Database Users

Interesting. AC charging better then USB??

Hrm.. This is interesting.. I used to always charge my G1 with AC power. However past couple days, I was lazy and used my laptop USB to charge it. I noticed those days however the battery life was HORRIBLE! I mean I couldnt even get past lets say 9 hours without the battery being at 15-30% and this is without doing anything major. On AC I always got home with 50%.
Has anyone else noticed this? I am using the power profiler mode, so unless something goes out of whack on USB power mode, which I dont see why it would...
(Also I did turn off phone and back on to reset anything just in case) but its just a interesting thing that it seems USB charges suck?

Yes I noticed the same thing, used the computer USB to charge and only lasted about 6 hours of the day. I use the Wall charger and get about 9 hours consistantly. Not sure why but I have noticed this several times........
Mark

Every Tmobile rep I've talked to always say the AC charger does a better job of charging the phone.

Hrm, is this info on a G1 Wiki yet? Would be good info to pass around. My logicial guess is that USB charging can only allow the voltage on the battery to charge to "x" max. While AC power being stronger could bring the battery up more. I cant say thats fully the case.. but since the USB cannot supply the power max a AC could.. its possible.

I've got and idea for a little test, would be helpful to see a lot of different users results as well..
Get Battery Graph, run your phone dead, plug in usb charger and graph. then take a screenshot of the overall charge time, clear graph
Run it dead again, plug in AC charger #1 and and repeat
Repeat the process for each additional recharging apparatus
The reason I mention additional apparatuses is because I think my car's DC charger does better than both ac and usb (tho this will be hard to get a full accurate graph of) , also I use my gf's moto charger from time to time (i know bad mojo)..
This will probably take a few days as charging will take place at sleep time for me but this should give us an over all view of how things are working if we all get pretty consistent results..

Mysticales said:
Hrm.. This is interesting.. I used to always charge my G1 with AC power. However past couple days, I was lazy and used my laptop USB to charge it. I noticed those days however the battery life was HORRIBLE! I mean I couldnt even get past lets say 9 hours without the battery being at 15-30% and this is without doing anything major. On AC I always got home with 50%.
Has anyone else noticed this? I am using the power profiler mode, so unless something goes out of whack on USB power mode, which I dont see why it would...
(Also I did turn off phone and back on to reset anything just in case) but its just a interesting thing that it seems USB charges suck?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've had 4 different miniUSB charging phones and all of them have had this same behavior. I'm sure that the voltage coming through the USB isn't as strong as AC.

I have the same issue too...!!!

No offense.. but EVERY phone charges better w/AC versus USB .. This is not just a G1 issue .... lol

jamaicansolja said:
No offense.. but EVERY phone charges better w/AC versus USB .. This is not just a G1 issue .... lol
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Click to collapse
Indeed.
Also, USB charges at 500 mAh, while the AC gives double if i remember correctly.

jamaicansolja said:
No offense.. but EVERY phone charges better w/AC versus USB .. This is not just a G1 issue .... lol
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Im wondering, if I use my usb while plugged into my laptop (for tether wifi app) will this hamper my battery life? I have the extended battery (2200mah) and I get far better life from it and to be honest I like the bigger size because the g1 felt too much like a toy to me before.
What do you guys think will this mess it up? I dont have wifi at home so the tetherwifi app is the only way I have net on my laptop unless I go somewhere where they have wifi. Cursed neighrbors and there password protected networks!

Might using a USB stepup voltage converter help? I've used it to charge my Nokia phone on usb in the past so it would reach the battery is full message.
The argument is usually that laptop usb don't output adequate voltage.
Its cheap and works for me on the nokia phone, Haven't tried it on the G1 yet though, can anyone find the ac charger's output info?
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.2649

yea this goes for alot of devices.. my ipod/psp charge pretty slow compared to wall outlet, however i didnt really see strength difference.. never tried USB charging my g1

I think it's worth noting I have the G1, My girlfriend has a HTC Touch(Elfin)
Both use Mini-USB Charging, both have 5V 1A Batteries (can't remember mA rating though)
Through a wall charger, my phone seems to charge quicker, but I get no longer out of it, the same behaviour is exhibited with the Touch. Both USB and the Wall charger are rated at 5V (It would/coul destroy componants methinks if it was any higher).
USB's Specifications say that unless a device has special permissions, It can only draw 500mA, with a maximum of 1000mA and a very rare (as in, one maybe two things use it) 2000mA.
Also, I have a custom made USB charger, that takes 3 AAA batteries (1.5x3 = 4.5)
It causes the phones internal battery to mess up, but does actually charge it (just a lot longer than other methods). It's more of an extended battery however, as it says it is charging, yet the battery life slowly degrades.

