Ok I am a new member to this whole PocketPC thing since I just purchased my first PocketPC which is an i-mate JASJAM. I honestly think that it's a great product with a lot of features and potential. My problem though, lies in the fact that I haven't had the chance to enjoy it for a full day yet. Ever since I bought it, I always charge it for like 7 to 8 hours, even though it fills up after like 3, but i leave it on charge anyway, because I was told that "that's what you should do!".
Anyways, no matter how long I leave it on the charger, once i take it off the battery begins to drain like there's no tomorrow. I'm talking about going from 100% to 0% within 5 hours, while on FLIGHT MODE. If I turn the screen off then it might last for an extra hour.
Surely this can't be something normal, and I have been beating my brain trying to find a solution. As far as ActiveSync goes, I did the tweak that stops its automatic scheduled syncs, hoping that it would be the problem, but to my disappointment, no luck. Also made sure that no programs were running in the background. It came with a battery with a capacity of 1300mAh and then I bought another one hoping it was a problem with the battery. The new one had a capacity of 1350mAh, not much of a difference but it was all I could find. But there's no difference between them whatsoever, when it comes to battery life.
My first question is whether it is possible that this may be a software issue rather than a hardware issue (such as a power leak)?
If it is, then would upgrading the ROM or Radio or upgrading to WM6 make any difference?
Problem's that I don't have the phone on me right now so I can't give ROM or ExtROM versions etc., but I do know that it is running WM5 with AKU 2.3 and Radio is either 1.21 or 1.31.
N.B.: Until I get this issue sorted out, I am using a Nokia 6680 which has an average battery life of 3 days (72 hours), so should I be expecting something in the vicinity with my i-mate?
Well it sounds as if you've done all the obvious things. There is a power saving registry tweak in the wiki somewhere but that should not be necessary just to bring it to normal power consumption. If I don't use mine much (not on flight mode) I'll get a couple of days at least.
A ROM change might help a little but if you have a warranty I'd be tempted to use it. Radio change is unlikely to change things if you have been testing in flight mode.
Anybody else got ideas?
Mike
The only problem that I have with getting it fixed or replaced under warranty is that I have to send it to another country. So I am trying everything I can do before going through that hassle. So is there any test that I can carry out at home, or a certain diagnostics software that can test the phone for me?
Would a digital multimeter help if i can measure the current being drawn from the battery? What should the current rating be for the phone, is it 1A? Because there is one other interesting thing i found while just snooping around, there is a sticker that just has 5VDC and 1A written on it, and it's stuck to the phone under where the battery goes. I can only imagine that this is the voltage and current rating for the phone. The interesting part is that the battery that came with it, as well as the one i bought are both 3.7V batteries.
:-S
Best to just update your phone.... But becareful! read and research on flashing b 4 you do it... VERY IMPORTANT... USE only softwares for your phone...
I wanna make sure that anything i do doesn't void my warranty as well.
Used their offical update for your phone... However, my friend brick his phone and sent it back to the company and they replace it for him... I dunno if you would have that luck however... if ur careful and read all the information... and ur computer is stable... you shouldnt worry about it bricking ur phone...
jlaham said:
The only problem that I have with getting it fixed or replaced under warranty is that I have to send it to another country. So I am trying everything I can do before going through that hassle. So is there any test that I can carry out at home, or a certain diagnostics software that can test the phone for me?
Would a digital multimeter help if i can measure the current being drawn from the battery? What should the current rating be for the phone, is it 1A? Because there is one other interesting thing i found while just snooping around, there is a sticker that just has 5VDC and 1A written on it, and it's stuck to the phone under where the battery goes. I can only imagine that this is the voltage and current rating for the phone. The interesting part is that the battery that came with it, as well as the one i bought are both 3.7V batteries.
:-S
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Click to collapse
The ratings you see written inside and the battery ratings are just standard - nothing unusual there. You could test current draw etc but even if you find it a little high it doesn't really help you to pin down a problem save to say it's the phone and not the battery. However as you have two batteries it's fairly reasonable to say it's not the battery. (reasonable but not impossible of course that two batteries are not working as they should).
Unfortunately we do not yet have our hands on the test file that HTC use.
