Database Users

battery life concerns on wizard

I've had an o2 mini s for about a week now and i'm pleased with it on the whole. My only real concern is battery life. My mini seems to drain much quicker than by xda 2 s which I had before. I seem to drop about 10% in 1 hour 10 mins and that's just a few calls/txts and minimum fiddling.
8:20 100%
9:42 88%
I've dropped all the o2 software and don't have any tricky 3rd party apps installed only;
xbar3 ( great btw )
avantgo wireless
ebook reader
tcpmp
I've read quite a few posts about battery life being good on this phone but i'm not seeing it. I'm still in my 14 day cooling off period and i'm considering sending it back for a replacement.
Jeff

Is Wifi off, bluetooth off. Do you check your email every ... minutes over GPRS?...
With email checking every 10 minutes my qtek battery last at least 2 whole days.

wifi/gprs/bluetooth all off - not used today
Just phone today - maybe 12 calls.
Time now 14:21 battery at 61% !
Now i'm worried ......I reckon i'll be down to 30% by this evening.

16:32 - 49%

maybe there are problems with these batteries i had problems with charging the battery it didnt seem to show correct level, sent it back for another unit

17:26 - 38%.
If another goes we'll be up here all day.

My battery life seems to be utter rubbish every time I charge my MDA Vario over the USB link. I can go to bed with 100% battery and find it dead by morning. This has happened two or three times since I bought it on 5th November. Last Saturday morning I had the USB cable connected to download some music to my SD card with 100% charge at 10:00. I played music for about an hour through the supplied headphones and by 13:00 I was down to 50% battery. By that evening I was down to a few %. I've read reviews that you you should squeeze about 10 hours of continuous music from this thing on one full charge so an hour of music and 7 hours of standby/sleep seems pathetic.
If I charge using the mains charger and sync over Bluetooth I get a standby battery life of about 5 days. Obviously that is shortened with use so in practice I am charging it every 2-3 days (no point starting a day with only 20% left!).
I have no idea why USB charging is completely hopeless. I have tried soft resetting or closing all active apps after charging, to make sure ActiveSync isn't actively running and causing a drain (just as you are advised to with a Bluetooth sync) but that seems to make no difference. USB charging is rubbish. Mains charging is the only way to go, IME.

21.50 - 24 %

Charging over USB hopeless
tdodd said:
I have no idea why USB charging is completely hopeless. I have tried soft resetting or closing all active apps after charging, to make sure ActiveSync isn't actively running and causing a drain (just as you are advised to with a Bluetooth sync) but that seems to make no difference. USB charging is rubbish. Mains charging is the only way to go, IME.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I confirm USB charging IS rubbish. The reason seems to be that the power available out of that conector on a PC is not enough to charge properly... I had the same issue with BA and Himalaya...
Answer: get a USB charger / car charger that can deliver 1A minimum.
BTW I found a craddle for the Wizard in Dubai @ Plugins. It comes with USB port/cable + power adapter. Works like a charme.
Cheers,
Hal.

tdodd said:
My battery life seems to be utter rubbish every time I charge my MDA Vario over the USB link. I can go to bed with 100% battery and find it dead by morning. This has happened two or three times since I bought it on 5th November. Last Saturday morning I had the USB cable connected to download some music to my SD card with 100% charge at 10:00. I played music for about an hour through the supplied headphones and by 13:00 I was down to 50% battery. By that evening I was down to a few %.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My C500 Did that when I had it Plugged in the Front USB ports on my case, I normaly had it plugged in to the onboard USB at the back of my pc with a usb ext cable so I could have it on my desk but I went off to a lan party and when I plugged everything back in I put my USB cable to front usb port and found it was Discharging my Battery instead of charging it, got my usb in Back port all is fine again now
Maybe you have yours in to the front USB port or non onboard port?

