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Hello all,
I'm experience a little trouble by WMWifiRouter.
I think I find a power management bug because this behavior is very weird.
When run WMWifiRouter and the phone is plugged in by AC Outlet, sometimes it will trigger discharge mode. So, my phone will be plugged into the wall and at the same time it will be draining the battery down to 0% from full charge very rapidly.
It only occurs if WMWifiRouter is running - so the wifi will be on, BUT even if I shut down WMWifiRouter and switch off hard switch wifi on side of phone, my phone will remain in discharge mode until I reboot the phone.
When the phone reaches 0% capacity it will shut down even though it is plugged in by wall.
This occurs with wall adapter, USB cable, and XV6700 car charger. All the same.
Since the battery only has a finite amount of discharge/charge cycles, I want to be very careful about this issue so I don't destroy the battery. Also, I can't use direct USB cable for tethering because every five minutes or so, I must disable ICS and then restart ICS since my computer enters USB power save mode which causes loss of connectivity, and this is a little inconvenient.
Only solution is WMWifiRouter, but by use this, my phone will discharge completely in maybe 30 minutes if I try to use it while plug to wall.
Sorry for the long post about this issue.
Hiromitsu
When your phone is plugged in, is the orange battery light flashing or steady? Normal charging should have it steady. If it is plugged in and the battery isn't charging properly (because it's too hot while wifi is on) then the light will flash, which means it isn't charging. Since it's not charging, then it's your wifi that's draining your battery.
Having wifi on makes your battery very hot, and at some point, it may stop charging.
When I use wifi and need a charge, I plug in a USB cable to my laptop. It doesn't seem to get as hot.
Overheat Mode
When using WMWifiRouter, the battery drains quickly.
1. Make sure bluetooth is off.
2. Make sure beaming is of.
3. USB charging is too slow to keep up with WifiRouter
4. Plus phone into the wall
5. Slide keyboard open to release heat quicker so the phone does not go into discharge mode.
6. Enjoy
I just tried your method Ectropian.
By plug to wall and slide open keyboard, it will dissipate heat quickly and won't enter discharge mode. So, this is a fix and I am very thankful for your help!
Hiromitsu
I have found that USB charging is fast enough to keep up. The phone overheats.under some circumstances it can even overheat during a normal phone call. Im trying to get a small fan for it. I plan on using a fat back battery cover for an extended battery,and wiring it to the battery terminals. I will drill some vent holes in it and connect it with a temperature sensor. It will add some thickness to the phone,but should not effect battery life as the fan wont turn on until it overheats.
Unfortunately the 3mm thick fan I want is only available in quantities of 200. I will probably have to go with a 5mm thick fan for now. I dont know if it will fit under the back though. Does anyone have one of the thicker batteries they could accurately measure for me?
Does anyone know how to set up a password for WMWifiRouter so it is a secure network and no one else around me can use my internet?
Ectropian said:
5. Slide keyboard open to release heat quicker so the phone does not go into discharge mode.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's a good idea! Hadn't thought of that : )
Ectropian said:
When using WMWifiRouter, the battery drains quickly.
1. Make sure bluetooth is off.
2. Make sure beaming is of.
3. USB charging is too slow to keep up with WifiRouter
4. Plus phone into the wall
5. Slide keyboard open to release heat quicker so the phone does not go into discharge mode.
6. Enjoy
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In addition to these good suggestion, I have find that if you also
a.) Remove stylus from stylus slot, and
b.) Turn the phone upside down while WMWifiRouter is in use,
It will dissipate heat even quicker.
You see, stylus to the XV6800 is made by metal, so,, it conduct heat and hold it in that stylus hole. Take stylus out, heat escapes through hole instead of build up by metal stylus rod.
Also, back of keyboard is metal, so turn it up, and air pass over it and remove heat too. (Make sure keyboard is slide open when turn upside down, as previously mentioned by Ectropian. This will improve air flow to heat conducting areas.)