Mike
I guess I have no choice but to get it shipped back. Thanks for your help guys.
Are you using a wall charger or a trickle-charger such as the USB Cable? The wall charger is the only way to truly charge it to full.
If you are using a USB charger or other trickle charger, after the device says it is fully charged remove it from the charger for about 2 minutes and then reconnect it. It will then charge (most of) the rest of the way.
If you don't do this, the problems gets worse and worse. After 1 day, the trickle charger may get you up to a 90% charge. After two days, 80%, etc. After a week you'll only be holding half a charge, even though the device is reporting a full charge while on the charger.
Another tip I have found is to perform a soft-reset after removing it from the charger, particularly if it has been plugged in for a long time at full charge (more than an hour or so). It seems like the device doesn't always detect that it has been unplugged and tries to suck down juice as if it were still plugged in. If you have noticed that your device gets pretty hot when the battery drains quickly, this is probably what is happening to you.
You also haven't mentioned the programs that you are using during the day. Some programs, particularly chat clients, will drain the battery in about 5 hours, though obviously you're not using anything like this while in flight mode.
One more thing. You noted that you were told that leaving it on the charger whenever possible is the thing to do. This is incorrect. The more the battery is exercised in this way, the shorter the lifespan of the battery will be. With any PocketPC device we're all bound to charge it every night, but once it is charged you want to take it off the charger. A battery being fully charged is just as bad as a battery being fully drained, so you want to keep it somewhere in between as much as possible.
My battery doesn't last either.
I've ordered an extended life battery with its own back.
I've also ordered a car charger.
I also carry my old hiptop with me when I need to switch sims.
Apparently touchscreen phones that do so much, ie. bluetooth and wifi, eat batteries.
Doom Tints said:
Are you using a wall charger or a trickle-charger such as the USB Cable? The wall charger is the only way to truly charge it to full.
If you are using a USB charger or other trickle charger, after the device says it is fully charged remove it from the charger for about 2 minutes and then reconnect it. It will then charge (most of) the rest of the way.
If you don't do this, the problems gets worse and worse. After 1 day, the trickle charger may get you up to a 90% charge. After two days, 80%, etc. After a week you'll only be holding half a charge, even though the device is reporting a full charge while on the charger.
Another tip I have found is to perform a soft-reset after removing it from the charger, particularly if it has been plugged in for a long time at full charge (more than an hour or so). It seems like the device doesn't always detect that it has been unplugged and tries to suck down juice as if it were still plugged in. If you have noticed that your device gets pretty hot when the battery drains quickly, this is probably what is happening to you.
You also haven't mentioned the programs that you are using during the day. Some programs, particularly chat clients, will drain the battery in about 5 hours, though obviously you're not using anything like this while in flight mode.
One more thing. You noted that you were told that leaving it on the charger whenever possible is the thing to do. This is incorrect. The more the battery is exercised in this way, the shorter the lifespan of the battery will be. With any PocketPC device we're all bound to charge it every night, but once it is charged you want to take it off the charger. A battery being fully charged is just as bad as a battery being fully drained, so you want to keep it somewhere in between as much as possible.
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Click to collapse
Wow, I am very surprised to hear some of these. First of all, are you sure that using the usb charger kills your battery capacity so fast? I mean, I almost always charge my phone with the usb charger and it seems to be quite fine. Of course once in a while I charge it with the wall charger when I am in a hurry. But I was thinking that charging it with the usb will be better as it charges slowly.
Also I usually keep my phone plugged to the usb. Indeed, I already ordered a desktop cradle so that I can see the screen while it is being charged. Is it a bad idea to keep it cradled all the time? This is what I did with my Dell Axim all the time and it was quite happy with it.
The process of charging/draining modern batteries won't shorten their lifespans. However, having a chargable battery at full charge or at no charge are both bad and both will reduce the lifespan of the battery.
So no, you shouldn't leave it plugged in/cradled all the time.
The problem with trickle chargers is altogether different. They just won't always charge a battery to its full capacity -- so in this way they are actually better for long-term battery health. This is why I said that if you want to get a full charge off of a trickle charger, you have to (usually) take it off the charger and put it back on when the device reports that it is fully charged. After unplugging the trickle-charger you'll get a new battery reading on the device which will usually be anywhere between 60% and 90%. You can then put it back on the charger until it shows full again.
