My wife and I each purchased a Galaxy Nexus from the Google Play store last July. Recently, my wife's phone started only charging sporadically when connected to a charger. The symptoms don't line up exactly with any other situation I've found described online, so please bear with me while I type out a full report.
I tried removing the battery and using a precision screwdriver to "nudge" the micro USB port "tongue" toward the screen. I thought it had fixed the problem as the phone started charging immediately after I plugged it back in, but when I checked it ~30 minutes later, it had stopped charging.
I tried taking the battery out of my GNex and putting it in my wife's phone; I put my wife's battery in my phone. That seemed to fix the problem, though, again, it was only temporary. I was able to get both batteries to charge to ~80%, then swapped them back. Again, my wife's phone charged the battery, but only for a short while. I swapped batteries twice more to rule out a bad battery; the same symptoms persisted, so I can confirm the battery is not the culprit.
I tried cleaning the micro USB port by removing the battery and using a needle and 91% isopropyl alcohol to clear any dirt or dust from the contacts. I waited for the alcohol to evaporate, reinstalled the battery, and plugged the phone back in to the charger. Same result as before: Phone charged for a little while, but stopped charging before reaching full charge.
We tried 4 different USB chargers: The charger that came with my wife's GNex, the charger that came with my GNex, the charger that came with the Droid RAZR MAXX that I use for work, and the charger that came with my wife's Verizon Jetpack. Same results on all chargers.
Now for some oddities:
The "charge for a while, but stops charging after a while" persists whether the phone is on or off. I turned off my wife's phone at bedtime one night, plugged it into the charger, confirmed that the charging icons appeared (a lightning bolt, then an animated charge meter). When I woke up, the phone was still turned off but only had 13% charge.
Whenever I plug the phone in to my Windows 7 laptop, I'm able to access the file system every time (100% of the 4-5 times I tried). The Battery settings page will say "Not Charging," but I can view and modify files using Windows Explorer without issue.
And now, for a note from my wife:
Unless my memory fails me, I think this was one morning when the charger felt warm on the adapter where it plugs in. Pretty sure this was the day I took the charger with me to work. I had the phone turned off and plugged it in and later turned it on to check the charge and it had been charging. I left it on and it continued to charge. I had to unplug it on three separate occasions and I plugged it back in and it did ultimately charge fully. But when unplugged, the battery did drain quickly, and I had not previously had a battery life issue.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The phone will sometimes get warm--not hot, but warm--around the area under the camera when charging. (I'm guessing it's near where the battery makes contact with the phone.) The charger itself will also get warm sometimes.
Sometimes, even though the Battery section of Settings will say "Not charging," the battery would charge very, very slowly (as in, an increase of 1% charge over the course of 15-45 minutes). When plugged in, the battery would sometimes hold charge (e.g. stays level at ~45%) but not charge or discharge.
When I called Samsung support, I waited less than a minute to talk with a person, explained the situation and symptoms, and was told, yes, the phone is out of warranty (by two months, which I admit is aggravating), but I could send it in for repairs for a total charge of $70.63. That includes shipping both ways. Total repair time would be 5-7 business days. Add 2 days for shipping each way and my wife would be without a phone for 9-11 business days if we were to send it in. It's good to know that the repair are (in my opinion) reasonable because I was hoping to hold on to my phone for at least 2 years before upgrading (and I'd prefer to wait at least 3 years).
I've since got an old iPhone 3GS working on Straight Talk (which was its own ordeal) so my wife has something she can use if and when we send in the phone for repairs. (Side note: My wife really misses Swype.) She plans on backing up her data tonight so I can wipe and reload her GNex and attempt to rule out software and OS as the root cause.
In advance of wiping and reloading my wife's GNex, I had a few questions:
Do you agree with my hunch that the root cause of this issue is hardware, not software? I'd love to be wrong, but all evidence points to a hardware fault.
What ROM do you all recommend for thorough testing in this situation should I encounter the same problems with a clean Android 4.3 stock install?
Are there any other possible fixes you all could recommend before I drop 70 bucks on repairs and my phone has to tolerate the iOS on-screen keyboard for 2 more weeks?
I've had this problem once, I even changed ROMs and it never went away. I changed my charger and it still did the same thing. I don't know what fixed it, but it just started working normally again.