It's simple really and it has already been explained.
The USB port on a computer is limited to 500mA for most devices where as AC chargers like
The G1's can rpovide up to 1 Amp, even more/less depending on the chargers.
It doesn't depend on the voltage but on the current delivered. Less current equals
More time to charge and viceversa,
There is no myth.

Charging without Samsung AC Adapter?

I went out of town this week and made sure to grab my USB cable, but left the AC adapter at home figuring I'd just charge off my laptop via usb. Apparently not... I also tried plugging the USB cord into my iPhone AC/usb adapter with no luck. The only thing I've found is that when you turn off the Tab and connect to one of these devices, a green battery indicator will pop up showing that it is charging. Well, after about 16 hours, it made it from 15% all the way up to 48%. Does anyone know any way around turning it off to charge or why it is barely charging when it is off?

Jaydawgx7 said:
I went out of town this week and made sure to grab my USB cable, but left the AC adapter at home figuring I'd just charge off my laptop via usb. Apparently not... I also tried plugging the USB cord into my iPhone AC/usb adapter with no luck. The only thing I've found is that when you turn off the Tab and connect to one of these devices, a green battery indicator will pop up showing that it is charging. Well, after about 16 hours, it made it from 15% all the way up to 48%. Does anyone know any way around turning it off to charge or why it is barely charging when it is off?
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Well seeing as it has a 7000mAh battery, just about any run-of-the-mill USB charger isn't going to cut it. The amperage would have higher as well. Now i would hazard that an iPad charger (10 watts) would probably work just fine vs an iPod charger.
Your laptop's USB port isn't providing enough juice to charge fully. With the screen off it will only trickle charge and very slowly at that.

You'll need at least 5 Volt 2 Amp chargers.
You can also try this:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=14890063&postcount=16
Or this:
http://cgi.ebay.com/190522553195?ru...ee-All-Categories&_fvi=1&_rdc=1#ht_3085wt_905
I've ordered both last week but neither have arrived yet. I'll report back.

You need a 5vdc supply that will provide 2A. 10W, not 5w as the previous post said. That adapter on ebay won't help the charge, it just disconnects the data line so it does not change its mode when connected to a computer. There are a lot of power supplies that will work and even more that won't, just made sure it supplies 2a. If you want to charge off your laptop then you will want a Y adapter similar to what is on usb powered hard drives but even then you will need to use 2 usb 2.0 or 3.0 ports and will provably only get 1a out.
Sent from my GT-P7510 using XDA Premium App

Fix for battery drain when connected to PC

I'm not sure if this has been noted elsewhere but I couldn't find it if it was.
I ran into the problem yesterday in which my HD2 running WP7 would drain the battery if connected to the PC USB port instead of charging it. This was the first time my phone had done this and restarting the phone and switching USB ports did not result in any difference.
On a whim I decided to look in my device manager and there was an unknown device listed there. I selected it and had is search for and install the drivers and now it listed as USB Composite Device. Once that was done, the phone charged as normal.

jaxjaguar said:
I'm not sure if this has been noted elsewhere but I couldn't find it if it was.
I ran into the problem yesterday in which my HD2 running WP7 would drain the battery if connected to the PC USB port instead of charging it. This was the first time my phone had done this and restarting the phone and switching USB ports did not result in any difference.
On a whim I decided to look in my device manager and there was an unknown device listed there. I selected it and had is search for and install the drivers and now it listed as USB Composite Device. Once that was done, the phone charged as normal.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My phone's listed as Windows Phone USB, which i think is cool, but stll not enough!
Charging takes hours...

