Database Users

help with battery power

Hello to you all,
My new XDA Exec has developed a fault. It works OK when plugged in to the USB on my laptop or charger but when running on battery will only do so for a short time. In fact a matter of a few minutes.
The battery indicator shows the battery at 100% when charged but the phone turns off variously at 95 - 98%. I tried a soft reset and not change.
I tried discharging the battery using small lamp then recharging in the phone. The battery indicator did show a lower %age 80 ish but not as low as I would have thought. Subsequent charging made no difference and the problem persists. Has anyone seen this before? Any bright suggestions?
Many thanks to you all for you time.
Cheers
Piran

Piran Bassett said:
Hello to you all,
My new XDA Exec has developed a fault. It works OK when plugged in to the USB on my laptop or charger but when running on battery will only do so for a short time. In fact a matter of a few minutes.
The battery indicator shows the battery at 100% when charged but the phone turns off variously at 95 - 98%. I tried a soft reset and not change.
I tried discharging the battery using small lamp then recharging in the phone. The battery indicator did show a lower %age 80 ish but not as low as I would have thought. Subsequent charging made no difference and the problem persists. Has anyone seen this before? Any bright suggestions?
Many thanks to you all for you time.
Cheers
Piran
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You battery is dead therefore you would need to change. You are not unique with this problem. That is common issue for Universal (exec) batteries. For your new battery: dont charge with the USB cable and charge when is completely drained.

Hi Bulldog,
thanks for the reply and the info. Regarding charging the unit from the USB port. Does the unit not begin charging as soon as it's plugged in to a USB port? Is there a way to prevent this that you know of? My phone was normally charged for about half it's life from the charger, half from USB.
From what I understand the LI ion batteries don't have a charge memory due to milisecond pulse charging so pardon me for asking but what does the total discharge do for the battery? Obviously it does something but what? (Not doubting you but I'm curious). Is there a away to ressurect a defective battery such as the one I have currently or is it a lost cause. I know some batteries can improve with either heating or cooling by about 20 - 40°C from normal operating temeprature, have you any experience with this?
Do you know if some makes of batteries are better than others?
Please pardon the inquisition but as I spend a lot of time in remote areas it's often quite handy to be able to bodge rig stuff in order to effect a temporary fix and it seems any bits of knowledge help!
Once again many thanks
Piran

Piran Bassett said:
Hi Bulldog,
thanks for the reply and the info. Regarding charging the unit from the USB port. Does the unit not begin charging as soon as it's plugged in to a USB port? Is there a way to prevent this that you know of? My phone was normally charged for about half it's life from the charger, half from USB.
From what I understand the LI ion batteries don't have a charge memory due to milisecond pulse charging so pardon me for asking but what does the total discharge do for the battery? Obviously it does something but what? (Not doubting you but I'm curious). Is there a away to ressurect a defective battery such as the one I have currently or is it a lost cause. I know some batteries can improve with either heating or cooling by about 20 - 40°C from normal operating temeprature, have you any experience with this?
Do you know if some makes of batteries are better than others?
Please pardon the inquisition but as I spend a lot of time in remote areas it's often quite handy to be able to bodge rig stuff in order to effect a temporary fix and it seems any bits of knowledge help!
Once again many thanks
Piran
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi, I have the exact same problem...works fine when usb or mains connected but only for a few minutes when on the battery. Usually when I give it some heavy task stuff it will suddenly just blank out the acreen and die.
I'm going to try and do what's suggested on the wiki page about masking off the charge indicator contact with tape - run the thing down and charge up again.
otherwise it's a new battery - not expensive - and plenty about on ebay.
fanger

