[Q] Red Light - Charging without back? - Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

So, I plugged my Nexus 4 into a generic car charger and it went black instantly. The battery was at about 92%. With the hope that a proper AC or computer USB charge connection would bring up the white battery icon and fix things, I stopped by an out of town T-mobile. The manager tried the button battery-reset (up volume + power for 60sec) and I googled alternatives and tried the - enter recovery by pressing those buttons for 15sec off the charger and connecting while still holding down the buttons - trick. Neither worked.
The manger seemed familiar with that and the other button pressing tricks, and said that really, my only real hope would be to reset/replace the battery, but that would void my warranty. However, although the T-mobile site claims my Google bought phone is under warranty (and I've been paying for it each month), technically, it isn't. Under them or Google (any more). So, I purchased the tools to open the phone, as well as a replacement battery. In the interim, I tried to use all the button combos and various charging connections to get it to come back to life. I *did* manage to get it charging the old battery. I know because the blinking red light turned constant for an hour or two, and the battery got warm. I can only guess that the battery was too damaged to keep the charge however, because I could never get it to turn on during or after. My best guess is that the software battery reset allowed the phone to send a charge to the battery - at least once.
After getting my tools and replacement battery, I managed to get the phone open (with great effort - I think there must be a difference between batches there). I removed the old battery connection and looked to see if I could get the charge icon with it unattached and on the charger. I couldn't. Reconnecting the old battery didn't seem to make any difference.
I was about to go through the process of prying up the old battery when I realized that you can actually connect the new battery to the board connector without getting the old one out. So I did that. Leaving it charging like that for awhile didn't do anything, so I decided to do another software battery reset and I'm letting it sit on the charger overnight. All of this has been without reattaching the back.
So my major question is - does anyone know for sure if the phone actually charges the battery with the back off? I know there are important circuits there - which seem to shut down the phone after the battery or google image when not detected (at least that's my deducement after reading posts). But are those connections also used in charging? The Qi goes though the back to the charger function, so perhaps that connection has to be there? I would like to try and find out though beforehand. It took 2 hours and two mangled guitar picks to get it open the first time, and the second may be just as trying. (And believe me, towards the end, I was not concerned with being gentle.)
I am also curious about the four prong battery connection. I've seen the post about charging the battery using external sources by connecting to the two outer pins. Does that mean the two inner pins constitute a second circuit between the charged battery and the phone? And if I find another 3.8v battery fully charged, I could perhaps connect that to the phone instead by wires and get it booted into recovery? As to why I'd want to do that, I don't recall the last dated CM version I had installed, so finding that in their folder plus pulling off everything from /data... assuming I replaced this with another Nexus 4, I might be able to save myself a lot of setup hassle.
In terms of the red light... it actually seems to be an error code. When triggered, it blinks 7 times, and on the eighth stays lit for a bit before repeating.