Hope it helps everyone else like it helped me.
Hiromitsu
weav4444 said:
Does anyone know how to set up a password for WMWifiRouter so it is a secure network and no one else around me can use my internet?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When you setup the new adhoc connection in wilan settings/comm manager/ (need to have the wifi ant on when you do this) in wm6, you can setup the network name and key.
I want to set up my SSID next time i'm sitting in starbucks for all the people that bring their laptops.
Network name/SSID:
Ask the guy with the coolest phone you see for the network key.
read the wmwifirouter thread. Chainfire addressed this issue by making the "unattended" mode. You can and should hit the power button and turn the phone to standby while using wmwifirouter. This saves enough power so the wall charger can keep up with the drain... maybe even the usb charger. I think very few people if any agree with the opinion above that the usb charger is better. The consensus is that it's the amount of power the charger can deliver that's important more than the heat... of course more power is more heat.
Batteries charge more rapidly when they're closer to discharged. Before using the unattended mode... (could maybe happen wth an older battery too) I found that if I disconnected and reconnected power after dropping below about 70% that charging would kick back in and then be more likely to keep up.. holding the charge steady at about 70%. Above this, the charging current probably dropped below the usage current. With the unattended mode it is fine even at 100%.
Edit: Let me make this more clear. A given charger can provide more current because it has a lower internal resistance and lower voltage drop under a current load. Increased charging current increases heat which may increase resitance within the battery and charging circuits and in turn limits charging current, even if the heat isn't increasing the resistance is a sign that lot of power is being lost to resistive losses. It may be that the dominant resistance is due to the device itself, not the charger and that a better charger won't help, but it's silly to say that a better charger will make it worse.. if it's getting hotter it's only beacuase it's charging with a higher current... which is a good thing (at least until the divice is actually damaged). It may be that internal limitations keeps it from charging at a significantly higher current so the wall charger might not do significantly better, but it can't be worse... if it was worse... it wouldn't be getting hotter.. it would be cooler(because of less charging current)... unless maybe there's actually a thermal cutoff? I suppose that's a possibility... but still the end result observed should in that case be that the phone seems cooler after hitting the cutoff, albeit not charging if that's the case.
dagurasu said:
unless maybe there's actually a thermal cutoff? I suppose that's a possibility... but still the end result observed should in that case be that the phone seems cooler after hitting the cutoff, albeit not charging if that's the case.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is in fact a thermal cutoff. The problem that many people,including myself experience is that while the phone is charging,and the battery is getting hotter,the phone is also producing heat. The battery gets so hot that the thermal cutoff trips and the battery stops charging. I tested this with a can of compressed air and confirmed it was a heat problem. I then placed the phone on top of a small fan,with the battery cover off and the phone ran all night long without over heating. When I dont have it on the fan it overheats,stops charging,discharges and shuts down. Opening the keyboard and removing the battery cover helps,but it does it still,it just takes longer.
Well I guess as with most things on these phones.. there are different results for different people. When mine starts flashing it doesn't seem to have cuttoff charging.. but rather just indicates it's not quite keeping up. The wall charger gets hotter.. but the flashing never happens with it.
I'm a little surprised about this strange cuttoff behavior for several reasons, but there are too many unknowns... I guess we better stick with what's observed.
The powersave battery hacks help ALOT. It's also clear that (at least with powersave hacks) the more data rate you use, the more power it uses. If yours is getting that hot "overnight", then either you aren't using the powersave hacks, your phone is broken.. you're continuoulsy downloading stuff for hours which could lead me to guess full data capacity full time, or running a server of some kind with at least some significant use. If it's something like the last two, I guess I'm not surprised some modifications are required to get that kind of steady performance out of a little pocket device. I've had actual wireless routers overheat and lock up in such conditions. It's a phone not a cisco. Still if your fan can make it into a cisco.. then that's kind of cool.