What caused was that I was using it and my device got really hot because I was downloading things, browsing on the internet and playing games on it all while I was charging it. My phone got really hot and a little "CLICK" sounded off and my phone just shut off. It wouldn't turn on until I removed the battery. Cooled it and charged the battery overnight. Although my phone was working now my charger was crazy.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 4
Related
Today was the first time I let my phone's battery drain down to nothing and it died completely while i was on a phone call. But when it died, the screen went black as it should, but it refused to charge. The light didnt come on and it wouldnt power on. I had to pull the battery and then it booted to a 'critically low battery' notification on the screen. Has anyone experienced this kind of freezing when the battery is just on the verge of dying?
I don't have this specific issue, but definitely power draining problems on my Focus. I let it charge overnight - 10+ hours plugged in. That should be more than enough for a nice, full charge. Well it's been unplugged from the charger for a little over 3 hours now and it's already down 30%. All I did was listen to 4 songs on the Zune on the way to the office this morning.
Same thing happened yesterday. So two days in a row isn't looking good. By early afternoon yesterday it was almost drained.
I haven't even made any phone calls with this yet! I can only imagine what a handful of 30 minute phone calls would do.
hmm... faulty battery/phone? maybe take it back to the store and ask for an exchange?
Is there any way to calibrate the battery? Such as completely drain it, fully charge it then look around the settings menu for a way to delete any kind of battery stats file?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App
I was thinking the same thing, about exchanging it. I'm going to give it more time and really put it through some paces to verify. I've got until the end of November to exchange it.
This was all without any Wifi on too
I've noticed my LG-C900 also seems like a battery hog, and takes forever to charge. The Samsung SGH-i917 is a little better, but both of them have a tendency to run out of battery quickly if I forget to charge them overnight. It's a little worrisome to me.
I don't measure smartphone battery length systematically, but my Motorola Droid seems to do a lot better, and my HTC G1 has gone all week without being charged (although the graphics aren't nearly as good, the processor doesn't have to work as hard even to change menus).
On the other hand, the advantage is in both of those phones, it is much easier to change batteries, making it possible to carry an extra battery and switch halfway through the day, something you could never do with an iphone.
The Gate Keeper said:
hmm... faulty battery/phone? maybe take it back to the store and ask for an exchange?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That would probably be a good idea.
you could look at the wifi status , turn it off when you don't need it .
wifi is "on" as default , if I don't turn it off my batt is dying really quick .
I didn't look at it but maybe you can also turn off the GPS .
The first Focus I got shipped from AT&T refused to take a charge. You could plug it in and the icon would change to a plug, but it wouldn't charge up at all. I replaced it at a store and the new one is perfect. Charges quickly and lasts much longer than my old Fuze. I don't know if it was the phone or the battery, but I'd just get a replacement.
For some reason my HD7 won't charge from PC USB ports-- it's been "critically low" in the morning the two times I left it plugged into a PC overnight (orange light on, but apparently not charging quickly enough).
The ports work fine charging my HD2 and iPhones-- apparently not with the HD7 though. Only dedicated AC adapters feeding a full 1A have worked so far-- not hugely inconvenient, but kind of odd.
my G1 and HD2 would exibit this behavior when on my car's USB port when the charge was low enough, and the last system update that came down for the G1 would just slow the drain when attached to my car.
The first trip with the HD7 in the car > home, it died on the car's USB port, very slowly. After its first full charge it does accept a charge from the car. I think it may have issues once it gets low enough just like the HD2. I think it may be the output, I don't remember how much power Honda supplies at the USB port, but obviously not enough for all devices. All my ports on my laptop, desktop and WHS, except the front ports on the WHS and the desktop, charge these 3 devices handily, the front ports on the home server and the desktop must only provide minimal power, I've had USB sticks complain and drop speed on these.
I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask this, please excuse my ignorant.
I have an EVO that won't charge. I've read a lot from Google search results that this is a common problem among many users. However, the port seems to be working, because my computer will recognize the phone and storage when I plug it in. The charge led will come on, and the indicator on the phone will say that it's charging, but the phone is actually only discharging while plugged in. Eventually the led will turn itself off, and the phone stops telling me that it's charging when the battery is down to its last drop.