cetkat said:
So, I plugged my Nexus 4 into a generic car charger and it went black instantly. The battery was at about 92%. With the hope that a proper AC or computer USB charge connection would bring up the white battery icon and fix things, I stopped by an out of town T-mobile. The manager tried the button battery-reset (up volume + power for 60sec) and I googled alternatives and tried the - enter recovery by pressing those buttons for 15sec off the charger and connecting while still holding down the buttons - trick. Neither worked.
The manger seemed familiar with that and the other button pressing tricks, and said that really, my only real hope would be to reset/replace the battery, but that would void my warranty. However, although the T-mobile site claims my Google bought phone is under warranty (and I've been paying for it each month), technically, it isn't. Under them or Google (any more). So, I purchased the tools to open the phone, as well as a replacement battery. In the interim, I tried to use all the button combos and various charging connections to get it to come back to life. I *did* manage to get it charging the old battery. I know because the blinking red light turned constant for an hour or two, and the battery got warm. I can only guess that the battery was too damaged to keep the charge however, because I could never get it to turn on during or after. My best guess is that the software battery reset allowed the phone to send a charge to the battery - at least once.
After getting my tools and replacement battery, I managed to get the phone open (with great effort - I think there must be a difference between batches there). I removed the old battery connection and looked to see if I could get the charge icon with it unattached and on the charger. I couldn't. Reconnecting the old battery didn't seem to make any difference.
I was about to go through the process of prying up the old battery when I realized that you can actually connect the new battery to the board connector without getting the old one out. So I did that. Leaving it charging like that for awhile didn't do anything, so I decided to do another software battery reset and I'm letting it sit on the charger overnight. All of this has been without reattaching the back.
So my major question is - does anyone know for sure if the phone actually charges the battery with the back off? I know there are important circuits there - which seem to shut down the phone after the battery or google image when not detected (at least that's my deducement after reading posts). But are those connections also used in charging? The Qi goes though the back to the charger function, so perhaps that connection has to be there? I would like to try and find out though beforehand. It took 2 hours and two mangled guitar picks to get it open the first time, and the second may be just as trying. (And believe me, towards the end, I was not concerned with being gentle.)
I am also curious about the four prong battery connection. I've seen the post about charging the battery using external sources by connecting to the two outer pins. Does that mean the two inner pins constitute a second circuit between the charged battery and the phone? And if I find another 3.8v battery fully charged, I could perhaps connect that to the phone instead by wires and get it booted into recovery? As to why I'd want to do that, I don't recall the last dated CM version I had installed, so finding that in their folder plus pulling off everything from /data... assuming I replaced this with another Nexus 4, I might be able to save myself a lot of setup hassle.
In terms of the red light... it actually seems to be an error code. When triggered, it blinks 7 times, and on the eighth stays lit for a bit before repeating.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I RAN INTO A SIMILAR PROBLEM
I found that holding the power button for a while allowed my nexus 4 running stock Lollipop 5.1 to boot back up.
Have considered that you may have a faulty USB port ?
Just pop the old battery out install the new one plug in the charger and it will charge. You can boot up without the back on. The back contains the antennia.... and the NFC circuit board.
Good luck

Blacksmith5 said:
I RAN INTO A SIMILAR PROBLEM
I found that holding the power button for a while allowed my nexus 4 running stock Lollipop 5.1 to boot back up.
Have considered that you may have a faulty USB port ?
Just pop the old battery out install the new one plug in the charger and it will charge. You can boot up without the back on. The back contains the antennia.... and the NFC circuit board.
Good luck
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, still no luck. I ended up putting the new battery in and closing it up to try the Qi charger, but all I can get is either 7 or 10 red blinks followed by a short solid light. No white battery charging symbol or anything else.
When you say a faulty USB port, what are you referring to? The cable works (though I've also tried my Nexus 7 one too) and even though it won't boot, my computer does recognize that something is there when I plug my phone into it (it just can't figure out what's plugged in - which is normal). I want to say that it's trying and failing to charge the new battery. At this point, I think the charger messed up more than just the battery.

Related

8125 died, now is acting strange. Red light shows charging, but isnt.?