OH yeah.. also I turn down the wireless power all the way in the settings, but that actually doesn't seem that important, not sure.
I have been searching for a solution to this as well. I have all the power saving hacks and everything on my mogule and mine still overheats and eventualy dies. I found another temp solution, I put it on an ice pack and it doesn't have the problem..lol
better idea than ice pack (I know this is a year old post but owhell)
better idea,.... ice pack could void phone with H2O.
Throw tha ***** in to the freezer and call it a day!
dagurasu said:
It's a phone not a cisco. Still if your fan can make it into a cisco.. then that's kind of cool.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
sig material
eigerzoom said:
sig material
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Click to collapse
Its not a Cisco? Ive been using it like that for years. Seriously,I have.
I actually use mine in my truck and the nice thing about it is I have a phone holder that clips on the air vent. So while running WMWifiRouter on the road for our laptop I just keep the AC on the back of the phone and no heat issues or charging issues.
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
Click to expand...
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
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.
Hi,
I have a navigation software on my x10. everything works fine but it seems that this programm needs so much battery that the charger can´t charger the battery.
With navigation turned on and charging the battery is still getting lower and lower.
I have a self build car charger in my car with 1000mA but it seems, that it´s not enough.
Have you any suggestions, how to solve the problem? Is there an app to change the cpu usage for the navigation to e.g. 60% instead of 100%? Or is this only possible with rooted phones?
Thanks.
Same Problem over here.
My only solution --> 2G instead of 3G and turning off W-Lan.
In that way (with GPS and Bluetooth active), the phone at least charges very slowly and doesn't drain the battery.
I had turned WLAN, BT, 3G off. But my battery was still not loading... Maybe I have to switch from 100% Screen brightness to automatic. I will try it the next time...
UserX10 said:
...But my battery was still not loading...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But the charging symbol shows up?
Did you shorten the Data+ and Data- Lines on your selfmade car charger?
I guess, you build it, like i did:
I took a 12V cigarette lighter to USB adapter.
Then I broke that thing apart and soldered a (micro) USB cable directly do the USB jack.
To make it working, I had to shorten the inner two lines.
Otherwise, the phone didn't charge at all.
Then I glued / taped / bubblegummed the whole thing an threw it behind my radio
Or did you build an other solution?
I build it myself, not broken a charger, and yes, it´s working (data is shorten), but it´s not enough to load the battery during navigation. If I turn navigation off, my battery is charging as usual.
UserX10 said:
I build it myself.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nice one
Uhm.. what about rising mA a little further?
I've no clue what max. should be.
Probably you know?
I've also seen USB Chargers with 1500mA.
But I dunno, if its a good idea.
Phone + Battery would also heat up a little further...
Another Idea:
Maybe there is a couple of Apps running at full load in the background?
Take a look around in this forum.
Especially at the "helix launcher" and the "battery life issues" threads.
You can also download the App "SystemPanelLite".
With that one you can search and monitor the running Apps and their CPU consumption and so on.
With "Task Manger" (the one made by Rhythm Software) you can set up a auto kill rule.
Hope, that helps...
I have also tried to charge my phone with my car charger left from Omnia HD and the phone is not charging ??? HTC Desire is charging but X10 is not. Can someone tell me what could be the problem ??
Tnx
@damirbusic
The Problem is, that the two Data Pins (2 & 3 - the two middle ones)) must be shorten. Then the X10 is loading...
@McKebapp
I´m tried it with helix launcher and have some applications auto killed and all tasks closed. But it's still not enough.
It´s possible to charge the Li-Ion Batteries with 1500 mA. That will be my last solution. Don´t want to charge it with 1500mA due to overheating, specially in the summertime...
I don't have this issue at all, weird
,
-------------------------------------
..
@UserX10:
Uhm... that is strange after all...
Which Navi-SW do u use?
I use "Sygic" for onboard navigation.
Normaly I use Sygic, too.
I tried Navigon, too, but the same result.
