Overheat and not working properly (or not at all) - Galaxy S 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

My Galaxy s5 g900f overheats with anything i do, it overheated in recovery while i was trying to do a nandroid restore, it overheats while charging (turned off), it overheats when i turn it on, i see the samsung s5 animated logo altough very laggy, and when it turns on i enter my sim password and all i see is the notification bar and the rest is a black screen nothing works whatever i do.
When i say overheat i mean the screen and the upper back of the phone are hot, it all happens in a matter of a few minutes.
The CPU got upto 73C while i was doing the nandroid restore.
I got the stock charger and cable, never changed any hardware inside the phone is everything is genuine.
I am running Xtresto lite ROM for the past 4-5 months with no problems. (So i guess it's not the rom?)
Please help.
Thanks in advance.
edit: i've got it on the charger now and it's off and just noticed that the phone is discharging although it shows that is charging, it only charged up to a point i guess and now it is falling while on the charger on the wall

charging will be hotter than unplugged actually, also in my experience within TWRP with its temperature on screen, i also reached 70 degrees simply going through menus... which means there is no cpu idle state without a kernel/rom
so... are you able to run a temperature monitor (maybe with kernel adiutor) or is the whole thing going to freeze or shut down? there is supposed to be thermal throttling depending on kernel & if some parameters have been turned off (you can see them in kernel adiutor)
hopefully it's just some app failing or malware, not a hardware failure... is the phone allowed to turn on while usb plugged in WITHOUT battery? are you willing to wipe the OS? i'm not sure you got your nandroid backup completed (also i have no experience with that... i used TWRP to backup but never tried restoring when i moved from CM12 to CM13, my internal storage was untouched anyway)
edit: just reread your off+charging situation... is this a 2A charger that you know has been able to quickly charge in the past? (like, 0 to 70% in only an hour)
have you inspected the battery, its metal contacts, & the phone's metal contacts for the battery?

kn00tcn said:
charging will be hotter than unplugged actually, also in my experience within TWRP with its temperature on screen, i also reached 70 degrees simply going through menus... which means there is no cpu idle state without a kernel/rom
so... are you able to run a temperature monitor (maybe with kernel adiutor) or is the whole thing going to freeze or shut down? there is supposed to be thermal throttling depending on kernel & if some parameters have been turned off (you can see them in kernel adiutor)
hopefully it's just some app failing or malware, not a hardware failure... is the phone allowed to turn on while usb plugged in WITHOUT battery? are you willing to wipe the OS? i'm not sure you got your nandroid backup completed (also i have no experience with that... i used TWRP to backup but never tried restoring when i moved from CM12 to CM13, my internal storage was untouched anyway)
edit: just reread your off+charging situation... is this a 2A charger that you know has been able to quickly charge in the past? (like, 0 to 70% in only an hour)
have you inspected the battery, its metal contacts, & the phone's metal contacts for the battery?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi, thanks for the reply
No, i cant run any app because as soon as i get in the os its just the notification bar and a black screen, my apps flicker for a second once in a while but there is no way of using the phone, not even in safe mode.
No, the phone can't run without a battery and am pretty sure every phone is like this. You need the battery plugged in for it to work whatsoever.
I have no choice but to wipe the os and reinstall it i backed up everything i could and possible.
This is indeed a 2A charger, it's the original samsung charger that came with the phone. The metal contacts seem fine and the battery is fine. It's not the battery that overheats it's the rest of the phone. When the phone is hot i removed the battery to check if it was the source of the heat and it wasn't.
edit: the battery is draining fast! i can't even charge it, it loses battery while on charger too (the phone is off)
edit 2: i made it until the wipe, then i went to install my rom and it turned off before i reached the point of flashing (thank god) and i guess its draining so fast i cant charge it

Maybe an external battery charger might help to at least give it sine juice to install stock. I'm sure the kernel is linked to charging while powered off. So fingers crossed its a software issue, though this those sound kind of worrying behaviour. External battery chargers can be bought quite cheaply of eBay. I bought a USB battery dock and a better quality male to male USB cable as provided one is crap, and use it with my original Samsung charger. Don't trust the wall plug in types as their all made in China... Best of luck.

