commenced by powering down your Galaxy S3. Once the handset is completely turned off, activate the hard reset process by pressing down these buttons simultaneously: Volume Up + Home + Power.

After some moments of holding down the buttons, the S3 should bring up the native Recovery Mode menu on the screen. From the command options, choose 'wipe data/ factory reset' then confirm the instruction by clicking yes.

Android will then remove the phone's data and nudge it back to its original factory setting. To wrap up the process, reboot the S3 when prompted.

By the end of the whole procedure, you'll have your old Galaxy S3 but refreshed, snappier and error-free this time.