2 days ago i had my cingular 8125 plugged into a charger . when i woke up it was off and dead, still plugged in?
now when i plug it in (to the stock charger) the red light comes on, but if i take the battery out, it stays on. if the battery is in, it is on. but i cant turn it on. ive left it for 15 hours now, and still nothing
even tried another battery.
when i first put the other battery in it turned on, was booting, but then died. probably cuz the battery was dead. but i had it plugged in as soon as i turned it on.
now the same thing happens.
any ideas?
i also thought i smelled something burnt. like if you have ever had a laptop that had a bad a/c connector and would heat up a bit, or even smoke!
dont know if it was my imagination or what?
thanks in advance
dan
T mobile MDA shows RED LED
that is strange that you post this today, because I just received T-mobile MDA unit from 3bay that has a similar problem.
-The phone does not turn on when I press the power button.
-It does not respond to a soft reset or a hard reset.
-With the battery in, I connect the AC charger to the phone and for about 1-3 seconds the charging LED color is RED. THe LED turns off and I can not get the same result if I reconnect the AC charger.
The only visible sign of life this MDA unit has is:
-with the battery out and the AC charger connected, when the USB is removed to the point where it is not connected to the MDA, the charging LED light flashes red for a split second and the screen flashes white for a split second as well. [I hope this is a sign that there's still life in this MDA, but i'm thinking my unit is truly a brick..]
From all the websites I've searched, this does not seem to be an issue, although for me it is a scary one! Anybody that can help would be much appreciated because I want a working MDA not a dead one
EDIT: It turns out my non-booting MDA was due to a faulty vibrator and flashlight MDA part. After removing these two pieces that are connected to the back cover of the MDA housing, the MDA booted up with no problem.
danrw84 said:
2 days ago i had my cingular 8125 plugged into a charger . when i woke up it was off and dead, still plugged in?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm in exactly the same position - left phone on charge overnight two days ago and in the morning it was completely dead. I have managed to get it to power on for about 2-3 seconds on one or two occasions but now it won't do a thing
Not sure if this will help, but have you tried to push that soft reset button that you have to to push with your stylus when it is plugged in?
Sounds stupid, but my power button is completely dead and I thats how I have to start mine up. I also have to pop out the SD card to get the screen to come out of sleep mode!
I might not work, but hey...worth a try.
Well, I eventually got back up and running. Turns out the battery was completely dead. I used the 9v battery trick and then used my USB charger to get the battery fully charged and all is well.
This leads me to query how do I now charge my phone when I don't have access to a PC? I was using a standard AC wall charger and the phone showed that it was charging but due to the fact that the display stays lit whilst on external power, this eventually killed the battery as the charge indicator appeared to be false.
*as posted verbatim in another thread*
WHAT IS THIS 9 VOLT TRICK YOU SPEAK OF?!?
funny...i'm having the same problem with 2, what were perfectly fine, wizards.
which is what brought me to this forum post.
These two devices were turned off and sat in my desk for months as they were not needed. They were perfectly good, successfully unlocked and upgraded from the advice/steps/tools provided here (thanks!). They were my primary personal and work devices until i was given the option to try a few iPAQs.
Now that I want to go back NEITHER device will boot. On the original chargers (both wall and usb) both devices will display the red light as shown in the pic above, will not boot normally, or via the 2 or 3 button methods common for these devices. The batteries do not get warm, which tells me that they are not getting current...which makes NO sense if i'm using 4 different stock charging options (2 wall and 2 usb) in different locations. One expect some variable would work to eliminate some oddity, but nothing is working.
something odd is going here. how can 2 perfectly good devices and charges suddenly crapout? I could really believe it's the battery, but one is grand spankin new (only used for a month)! Both have the main board die? Both not recognizable on any computer?
Is it possible that the backup battery is causing this? Can it me charged same as the standard if its drained? I know i'm grasping at straws here, but this odd a coincidence.
FOUND FIX
okay..this was too simple.
for some reason the USB will not provide enough"juice" to pop these out of their sleep.
I have been using this great little charging system made by good old Radio Shack that is a single plug with different adapters for all different devices...i've been using it for my iPAQ's, Blackjacks, BB's, ect. SO as a last resort i went and got the CORRECT adapter (as there are many mini usb adapters available) and SHAZAM!!! they boot right up!
don't ask me why the stock wall chargers will not work, but these RS iGo systems are the trick!
i'm going to link to the other similar issue in hopes any other folks having the same issue can benefit from this.