rockon92 said:
Hi, thanks for the reply
No, i cant run any app because as soon as i get in the os its just the notification bar and a black screen, my apps flicker for a second once in a while but there is no way of using the phone, not even in safe mode.
No, the phone can't run without a battery and am pretty sure every phone is like this. You need the battery plugged in for it to work whatsoever.
I have no choice but to wipe the os and reinstall it i backed up everything i could and possible.
This is indeed a 2A charger, it's the original samsung charger that came with the phone. The metal contacts seem fine and the battery is fine. It's not the battery that overheats it's the rest of the phone. When the phone is hot i removed the battery to check if it was the source of the heat and it wasn't.
edit: the battery is draining fast! i can't even charge it, it loses battery while on charger too (the phone is off)
edit 2: i made it until the wipe, then i went to install my rom and it turned off before i reached the point of flashing (thank god) and i guess its draining so fast i cant charge it
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Click to collapse
geeze, well it does sound like 100% cpu usage... like those bitcoin mining malware
i would try to flash a fresh replacement or stock kernel+bootloader+baseband with root disabled using odin or something, we need to prove that the software is clean
as for the temperature, if it's winter where you are... get the phone some cold air (edit: by the way, lower temperature means lower wattage... only problem is battery capacity might also appear lower, so it's only good for being wired)

RuffBuster said:
Maybe an external battery charger might help to at least give it sine juice to install stock. I'm sure the kernel is linked to charging while powered off. So fingers crossed its a software issue, though this those sound kind of worrying behaviour. External battery chargers can be bought quite cheaply of eBay. I bought a USB battery dock and a better quality male to male USB cable as provided one is crap, and use it with my original Samsung charger. Don't trust the wall plug in types as their all made in China... Best of luck.
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Click to collapse
I will have a look into an external charger or look if someone can lend me their battery to test. Happy to know that the kernel is linked to charging, i still have my hopes to software!
kn00tcn said:
geeze, well it does sound like 100% cpu usage... like those bitcoin mining malware
i would try to flash a fresh replacement or stock kernel+bootloader+baseband with root disabled using odin or something, we need to prove that the software is clean
as for the temperature, if it's winter where you are... get the phone some cold air (edit: by the way, lower temperature means lower wattage... only problem is battery capacity might also appear lower, so it's only good for being wired)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
where do i find those files for odin? sammobile? yeah it's winter my issue now is that it is completely dead it's not responding when i connect it to the charger at all. I tried 2 original samsung chargers. 3 different cables. my gooood! its driving me nuts.
anything i can do without sourcing a battery or an external charger? not sure i can source one here and dont want to wait for an ebay one really.

Could be a dud battery at the end of the day. Dodgy batteries can cause all sorts of issues. One test is to try spinning the battery on a flat surface. If it spins, its expanding and faulty. Though this isn't the only sign of a dud battery.

RuffBuster said:
Could be a dud battery at the end of the day. Dodgy batteries can cause all sorts of issues. One test is to try spinning the battery on a flat surface. If it spins, its expanding and faulty. Though this isn't the only sign of a dud battery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
already did that, not spinning. lets hope it is still a faulty battery