Both Apps draining the battery more then the charger is loading...
UserX10 said:
Normaly I use Sygic, too.
I tried Navigon, too, but the same result.
Both Apps draining the battery more then the charger is loading...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Really Strange...
Which temperatures do you have to deal with?
My last Idea: Maybe some overheat protection, that limits the charging rate?
By my one is the problem defently the temparatur... when i hold me phone in to the airstream from the aircooling then does the phone charging works. If i let the phone just on the right side of me on seat the it doesnt charged. But the symbol on the phone say the is currently charging... with the tool batterygraph can i see, thats isnt true...
aso i can reconized that the phone is hot.. realy hot.. extremly when the sun does shine on the phone.. the only solution is for me, to hold the phone from time to time at the airstream or i let the phone down in to the footweel, where does the sun not shine and a airstream flow around...
The akku is the warmest thing. without the cover, it works better.. i thnk the akku has around 45°... when is hot..
tested with navigon..
Hm... that´s possible. I will try it the next time with holding it in the airstream... Maybe that´s the solution.
I've got an windshield holder (dunno the correct English word).
While I'm driving open with my convertible, I set the airstream to the windshield (demister setting, but without heat), to cool the Phone a little down.
(If the Car is closed, I usually drive with activated A/C at 19°C - 23°C depending on my mood and the frozen girl on my side )
My Phone never exceeded 40°C.
So, this really may be the solution.
BY shorten the middle 2 pins... do you mean "short circuit" by joining the pins together in some way.
I have the same issue - I have the car charger from my old samsung omnia but it doesn't charge the phone and using any navigation software drains the battery very quickly
Jepp, short circuit the both two middle pins, then it will work.
For information: I tested today the charging with power supply.
780 mA is the maximum what the X10 takes. Tested with empty Battery (in Idle Mode and Apps running + WLAN + BT + GPS). Same result.
So a 1000 mA charger is fully sufficient.
UserX10 said:
For information: I tested today the charging with power supply.
780 mA is the maximum what the X10 takes. Tested with empty Battery (in Idle Mode and Apps running + WLAN + BT + GPS). Same result.
So a 1000 mA charger is fully sufficient.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i had bought an FM transmitter for the iphone for like 10bucks... the charger is USB so i just use the sony's charger cable and plug it in and it works great for me when i use NAV....no problems here
UserX10 said:
For information: I tested today the charging with power supply.
780 mA is the maximum what the X10 takes. Tested with empty Battery (in Idle Mode and Apps running + WLAN + BT + GPS). Same result.
So a 1000 mA charger is fully sufficient.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for sharing your knowledge.
Great work!
What's your opinion about your battery drainage?
Do you really think that the phone, running at full load, will suck more than 780mA to prevent charging?
Or is it really an overheating prevention?
Something I realized today:
I drove around for about an hour today.
We had 31,5°C today.
The phone was placed in its windscreen holder directly facing with its backside to the sun.
I drove with closed top A/C at 23°C.
At the end, when I was at home, the App "TempMonitor" showed me 56°C at the battery, that still was charging.
On weekend I'll try pushing the limits a little higher.
Empty battery + Navigation + open top without any A/C.
I hope my phone doesn't melt away
I usually charge my phone using USB while in the office. At home, I'll use the supplied wall AC adapter.
I've noticed that even though I'm using the AC charger, the stock battery display will show Charging (USB), which is not the case. Power cycling the AC charger usually fixes it to show Charging (AC).
Have also noticed that in some instances when it's plugged into the AC charger, the charging status would switch between "charging" and "not charging". Very obvious in the notification battery icon, where I would see the lightning symbol appear and disappear, about every half second.
I think there's an issue with the AC charger, or maybe it's the charging circuit in the phone?
Anyone experienced something like this before?
Cheers
endlesstrail said:
I usually charge my phone using USB while in the office. At home, I'll use the supplied wall AC adapter.