Hi Piran,
Be Frank I am not battery specialist. Therefore I cant give a deep explanation what makes the Universal Battery having so many problems with USB charging. For my understanding it is the slow charge which leads to Battery overheat. Therefore All the post here regarding the Battery problems suggest not keeping the universal charged with USB. Just search for Post for "battery problems" and you will find few "explanations"
In Regards whether you could reverse your battery issue. From my previous experience I would say the max the you can get back is some 10-15%. However in your case the issue seams more severe as you device turns off by 90-100% therefore I think you would need to order new Battery.
following procedure I follow to drain my battery:
1) Turn off You Phone Radio (important)
2) disable the "Turn off Backlight" and put your device brightness to "full"
3) let your device drain the battery by him self( prevent doing anything with your device during this time. I found starting application, touching screen etc. leads that the device request a pick of power which the battery is not able to provide and turns the device off.
4) after certain time your battery will be to weak to keep the device on.
5) push the "power button + backlight button + reset pin" to put your device in to bootloader mode. (your screen will be almost off just some info like SERIAL or Bootloader Version will be visible)
6) again keep the device in this mode to drain as much you can until you cant see anything on the screen.
7) repeat this point6 few times as sometimes the device turns of but after trying again the button combination you can put it back to bootloader.
With above the aim is to drain the battery much as possible. After that you charge your device with power connection for min.12 hours. I guess you will gain few % however repeat the draining and charging procedure for next couple charging cycle to see how much max you will get back.
Good Luck.

I faced the same problem with my battery on Universal.
After a complete drain, the battery wont recharge:
1) Connecting the power cord it starts the boot process, after few seconds the power led ligths in red once, the screen blanks and the boot restarts again and again.
2) Using the usb cord the power led flashes in red without further actions.
I have to throw away the battery, I guess.
Thanks for any comment.

Cesare said:
I faced the same problem with my battery on Universal.
After a complete drain, the battery wont recharge:
1) Connecting the power cord it starts the boot process, after few seconds the power led ligths in red once, the screen blanks and the boot restarts again and again.
2) Using the usb cord the power led flashes in red without further actions.
I have to throw away the battery, I guess.
Thanks for any comment.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Cesare, One thing you could try before given up on your battery. Try to Use your power connection to charge for while before starting up your device.

How much is a new battery?

Bulldog said:
Cesare, One thing you could try before given up on your battery. Try to Use your power connection to charge for while before starting up your device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Bulldog, many thanks for your replay.
When I connect the power cord the start up begins automatically.
There is a way to avoid the starting up?

Cesare said:
Bulldog, many thanks for your replay.
When I connect the power cord the start up begins automatically.
There is a way to avoid the starting up?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Cesare, you right when you plug in the device it will boot up. However after while (ca.10-15) when the first initialization complete you could go and switch off the screen(with power button) which takes allot power. Anyhow in your case it is really strange as your device behaves like it has no battery at all. there could be 2 things leading to that.
1) your battery is completely dead ( check with a voltmeter to confirm)
2) or something wrong with your Connection clips (battery and device) you could again check with a voltmeter whether you get any juice on those clips.

Bulldog said:
Cesare, you right when you plug in the device it will boot up. However after while (ca.10-15) when the first initialization complete you could go and switch off the screen(with power button) which takes allot power. Anyhow in your case it is really strange as your device behaves like it has no battery at all. there could be 2 things leading to that.
1) your battery is completely dead ( check with a voltmeter to confirm)
2) or something wrong with your Connection clips (battery and device) you could again check with a voltmeter whether you get any juice on those clips.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi Bulldog.
I think that the 1st one is the rigth hypothesis. I'll check with a voltmeter.
The connection clips are ok because the backup battery works perfectly.
To drain that battery I connected an optical usb mouse until the mouse ligth went off. Do you think that this action is the reason of the death?
Many thanks again

Cesare said:
Hi Bulldog.
I think that the 1st one is the rigth hypothesis. I'll check with a voltmeter.
The connection clips are ok because the backup battery works perfectly.
To drain that battery I connected an optical usb mouse until the mouse ligth went off. Do you think that this action is the reason of the death?
Many thanks again
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Cesare, your battery my not complete dead but it is to weak to lighten up your Universal. Said that leads to bad thing which is: you can only start to charge battery when the universal has come out of bootloader mode.
I had such case ones, after not using my device for very long time the battery was completely drained, And as you described the device keep booting after plugging to the power. However after certain time ( I think some 15-30min trying) suddenly I was able to start up. I am not sure whether that would help to overcome the booting mode with less power but you could try to take out your sim card and memory card and try booting. ( again not sure it will help)