Related

Battery drains way too fast

Ok I am a new member to this whole PocketPC thing since I just purchased my first PocketPC which is an i-mate JASJAM. I honestly think that it's a great product with a lot of features and potential. My problem though, lies in the fact that I haven't had the chance to enjoy it for a full day yet. Ever since I bought it, I always charge it for like 7 to 8 hours, even though it fills up after like 3, but i leave it on charge anyway, because I was told that "that's what you should do!".
Anyways, no matter how long I leave it on the charger, once i take it off the battery begins to drain like there's no tomorrow. I'm talking about going from 100% to 0% within 5 hours, while on FLIGHT MODE. If I turn the screen off then it might last for an extra hour.
Surely this can't be something normal, and I have been beating my brain trying to find a solution. As far as ActiveSync goes, I did the tweak that stops its automatic scheduled syncs, hoping that it would be the problem, but to my disappointment, no luck. Also made sure that no programs were running in the background. It came with a battery with a capacity of 1300mAh and then I bought another one hoping it was a problem with the battery. The new one had a capacity of 1350mAh, not much of a difference but it was all I could find. But there's no difference between them whatsoever, when it comes to battery life.
My first question is whether it is possible that this may be a software issue rather than a hardware issue (such as a power leak)?
If it is, then would upgrading the ROM or Radio or upgrading to WM6 make any difference?
Problem's that I don't have the phone on me right now so I can't give ROM or ExtROM versions etc., but I do know that it is running WM5 with AKU 2.3 and Radio is either 1.21 or 1.31.
N.B.: Until I get this issue sorted out, I am using a Nokia 6680 which has an average battery life of 3 days (72 hours), so should I be expecting something in the vicinity with my i-mate?
Well it sounds as if you've done all the obvious things. There is a power saving registry tweak in the wiki somewhere but that should not be necessary just to bring it to normal power consumption. If I don't use mine much (not on flight mode) I'll get a couple of days at least.
A ROM change might help a little but if you have a warranty I'd be tempted to use it. Radio change is unlikely to change things if you have been testing in flight mode.
Anybody else got ideas?
Mike
The only problem that I have with getting it fixed or replaced under warranty is that I have to send it to another country. So I am trying everything I can do before going through that hassle. So is there any test that I can carry out at home, or a certain diagnostics software that can test the phone for me?
Would a digital multimeter help if i can measure the current being drawn from the battery? What should the current rating be for the phone, is it 1A? Because there is one other interesting thing i found while just snooping around, there is a sticker that just has 5VDC and 1A written on it, and it's stuck to the phone under where the battery goes. I can only imagine that this is the voltage and current rating for the phone. The interesting part is that the battery that came with it, as well as the one i bought are both 3.7V batteries.
:-S
Best to just update your phone.... But becareful! read and research on flashing b 4 you do it... VERY IMPORTANT... USE only softwares for your phone...
I wanna make sure that anything i do doesn't void my warranty as well.
Used their offical update for your phone... However, my friend brick his phone and sent it back to the company and they replace it for him... I dunno if you would have that luck however... if ur careful and read all the information... and ur computer is stable... you shouldnt worry about it bricking ur phone...
jlaham said:
The only problem that I have with getting it fixed or replaced under warranty is that I have to send it to another country. So I am trying everything I can do before going through that hassle. So is there any test that I can carry out at home, or a certain diagnostics software that can test the phone for me?
Would a digital multimeter help if i can measure the current being drawn from the battery? What should the current rating be for the phone, is it 1A? Because there is one other interesting thing i found while just snooping around, there is a sticker that just has 5VDC and 1A written on it, and it's stuck to the phone under where the battery goes. I can only imagine that this is the voltage and current rating for the phone. The interesting part is that the battery that came with it, as well as the one i bought are both 3.7V batteries.
:-S
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The ratings you see written inside and the battery ratings are just standard - nothing unusual there. You could test current draw etc but even if you find it a little high it doesn't really help you to pin down a problem save to say it's the phone and not the battery. However as you have two batteries it's fairly reasonable to say it's not the battery. (reasonable but not impossible of course that two batteries are not working as they should).
Unfortunately we do not yet have our hands on the test file that HTC use.
Mike
I guess I have no choice but to get it shipped back. Thanks for your help guys.
Are you using a wall charger or a trickle-charger such as the USB Cable? The wall charger is the only way to truly charge it to full.
If you are using a USB charger or other trickle charger, after the device says it is fully charged remove it from the charger for about 2 minutes and then reconnect it. It will then charge (most of) the rest of the way.