stealth21 said:
My phone's listed as Windows Phone USB, which i think is cool, but stll not enough!
Charging takes hours...
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Click to collapse
that depends on the charging source.
if you use a laptop you will only be getting 200-300mA of current, a normal PC USB port will give you around 500mA, the wall charger will give you 1A (1000mA)
Now its not as simple as that as the device uses some of that power for working as we cant charge whilst off, so knock 100mA off it if the screen is on, on standby it'll be minimal so forget that.
1A charger should get you charged in ~1.5 hours
PC will double it to ~2.5 hours, some PCs do have 1000mA ports so say ~1.5-2.5 hours)
laptop could be ~4-6 hours (some laptops do have 500mA ports so say ~2.5-6 hours)
note you can get 2A quick chargers (~35min-45min, but i would be very careful with those an can ultimately lead to a shorter life span of the battery

dazza9075 said:
that depends on the charging source.
if you use a laptop you will only be getting 200-300mA of current, a normal PC USB port will give you around 500mA, the wall charger will give you 1A (1000mA)
Now its not as simple as that as the device uses some of that power for working as we cant charge whilst off, so knock 100mA off it if the screen is on, on standby it'll be minimal so forget that.
1A charger should get you charged in ~1.5 hours
PC will double it to ~2.5 hours, some PCs do have 1000mA ports so say ~1.5-2.5 hours)
laptop could be ~4-6 hours (some laptops do have 500mA ports so say ~2.5-6 hours)
note you can get 2A quick chargers (~35min-45min, but i would be very careful with those an can ultimately lead to a shorter life span of the battery
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for quick reply, i tried computer it took so long..
Although I'm using wall charger nowadays it takes more then 3-4 hours. Theres something wrong, When i had winmo6.5 the device was fully charged in 2.5 hours...

stealth21 said:
Thanks for quick reply, i tried computer it took so long..
Although I'm using wall charger nowadays it takes more then 3-4 hours. Theres something wrong, When i had winmo6.5 the device was fully charged in 2.5 hours...
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Click to collapse
yeah that doesnt sound right, the battery its self is only 1230mA, the wall charger is 1000mA on standby within WP it should draw any more than 10mA but lets say 100mA on the extreme side, that gives you a net gain of 900mA every hour which is like 1 hour 20min.
I assume its the 1A charger that came with the device? check the adaptor and see what the current output is listed as
according to your figure of 3 hour charge time ( again, assuming from flat) that means its dumping around 400mA in to the battery an hour. That means one of two things
Firstly that your device is using an incredible 600mAh, that would be toasty and is unlikely!
Secondly, the charger isnt putting out 1000mA, more likely 500mA or 300mA
I suppose there is a third option, something gone wrong in the device its self, i cant think why it would tho, try running it near flat, restart it, make a note of the battery level then restarting again (you restart twice because WP on the HD2 has battery reporting issues) hold down the VOL down button on reboot which will take you in to the bootloader.
plug in the charger and leave for half hour, go back to windows and look at battery (remember to set the clock properly again!)
if the charger is 500mA it will have only charged to just less than 1/3
if its 1A it will be just less than 2/3 maybe half
the point of doing it in the bootloader is that you rule out WP and its dodgy drivers and will help to narrow down the problem

Check charge current in Battery tool apps. Battery current - positive figures are charging current.negative discharge.
To get high charging current(more than 200 ma) from power suply(wall or car) usb data lines must be shorted(fast charging mode). On ploperly made power supplies usb data shorted and phone can suck high current(700-800ma normaly not more).
Even if on charger written 1000ma it doesn't mean phone wil take all. what is written on charger - it is max allowed.

zcdg said:
Check charge current in Battery tool apps. Battery current - positive figures are charging current.negative discharge.
To get high charging current(more than 200 ma) from power suply(wall or car) usb data lines must be shorted(fast charging mode). On ploperly made power supplies usb data shorted and phone can suck high current(700-800ma normaly not more).
Even if on charger written 1000ma it doesn't mean phone wil take all. what is written on charger - it is max allowed.
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Indeed, although from my own tests it draws around 900mA, there is a large number of variables including power fluctuations on a dirty line regulated supplies, state of the battery, etc, its safe to play with estimates I think in this case without overcomplicating things, but the fact remains, on a wall charger that comes with the HD2 it should fully charge in around 1.5 hours unless it is not the same charger or something is wrong with it.

dazza9075 said:
Indeed, although from my own tests it draws around 900mA, there is a large number of variables including power fluctuations on a dirty line regulated supplies, state of the battery, etc, its safe to play with estimates I think in this case without overcomplicating things, but the fact remains, on a wall charger that comes with the HD2 it should fully charge in around 1.5 hours unless it is not the same charger or something is wrong with it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yes, with correct wall or car charger it charges in about 1.5 hours from almost empty to full.