Guys - a quick update from my previous post.
I was suffering a sudden power outage at about 75%-85% battery power - just a blank screen - power gone. Didn't happen when mains connected, only on battery.
Well, first things first, I thought...dodgy ROM for WM 6 - so I tried a few of them - Ivans, Ranju's and Beastys - no change - still this power out.
Read the posts on this forum and thought - gotta be the battery's fried.
Sooo,
I ordered a new Genuine JasJar battery and installed it - (let it charge for 8 hours) - since then...no problems - no crashes, stalls or blank outs.
I'm running Ranju's 7.4 with spb pocket plus - htc home, etc,
As a point of interest my old battery stated 3.9Volts when I put my meter across it BUT - a voltmeter isn't drawing as much as the universal - when 'under load' from power intensive apps - hence you think you've got a battery putting out the requisite power when you haven't.
This was a real niggly problem to sort out with potential culprits all over the place:
Bad battery?
Bad ROM?
PCB crack?
Hardware Fault?
At the end of the day it's good to have spent £32 or so and simply got rid of the problem totally.
I'd say to anyone who's getting outs or blank outs at 80% power or below - your battery stuffed and no amount of mucking about with ROM swaps, Freezers, charging/ discharging is going to stop it blanking out on you.
I'd also like to say how appreciative I am of this forum with a great deal of knowledge available from so many users across a very broad spectrum of skills and experience. Nice one!
Hope this helps,
fanger

Really annoying problem...

Hey guys.
I'm experiencing some problems with my Touch HD. When I get it to start I'm really happy with it and every program runs as it should.
My problem is the battery or something like that. I can have the battery power at 70% one second and the next the phone is telling me to either charge the battery or the device will shut down. I try to start it again but at the start screen it says Battery level to low, your device will shut down.
When I try to charge it the LED under the power button will show a solid amber light, telling me that it's charging, for about 7-9 seconds and after that it will either start flashing between amber and green light or just turn off.
I've tried having it like that over night and try to start the phone in the morning and the same message appear on screen, "Warning! Battery level to low! Your device will shut down!"
Read in some other post about someone who had a similar problem, but not quite the same, and that was resolved by removing the battery, plug in the USB cable for a few seconds, disconnect everything and then put the battery back in and start the phone. This works for me about 30% of the time. When it works the battery shows about 60-80% power.
I've tried a hard reset and I've tried to contact HTC without any success. Any suggestions from you guys, you seem to know almost everything there is to know about these phones.
Thanks.
/Markus

Have you tried keeping the battery out for a day?
When I got my phone, the first 7 charges I turned the phone off and charged it all the the way up (to get the calibration accurate). Now the battery life is excellent, I can use it for couple of days without charging.
You should try returning the phone, seems it is fine software wise. Can you use the phone with the charger in? If yes, then there is probably something wrong with the battery or the hardware that is interacting with the charging.

I've tried keeping the battery out for about 24 hours but it didn't help. I can't start the phone when I have it plugged to the charger. I'm going to return it today and see if they can just exchange the phone in store or if they need to ship it somewhere to be repaired
Thanks anyway.

Sounds like a defective battery to me...

That's a good idea, better to get a new one.

