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battery draining when I charge phone. Alerts me to change it

For some reason, every couple of days when I plug my phone in to charge the battery overnight I end up getting an alert (about 4 in the morning!) to change the battery because mine is dead, along with the back up battery, and then the phone shuts off within about a minute. Luckily I have another battery, which I then put in, and then put the dead battery in the "back up battery" slot in the cradle to charge, which it does. I don't know why this happens but it is very frustrating. I am afraid of this happening on a trip out of town where I won't have the ability to use my cradle, unless I bring it which is a big hassle. I don't know what to do.

This IS vexing. By the fact that it charges the extra battery - we know that the power transformer is connected. Since the device does not seem to be charging (possibly even discharging?) - it seems that either the connector on the charging base or the connector on the device itself are bad.
Have you used the power dongle connected to the power transformer to attempt to charge the device? This would tell you if it's the charging base or the device. If it charges outside of the base, it's the base - if not, it's the device.
Best of luck!

How are you charging the battery - from mains power or through the USB?
I had a situation where I was only using USB power to the cradle and although this worked most of the time, I noticed that if the battery was already low (<50%) then the battery seemed to discharge rather than charge.
So the trigger in your case may be the amount of charge left in the battery before you start re-charging it.
I think other people have reported similar discharging situations, so some other ideas might emerge from a search of other threads.

design flaw?

Last week I was traveling, and I ran the battery on my 8125 dry. I got the unit to boot twice, but only for a few seconds, then it blinked out again. It never got past the initial screen. No big deal, I thought, I just charge it at the next opportunity. But when I hooked up the charger, nothing happened. No charging light, and no charging (left unit on charger overnight, tried 3 different chargers). Took the unit to an AT&T store, but they don't sell batteries. Fortunately, the clerk used the same phone and took the battery out of his and put it in my 8125. The unit booted, and when he connected a charger, the charging light came on and charged the phone. I moved it directly to a car charger, and the phone has been fine since then.
Did HTC build in a catch-22 here? When the battery is totally empty, you can't boot the phone and it will not go into charge mode?
Is there perhaps a way around this, other than having a spare battery that has to be kept in a charged state?

If you read around this thread, there are LOTS of posts about this. Yes, the battery in the 8125 is goofy. It'll crap out at you if the power goes below (and I'm recalling from memory, so this may be wrong) 5% of full charge.
Don't drain your battery completely. I usually shut my phone off around 10-15% and only power it when absolutely necessary until it's been recharged. If you drain it dead, it typically won't charge unless you use your AC adapter charger, or in rare cases your car charger. USB doesn't provide enough juice to jump over the dead-battery hurdle. Apparently, in your case, that wasn't even enough.
The best things you can do for yourself is show the actual battery strength on your today screen somewhere (doesn't matter how, or with what). Use something that shows the actual battery strength in linear value, not logarithmic value. This will help keep you from accidentally draining it. Also, like you said, buy a spare battery. My usage isn't that high, I can usually go 2-3 days without charging, but if you're draining it daily, an extra battery is a near absolute requirement.

This is usual for these phones. When battery goes dry it's very hard to charge it. You can wake battery up with atx power supply or similar with 5volt output. Just connect wire from power supply +5 volt line(red wire) to battery + and second wire from power supply ground line(black wire) to battery -. Power on atx power. After 1-2 min your battery is alive and you can boot up your phone and charge a battery.

Andida long lasting battery 1600mAh

Hi i get this battery from my friend.its made for htc hd 2 but when i put the battery into my phone the phone keeps rebooting itself.i can see the energy logo at the beginning and the screen goes off and starting again.i was trying to recharge the battery in the dock station but seems not working
Any ideas?
Thanks

If the battery has been laying around for quite some time, it should now be completely empty, close to 0V, a state those batteries should never be allowed to reach. This can easily cause what you are describing.
The best thing to try in order to revive it is probably just charging it externally, either in some special commercial product intended to do just that, or using a lab power supply (set the voltage to 4.2V, set the current limiter to about 700mA connect the battery, when the voltage finally climbs back to those 4.2V, disconnect it).
Anyway, if doing what i've described isn't an option, try just keeping the phone connected to it's charger, with that battery in, for 15..20 minutes, it may eventually be able to charge it enough to get out of this state.