Deleted, invalid, i didnt read the whole post.
Well, it seems that i was just unlucky with my buy. Thanks to all of you first of all for all your support it really did help me learn more about PPC's in general, and it also made me sure that there is a problem with the phone. I sat through what i like to call a debugging session, just following the phone's every "move". I know, sounds kinda crazy but i was just that determined. What i realised was that whether i performed the soft-reset or not, it still had a problem, even though the solution did sound very promising.
This is what happened, charged it to 100%. I also tried charging it a little more later, but that was it, so i'm pretty sure that the capacity was right. After detaching it i performed the softreset, hoping that it would help. Then i just left it over night on flight mode. Next morning it had only decreased to 90%. GREAT! And it felt rather normal, but then about an hour later, it jumped down to 80%, 70%, 60%, then 50%. Then when I held it, it felt pretty hot, i figured that whatever was the problem earlier, just happened again. So I turned it off for a few hours then turned it on again and it started off on 40%. As before seemed to be performing quite normal, then within a minute it heated up again and jumped down to 20%. And that was when i just lost my nerve and packed it to send it back to my retailer.
I am now convinced that the phone is faulty!
Yes, it very well might be.
My device has drained suddenly a few times, with the exact same heat problems that you're describing when it happens. A soft reset for me when this occured fixed it -- and it hasn't happened for months.
But as we all know the same solutions don't work for all people with HTC devices.
I just had the same sort of problem. I've been using my TyTN for several months now under Dutty's WM6, and only just flashed Schaps 3.60 a few days ago.
It worked fine the first couple of days, but now I'm having the dreaded 5hr battery life too.
I had had that a couple of times before, but it was always related to some software, and a soft reset would cure it like Doom Tints said above. The problem is that here, either this or a power-off and reboot doesn't change a thing.
It's clearly a software problem too. I use UpTime Meter from AE, and I can see that the PocketPC simply doesn't turn into standby mode, but only deactivates the screen. In UpTime, the power on time will always be equal to the time since last charge, which means the PocketPC is on all the time. In that case the 5h battery life makes sense.
Would there be a way to find out why it doesn't enter standby mode (which software blocks it up), or force it into it? It would be good to find something as I'm nearly sure this is the reason for most if not all of the cases of short battery life we see around. Without having the meter there's simply no way to realise that the thing just stays on...
Doom Tints said:
The process of charging/draining modern batteries won't shorten their lifespans. However, having a chargable battery at full charge or at no charge are both bad and both will reduce the lifespan of the battery.
So no, you shouldn't leave it plugged in/cradled all the time.
The problem with trickle chargers is altogether different. They just won't always charge a battery to its full capacity -- so in this way they are actually better for long-term battery health. This is why I said that if you want to get a full charge off of a trickle charger, you have to (usually) take it off the charger and put it back on when the device reports that it is fully charged. After unplugging the trickle-charger you'll get a new battery reading on the device which will usually be anywhere between 60% and 90%. You can then put it back on the charger until it shows full again.
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Click to collapse
Your good man, Phone has been charging for about four hours and it didnt go up more than 40% so I unpluged the phone and turned it off and on and then it went up to 80% and now its recharging it again. Thanks
Battery discharge and heating up
kilrah said:
I just had the same sort of problem. I've been using my TyTN for several months now under Dutty's WM6, and only just flashed Schaps 3.60 a few days ago.
...
Would there be a way to find out why it doesn't enter standby mode (which software blocks it up), or force it into it? It would be good to find something as I'm nearly sure this is the reason for most if not all of the cases of short battery life we see around. Without having the meter there's simply no way to realise that the thing just stays on...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Since I had my hermes, a few times it would get very hot and discharge the battery, and I assumed I was turning it on in my pocket and running a program. But now it does this continually. As soon as I take it off the charger it discharges and gets hot. This even happens if the phone is powered off.
I have borrowed a battery of someone else and the same thing happens
I have also hard reset it and have nothing installed extra, so it can not be software problem.