crapforbrains said:
Hey guys.
I'm experiencing some problems with my Touch HD. When I get it to start I'm really happy with it and every program runs as it should.
My problem is the battery or something like that. I can have the battery power at 70% one second and the next the phone is telling me to either charge the battery or the device will shut down. I try to start it again but at the start screen it says Battery level to low, your device will shut down.
When I try to charge it the LED under the power button will show a solid amber light, telling me that it's charging, for about 7-9 seconds and after that it will either start flashing between amber and green light or just turn off.
I've tried having it like that over night and try to start the phone in the morning and the same message appear on screen, "Warning! Battery level to low! Your device will shut down!"
Read in some other post about someone who had a similar problem, but not quite the same, and that was resolved by removing the battery, plug in the USB cable for a few seconds, disconnect everything and then put the battery back in and start the phone. This works for me about 30% of the time. When it works the battery shows about 60-80% power.
I've tried a hard reset and I've tried to contact HTC without any success. Any suggestions from you guys, you seem to know almost everything there is to know about these phones.
Thanks.
/Markus
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
switch off wifi, install Advanced Config, select all power management enabled
and try again. i also had the situation that my hd took 1550 mA. so the battery was sucked empty within several hours. now everything runs perfect...

Have exactly the same problem
I have exactly the same problem. One moment the phone works and charges fine and the next it shows irratic battery levels and eventually needs to be shut down. Following the shutdown you get the 'Battery level too low' message on startup, right after the Smart Mobility screen. In my case I think the problem mostly started when the phone was either just connected to a PC using the sync cable or when trying to top-up the charge using the wall charger. I also noticed that when the problem appears the plug symbol would appear (indicating it is charging) or sometimes not and then when checking the battery level, the indicators would actually go down sometimes losing 2 or 3 at a time until there is only 1 left and the phone says it needs to shut down. Pluging in the wall charger does not help as the LED indicating the phone is charging only stays on for a few seconds.
Now, I had many trials with removing battery, sim card, memory card or any of those in combination and sometimes these seem to work, but I think the key is the temperature of the phone. Every time I went to the car to drive home, where it was cold, the phone would start charging again, when just before that it would not react to anything all the time I was in the warm office.
I have now contacted HTC and am sending it to their repair centre tomorrow. Hopefully this is recognised as a fault and I will get a replacement. BTW, they arranged for a free courier pickup. Not bad, but the key for me is that the phone is being replaced as I really like the phone.

Update: Got a replacement after 1 week
Got my replacement phone today and hope that this time I have no further problems. I also had to return my previous one with a screen problem (see my post here http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=439410&page=2).
Everything went quite smootly and I liked the offer of a free of charge UPS pickup, so the only complaint I really have is that HTC send me a new phone but no replacement screen protector. Just the original screen sticker (the one with some writing on it) had been stuck on. It was in a bit of state like it had been taken off and put back on several times. I just called them to send me a replacement screen protector, but I don't hold my breath to get one. Probably end up buying it from the website.

Hermes battery drains, Hermes won't charge, get brand new battery, still the same :O

Hello,
I'm sure my Hermes is not dead, I'm just having ridicious battery problems.
My battery completely drained out, I saw the screen fade out and kind of "die" as it happened. I then couldn't even charge the Hermes up, so it seems the battery just ran out of juice period. I googled around and it seemed the only way to revive the battery again is doing some complicated wiry thing with alkaline batteries.
But instead of that I just bought a new replacement battery. But it still won't charge! Does this mean my Hermes actually did die? The battery WAS extremely low so I'm certain that it was the battery. The phone can't just die like that.
Thank you so much for your help. N.B. the phone LED won't even give a red light when plugged in without battery in. I hope that's not a bad sign...

Hey there just a guess but I had a simular problem in the past and it seemed to be due to a defective camera part draining power. Only way I was able to fix it was to remove the camera part and then put it back together.

If the red LED doesn't come on when you connect to the power without the battery then your Hermes is dead, good only for parts.... If the LED does light up, connect the battery and see if it turns amber(orangey) that means its charging.
It could be the internal fuse blew. Might be replaceable but could be costly....