[Q] N7 discharging when plugged in

Lately – I’m not sure when this stated, my Nexus 7 (running 4.4.2) has been charging absurdly slow. I’m talking 20%-30% in a span of 24 hours. It’s like it’s hooked up to a trickle-charge. I’ve tried 2 different OEM cables and 2 different OEM chargers (I had the one that came with it, and I ordered an official Asus OEM replacement charger with cable as well, to have as a spare).
I downloaded Battery Monitor Widget and while it sees it as plugged in via AC, the charge rate is -9ma (in other words, while plugged in, running nothing but the battery monitor, instead of actually charging, it simply reduced the discharge rate from negative 718ma to negative 9ma).
The only thing I can think of is this: as I understand it, USB AC adapters capable of “fast charge” (2ma) first test the device to see if it’s compatible, to avoid potentially over-charging the unit. Perhaps my device is not properly responding to this test? Perhaps that’s why it’s not providing enough juice?
Or maybe someone else has some better insight and can educate me. I’m certainly open to learning. Any ideas?

WraithTDK said:
The only thing I can think of is this: as I understand it, USB AC adapters capable of “fast charge” (2ma) first test the device to see if it’s compatible, to avoid potentially over-charging the unit. Perhaps my device is not properly responding to this test? Perhaps that’s why it’s not providing enough juice?
Or maybe someone else has some better insight and can educate me. I’m certainly open to learning. Any ideas?
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Click to collapse
[apologies in advance for a long-winded reply; hopefully some of it will be useful to you]
The OEM charger should be capable of 2 A (not 2mA).
Dumb chargers don't "talk" to the tablet. (Well, except for Apple USB dumb chargers - Apple violates the USB spec with their proprietary hardware, and that raises the meaning of "dumb" to a whole new level).
The tablet tries to draw what it wants, and if the wall charger is capable of supplying that current, everything will be fine - meaning, that the output voltage of the charger will be stable (near to 5V). If the tablet tries to draw more current from a charger than the charger is designed for, what usually happens is that the output voltage of the charger will start to droop down. (Sometimes, even worse things can happen, such as the voltage coming from the charger will start to oscillate.) This will have the effect that the voltage drops down to the point where it is barely larger than the voltage from the battery, and so the current flowing out of the charger gets limited that way.
But you shouldn't have this problem as you have at least two OEM chargers, and more than one cable, suggesting that your difficulty is with the tablet somehow.
I note (from your post) that you can observe the actual charging current; this suggests that you have a custom kernel on your tablet, as the stock kernel doesn't have the BQ27541 patches which allow current monitoring (only battery voltage and percent charge).
Here's the reason why I mention this. (Oh boy, get yourself a beverage, this is a long story).
I was going to be making some long drives (>13 hr) and I wanted my N7 in the vehicle, WiFi tethered and active (Google Nav and so forth) As you have observed, when you have the tablet running and are poking away at the screen, it can draw anywhere from 300 mA to more than 1000 mA, depending on how many cores are alive, which CPU frequency is in use, the screen brightness, streaming activity, etc.
And unfortunately...I was in a hurry: I couldn't wait for a car charger to be delivered following an online purchase. And all the local electronics stores seem to only sell high-capacity car chargers that are "Apple Compatible", which is marketing speak for "violates the USB spec". The N7 expects compliant behavior from chargers.
So, I bought two of those "Apple Compatible" car chargers from different manufacturers, and also bought a micro-USB cable that I could hack. I opened up the cable, clipped the D+/D- wires, connecting them together on the "Nexus 7" end of the cable, and left them open on the charger side (open but insulated of course). This has the effect of preventing the N7 from thinking there is a data connection present - the Apple chargers twiddle those D+/D- lines a little bit, and that prevents the (USB spec-compliant) N7 from thinking there is a dumb charger on the other end of the cable.
I wanted to be sure that what I had was actually working correctly, and if either of those two car chargers really would provide enough current, so I installed a dev kernel that has the BQ27451 battery current monitor patches in it. I think several of the dev kernels have this; I used M-kernel.