Impossible to charge sg2 in car

Hi all, just came 3 days ago from an htc hd2, and so far I am more than happy with it.
I have only one complaint and maybe you guys will help me sharing your experience : I can't charge this phone in my car while using gps.
It seems that the power adapter is not powerful enough to charge the phone screen on.
The car charger has a 5v 1000ma output, more than the regular wall charger provided by Samsung and it was working well before with my HD2 so I have no clue about this problem.
Did you experience that issue too, else can you share what car charger do you use?

try to buy new standard car charger with micro plug.. 13 eur and you will be saved..
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App

Charger doesn't matter unless the phone is dropping into USB charging mode - phone limits to around 600-650 mA by default.
Custom kernels can bump this limit up for I9100 users. I777 users are screwed - we've got a crippled charger chip.

I had the same problem, I used the samsung one, useless, so I used my iPad charger, which is 2A, and charges the iPad quick, still useless. We drove from Bathurst NSW, down to Melbourne, about 10 hour drive, plugged in all the way using GPS, and about an hour from home, the connect to charger warning came on!! So once I stopped GPS, it started taking charge. Looks like when the phone is in use, it draws more then it takes charge, plus I read somewhere on here the phone is limited on the charge it takes, so using the 2A does nothing different then the stock 500mA charger.

I always had this problem with my Nexus One, although they are different phones, the problem is the same, uses more power then it can recharge in USB mode.
After trying 3 or 4 different charges I remember that I found one ultra-cheap 'made in taiwan' from a street seller that worked very well.... so it's kind of a lucky shot!
good luck!

Im using a genuine Samsung SGS2 charger and I can charge and run Sygic just fine. I started my journey with 80% and 40mins later I was up to 91% when I stopped and got out. (not in aeroplane mode..)

Very interesting feedbacks... So that confirm that is clearly not a matter of output amperage power.
It is now the same problem on the galaxy tab 10.1, for quickly charge this tab you need the Samsung compatible usb adapter.
It can be likely with a tab bringing a proprietary plug, but I didn't thought it will be the same with a Samsung phone bringing a regular micro usb plug. Quite frustrating and disappointing!
I will search around a micro plug car charger as suggested by redzion, but actually I don't clearly see the difference with my usb charger + a micro usb cable.

Double post, sorry.

If I use the usb cable from my cd player I have the same problem but if I use the official Samsung car charger Ithe only problem I have is the phone getting stupid hot
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda premium

Oh Samsung, when you will understand?!

Samsung DOES follow the USB charging standard - it goes to its highest current setting when a charger that follows the standard is connected.
Note that iPad/iPhone chargers do NOT follow the standard - Samsungs will treat these as USB hosts and limit to 450 mA instead of 600-650.
Modified kernels can increase both of these values on I9100s.
The only thing Samsung really did **** up is counting screen/CPU current usage against the charge current limits - that's just stupid.

So the charger has smarts. On the i9000 factory chargers, the data pins were bridged. Bridging these pins manually on a USB cable when connecting to a USB source (such as a PC) enabled full current charging. You can see this in Settings -> About; it will say either USB or AC charging.
Do you think this is the case with the i9100?
I don't condone testing this theory on your i9100. Increasing the max current via custom ROM may be a safer solution.

I had the same problem. Two things fixed it for me:
1) I bought this charger: Sony Ericsson AN300 Micro USB 10€
2) I am using a custom kernel now

Any charger that is rated at 1000mA or more (per port) will do just fine. The problem is the cable - you need a quality microUSB cable, or it won't provide all the juice you need. I had the same issue, and I swapped three chargers until I found the real culprit.
Try with the charger you have now and the mUSB cable that was in the phone box - it should work well with that one.