Bricked, perchance? - TyTN won't boot

Hey all,
Having served me faithfully for 18 months now, my TyTN has finally given up the ghost. It refuses outright to boot.
Not a splash screen, not a backlight, no response at all no matter how long I hold that power button down.
When I plug it into the mains it displays reddish on the right hand LED, having left it plugged in for a while it stops displaying even that until I unplug it and re-plug it.
I've tested the battery with a voltmeter and the power on the phone with a circuit checker, there's not broken circuitry and the battery certainly generates a current.
Though it's not TOO urgent, as I have a backup phone (Nokia 3220, ugh) unlocked and in use, and it's not TOO horrible as I was about to order a Touch Pro anyway, I'd like to keep it strictly unbricked either for sale or for backup.
Any thoughts on either:
1. What the problem is, I'm absolutely baffled.
2. How I might go about fixing it.
Thanks, Forlornity
If its only displaying a red LED when you plug it in that generally means that the power sensor has been confused or the battery isn't touching the contacts properly.
Are you using the supplied charger or a 3rd party one/usb connection. The usb and most 3rd party chargers don't deliver the right charge. If its underpowered it may not trip the charging sensor.
Try pushing the battery tightly against the contacts, I had a problem whereby the contacts had been pushed in so the battery didn't connect properly.
Clean the contacts with a cotton bud and isopropyl alcohol (surgical spirits) to remove any corrosion. DON'T USE METHYLATED SPIRITS!!! It leaves a residue.
Thats all I can think of now.
Cheers...
Isopropyl you say?
It's a pity, I've actually got meths handy.
I'm using the stock charger, I suspect I might be suffering a RLOD, but none of the usual methods are working...
I'm gonna see if I can get hold of a charging dock for the battery from expansys or suchlike (unless anyone knows anywhere better?), see if that does the trick, if not, new battery, then if THAT fails I'll have no idea
Thanks for the tip on the isopropyl!
forlornity said:
Isopropyl you say?
It's a pity, I've actually got meths handy.
I'm using the stock charger, I suspect I might be suffering a RLOD, but none of the usual methods are working...
I'm gonna see if I can get hold of a charging dock for the battery from expansys or suchlike (unless anyone knows anywhere better?), see if that does the trick, if not, new battery, then if THAT fails I'll have no idea
Thanks for the tip on the isopropyl!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have the same problem, and new battery didnt help! anyone got solution for this problem? I menage to charge battery with 2 wires, and phone starts, but it wont charge! i mean orange led is on, and it says CHARGING, but battery % is going down down until it reaches 0%!

Dell Streak won't start

Yesterday, before going to sleep I checked my mail and layed my phone next to me. This morning I grab my phone but it doesn't respond. I just charged it for an hour but still no response... Any suggestions
Remove & install battery, then boot up again?
I allready did that twice without result but after reading your reply I tried again. Now I replaced the SIM and SD card too and now it's working again! Thanks.
Don't want to bring you down but It sort of happened the same for me, I went to sleep with 85% batt, plugged the charger went to bet, next moring tried to tur on, nothing, charger was still on, tried pulling te batt out, turn on no luck. Still haven't been able to figure it out but I know my streak won't charge the battery so I'm charging the batt outside the streak ordered a second batt so no way to test cable/battery ATM, so far can't say if it's the battery but it don't look like the battery is the problem. forgot to mention, a couple of times I saw the empty battery icon, so i used a BB Bold battery to jump start the phone (just making sure the streak was ok heh), only thing I can think off is that there was a power surge of some sort and took the charging IC with it. The cable works fine for sync and x-fer files but charging is a NO go. it goes as far as telling where the power source is coming (USB/AC) but thats about it. no charge.
so before reaching my conclution i say make sure the metal contacts are touching the battery, make sure the battery has charge if you are an avid electronics guy I say check voltage on the battery and see how is that doing. I've read a lot lately to see what can be my problem and there is one tiny hope that the battery might have triggered it's security gimmick and it won't take charge the "smart" way and that is why I have to use a Li-ION "desk" charger. But I don't know that much of batteries.
I hope it guides you towards what might be happening. Not a solution but you're not alone.
***UPDATE
LOL, I realized you fixed the problem. nice one!
when you have a lot of applications running which consume a lot of battery you will notice the streak is going to tell you the charger is invalid. infact there is more powerdrainage then charging capacity. this shouldnt happen with the dell adapter which delivers 1 ampere at 5v instead of the pc which gives 500mA.
if this happens to you one time that the device wont turn on or do anything anymore unplug it from AC and detach the usb cable . then attach the usb cable to the pc and stick the other side in the device and wait for it to show desktop, should be no longer then 30 secs for it to show. (you need the dell sync software and drivers being installed)
Dell Streak 7 won't power on or off
Had my 7 for a few days now, the screen was intermittently not responding so I checked out a few forums - decided to calibrate the screen - so powered it off and then powered it back on holding the power button and the + and - volume simultaneously. Now it won't power back on properly - I just the the soft buttons lighting up. It also won't power off. I have plugged into the ac power charger and the power light does not go on at all (orange or green). It had pretty much a full battery when all this happend about 10 minutes ago.
Fixed it - buy pressing the hard reset button adjacent to the SD card slot. Now working well.