If you don't do this, the problems gets worse and worse. After 1 day, the trickle charger may get you up to a 90% charge. After two days, 80%, etc. After a week you'll only be holding half a charge, even though the device is reporting a full charge while on the charger.
Another tip I have found is to perform a soft-reset after removing it from the charger, particularly if it has been plugged in for a long time at full charge (more than an hour or so). It seems like the device doesn't always detect that it has been unplugged and tries to suck down juice as if it were still plugged in. If you have noticed that your device gets pretty hot when the battery drains quickly, this is probably what is happening to you.
You also haven't mentioned the programs that you are using during the day. Some programs, particularly chat clients, will drain the battery in about 5 hours, though obviously you're not using anything like this while in flight mode.
One more thing. You noted that you were told that leaving it on the charger whenever possible is the thing to do. This is incorrect. The more the battery is exercised in this way, the shorter the lifespan of the battery will be. With any PocketPC device we're all bound to charge it every night, but once it is charged you want to take it off the charger. A battery being fully charged is just as bad as a battery being fully drained, so you want to keep it somewhere in between as much as possible.
My battery doesn't last either.
I've ordered an extended life battery with its own back.
I've also ordered a car charger.
I also carry my old hiptop with me when I need to switch sims.
Apparently touchscreen phones that do so much, ie. bluetooth and wifi, eat batteries.
Doom Tints said:
Are you using a wall charger or a trickle-charger such as the USB Cable? The wall charger is the only way to truly charge it to full.
If you are using a USB charger or other trickle charger, after the device says it is fully charged remove it from the charger for about 2 minutes and then reconnect it. It will then charge (most of) the rest of the way.
If you don't do this, the problems gets worse and worse. After 1 day, the trickle charger may get you up to a 90% charge. After two days, 80%, etc. After a week you'll only be holding half a charge, even though the device is reporting a full charge while on the charger.
Another tip I have found is to perform a soft-reset after removing it from the charger, particularly if it has been plugged in for a long time at full charge (more than an hour or so). It seems like the device doesn't always detect that it has been unplugged and tries to suck down juice as if it were still plugged in. If you have noticed that your device gets pretty hot when the battery drains quickly, this is probably what is happening to you.
You also haven't mentioned the programs that you are using during the day. Some programs, particularly chat clients, will drain the battery in about 5 hours, though obviously you're not using anything like this while in flight mode.
One more thing. You noted that you were told that leaving it on the charger whenever possible is the thing to do. This is incorrect. The more the battery is exercised in this way, the shorter the lifespan of the battery will be. With any PocketPC device we're all bound to charge it every night, but once it is charged you want to take it off the charger. A battery being fully charged is just as bad as a battery being fully drained, so you want to keep it somewhere in between as much as possible.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wow, I am very surprised to hear some of these. First of all, are you sure that using the usb charger kills your battery capacity so fast? I mean, I almost always charge my phone with the usb charger and it seems to be quite fine. Of course once in a while I charge it with the wall charger when I am in a hurry. But I was thinking that charging it with the usb will be better as it charges slowly.
Also I usually keep my phone plugged to the usb. Indeed, I already ordered a desktop cradle so that I can see the screen while it is being charged. Is it a bad idea to keep it cradled all the time? This is what I did with my Dell Axim all the time and it was quite happy with it.
The process of charging/draining modern batteries won't shorten their lifespans. However, having a chargable battery at full charge or at no charge are both bad and both will reduce the lifespan of the battery.
So no, you shouldn't leave it plugged in/cradled all the time.
The problem with trickle chargers is altogether different. They just won't always charge a battery to its full capacity -- so in this way they are actually better for long-term battery health. This is why I said that if you want to get a full charge off of a trickle charger, you have to (usually) take it off the charger and put it back on when the device reports that it is fully charged. After unplugging the trickle-charger you'll get a new battery reading on the device which will usually be anywhere between 60% and 90%. You can then put it back on the charger until it shows full again.
Deleted, invalid, i didnt read the whole post.
Well, it seems that i was just unlucky with my buy. Thanks to all of you first of all for all your support it really did help me learn more about PPC's in general, and it also made me sure that there is a problem with the phone. I sat through what i like to call a debugging session, just following the phone's every "move". I know, sounds kinda crazy but i was just that determined. What i realised was that whether i performed the soft-reset or not, it still had a problem, even though the solution did sound very promising.