I hope that someone with similar problem can help me with fixing this, or if anyone cause tell me if it's possible to fix? I want to send it in to HTC since I think the phone is under warranty, even if I don't have the protection plan from Sprint? The problem is the touch glass is cracks, and I don't know if they'll fix the USB port without saying that I broke it and won't cover that under the warranty. I want to buy a new screen and replace the broken one, but if I open up the phone it would void the warranty as well...
So I'm stuck with a discharging phone, cracked screen, and having to carry around 3 separate batteries everyday, and I have no idea what step I need to take.
Please help?
Have you tried plugging it into another charger? It may just be the charger that is screwed up. If this behavior pattern is consistent across multiple chargers then you may want to talk to Sprint to see what options you have.
Concordium said:
Have you tried plugging it into another charger? It may just be the charger that is screwed up. If this behavior pattern is consistent across multiple chargers then you may want to talk to Sprint to see what options you have.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Doubt it's the charger as it was stated that the computer connection works - should get a bit of a charge from that. I agree that a Sprint visit is due.
Just went through this myself! Would plug my phone in before bed and wake up with the phone at 2% or so. Thought it was the battery- so i took my battery to have the sprint store check it, they did say it was bad. So i bought 2 batteries off ebay.
I got the batteries and still had the issue. So then I took my phone to the sprint store and had them check the micro-usb port. They said it was fine and they cleaned it out cause dirt/dust was in it. Still had the problem..
So I bought a new micro-usb cable of monoprice (still using the same wall charger) , and that solved the issue! Had a bad cable. Now my phone charges super quickly in matter of 4hrs.
It could still be the charger. The USB cable sends data and power through different pins. So a bad cable could still transfer data while not pushing a charge.
Sent from my PC36100
It's gotta be the port happen to mine and I was able to get it fix as long as the port was still attached to the motherboard, if its not attached then have to go thru the insurance.
EVO with Identity Crisis
I was able to connect to my computer and send data just fine with the old (broken) usb cable.
I've tried three different cable and a car charger, same result; they all say the phone is charging but it only gets discharged. USB/storage connection works. Last time the Sprint store said the battery is faulty, but I have 3 different ones and neither will get charged with the phone plugged in, an external charger will work.
kzn said:
I've tried three different cable and a car charger, same result; they all say the phone is charging but it only gets discharged. USB/storage connection works. Last time the Sprint store said the battery is faulty, but I have 3 different ones and neither will get charged with the phone plugged in, an external charger will work.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Definitely sounds like a port issue then. If you return to Sprint and review what you've done, as well as the result of your previous trip, then they should be able to take care of you. If they try to tell you it's the battery again just stand your ground. Good luck.
I had a similar issue. I tried everything. It wasn't until I found my HTC cable that it started charging again. I work in IT and tried cables from everything I could get my hands on (blackberries, external drives etc. ) The cable that came with my phone was the only thing that worked.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App
Had same issue except couldnt sync. Eventually couldnt charge at all...Had port replaced ans can charge all day but no sync still....sucks but at least I can charge.
mexigga said:
Had same issue except couldnt sync. Eventually couldnt charge at all...Had port replaced ans can charge all day but no sync still....sucks but at least I can charge.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you replaced the port yourself, I would love to know how to do it!
Took the phone back to Sprint and they said there's nothing they can do. I don't have the protection plan so I couldn't even pay the $100 to get it replaced (although I probably wouldn't as I can upgrade my contract and get a new phone soon). They also told me that HTC wouldn't cover it under their warranty because the screen is cracked and they will blame that on me for misused. I tried to check the warranty policy on HTC, but the page is not even available. Does anyone have experience dealing with HTC? I bought a replacement screen, I'd like to replace the screen but don't want to open up the phone if there's a chance HTC will fix the USB port...
HTC EVO 4G Won't - Stopped Charging Battery Issue
Hey Guys,
Two nights ago I woke up to an EVO that was plugged in with a Cellet
extractable charging cord, as it is just about every night. But, the phone was
still showing that it was charging the battery, animation with lighting bolt,
at only 50% charged after about 6.5 hours of charging. Hmmm....