[Q] Hoping for some assistance... HD2 not charging/powering on properly

Ok, I'll try to make this short and sweet and we'll see what happens. I spent the last 2 hours scouring this forum (pretty much the Bible for the HD2) and some other places and I'm still kinda dead in the water.
Here's the situation:
I just grabbed a used HD2 in excellent cosmetic shape. It was from a pawn shop, for $100 cash, and the device would power up at the pawn shop into Windows Mobile 6.5 just long enough to see Sense starting to load, then the battery would complain (probably hadn't had a proper charge in a long time I'm suspecting), then it would go into the "Goodbye!" routine.
Fair enough. So I get it home, and they included the HD2 USB adapter/charger, and I have my own 100% working microUSB cable. I verified the charger works by attaching it to my microUSB cable and then plugging it into my current phone (a cheapy LG 900g on NET10) and it works fine, no issues for power or data connectivity.
So I unplug the cable from the LG, plug it into the HD2, and attach it to my Belkin USB hub (powered, with nothing else attached to it, no other USB devices) and after a few seconds I get the orange charging light on the HD2. Note, it's still off, I didn't turn it back on after it shut itself off. So I let it charge for a few minutes, then I realize I should probably be better off using the actual dedicated HD2 charger, so I unplug the USB end from the USB hub, the orange light obviously goes out since it's now without that source of juice, then plug it into the HTC USB charger and...
Nothing. Absolutely nothing. No orange charging light, no response when trying to power the HD2 up, absolutely nada. So now I'm frustrated. I disconnect the USB cable from the HD2, take off the back cover, remove the battery, wait about 1 minute, reinsert the battery (leaving the back cover off), attempt to power it up, no luck.
Plug the charger back in, and I can feel]/i] the tiny vibration motor just kinda "tick" ever few seconds; there's something going on in there, I'm certain. Repeat the unplug/remove battery/wait a minute/put it back together/plug it back in a few times, and then I get something:
The HD2 will vibrate and the screen will light up with the "Stick Together" graphic, for about 1/2 second. Then it's off again. Then it's on again, and off, and on, and off. It's a loop of some kind, but it's random. Sometimes the on/off happens every few seconds, sometimes it's 10, 15, 30, sometimes a full minute goes by before it'll "flash" then nothing again.
Now, the whole time this occurs, the orange charging light never ever comes back on again - it has not come on again regardless of whether I'm plugged into the USB hub or the HTC charger, it just doesn't light up anymore, so my current suspicion is that the battery itself is simply so "dead" it won't accept a charge of any kind - at least that's my current hope, as odd as that sounds. I can get a new battery, of course, it'll just take a few days to get one (ain't paying full price here in Vegas, will order something online).
I'm stumped. I check the contacts, they're fine, they were very very slightly bent but they're ok now. I don't know what else to do since it does seem like the battery could be the culprit. It'll sit here and just flash every so often - it's been plugged into the HTC charger for the past 30 minutes straight but, I'm not even seeing the flashes anymore (the past few minutes I've been typing this post).
Maybe the battery is to blame, I don't know, but I'm hoping that someone can say "Yes, that sounds like a completely toasted battery to me, get a new one" or whatever.
Any opinions? Anyone seen this particular behavior before? I do a search for "reboot loop" and what I find are people with HD2's that get stuck at the "Stick Together" screen and, well, that's not what's happening here - it shows that, for a 1/2 to 1 second on occasion, then nothing. The vibration motor kicks in when the flashes occur, as well.
It's like it wants to fire up but just doesn't have the power to do it - and since the charging circuit isn't kicking in (no orange light), well... that's my guess.
That's about it. If anyone has any advice, I'm reading.
Thanks, and have fun, always...
br0adband said:
Ok, I'll try to make this short and sweet and we'll see what happens. I spent the last 2 hours scouring this forum (pretty much the Bible for the HD2) and some other places and I'm still kinda dead in the water.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do you know what short means? p joking, just next time don't make it too long)
You won't get replies if your question is too long, because they won't bother reading it .
Anyway, back to topic.
Your battery has no juice, and for some reason the HD2 automatically boots when (no juice in battery and plugged into charger) .. you need to unplug cable, remove battery, plug in cable, wait for a minute or so, insert battery .
Firstly try the above which should stop the phone trying to start,, but two other things, firstly the battery pins bend real easily, so since you've been doing a few battery pulls, keep checking them. Second, a really REALLY discharged battery may have so little juice it wont start charging , in which case you can try the 'bare wire USB Lead charging method, where you get an old mini /micro USB lead, cut end off, bare red and black ,red to + black to - on the battery, into wall charger for around a minute, back into phone, real USB lead in, and hopefully it now has enough chrge to start booting and charging properly.
Turned out to be the battery itself - went back to the pawn shop, took the battery from the one I purchased and placed it into a known working HD2 still on the shelf (another as-is item) and attached the microUSB cable and charger, no dice: same exact issue.
Took the battery from the second HD2, put it into my HD2 that I purchased, attached the microUSB cable and charger, wham bam we're cookin' with fire now.
So I paid the guy $10 to let me swap the batteries and keep it hush-hush (I'm in there all the time buying used busted stuff anyway), came home, gave it a full night's charge and so far so good. Got NexusHD2-Gingerbread V3.0 NAND by tytung on it in about 10 minutes, and it's smooth as silk so far.
I appreciate the responses, thanks.