OK, so far so good.
The next step was to crank both the min and max CPU clock limits way down (300 Mhz iirc), turn on the "performance" governor and turn the screen brightness all the way down. I may have even used Trickster Mod to set Max_Cores to only 1. This was done so that the tablet would draw a smallish and constant current. That way, when I plugged in the car charger, I would actually know what the total charger current was - the sum of the (absolute) values between the unplugged state (discharging) and plugged in (charging)** If you leave the CPU frequency controls in their normal state, the amount of current the tablet draws can jump all over the place depending on tablet activity, and then it would be hard to know the total current the charger is actually producing. (It is the SUM of the battery current displayed plus whatever the tablet is drawing).
When I did the above, my N7 (grouper, WiFi off) was drawing just under 300 mA of current from the battery in the unplugged condition.
Still with me? (it gets better, trust me).
So, what I observed was that, yes, one of the two chargers was better than the other; I could get get the monitored battery charging current up to 1400 mA with one, and maybe 1100 mA with the other. (That's total current from each charger of about 1.7A or 1.4A respectively after adding in the 300 mA the tablet is drawing)
Finally though, an explanation of why this is relevant to you:
When the tablet was plugged in to either charger, the current would not immediately jump up to the maximum value; instead, it would sometimes takes minutes or more for the current to jump up to that maximum value!
It would, however immediately jump up to about 800 mA total current right after plugging the charger. That's better than a 500 mA computer USB connection, but if the tablet is active, it's no guarantee that the tablet will gain any charge - as in your situation.
So why the delay? To be honest, I don't really know. In my panic to get ready for my travel, I only spent a little bit of time fooling with it - for a while I had a hypothesis that the kernel was doing *something* that made the current pop up to its full 1.7A value only after the tablet had left a deep sleep state. The good thing was that once the current stepped up to the full value, it would stay there despite the level of activity on the tablet.
[size=+1]The point is that the maximum charging current condition seems to be dependent on some condition(s) happening which is under control of the kernel - it is not just an "analog" behavior that happens as soon as you plug the charger in.[/size].
So I suppose it is possible that you simply have a configuration where the operating trajectory that your tablet passes through does not trigger the right conditions in the kernel to command the SMB chip (USB interface controller) to max the current out close to the 2A limit.
You might want to try an experiment where you:
- Observe the charging rate with the tablet completely turned off. Should be about 100% in 150 minutes (2.5 hrs) or about 6-7% every ten minutes. Note that because the battery is 4.235 A-h capacity, that works out to a charging current of at least (4.235 A-hr / 2.5 hr) = 1.7 A. (It is probably greater than that due to charging losses).
If your tablet charges at about this rate when it is off, then nothing is wrong with your charger, cable, battery, or SMB chip, and it points a finger at your kernel's code - and possibly other things like applications holding wakelocks which prevent the tablet from entering deep sleep.
I won't go so far as to claim that it is "coming out of deep sleep" that triggered the M-kernel to twiddle the SMB chip so it would draw 2A; in all my experimentation, I couldn't faithfully reproduce the behavior. The good news was that that it would eventually (within a few minutes, possibly due to the tablet sleeping) ramp completely up and then stay there.
Anyway, I hope this gives you some food for thought and maybe some experiments you can run to narrow down the problem.
- What kernel are you using?
- Does your tablet ever enter deep sleep? (I don't mean simply that the screen is off - it is a state where the hardware is placed in a low-power state where even the memory bus is no longer operating. A wakelock might prevent this from happening, but in any event you should be able to observe this in the kernel log - the clock values get wonky and you might see a message about "G" state)
- Does your tablet charge even a little bit when the screen is off?
** I sort of recall that that "Current Widget" app always displays a positive value for current, but changes the display color red/green depending on whether the tablet is discharging (red) or charging (green). Something to watch out for.
.