I use a laptop, which only has two USB 1.1 ports but they each supply enough juice to power a USB ADSL modem (not that I'm using one of those these days), which is more than some PCs will manage and also my USB hard drive, which my Shuttle won't. So there is no lack of power from the USB ports on the laptop.
Of course, the USB spec only permits a maximum current demand of 500mA so any equpiment expecting more should not be using USB for its power supply. In any event, the phone does charge from the USB ports, albeit very slowly, but eventually the orange charge light does go green. So my situation is not one of discharging instead of charging.
I've just swapped my ROM from Vario to k-jam so I'll see if that makes any difference to the performance. I know it's given me 802.11g, which was missing before.

I had an M500 briefly (Magician) on Orange that had very poor battery life, it was one of the reasons I ebayed it, gave the contract sim to my wife and started a cheaper better value T-Mobile account with an MDA Compact, which
had better battery life. Typically overnight after a full charge the Orange unit went down to 75% and the T-Mobile one was at about 98% on standby.
My Vario I have now, my other T-Mobile account has very good battery life and charges very well off USB. If I sync it in the morning whilst reading my emails and stuff, let it charge USb for about 25 mins, it'll be full and by the night it will have dropped down to about 80%. This is with about 30 mins of calls, about seven or eight emails sent/received and maybe 15 mins with WIFI on.

tdodd said:
I use a laptop, which only has two USB 1.1 ports but they each supply enough juice to power a USB ADSL modem (not that I'm using one of those these days), which is more than some PCs will manage and also my USB hard drive, which my Shuttle won't. So there is no lack of power from the USB ports on the laptop.
Of course, the USB spec only permits a maximum current demand of 500mA so any equpiment expecting more should not be using USB for its power supply. In any event, the phone does charge from the USB ports, albeit very slowly, but eventually the orange charge light does go green. So my situation is not one of discharging instead of charging.
I've just swapped my ROM from Vario to k-jam so I'll see if that makes any difference to the performance. I know it's given me 802.11g, which was missing before.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
do you have a link to the imate rom? is the vario rom also available?

sundip said:
do you have a link to the imate rom? is the vario rom also available?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can't remember for sure where I got the k-jam ROM ( I think someone saved a copy somewhere) but try here - ftp://ftp.clubimate.com/ - and then save file K-JAM_WWE_1010903_106_10110_ship.exe
That is a self installing upgrade that includes the whole k-jam ROM and k-jam extended ROM files.
I don't know where to get a Vario ROM from. I did back up my own copy (I hope) but the method is a bit whacky and as I only have a 1GB mini-SD card my ROM backup image is 1GB because the only way to secure the image is to dump the whole card to a file.
Before you go playing around do make sure you have your own backup of the ROM or if not the whole thing then the Vario extended ROM files at least. I'm using the k-jam ROM with the Vario Extended ROM.

Re: Charging over USB hopeless
hal said:
I confirm USB charging IS rubbish. The reason seems to be that the power available out of that conector on a PC is not enough to charge properly... I had the same issue with BA and Himalaya...
Answer: get a USB charger / car charger that can deliver 1A minimum.
BTW I found a craddle for the Wizard in Dubai @ Plugins. It comes with USB port/cable + power adapter. Works like a charme.
Cheers,
Hal.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi,
Is there any way to disable USB charging? I didn't connect USB very often since it will charge automatically and I don't like the battery be charged very often. It might kill battery soon. I like to sync with bluetooth; however it is much slower than USB. It's amazing if there is any tool to disable USB charging. Because it will sync fast and will not hurt the battery. Thanks for the suggestions in advance.
Cheers!
Michael

Re: Charging over USB hopeless
Michael Lin said:
Is there any way to disable USB charging? I didn't connect USB very often since it will charge automatically and I don't like the battery be charged very often. It might kill battery soon. I like to sync with bluetooth; however it is much slower than USB. It's amazing if there is any tool to disable USB charging. Because it will sync fast and will not hurt the battery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You are thinking of older batteries such as Nicads. Topping up often does not hurt Lithium batteries, in fact it's better for them. Their main enemies are deep discharge and heat - and that's exactly what you're subjecting it to by letting it run flat, then charging for hours to get it back to max.