I've noticed that even though I'm using the AC charger, the stock battery display will show Charging (USB), which is not the case. Power cycling the AC charger usually fixes it to show Charging (AC).
Have also noticed that in some instances when it's plugged into the AC charger, the charging status would switch between "charging" and "not charging". Very obvious in the notification battery icon, where I would see the lightning symbol appear and disappear, about every half second.
I think there's an issue with the AC charger, or maybe it's the charging circuit in the phone?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sounds like a hardware issue. If you want to run the test yourself, you can try swapping the charger with another OEM Nexus 4 charger (don't try to get around this). But I'd contact Google about this if I were you.
Might be the stock charger if thats what your using i had the same prob and sometimes but battery would either stay on the same percent for a while or go down so chanhed the charger and its been working fine ever since i still use the stock box charger i just changed the cord
NEXUS⁴
casonswag said:
Might be the stock charger if thats what your using i had the same prob and sometimes but battery would either stay on the same percent for a while or go down so chanhed the charger and its been working fine ever since i still use the stock box charger i just changed the cord
NEXUS⁴
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
^ this...
i had similar issue..when plugged it shows charging/discharging..if charging it will be slow as hell..swap cable all good..
throw away the original cable try a different one..
Thanks. Will give it a shot and see how it goes.
Do you guys think this is a charging issue? Temp is very high but still continues to charge at AC level. I have switched out my power bricks and cable but still have the same result.
Noctus Nosfuratsu said:
Do you guys think this is a charging issue? Temp is very high but still continues to charge at AC level. I have switched out my power bricks and cable but still have the same result.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It is due to temperature I believe. I have observed this behavior closely for a long time, so I'm almost certain this is the cause. I've seen it on the Galaxy Nexus and the Nexus 7. I can't tell you offhand the exact temperature they stop charging at, but I can tell you it's most likely between 50°-60° Celsius. You've got to let your devices cool off. It may be a pain, but it protects your hardware, so when it stops charging, your phone is saying "Hey partner, you think you could let me cool down for just a second? Is that too much for you or what? What's your problem, you dingdong?"..
... Or something like that. If that's not exactly what it says, it's very close.
myepicyear said:
It is due to temperature I believe. I have observed this behavior closely for a long time, so I'm almost certain this is the cause. I've seen it on the Galaxy Nexus and the Nexus 7. I can't tell you offhand the exact temperature they stop charging at, but I can tell you it's most likely between 50°-60° Celsius. You've got to let your devices cool off. It may be a pain, but it protects your hardware, so when it stops charging, your phone is saying "Hey partner, you think you could let me cool down for just a second? Is that too much for you or what? What's your problem, you dingdong?"..
... Or something like that. If that's not exactly what it says, it's very close.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ah I see. Anyways, I have used my cousins nexus 4 and every time the temp goes over 38 degrees, the charge rate drops down to USB. Mainly why I asked haha. Yah its a pain from time to time LOl
dzel said:
^ this...
i had similar issue..when plugged it shows charging/discharging..if charging it will be slow as hell..swap cable all good..
throw away the original cable try a different one..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same here. Worked out for me it was a dodgy cable. Using the supplied cable through a laptop, I will also from time to time get the plugged/unplugged notification on the computer, which being audible made me realize how often it was happening.
The supplied charger brick now seems to work flawlessly with a different cable (ie, always says AC, no odd charging/not charging behaviour, etc).
Try that and see how you go.
I guess it's the cable. I've tried using a generic ebay cable and it appears to be working fine now.
What sort of mA values are you getting when using the stock AC charger?
Battery Monitor widget says that the phone's only getting around 500mA when I believe it should be getting more than that. I've enabled the USB fastcharge in the options. and have left everything at default. This is after waking up the phone from standby. Keeping the screen on drops the charge rate to 200mA thereabouts.
No music playing, 3G and connected to a wifi access point.
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?
Click to expand...
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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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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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?
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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.