This is what happened, charged it to 100%. I also tried charging it a little more later, but that was it, so i'm pretty sure that the capacity was right. After detaching it i performed the softreset, hoping that it would help. Then i just left it over night on flight mode. Next morning it had only decreased to 90%. GREAT! And it felt rather normal, but then about an hour later, it jumped down to 80%, 70%, 60%, then 50%. Then when I held it, it felt pretty hot, i figured that whatever was the problem earlier, just happened again. So I turned it off for a few hours then turned it on again and it started off on 40%. As before seemed to be performing quite normal, then within a minute it heated up again and jumped down to 20%. And that was when i just lost my nerve and packed it to send it back to my retailer.
I am now convinced that the phone is faulty!
Yes, it very well might be.
My device has drained suddenly a few times, with the exact same heat problems that you're describing when it happens. A soft reset for me when this occured fixed it -- and it hasn't happened for months.
But as we all know the same solutions don't work for all people with HTC devices.
I just had the same sort of problem. I've been using my TyTN for several months now under Dutty's WM6, and only just flashed Schaps 3.60 a few days ago.
It worked fine the first couple of days, but now I'm having the dreaded 5hr battery life too.
I had had that a couple of times before, but it was always related to some software, and a soft reset would cure it like Doom Tints said above. The problem is that here, either this or a power-off and reboot doesn't change a thing.
It's clearly a software problem too. I use UpTime Meter from AE, and I can see that the PocketPC simply doesn't turn into standby mode, but only deactivates the screen. In UpTime, the power on time will always be equal to the time since last charge, which means the PocketPC is on all the time. In that case the 5h battery life makes sense.
Would there be a way to find out why it doesn't enter standby mode (which software blocks it up), or force it into it? It would be good to find something as I'm nearly sure this is the reason for most if not all of the cases of short battery life we see around. Without having the meter there's simply no way to realise that the thing just stays on...
Doom Tints said:
The process of charging/draining modern batteries won't shorten their lifespans. However, having a chargable battery at full charge or at no charge are both bad and both will reduce the lifespan of the battery.
So no, you shouldn't leave it plugged in/cradled all the time.
The problem with trickle chargers is altogether different. They just won't always charge a battery to its full capacity -- so in this way they are actually better for long-term battery health. This is why I said that if you want to get a full charge off of a trickle charger, you have to (usually) take it off the charger and put it back on when the device reports that it is fully charged. After unplugging the trickle-charger you'll get a new battery reading on the device which will usually be anywhere between 60% and 90%. You can then put it back on the charger until it shows full again.
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Click to collapse
Your good man, Phone has been charging for about four hours and it didnt go up more than 40% so I unpluged the phone and turned it off and on and then it went up to 80% and now its recharging it again. Thanks
Battery discharge and heating up
kilrah said:
I just had the same sort of problem. I've been using my TyTN for several months now under Dutty's WM6, and only just flashed Schaps 3.60 a few days ago.
...
Would there be a way to find out why it doesn't enter standby mode (which software blocks it up), or force it into it? It would be good to find something as I'm nearly sure this is the reason for most if not all of the cases of short battery life we see around. Without having the meter there's simply no way to realise that the thing just stays on...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Since I had my hermes, a few times it would get very hot and discharge the battery, and I assumed I was turning it on in my pocket and running a program. But now it does this continually. As soon as I take it off the charger it discharges and gets hot. This even happens if the phone is powered off.
I have borrowed a battery of someone else and the same thing happens
I have also hard reset it and have nothing installed extra, so it can not be software problem.
Must be a short circuit inside the phone? Does anyone have any ideas? I can't send it back as it is a Cingular and I live in the UK and have no support contract.
Thanks,
Mark
I managed to investigate and find the culprit - A2DP Toggle in my case. Whenever its Today plugin is enabled, it will prevent the phone from entering standby. Deactivate it - no uninstallation needed - and it returns to normal. Weird as it had been working perfectly for about a week, and I haven't done any change when it started acting weird.
Now it kinda defeats the plugin's purpose if I have to deactivate it everytime...
@simkin: If it drains the battery even powered off completely that's most likely a hardware problem. Does it happen too if you remove the battery and put it again without turning the phone on (as opposed to having the phone on and turning it off with a long press on the the power button)?
There could be a slight chance that the phone actually starts booting and gets stuck there draining power. As a last solution I'd try flashing it with a different ROM, but if that fails it's most likely a hardware fault.
I'm having battery trouble too, I switched to WM6 with a full battery that lasted for about 24 hours and it became 7-8 hours, so I switched back to my previous ROM and Radio ver and it still says I only get 7-8 hours average, I'm gonna try to hard reset it on more time, and then i'm just gonna try a new battery.