Kernel: It's rooted, but otherwise completely stock. Battery Monitor Widget doesn't seem to have an issue display the charging rate (and yes, I meant 2A, not 2ma).
Sleep mode: It should; I have one of those cases whose covers are supposed to put it in sleep mode. It DOES charge; but it does it at a snail's pace; a battery info app has it at 30% over the span of 24 hours with it never being touched during that time.
I turned it completely off 3 hours ago at 37% and I just turned it on to 76%
Unfortunately, Current Widget is not compatible with the N7.

WraithTDK said:
Kernel: It's rooted, but otherwise completely stock. Battery Monitor Widget doesn't seem to have an issue display the charging rate (and yes, I meant 2A, not 2ma).
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It actually displays instantaneous current? Maybe I should restore a 4.4.2 ROM and see if the newer stock kernel has those BQ27541 patches.
WraithTDK said:
Sleep mode: It should; I have one of those cases whose covers are supposed to put it in sleep mode.
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Click to collapse
Well, "screen off" is not equal to "deep sleep". The tegra3 has multiple low-power modes, but the one I am thinking of is really low power - kind of like a "suspend" state for PCs. If there is an application holding a wakelock, the tablet will never enter deep sleep. (As I mentioned, the "deep sleep" mode is very near to the tablet being completely off - the lpRAM is still drawing a little bit of current (it is in self-refresh mode) ). When my N7 sleeps, it charges nearly at the same rate as when it is turned off. (But, see below; in light of that I don't think this is your problem)
WraithTDK said:
It DOES charge; but it does it at a snail's pace; a battery info app has it at 30% over the span of 24 hours with it never being touched during that time.
I turned it completely off 3 hours ago at 37% and I just turned it on to 76%
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Click to collapse
39% in 3 hrs? Hmmm. If things were linear, that would be: 0.39*4.235 / 3 = 551 mA.
You are right, that isn't very good at all. Your tablet will discharge if you are using it even though it is plugged in.
Well - that "tablet off" charging test is pretty diagnostic - the kernel and OS are not even running, so they can't be altering anything. So maybe they can't be blamed for anything either.
But, that Summit Microsystems SMB347 chip is sitting there acting as the battery charger, even when the tablet is "off". Maybe it has something stateful in it (like a few non-volatile memory registers) that could have been altered by past activity on the tablet. Summit doesn't allow datasheet downloads without a NDA, so I don't know.
When the N7 is fully turned off, there is still something tiny running - otherwise, how would that "charging animation" get painted on the screen when you plug the tablet in when it is off? I don't know if that is something in the tegra3 miniloader or just a low-power personality of the bootloader; hard to know really. I guess I am speculating whether something in the bootloader could have "programmed" the SMB chip, but the only thing I remember seeing here (on XDA) is a toggle via a fastboot OEM command that causes the tablet to boot up as soon as power is applied - the guys who do car installs use that.
Well, I'm sort of out of ideas. It sounds like you have tried the obvious stuff already. Do you have any reason to believe the USB port has an intermittent connetion? Or maybe that the battery itself has an intermittent or resistive connection at its power connector?
cheers

Had a very similar problem on my s3 and the problem was the microusb port on the phone
Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk

WraithTDK said:
Lately – I’m not sure when this stated, my Nexus 7 (running 4.4.2) has been charging absurdly slow. I’m talking 20%-30% in a span of 24 hours. It’s like it’s hooked up to a trickle-charge. I’ve tried 2 different OEM cables and 2 different OEM chargers (I had the one that came with it, and I ordered an official Asus OEM replacement charger with cable as well, to have as a spare).
I downloaded Battery Monitor Widget and while it sees it as plugged in via AC, the charge rate is -9ma (in other words, while plugged in, running nothing but the battery monitor, instead of actually charging, it simply reduced the discharge rate from negative 718ma to negative 9ma).
The only thing I can think of is this: as I understand it, USB AC adapters capable of “fast charge” (2ma) first test the device to see if it’s compatible, to avoid potentially over-charging the unit. Perhaps my device is not properly responding to this test? Perhaps that’s why it’s not providing enough juice?
Or maybe someone else has some better insight and can educate me. I’m certainly open to learning. Any ideas?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You might have an issue with your USB on your device. Mine was starting to charge slow but not quite to the degree as yours. I also found that my device would no longer communicate to any computer. If you have tried different cables & charger then you may have to RMA your device.

Asus Nexus 7 draining while plugged in to charge
My Nexus 7 was totally dead. Hit the power button and five blinks of a white LED. Plugged it in it went to 68% then next day it was 28% - 19% and on down. Before it got to zero I turned it off and took off the back. I noticed with the aid of a magnifying glass, that the soldered connections of the mini USB charging port were very possibly fractured. Having had experience at soldering, I added solder and reflowed the connections (about 4 or 5). I then plugged it in. For the first time since the beginning of this mystery I saw the battery icon actually indicating that it was charging. It was 100% within three hours. Haven't had a problem since.
I have been searching all over and found many ideas from - try another charger to - install another charging board. When you think about it, that connecter sees a lot of push and pull. If it is not soldered well and sturdy it's no wonder that it will fracture. I don't think there was enough solder on there to begin with.
If you do not know someone who can solder on a very small scale and want to brave this yourself, make sure you have a very small tip on the iron, not more than 700 degrees and some extra flux. You will most likely bridge a few connectors but keep brushing the tip of the iron away from the connections with flux added. You will get it eventually. Just don't burn the board. And clean it all with a brush and alcohol. Good luck.

2021 Fire HD10 - battery percentage not going up when charging

I have a 11th Gen 32GB FIre HD10. I use the tablet daily. Yesterday, I noticed that it is not charging. The charge symbol (lightning bolt battery) is still seen but the charge just isn't going up. I charged it for hours and it is still at 64%. I tried switch power supply and USB-C cable. At one point, it went to 65% but stopped. If I use it without plugging in, the battery will go down. And it will not go back up again through charge. Tried reboot. Power cycle. No difference. I have Fire Toolbox installed so the firmware isn't auto updating (since November 2021).
I am at lost right now. Is there a way to fix it without factory reset?