[Q] n4 is completely unresponsive (dead)

So this is what happened:
the phone discharged fully and i connected it to charge. then i got a flashing red led. seeing this as a bad omen i tried to turn my device on - no luck - it wasn't responding.
i unplugged the charger and plugged it back in and again the same result, then again..... and i got a solid red light. so after a few times of messing about with it , trying out a few sources of power and such i got it charging (the battery logo appeared). The charging lasted for ~30 sec and it went black.
So after that the n4 is completely unresponsive. No flashing leds no backlight on screen, NOTHING.i tried out a few chargers and cables and beside those i used a genuine n4 charger (it's 100% working - i tried to charge another device). i left it there for the whole day to charge thinking that maaaaaby the battery ran to a complete 0 and i just need to give it time, as you probably guessed it, that did nothing.
In fact, i think the phone is not charging at all. The reason i think so is because the wall charger is emitting a faint high-pitch squeal regardless of the fact that the phone is connected (it should be squealing only when it's plugged into socket and the phone is not plugged in it)
so TL DR:
n4 is completely dead, no signs of life. The things that were tried:
a handful of chargers and cables that are 100% working on other devices
trying to boot with a combination of volume buttons pressed
holding the power button for 60 sec. while plugged in
prolonged charging (~7 hours)
verbal threatening to sell the damned thing if it's a serious problem
so that's that. i should get my tools back from a friend on monday. i'll try to take it apart, maby there's a loose connector here or there or something. Any ideas what i could try before that?
Some searching around the forums wouldn't hurt. Try this for example.
kalopop said:
Some searching around the forums wouldn't hurt. Try this for example.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks for the link, that seems to be worth a shot.... i'll be able to take the phone apart on monday, that's the earliest i will be able to try it. i was wondering if there is anything i can do until then to remedy the situation. I mean i'm really getting a kick out of my old sony erricson k300 but i kinda prefer the nexus and would prefer to fix it asap.
ok i fixed it
i used a 3v source and held the contacts manually for 5 min. that returned it to the red blinking led state and after leaving it to charge for 5 min it returned to the battery icon on screen. thanks for the info again.

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