Yes, after reading that other people could usually still see a red LED without the battery, I gave up.
Sigh...well at least I got to see my Hermes die...the screen gradually fading away in front of me....sniff.... I will miss it dearly.
- - -
But life moves on and hey hey hey I'm the proud owner of a new Blackstone! I just wasn't ready to upgrade yet...I wanted to wait until a capacitive screened successor to the Touch HD came out...sigh
But I suppose deaths of family and friends don't happen when you're ready for them
Goodbye my Hermes

eyupwolf said:
Hey there just a guess but I had a simular problem in the past and it seemed to be due to a defective camera part draining power. Only way I was able to fix it was to remove the camera part and then put it back together.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Dear eyupwolf, I have similar problems.
Camera just works some times, but after that it can not be initialised again and drains my battery out. So I don't use it anyway (since 99% times tried it didn't work). If I do, I have to reset Hermes many times to set things up.
Can you describe the procedure how you fixed (removed) that problem?
Thank you,
F

battery wont charge
I got the same problems with the Hermes 200. I tired the 3 AAA battries in serial connection but it didn't help.
I even tried to cool the battery for 30 mins in the freezer (an old trick to squeeze the last little bit from the battery) the phone turned on for about 10 seconds but the os never loaded up. the phone shows red when connected to usb without a battery but led turns off when battery is insterted.
I ordered a battery on ebay, but until it arrives does anyone have any other suggestions?
thanks
Scuter
PS. It had Olipro 2.10 spl and recently installed the amazing golden globe v9 rom http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=458456
which is amazing.

HD stops working / goes to sleep

Hi, wonder if anyone is experiencing the same problems I am having.
When the phone is in standyby (screen off) the phone goes to sleep and I struggle to get it to restart. Previously removing the battery and pressing the soft reset a number of times and then re inserting the battery the pressing the start button has got it to restart but as time has gone on it is happening more frequently and becoming more difficult to restart.
The last time it occurred (Sunday Morning)I could not encourage it to restart. I had heard that you could run the phone with the mains connected and the battery missing, so I gave this a try and noticed the start button led illuminte orange and the phone vibrated, I then went to place the battery back in and noticed that the phone stayed on its booting cycle until the battery was fully inserted and then everything stopped.
I tried again the same occurred but this time I held the battery on an angle such that the battery was connected to the three connectors on the phone but not inserting the battery completely and everything worked fine.
Then pushed the battery all the way home and the phone stopped, I noticed that on the back face of the battery and on the back of the phone there are an additional two terminals / contacts and it seemed that when the battery made contact it stopped the phone. I now have a post-it note covering the terminals in the phone with the battery fully inserted and it works perfectly and has not gone to sleep once for the last 24 hrs. I have also charged the phone successfully so proving that covering these contacts does not effect the charging.
Has anyone else experienced similar problems?
What are these terminals for?
Am I best sending the phone back to HTC?
Any help would be appreciated.

Come on guys can anyone help I don't know what to do
Any suggestions

Send it back..
I would.
You have paid so much for it that it should work without using tricks.
Exchange it for one that works, before you put too much work in it

Sounds like you have a hardware problem with either the battery or the phone. Have you tried taking to a mobile shop and using a different battery?
Otherwise I would return it and get a repelacement device

Topaz freezes on start up

Hello people,
All of a sudden today after the battery of my topaz got empty I could not start it any more
I get to the waves screen with the rom information and then freezes...even the power button is not working...only battery removal helps
1.I can do a softreset but it doesn't bring anything
2. I can reach the hard reset menu but I desperately need my data
3. I can log to the bootlogger but I don't know what to do then
Any help wil be appreciated!

Dickinson4o said:
Hello people,
All of a sudden today after the battery of my topaz got empty I could not start it any more
I get to the waves screen with the rom information and then freezes...even the power button is not working...only battery removal helps
1.I can do a softreset but it doesn't bring anything
2. I can reach the hard reset menu but I desperately need my data
3. I can log to the bootlogger but I don't know what to do then
Any help wil be appreciated!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you have drained the battery then the power may be insufficient to restart the phone.
Plug it in without a restart and leave it to charge for as long as possible.
You should do this from a wall socket and use a power supply giving at least 1Ah charge current.
If this doesn't work then the battery condition could be terminal, especially if your charging practice has been to allow the battery to drain as a matter of course. They don't like this at all and after a while the internal circuitry will cut off permenantly.
Then your only recourse is to buy a new battery.

Have you got your battery replaced? Has it solved the problem?