I just press the power button to turn the screen off. when i need the sat nav i press the power and it still tracks you so there is no delay. With the screen off it does charge.

same problem

Duffman19 said:
I just press the power button to turn the screen off. when i need the sat nav i press the power and it still tracks you so there is no delay. With the screen off it does charge.
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Click to collapse
You are right, but even if it is better than nothing the charging time is still a big problem.
Yesterday I drove for at least 40mn phone off. Arrived to destination, I turn the device on: it charged only from 0 to 5%
I would like to test the mariusi theory concerning the Samsung micro usb cable, unfortunately on my SgsII box I just have a wall charger, no a microusb-usb cable.
Entropy512 said:
Samsung DOES follow the USB charging standard - it goes to its highest current setting when a charger that follows the standard is connected.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is there a way to know before buying if the charger respect this charging standard?
I have some cheap usb chargers here and no one is a fast as the one provided by Samsung.
Entropy512 said:
The only thing Samsung really did **** up is counting screen/CPU current usage against the charge current limits - that's just stupid.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe for safety purpose? Gps phones can become very hot behind the car glass.

Samsung are trying to "encourage" you to buy only their official accessories. To do this they've wired something differently in their chargers and cables. This "problem" exists on the Galaxy Tab too and can be solved with this adapter...
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/USB-car-w...ccessories&hash=item2c5c07736b#ht_3084wt_1163
It's cheap and turns a trickle charge into a full charge. I don't know the specifics of what they've done, but their USB charging just isn't the same as most others manufacturers.

Archer said:
It's cheap and turns a trickle charge into a full charge. I don't know the specifics of what they've done, but their USB charging just isn't the same as most others manufacturers.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Great find.

Pretty sure it just bridges the data pins.

Thinkpad tablet slow charge analyzed

I have TPT for 10 days now.
I have usual iisue with USB charging. When used like standard smartphone = put it to charger overnight. Not usable anyway. Charge rate about 5% per hour, which means 20 hours per full charge???
I even consulted it with local technical support. I was adviced to buy docking station with external power adapter .....
So ... I took regulated power supply, made a USB socket connected to it and started to measure
.. and look what I found
When device is switched on, usb power oscilates sligthly under 1000 mA. It is NOT using all available power of 2 Amps of stock power adapter!!!!!
But ... when I power the device off using power button. The current goes down to 300mA for about 5seconds and then raises to full 2 A!
Conclusion? It seems like control issue of the charging ciurcits. What if we can enable full 2A power even when turned on? SW issue?
Is there any chance, how to instruct internal power circuity to use all available power? ADB?

Well I guess that explains the slow charging that people have been reporting. I picked up a dock for my tablet from amazon for about $30 shipped. Now I just put my USB charger in my bag for when I am out and about and dock it when I get home. That being said when I was charging via USB before I had the dock, a full charge seemed to take about 6 hours or so.
As for your question regarding modifying the input charging rate while powered on, I am not sure that can be done via ADB. I am taking a stab in the dark here, but I wouldn't be surprised if the charging rate was hard coded into the power circuit. Which would make some sense so as not to draw to much power if someone wanted to try and charge their tablet while having it plugged into a laptop or USB hub. I am not sure if it has an auto sense capability to determine whether or not it is charging via USB from a port or from the power adapter. I do know when I hook it up to my computer to transfer files it offers me the option to charge via USB, but I think that is a software thing and not hardware. I could be wrong. Maybe if we had access to the board schematics I could figure out. I can read schematics and might be able to figure it out.
Any chance you could get a proper reading via the docking port on the tablet? I would be curious to see if it is always at 2A. I haven't counted the pins but I don't see why you would need more than VCC+, VCC-, GND and maybe a sense line. But I know there are more than 4 pins.
Sent from my ThinkPad Tablet using xda premium

I would say this is a SW issue. Maybe if we had the kernel source code someone could cook up a custom kernel with that control feature tweeked.

Temetka said:
~
Any chance you could get a proper reading via the docking port on the tablet? I would be curious to see if it is always at 2A. I haven't counted the pins but I don't see why you would need more than VCC+, VCC-, GND and maybe a sense line. But I know there are more than 4 pins.
~
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The best thing to use is a watt meter if anyone wants to pursue this.
My findings indicated that the dock has a similar issue as the USB charger when the TPT is on.
Maximum current allowed at the dock connector was measured at just over 1A . Dock should charge the battery at a maximum rate of just over 1% per minute provided the battery charge level is below 70%. So if you discharge the battery to around 50% and compare charge rates you should see the difference between TPT on/off.