Re: Charging over USB hopeless
Ineedtoys said:
You are thinking of older batteries such as Nicads. Topping up often does not hurt Lithium batteries, in fact it's better for them. Their main enemies are deep discharge and heat - and that's exactly what you're subjecting it to by letting it run flat, then charging for hours to get it back to max.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Dear Ineedtoys,
Thanks for the reply. I understand that there is no so called "memory effect" on Lithium battery; however when I checked the battery spec, I always found that there is a "charging cycle limitation". For example, a specific battery claimed that it can be rechaged 10,000 times, then very USB charging will be counted also. It will reach 10,000 times faster. This is my concern. I don't know if this is right or wrong. Can somebody help to clarify this?
B. Rgds.,
Michael

Re: Charging over USB hopeless
Ineedtoys said:
You are thinking of older batteries such as Nicads. Topping up often does not hurt Lithium batteries, in fact it's better for them. Their main enemies are deep discharge and heat - and that's exactly what you're subjecting it to by letting it run flat, then charging for hours to get it back to max.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Dear Ineedtoys,
Thanks for the reply. I understand that there is no so called "memory effect" on Lithium battery; however when I checked the battery spec, I always found that there is a "charging cycle limitation". For example, a specific battery claimed that it can be rechaged 10,000 times, then very USB charging will be counted also. It will reach 10,000 times faster. This is my concern. I don't know if this is right or wrong. Can somebody help to clarify this?
B. Rgds.,
Michael

Re: Charging over USB hopeless
Michael Lin said:
Ineedtoys said:
You are thinking of older batteries such as Nicads. Topping up often does not hurt Lithium batteries, in fact it's better for them. Their main enemies are deep discharge and heat - and that's exactly what you're subjecting it to by letting it run flat, then charging for hours to get it back to max.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Dear Ineedtoys,
Thanks for the reply. I understand that there is no so called "memory effect" on Lithium battery; however when I checked the battery spec, I always found that there is a "charging cycle limitation". For example, a specific battery claimed that it can be rechaged 10,000 times, then very USB charging will be counted also. It will reach 10,000 times faster. This is my concern. I don't know if this is right or wrong. Can somebody help to clarify this?
B. Rgds.,
Michael
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's true. It's the same with Notebooks. The more you charge it, while it's in use, the faster the battery gets "killed"!

Re: Charging over USB hopeless
Michael Lin said:
Hi,
Is there any way to disable USB charging? I didn't connect USB very often since it will charge automatically and I don't like the battery be charged very often. It might kill battery soon. I like to sync with bluetooth; however it is much slower than USB. It's amazing if there is any tool to disable USB charging. Because it will sync fast and will not hurt the battery. Thanks for the suggestions in advance.
Cheers!
Michael
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Answer my own question.
I am quite sure that the USB charging can be disabled since I used to see the config on a HP device. I also believed that this can be done by 'registry' since it is Windows tradition. I finally found it after a short study. Please go to
HKLM\Drivers\BuiltIn\usbfndrv
and change the
EnableUsbCharging to '0'
then
soft reset => Bingo.
Hope it helps.
Michael

Please help with battery problem...

Can someone help me figure out how to recharge my battery??? The other day my phone was working just fine... until it ran out of battery while i was at school. i kept trying to turn it back on and kept doing so until it was completely dead. Now the damn thing doesnt want to charge at all... i think i must have exhausted the battery completely that it cant keep a charge. It wont even turn on and wont even charge wen i plug it into the computer usb or through a wall charger. Can someone please help.

Are you using the original charger? has to have 1amp output to kickstart device. You have to leave it quite a while connected before the light comes on - up to 24hrs. If that fails use the boost battery trick - see thread here http://forum.xda-developers.com/viewtopic.php?t=58747

hmph....
all i have to say is damn t mobile... they cant expect people to never let their battery fully drain. its almost automatic for it to happen once in a while for people. why would they release batteries that cannot charge if its fully drained and expect people to search on the internet to find answers to solves these problems themselves... oh well thanks for the help guys. ill let the thing charge for a day or so n post my results... ps i dont have the original charger. im not at home right now n ill have to check if the charger i have is 1 amp or not.