The latter after trying to charge in the coffee shop first with Cellet chord in the
wall then a portable 3500mah solar portable charger; the phone not seeming to
charge at or past 50% charged.
My EVO is rooted but still with the stock ROM and the gingerbread 2.3.3 OTA
update. The battery is a Seido 1750mah and SetCPU is at 245 - 998mhz. The
phone has only been rooted for a few weeks, but I don't see where rooting
would interfere with battery charging.
I've pulled the battery out, several times to no avail. Switched back to the
stock battery, same results. However, if the battery is less than 50% full
the phone will charge the battery to 25% or 50%, weird. If the battery is
at 75% or more full, the phone will top off the charge to a green LED at 100%,
sometimes. Sometimes it won't fully charge the battery. Weird.
I read different posts regarding poor USB chords so I pulled out the stock
micro USB to USB, a charge only chord I figured, and am trying to top
off the Seido battery, which it seems to be doing as it's now full green but
still charging as the animation shows the bolt in the battery and the LED
is still orange.
If put the batteries in the Seido wall charger, the thing the size of a deck
of cards, both batteries fully charge.
I also use Screen Off by Iwashi Soft. That app has worked pretty well with just
a little funkiness now and then. However, while plugged in, I hit the power
button, instead of the home button to turn on the home screen. The phone
wouldn't open to any screen nor would turn on or off. So I ended up
yanking the battery to turn it off then reinstalled battery and turned phone back
on. I don't know if that had any effect on the charging issue, but I took
the icon off the homescreen and am using the power button only, for now.
I don't think both batteries are faulty at the same time at this point. I
don't know if the screen off app caused some wake issue that interferes with
charging the battery.
I do know that when plugging in the phone to charge there's a bit of clunkiness
initially as the phone locks for a second before allowing use for screen or app
and that's always been the case since the gb update. Also, the LED doesn't
always turn green from amber when fully charged with the screen off until
you reboot or use the phone in some way while still plugged in. So there is
some kind of wake issue in the stock ROM. But the latter has never stopped
the battery from charging.
I do know that Plume, the twitter app, started acting clunky with not updating
in the background unless I opened the app at least once after a reboot. But
I don't know if the latter is a wake issue.
Battery still seems normal. Heavy normal use, lots of SMS, tweets, Pulse reading,
Dolphin browsing, I'll kill 50% or more of the battery in 4+ hours. Otherwise, the
phone mostly in standby with periodic email and twitter reads, the battery lasts
all day or more than 24 hours. But the latter rarely happens anymore because I'm
a user.
The battery just went full charge with the stock charging cable just now.
This morning, I woke up with a dead phone, auto shutoff even though it was
plugged in which I did after solitaire and before going to sleep; as a charging
test.
I don't know if it's the phone or the Cellet retractable cord or both that's
stopping the battery from fully charging normally and consistently. I'll need
to get another data-charge combo chord and do more testing; and a new ROM.
Any ideas anybody?
try a new rom and also try using the stock charger and usb cable. Check inside your usb port on your phone for dust as well. Also go into recovery and wipe your battery stats. In the wipe menu for amonRa and under advanced (maybe here, i dont use cwm on my phone) in clockworkmod. also wipe your dalvik-cache just to clear any issues you may have, restart and give it a test. good luck
I just bought a phone with a broken charger port. Broke clean off the board, so my next step is to try to get liquid solder and stick it to the board. Did you take ur phone apart to see if the port is lose?
So I used the stock USB charging chord. Sure enough, it charged the phone.
Then I tried the portable charger at the coffee shop, worked. So the Cellet retractable
chord obviously had a short or something damaged/shorted for the charging part of
the cable after a year + of use and abuse.
What I don't understand, and haven't researched, is why there are charge only
chords; the stock USB HTC chord charges the phone, but the PC won't recognize
the phone's Micro SD card or the phone as an external drive. I presume the duo use
chords have a data path as well as a charging path. And yes, I know to switch the
phone from charge only to disk drive. The Cellet chord would provide the PC with
recognition for the phone's drive.