May be a battery failure, a port pcb failure is the next most likely cause.
A factory reset will likely just waste your time.
If the battery capacity has been declining and especially if it decreased a lot in the last month or two, it's almost certainly a battery failure.
Any swelling is a failure, if so replace immediately.

The tablet can tell it is charging and battery indicator appears to indicate the activity (by decreasing). It just seems that the charging circuit is faulty. But then, I have not come across any similar behavior through search.

nookin said:
The tablet can tell it is charging and battery indicator appears to indicate the activity (by decreasing). It just seems that the charging circuit is faulty. But then, I have not come across any similar behavior through search.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do not charge with the screen on as it will skew the charge curve.
It may be the power controller circuit but more than likely it's either the cable, the charger, the battery or the port pcb if it has one.

blackhawk said:
Do not charge with the screen on as it will skew the charge curve.
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Click to collapse
Unfortunately, that is the only way that I can use the tablet now. I fear that once battery dropped too low (e.g. 5% or less), it will refuse to boot and I will not be able to use the tablet even if I have it plugged in because the battery % will not go up.

How to maximize battery life: Charging habits and other tips
If you've ever wondered what the best way to charge your battery is, here are some scientifically proven tips for maximizing battery life.
www.androidauthority.com

nookin said:
Unfortunately, that is the only way that I can use the tablet now. I fear that once battery dropped too low (e.g. 5% or less), it will refuse to boot and I will not be able to use the tablet even if I have it plugged in because the battery % will not go up.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Back it up now if it isn't...

back it up and replace.

I can think of something to try.
I have one old HP TouchPad that I have to charge this way.
First off, make sure you have a known good USB-C cable. I had one that was not uni-directional, I would only work when inserted one way. I'd try connecting it to a PC with the cable and see if it is connected. It might even give you the warning that it is connected to a low power charger...
Scrounge up a couple of lower power charging bricks, say around 2w or less, and power OFF the tablet,
Connect up the tablet and see what happens.
On my one TouchPad I have to use a low power wall wart to get it to charge. It won't even charge on the wireless cradle.
It will also charge off a PC at times.
Good Luck!

My problem went away awhile after a period of not charging. But the charging problem returned. I think the battery is charging but for some reasons, it is not reflecting it in percentage. On the other hand, the percentage is falling while it is in use.
The thing about the Fire Tablet is that there appears to be no way to charge it with tablet powered off. As soon as it is plugged it, it will power on.

6 weeks passed. I still have the same issue. Basically, the battery indicator is incorrect.
My Fire HD10 is still being charged and appears to hold a charge even for long period of use. But often times, the battery percentage will stop well before 100%. The exact number where it stopped increasing changes from time to time. It could be 41% today and it could be 33% tomorrow.
I have tried using it til it shut off. I recall that I can charge it back to 100% but the issue will return.
I need to make a tough choice. I am still on pre-7.3.2.2 firmware with Fire Toolbox. If I send the tablet back for "repair", I will most likely get back a refurbished one running 7.3.2.2+. But I also want my battery issue resolved.

nookin said:
6 weeks passed. I still have the same issue. Basically, the battery indicator is incorrect.
My Fire HD10 is still being charged and appears to hold a charge even for long period of use. But often times, the battery percentage will stop well before 100%. The exact number where it stopped increasing changes from time to time. It could be 41% today and it could be 33% tomorrow.
I have tried using it til it shut off. I recall that I can charge it back to 100% but the issue will return.
I need to make a tough choice. I am still on pre-7.3.2.2 firmware with Fire Toolbox. If I send the tablet back for "repair", I will most likely get back a refurbished one running 7.3.2.2+. But I also want my battery issue resolved.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A sensor on the mobo may have failed.
Observe what the battery voltages are with the shown battery percentage.
If the voltages don't match the percentage then it may not be hardware...
On an Li the voltage between fully discharged and fully charge aren't that much, around 1 volt or so like on a Samsung 4.25 volt battery.

I had the same problem with my 2021 Fire 10 tablet. I eventually realized it was not charging while connected to 5GHz WIFI. If I turn WIFI off or connect using the 2.4GHz band, it starts charging again. The 5GHz connection had become unmetered for some reason. Deleting the connection and making a new one as metered solved the problem, temporarily. Not sure how it is getting changed to unmetered. Really annoying bug.