YES!
the charger thing didnt work... but using the trick where splitting the usb and charging the battery manually worked! thanks for the help! much is appreciated!

Help :(

My X1 doesn't turn on anymore! I just woke up and it was off. I left it recharging during the night... Now when I plug it in all I see is a red light on the power on/off button. Any ideas?
Could it be just the battery?
The problem is i got it from someone in England so i'm not sure about warranty.

take off the battery cover and then take out ur stylus and you will see a little hole next to the battery and then take ur stylus and push he little button in tha hole and then that will restart it.

no, that doesn't solve it... but thanks
i tried removing the battery and leaving it off for a while but nothing...
the red light appears only when the phone is supposedly charging

Then leave it charging for hours and don't touch it until the red light goes away. Then you can switch it on again.
Don't let a Lithium-battery run out of power! It drastically reduces the battery lifetime and it's not easy for the controller to charge it again.
Recharge the battery before it runs out, best at >40%

Hmm... think I encountered that red light problem before, though can't really remember how I solved it. Think encountered it when I was charging using another cable (and not the original one) and later was ok after using the original cable + charger.

Thanks guys
I'll try doing that. I never left it with less than 50% battery though... I have no idea why this happened.
I'll give news later today

mesaboogie said:
Thanks guys
I'll try doing that. I never left it with less than 50% battery though... I have no idea why this happened.
I'll give news later today
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When the battery decreases that fast (50% over night) than maybe the battery is broken. If charging over a few hours does not help, you should try another battery.

skycamefalling said:
When the battery decreases that fast (50% over night) than maybe the battery is broken. If charging over a few hours does not help, you should try another battery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I left it charging (it was at around 60% when i plugged it)
Still doesn't work.. the red light goes off after a bit and if i try to turn it on (while plugged) a red light by the USB port flashes 3 times.
It has the same behaviour as if the battery wasn't on.
I tried reading the voltage and it's at 3.3v which is 0.3v below normal but that's because it's not fully charged, right?
I'm afraid of throwing away another €35 for a new battery and it still doesn't work :\

mesaboogie said:
I left it charging (it was at around 60% when i plugged it)
Still doesn't work.. the red light goes off after a bit and if i try to turn it on (while plugged) a red light by the USB port flashes 3 times.
It has the same behaviour as if the battery wasn't on.
I tried reading the voltage and it's at 3.3v which is 0.3v below normal but that's because it's not fully charged, right?
I'm afraid of throwing away another €35 for a new battery and it still doesn't work :\
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you charging with a computer?
Try the real charger. You can always try a battery from another one who has the same phone or go to a shop where they sell it and kindly ask for a battery to try.
Should be no problem.

oh man! it's working now! i don't know what happened... I didn't do anything else. In fact, I had just sent an e-mail to Sony Ericsson
skycamefalling said:
Are you charging with a computer?
Try the real charger. You can always try a battery from another one who has the same phone or go to a shop where they sell it and kindly ask for a battery to try.
Should be no problem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
oops didnt see your reply
yeah i tried the charger as well. No idea what happened here.
Thanks skycamefalling!
edit: Oh yeah... something wrong happened during the charge because now it shows just around 20% battery left! hmm... what could drain battery this fast while the phone is sleeping (and plugged in to the pc)?

Glad to hear your phone is awake again
mesaboogie said:
edit: Oh yeah... something wrong happened during the charge because now it shows just around 20% battery left! hmm... what could drain battery this fast while the phone is sleeping (and plugged in to the pc)?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It seems your USB-PC port does not give currency to the phone. It's the other way around -the Computer sucks the power out of the battery.
You can look in the Hardware Manager (PC) how which currency the USB port provides -it should be around 500mA when the phone is plugged is.
I would suggest using the wall charger to be sure the phone is charging.