Considering the latter, what I'm not sure of, and haven't researched, is why when
the phone stopped charging, the chord eventually stopped charging, the phone
status still showed it as charging; the amber LED light on and the battery icon
in charging animation with white bolt showing? I presume that the charging path
still triggered the charging status, except once when I turned the screen back
on the battery icon was not animated and the white bolt not showing so I unplugged
the chord then plugged it back in where the battery icon animation continued.
Fortunately, or not, this forum returned 600+ results for 'battery not charging' and after
sifting through a few, the charging chord was mentioned which prevented a Sprint trip
and me contacting Seido; thankfully.
So I think manufacturers and ROM/kernel developers should visit this issue as a chord
that actually is not charging, or charging at an absurdly low rate, should trigger some alert
and not show a battery icon animation that appears to be charging normally.
So up until now my battery has been charging really quickly, with ~1 hour to charge to full. Just last night, however, it suddenly started charging exceptionally slowly. Left it plugged into the Samsung wall charger at 41% and when I wake up 6 hours later it's only at 92%. I had noticed it charging slowly late yesterday as well.
I don't think the problem is with my ROM or any apps I'm running, because I get the same unsatisfactory results whether the phone is on or off before I plug it in.
The only thing I can think of is this: yesterday, when going to plug in the wall charger, I accidently plugged it in such that only one 'pin' was pushed into the slots (specifically, the left-hand slot). It was like that for about a minute before I realized I goofed. Could it be that that somehow messed up the battery/cable/charging mechanism? I've already tested against two different wall chargers, so that isn't the problem, but I haven't removed anything else.
Anybody have any idea what's going on, and possibly how to fix it? I'd rather not have to unroot and go to AT&T, but if I have to...
I'm new to XDA and likely know very little of what I'm talking about, so forgive me if I make a blunder.
I am currently on my second G4 since August of 2015. My first issue was one in the line of faulty devices, so once the front facing camera fritzed out, it was replaced.....with another device in the faulty range. Thankfully, I've only had this particular issue with the second device: charging. A few months ago, my phone stopped charging. Even when on the (factory-issued) charger, it was "discharging" when plugged in. For several days I was in a limbo of having it on the charger 24/7 and not using it whatsoever, all the while it was steadily dying. After doing everything I could find to do - taking out the sd card, deleting several apps, pictures, text threads, running several different virus scanners, clearing out all unnecessary files and everything else, it was still discharging. Then one morning I woke up and it had charged completely. From that day on, it charged fine, though not as quickly as it once did.
Within the next few days, I purchased a quick charger from Target. Couldn't tell you the brand - it was on a whim. It worked great. Charged my phone completely in about 1.5 hours, and I was still getting my usual 12-15 hours of use out of the phone per charge. Then, this past Sunday, despite my phone being on the charger all night, my phone was dead by morning and I had missed my alarm.
-The phone, when plugged in, recognizes that it's being charged. The battery icon reflects it, and the status via settings says "charging," with an estimated charge time.
-Around 40% or so, the phone stops progressing to be charged, and starts heading the other direction, dying eventually. The battery status via settings (and the icon) still indicates that it's being charged.
-The charger will charge my extra battery in its dock that I got with the G4 promotion. I am now keeping an extra battery charged at all times to replace when one dies, since the phone itself can't be charged. I hate to be removing my battery cover every single day though, as I don't want to wear it out/accidentally damage the NFC connectors.
*The issue: because I've experienced odd charging issues before that seemingly resolved themselves, I'm hesitant to rule that it's simply the charger, the phone charging port, or one of the batteries (the least likely of the three options.)
Has anybody anywhere ever had this issue? I've searched loads of forums and done plenty of Google searches, but have yet to find someone describe the problems I'm describing here.
I've been having all kinds of trouble getting my tablet to charge. It's acting really weird. Over the last couple of days, I will turn the tablet on and it will say 80% charged (after being plugged in all night). Then, with it still plugged in, it will drain down to 15% in about 30 minutes. Why would it drain so fast (if at all?) when it's plugged in? It's also been taking hours for it to charge once it hits that 15% and I don't use it.
At first, I discovered my charging cable was to blame. I'd plug it in, but the tablet wouldn't detect it was connected unless I pulled on the wires just right for them to make contact. Apparently there was a broken wire inside the plug of the cable. So I replaced it with a new cable. Everything seemed to be working good then, and was actually getting proper charges again. Now though, it doesn't seem to want to work.