WMWifiRouter Battery Issue

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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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.

Brand new Atrix won't charge. Green LED.

I installed/flashed Gingerblur yesterday and it was working fine for the whole day. At night, I put it back into it's case because I'm still waiting for my New Screen Protector and Case to come. I take really good care of it. Then I did not use the phone for the whole day. After having a really bad day, I started up my brand new Atrix for some fun and it was already at around 5% battery left so I went ahead and tried to charge it. I noticed plugging it into the computer did not work, so I tried wall charging it and that also did not work.
To sum it up,
Symptoms:
-Green Led for 2-3 seconds when I hold down the top main button then shuts off led. Note: Only happens/works if the phone is plugged into the wall.
-Green Led for 4 or more seconds if I plug in wall charger then shuts off led.
-No visual image on screen after battery drained out at all.
What can I do? I don't think I bricked it since it was working perfectly yesterday. Is there anything I can do? I have tried removing battery with no avail, it is plugged in to the wall charger still for the past hour.
This is a very weird problem and I don't know the exact answer..I just know i bricked my atrix before (failed to flash on a full battery) and couldn't charge the dead battery even on AC.
I ended up buying a universal battery charger from radioshack and then returning it once I got my battery fully charged and flashed the rom. Haven't had any battery problems since.
Hope this helps
Thanks, I will try this but it is night time right now. I hope someone else has had experience of this before and can guide me to any other directions.
I did not fail a flash, unless the flash can fail even if Gingerblur was working 100% before it failed. I don't know if thats possible.
Are you using the usb cable/charger that came with the phone?
I know it sounds ridiculous but the phone does NOT charge on any of my existing MicroUSB cables or wall chargers (used to have a nexus one). Pretty bummed about that :/
Yeah I am using the one that came with it.
I also want to update that I've tried my sister's HTC Inspire charger and an old Samsung charger I have left around.
Both are USB to wall Adapters (I am not using the same wall power adapter for each charger) so I wonder if I need the one that plugs directly into the wall?
Yeah, you probably just have a dysfunctional battery or charger, either way, you're going to have to diagnose which one is the problem (fingers crossed that it isn't the phone)
/e:
it sounds like its not the charger, from your most recent post.
I think your phone is the problem, it's not processing how to charge the battery from the cable.
Common problem. You need at least 850mA to charge the phone, so older usb ports wont work. The wall charger is actually working. Pull the battery out, put it back in, plug in the wall charger(don't press any buttons!) and let it sit for about 30min to get a decent charge. Should boot up after that.
designgears said:
Common problem. You need at least 850mA to charge the phone, so older usb ports wont work. The wall charger is actually working. Pull the battery out, put it back in, plug in the wall charger(don't press any buttons!) and let it sit for about 30min to get a decent charge. Should boot up after that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hm, it's been charging for over an hour now and still hasn't turned on. But I did not do it exactly as you said. I unplugged the battery acouple times but I always try to hold the "fingerprint" on button right after plugging it in. I'll try not pressing anything this time. Thanks, I'll post back if I get any results.
The phone should turn on if charging, you don't need 850mA either. Standard USB is 500 and it just charges slower. I know this for a fact as I just charged it like that.
Take it into a store or contact where you bought it from.
Plugging in phone while off: Green LED for a bit, moto logo, battery icon
Power on, no charger : green light for a bit longer, moto logo, boot animation.
Try an at&t stores charger and see if theyll let you charge the battery.
Sent from my Motorola Atrix 4G on the network with the most backhaul, whatever that is. This post might have errors as I hate touchscreen keyboards.
Mgamerz said:
The phone should turn on if charging, you don't need 850mA either. Standard USB is 500 and it just charges slower.
Take it into a store or contact amazon support.
Sent from my Motorola Atrix 4G on the network with the most backhaul, whatever that is. This post might have errors as I hate touchscreen keyboards.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
With a dead battery you need 850 mAH. The phone needs 850 mA ti boot and it needs to boot to charge (strange yes but software controls the charge).
I would suggest trying all the chargers you can (the Moto one may be giving you to little amps) and if that does not work you can try to either 1) make a dev cable (post on how to in the dev section, though it requires soldering and such so you may not be able to do it if you don't have supplies) or 2) get a charger for the battery (one to directly charge the battery vice through the phone).
The battery method did not work, I did not try to hold the main button until 1 hour later to no avail. I'm going to Best Buy tomorrow for a replacement.
Edit: Oops..Too late to the party! I had the same issue that was fixed when I used a good quality micro-usb charger!
850ma? You sure?
I've charged and booted my phone from dead on a 700ma charger and 500ma usb on numerous occasions.
U need not worry .. put it in a wall charger .. and let it sit dere for atleast an hour .. the green led will come up when charge level reaches around 50% or more .. be patient ..
LivingChampion said:
I installed/flashed Gingerblur yesterday and it was working fine for the whole day. At night, I put it back into it's case because I'm still waiting for my New Screen Protector and Case to come. I take really good care of it. Then I did not use the phone for the whole day. After having a really bad day, I started up my brand new Atrix for some fun and it was already at around 5% battery left so I went ahead and tried to charge it. I noticed plugging it into the computer did not work, so I tried wall charging it and that also did not work.
To sum it up,
Symptoms:
-Green Led for 2-3 seconds when I hold down the top main button then shuts off led. Note: Only happens/works if the phone is plugged into the wall.
-Green Led for 4 or more seconds if I plug in wall charger then shuts off led.
-No visual image on screen after battery drained out at all.
What can I do? I don't think I bricked it since it was working perfectly yesterday. Is there anything I can do? I have tried removing battery with no avail, it is plugged in to the wall charger still for the past hour.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App
I had the exact same issue the other day. I forgot to put my phone on charge at night, and it was dead in the morning. I plugged into the wall with my Moto charger, the phone turned on and went right to CWM. I rebooted from there, the phone showed 5% battery level, and within 10-15 minutes was at 20%.
I thought it strange my phone went right to the old Tenfar CWM even though I uninstalled it after unlocking my phone and installing the latest CWM from Tenfar.
It does seem that the shut off with the battery is 5%. I am assuming this is the safety factor built into either the Android OS, or the batteries themselves, as they do have circuits in them much like mini computers to shut them off before 100% discharge, as this will kill a Lithium Ion battery.
Some simple facts regarding the Lithium Ion batteries:
•They start degrading as soon as they leave the factory. They will only last two or three years from the date of manufacture whether you use them or not.
•They are extremely sensitive to high temperatures. Heat causes lithium-ion battery packs to degrade much faster than they normally would.
•If you completely discharge a lithium-ion battery, it is ruined.
•A lithium-ion battery pack must have an on-board computer to manage the battery. This makes them even more expensive than they already are.
•There is a small chance that, if a lithium-ion battery pack fails, it will burst into flame.
What I would like to know is why some people have problems getting a charge back in the Atrix after a complete discharge. There I was at 20% after 10-15 minutes using the Moto wall charger, while other people can't even get their phones to turn on after an hour on the wall charger.
I have the same problem, tried everything and finally found a solution
Get a warranty replacement.
The phone won't turn on, so they don't know what you did to it.
Got my new phone today, popped the dead battery in and voila, it charges !
Sometimes it's like people say, it's because of the charge, but your phone probably have issue, just get a replacement
I let it charge all night and it still has the same symptoms. Going to Best Buy in an hour when it opens.
When I get my new phone, should I Gingerblur it again or am I going to face this same issue? Was this software related or hardware?
Gingerblur was relatively easy to do, but I don't want to risk killing my phone a second time.
UPDATE: Got a replacement phone. Complementing whether I want to Gingerblur it again because that's the only thing that could have caused the battery issue other than it being hardware related.
LivingChampion said:
I let it charge all night and it still has the same symptoms. Going to Best Buy in an hour when it opens.
When I get my new phone, should I Gingerblur it again or am I going to face this same issue? Was this software related or hardware?
Gingerblur was relatively easy to do, but I don't want to risk killing my phone a second time.
UPDATE: Got a replacement phone. Complementing whether I want to Gingerblur it again because that's the only thing that could have caused the battery issue other than it being hardware related.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can try it again should work fine for you. If not...
You can always use their phone and your "dead battery" and visa versa theirs into your phone. Then if same issue happens. Just warranty the phone. If your in warranty do it. I've had g1's for no reason not charge. Led says it, os says it, yet NONE of my working batteries were getting any charge off the phone. Especially when the phone was 3 days old. Warranty.... if its free do it.
tehrules said:
850ma? You sure?
I've charged and booted my phone from dead on a 700ma charger and 500ma usb on numerous occasions.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, according to motorola it needs that much... so you never know
Ciloteille said:
You can try it again should work fine for you. If not...
You can always use their phone and your "dead battery" and visa versa theirs into your phone. Then if same issue happens. Just warranty the phone. If your in warranty do it. I've had g1's for no reason not charge. Led says it, os says it, yet NONE of my working batteries were getting any charge off the phone. Especially when the phone was 3 days old. Warranty.... if its free do it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes if warranty then ok .. But we are here to do the impossible.. I just reconditioned a new battery just so it can turn phone on in same instance for a friend. So yes batteries and phones new can have charging issues.
There is an issue with smart-phones and batteries and has been since day one. If you are here then evidently you either love these phones and want to mod them or you are like me and love playing with electronics. Real simple if you in the smart-phone world there are a few rules of thumb..
1.) Never begin working without a fully charged battery (some say 51% or better I say 100% )
2.) Buy , borrow , get an external battery charger and/or stronger wall charger
3.) Extra batteries are always good.
4.) Read the damn stickies and wiki's ... People have taken plenty of time creating them. Those who know me know I have written some myself.
5.) The biggest problem is located between the chair and the keyboard .... (lol)