Must be a short circuit inside the phone? Does anyone have any ideas? I can't send it back as it is a Cingular and I live in the UK and have no support contract.
Thanks,
Mark
I managed to investigate and find the culprit - A2DP Toggle in my case. Whenever its Today plugin is enabled, it will prevent the phone from entering standby. Deactivate it - no uninstallation needed - and it returns to normal. Weird as it had been working perfectly for about a week, and I haven't done any change when it started acting weird.
Now it kinda defeats the plugin's purpose if I have to deactivate it everytime...
@simkin: If it drains the battery even powered off completely that's most likely a hardware problem. Does it happen too if you remove the battery and put it again without turning the phone on (as opposed to having the phone on and turning it off with a long press on the the power button)?
There could be a slight chance that the phone actually starts booting and gets stuck there draining power. As a last solution I'd try flashing it with a different ROM, but if that fails it's most likely a hardware fault.
I'm having battery trouble too, I switched to WM6 with a full battery that lasted for about 24 hours and it became 7-8 hours, so I switched back to my previous ROM and Radio ver and it still says I only get 7-8 hours average, I'm gonna try to hard reset it on more time, and then i'm just gonna try a new battery.
I've been experiencing problems(like most) with battery life on the Epic, so I found a thread here from the EVO forums about "recalibrating" the battery. It involves steps of fully charging with it on, removing cable, powering down, plugging back in, etc...
Well I've actually come to realize that a blue LED should turn on when the battery is fully charged & the phone should stop charging(duh). Well i've tried for the last two days for the blue LED to come on after countless hours of charging, resetting the phone, etc. I've now had my phone on the charger for 8+ hours & my battery widget states 100% yet it continues to charge!
Has anyone else experienced anything like this?
No, but my wife's battery would drop immediately from 100% to 75% as soon as it was removed from the charger. This occurred no matter what charging regime I tried. I know that the battery may start to discharge after its peak charge has been obtained, and that it is possible to remove the charger and see only 90% on the battery, but 75%?
I returned that battery last night and now today I see that this battery never gets past 98%. I'll give it a day or so to see if the battery life degrades again, in which case I'll know it is the phone and not the battery.
vanstrien said:
No, but my wife's battery would drop immediately from 100% to 75% as soon as it was removed from the charger. This occurred no matter what charging regime I tried. I know that the battery may start to discharge after its peak charge has been obtained, and that it is possible to remove the charger and see only 90% on the battery, but 75%?
I returned that battery last night and now today I see that this battery never gets past 98%. I'll give it a day or so to see if the battery life degrades again, in which case I'll know it is the phone and not the battery.
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Are you getting the blue light and what app are you using to tell what percent? There are other thread that say some of the battery apps are off a bit. What kind of battery life are you getting?
Success!
I used a few different apps to tell the battery charge so it wasn't the apps.
I found a fix that not only allows my battery to charge to 100% but also seems to give a better charge. Since doing this my battery shows 100% when fully charged, doesn't drop significantly when I unplug the phone, and so far has caused the battery to go down very slowly. In the three and a half hours since coming off charge the battery has gone down to 93%, while holding up to my wife using it for calls and ShopSavvy. I intend on doing the instructions below every few months.
In the Evo space there are two sets of directions on how to prep your batteries for a good charge. One involves plugging and unplugging your phone while at full charge, and the other involves briefly turning your phone on and off between charges. Because I'm impatient I've amalgamated the two with success.
Fully charge the battery with the phone on (several hours)
Once the charging light is blue, unplug the charger
Turn the phone off, then plug the charger back in, for 30-60 minutes
Unplug the charger, turn the phone on for two minutes, then turn it off.
Plug the charger back in for 30-60 minutes
Then repeat this cycle about ten times: unplug the phone for five seconds, then plug it back in until it says it is at 100% (about two minutes)
For the record, I think this has little to do with the battery and a lot to do with how the phone recognizes the battery as full.
I haven't had any of these problems. My battery charges %100 with blue light and it doesn't drop after I unplug it either. Guess I'm lucky
DevilDogVIKING said:
I haven't had any of these problems. My battery charges %100 with blue light and it doesn't drop after I unplug it either. Guess I'm lucky
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I don't run a battery app. When the blue light comes on it's done. I get about 11-12hours before I get the low battery warning.