I was using the tablet yesterday to check my email. It had been plugged in all day and not being used. It said it was at 100%. After about 10 minutes though, the tablet shut off saying "battery low". When I try to turn it back on, I get the battery indicator showing it's at 0%. So I left it plugged in the rest of the day and over night. I just went to turn it on about an hour ago, and it's still sitting at 0%!
I thought maybe the cable was bad again, so I found another charger and tried that. It does the same thing the other cable does.. It stays off until I plug in the cable. Then, as soon as it's in, the tablet "wakes up" and displays the battery indicator. Like, it detects a power source has been plugged in. But no matter what I do, and how long I keep it plugged in, it stays at 0%. I can force the tablet to turn on by holding the power button. It goes through the boot animation prior to loading the screen. Then, in about 5 seconds, it turns itself off again.
I don't think the battery is truly at 0%. If it were, how would it be able to boot up without even a cable plugged in? I really don't know what to do now. I've rooted it, so I can't send it in to Samsung for repair. I don't even think the warranty would still be good at this point anyway. The tablet is at least 3 years old (based on when I joined this site looking for root help). And I think it was 2-3 years older than that before I bought it. Is there anything I can do?
I can't wait anymore. So frustrating to own something that's worked great then all of a sudden decide to no want to even power on anymore. I've spent all day trying to get it to charge with other cables. I've tried chargers, I've tried just straight cables. Plugging into the wall, plugging into the computer, plugging into the USB port in the car. Nothing works. So I hopped over to Amazon to just order a new tablet. I can afford it, not big deal there. But then I saw a ribbon cable used to replace the USB port on the tablet. Maybe the port is bad? Lots of "highly recommended" reviews. I went ahead and ordered one. It was less than $7. If it doesn't work, I still have the money to go forward with buying a new tablet. If it does, money saved! I went ahead and bought the "customers also buy" kit, with a replacement battery (just in case it's not the port), and a set of tools. If the cable is all I need, I'll have a spare battery. If the battery is all I need, I'll have a spare ribbon. If it still doesn't work, I'll go back to my original plan.
Just kinda bummed this is where I have to go now. Why would it suddenly just stop altogether like that? Is it because I keep it plugged in 95% of the time? Should I keep it unplugged till it's drained then charge it and unplug it again right away? I used to have to do that with an old cell phone. This is my first tablet so I dunno. If I end up needing to replace the whole thing, it'd be nice to know from experienced users what the best way to do it is, and what, if anything, I can do to prevent it happening again.
I'd suspect the battery is kaput.
It's not a good idea to keep the battery on permanent charge, there's no need. Let it cycle normally.
Well, all told this was an educating experience. I got the battery first. It came about 40% charged. Once it was installed I used TWRP to create a system backup and downloaded it to my computer. Then I left it plugged in overnight. The next day it was down to 30%. So the "charging" indicator on the screen was just a bunch of lies. I got the replacement charging port a day later and installed it. I didn't do anything else with the tablet, just left it turned off and the charging cable plugged in. It said it was charging, but again, after about 12 hours of charging overnight, the following morning it was down to 18%. So I'm returning both the battery and the port. They may still be working fine, and the problem is elsewhere in the tablet. I accidentally broke the little metal connectors over the power button (it's a contact sensor, and the connectors sit on top and complete the circuit when the button is pressed) when I took the back off to replace the parts. I also cracked my screen, although I think it's just the protector I put on it. I'm not sure what else to try at this point. The tablet is essentially a paperweight now. I can turn it on and watch the battery slowly drain to 0%, but I'll never get any more use out of it. So I decided to do a system wipe prior to putting it away for some future project to try and rescue it. Now it's stuck with the "Teamwin" screen flashing at me. I give up. I looked at Amazon to see if I could just buy another one, but they don't have any "new" left. They're all refurbished or "slightly used" from 3rd parties. I looked at other tablets, and bought a new Samsung Galaxy Tab S5E. It looks like it has the best reviews and marks. The only issue would be the wifi, but it seems to be a hit or miss with people. Some people say it's a problem, others say they don't even have a problem. So.. <shrug> I'll see how it works for me.