skycamefalling said:
Glad to hear your phone is awake again
It seems your USB-PC port does not give currency to the phone. It's the other way around -the Computer sucks the power out of the battery.
You can look in the Hardware Manager (PC) how which currency the USB port provides -it should be around 500mA when the phone is plugged is.
I would suggest using the wall charger to be sure the phone is charging.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's weird. I've been using the same port every night since I got the X1 and it always charged it perfectly. They all provide the 500mA.
Yeah, I'll use the wall charger from this day on whenever I can haha... *phew*

Long Battery charging time and potential memory effect

hi,
I have the problem, that if I charge the battery from near empty state, that it requires 4-5 hours to charge with the ac adapter and if i charge it via usb it needs 910 hours. The issue is, I am not at the same place the whole time,
so sometimes I need it to unplugged, before the battery is full, so this may quicken a potential memory effect. How do you handle the battery charging?
do you charge it before it gets empty or do you unplug before its full?
Did you find a way to charge it faster?
cheers Avalun

Avalun said:
hi,
I have the problem, that if I charge the battery from near empty state, that it requires 4-5 hours to charge with the ac adapter and if i charge it via usb it needs 910 hours. The issue is, I am not at the same place the whole time,
so sometimes I need it to unplugged, before the battery is full, so this may quicken a potential memory effect. How do you handle the battery charging?
do you charge it before it gets empty or do you unplug before its full?
Did you find a way to charge it faster?
cheers Avalun
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Always charge your device switched off if possible. This makes the charging time shorter and helps the battery to "calibrate".
If phone on, make sure screen is off. Also helps.
Your phone will always take longer to charge while synced through USB.
Try and let the phone completely drain before charging it. This should increase battery length.

hi,
I usually plug it on when the message of critical battery level appears, the problem if I switch the device off is, that no one can call me during this time.
How long does your HD need to charge from near empty to full?

Avalun said:
hi,
I usually plug it on when the message of critical battery level appears, the problem if I switch the device off is, that no one can call me during this time.
How long does your HD need to charge from near empty to full?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
To fully charge from empty it normally takes a couple hours.
Generally I always charge my phone at night and have it sync'd via USB during the day so it rarely gets below 75%
There has been previous threads regarding battery strength, charging etc.
Try typing battery into search this forum at top of page.
Hope this helps

hi,
thanks for the answer I already read many other battery threads here, they are all about battery draining, not charging time.
So I thought I just ask, what other peoples have to say about this.
As I see the charing time is normal so thanks for the answer.

TD2 not charging on the PC

Strange Question? When my battery dies in the past I used to just plug it into my pc at my desk... DELL T5400... and charge the phone up again.
Though lately I have been using a hard-drive cable and I can't seem to recharge my phone on any pc??
Though I can pretty much download all the information from the phone??
I do have the dutty rom on.... though I don't think that would effect it?
Does any one have any ideas?

Under "Settings -> System -> Power -> Battery",
you find the option "When phone is on, do not charge the battery when connected to a PC".
Perhaps its activated?

CromeX said:
Strange Question? When my battery dies in the past I used to just plug it into my pc at my desk... DELL T5400... and charge the phone up again.
Though lately I have been using a hard-drive cable and I can't seem to recharge my phone on any pc??
Though I can pretty much download all the information from the phone??
I do have the dutty rom on.... though I don't think that would effect it?
Does any one have any ideas?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you have let the "battery die" over and over you could well have sent the monotoring circuitry below the charging cutoff point which is voltage dependant.
If the battery still charges from a wall outlet then this is more than likely the case as your wall charger will be rated at 1000mAh whereas the USB port is only 500 mAh max and if you have other devices plugged in at the same time it could well be a lot less and this will now no longer "start" the charging process.
If all this is the case then you have trashed the battery.
If not then charging through the wall socket could partly recover the situation, if you are lucky!
When (if) you get a new battery then keep it on constant charge (wall outlet, USB, car charger, external battery pack etc,etc) as much as possible and try to avoid a full discharge.

You guys are great
Thanks Guys that helped a lot.
I have always been scared of discharging the battery completely, Thank pa49 for confirming that.
I found the default setting for the battery was what jkolner said, Thanks bud .
I appreciate the help