Ha! It really worked. She's at 17% and its been 1 day and 11 hours. Not as good as my Evo.
I guess I'll re-try calibrating the battery again, first time I tried it my battery ended up at 95% instead of the regular 98%, really odd.
vanstrien said:
I used a few different apps to tell the battery charge so it wasn't the apps.
I found a fix that not only allows my battery to charge to 100% but also seems to give a better charge. Since doing this my battery shows 100% when fully charged, doesn't drop significantly when I unplug the phone, and so far has caused the battery to go down very slowly. In the three and a half hours since coming off charge the battery has gone down to 93%, while holding up to my wife using it for calls and ShopSavvy. I intend on doing the instructions below every few months.
In the Evo space there are two sets of directions on how to prep your batteries for a good charge. One involves plugging and unplugging your phone while at full charge, and the other involves briefly turning your phone on and off between charges. Because I'm impatient I've amalgamated the two with success.
Fully charge the battery with the phone on (several hours)
Once the charging light is blue, unplug the charger
Turn the phone off, then plug the charger back in, for 30-60 minutes
Unplug the charger, turn the phone on for two minutes, then turn it off.
Plug the charger back in for 30-60 minutes
Then repeat this cycle about ten times: unplug the phone for five seconds, then plug it back in until it says it is at 100% (about two minutes)
For the record, I think this has little to do with the battery and a lot to do with how the phone recognizes the battery as full.
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Click to collapse
That seems a little crazy. All you should really need to do is drain it until it won't power on anymore (not even for a second) then charge to 100%.
Still, the epic's sensor just isn't very accurate at the top-end (most aren't), so you're gonna get some strange behavior near the 100%.
All the older WM phones were weird like that too in the 90% range; the sensor just can't detect it very accurately near full charge. The difference was that they showed battery in 10% increments, instead of 1% (unless you use a hacked driver).
too crazy for me.
I think I'm going to just buy some spare batteries for this phone. Immediate unplugging leads to 100% battery.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App epiicc 4g
I have the same problem, I'm using battery life and juiceplotter and they give me the same %
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App
vanstrien said:
Fully charge the battery with the phone on (several hours)
Once the charging light is blue, unplug the charger
Turn the phone off, then plug the charger back in, for 30-60 minutes
Unplug the charger, turn the phone on for two minutes, then turn it off.
Plug the charger back in for 30-60 minutes
Then repeat this cycle about ten times: unplug the phone for five seconds, then plug it back in until it says it is at 100% (about two minutes)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for this. I was having trouble getting my device to recognize the top 3% of the battery, and one iteration of your plan above did the trick.
^After I noticed these steps in the Evo thread last week, following them did the trick for 1 iteration.
My phone rarely has stayed long @ 100% after coming off a full charge since then, though.
Hi everyone!
My Nexus had a great battery Life at the beginning..after 6 months,it started to last less,so i bought a smartwatch to help the battery last longer; but the things didn't get better. The phone overheat when using maps or play some games just for 10 minutes;when i unplug the charger at 11.30 am in the morning,it goes to a 50 or 40% around 4 o' clock pm in the afternoon just after sending some WhatsApp messages, and after have played 15 minutes..the battery drains really really fast..but worst of all,when the battery reach the 25%,suddendly the phone turns off,telling that the battery have reached 1% and is empty. If i turn on the phone again,the battery percentage indicator is still set to 1%..what's the problem with it?i have a faulty battery?Need to call the Google assistance?
The phone is stock,not rooted or anithing else.
Thanks a lot!
I have had the same issue.
Occurs sometimes when I'm on 10%, I power it back on and it says 1%.
The problem is if you charge using QuickCharger all the time, especially overnight, it can degrade your battery but in a way that it doesn't fully charge.
Try using a normal USBC cable you got and PC to charge it for a few days...don't leave it charging more than 3 hours.
See if it'll get better after a week.
I Always use the supplied charger from Google..sometimes a car adapter with a usb c- usb c- cable...how is it possible that the stock Wall adapter mess up the battery??