Reseating the battery did wonder for my battery life and charging issues on my 8.4

As many other of you, I have had problems with my battery charging properly. Often it would only charge up to 40-60%. Usually, I could fix this problem by running my battery down to 2%, then turning it off and plugging in the charger. Most of the time it would charge up to 100% then, save for a few times it didn't.
Still, I was getting annoyed by this, so I figured I might as well try pulling the battery out and plugging it back in. And, wow, did it fix some issues for me. So far, my battery is charging itself back to 100% without having the pull the plug multiple times. But maybe even better, it gave me a completely renewed battery life.
Before reseating the battery, I was getting about 5-7.5 hours battery life depending on what I was doing. After reseating, I now have about 10.5 hours of battery life. That's a HUGE difference. The attached images below show my latest 10.5 hour battery life with about 9% left, which should give me another 45 minutes to an hour if I needed it. Power saving was on during the entire time, screen brightness varied between 10-25%. Mostly I internetted, reddited, used Feedly, 1.5 hour of youtube viewing. I put the tablet in airplane mode for one night to see if it gave any significant battery life, but it only took about 1% during the night it wasn't in airplane mode. Sync with all my accounts was also on the entire time. Android version is stock, rooted, though I only use Xposed and Greenify.
If it stays like this, this will be the first time I am truely happy with my battery life.
To reseat the battery, I used this Youtube video:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEVFYQksmxM
If you want to try it, which I certainly recommend, you can try pulling out only the battery cable. I wasn't able to, I didn't want to put too much stress on the cabling, so I unscrewed the entire battery. It's not stuck with adhesive anyway. I do however recommend strongly that you use this guide to pull of the back cover, instead of opening at the screen:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5vTAeWyq7I
Can't link to the video's themselves, I am not allowed to do that yet. I believe this video was made by someone on XDA? Please give a shout out, so I can give you proper credits for it. Becareful when opening the device when near the USB port and the audio jack. The plastic connecting to the tablet itself seems very fragile in those places.
Thanks for sharing.
Same experience, I did it two days ago after noticing that it stopped charging at 96%. With the same usage I should have needed to recharge it by now but I still have 52% battery left with my usual 3 hours of screen on over 48 hours. So it doubled the battery life .
I did remove only the connector, I used a plastic coated paper clip that I passed under the cables to pop it off. The cables are strongly attached enough to remove the connector without any issue.
I think I'll keep this tablet longer than I thought, the processor and screen being future-proof.
I'll try it and post my results...
Anybody else tried that or has a clue why that happened?
reseating battery helped, now won't charge from USB
I too have been frustrated with charging and battery issues on my Tab Pro 8.4. So I tried the battery reseating trick.
I can now report, that it has helped with battery life. But a new issue came up.
Previously, I could not reliable charge the tablet on AC power ( USB cable connected to the AC charger ). It would not charge to 100%. The solution was to charge from an USB port on my Mac. This would charge to 100%.
After the battery reseat trick, the tablet does not charge over USB, but charges nicely to 100% on AC. And the battery life is much better.
Right now, I am trying if the battery is even charging over USB while off. The little dots are scrolling on the screen, seems something thinks the charging is ongoing, but I need more time to see if the charge level has moved up.
Any ideas ? Thanks, Paul.
I had also proceed to that "surgery". Battery life seems better but it could be placebo. Im not sure.
But 3 times in a row charging went from 15, 20, 35 % straight to 100.
To the usb charging issue mentioned, due to the bad contactivity of the battery cable before tha fix, it may displayed false reading of charging level. The normal changing time from a standard usb port is at least 4 to 5 times longer than the original charger (2000mA vs 500mA max). So you have to wait longer for a usb charging level change.
About the USB charging issue - the device does charge when off, while plugged into an USB port on a Mac. When the device is ON, the battery icon shows a red cross, and the info in the Battery windows of settings is showing Not Charging. My guess is that this is some restriction on the firmware, that does not attempt to charge the device while having a data link on the USB. I will try to obtain a charging-only cable, to see if that fixes the issue.
Paul.
Just checked for myself, but my cable that came with the tablet doesn't work either. Tried it with different cables too and the same red icon pops up in the battery. I honestly never tried charging it myself via my PC before I reseated the battery. Maybe it has something to do with the fact a PC USB 2.0 port can only supply 500mAh, which isn't enough for the tablet (while it is turned on)?
I m also suffering from this charging problem...i wish to reseat bt i have a question...after opening the back cover does it reinsert normally or i need glue..?
I tried first to remove the back cover. Some of the clips chipped off. So I removed the screen. No damage removing the screen. Just be patient to unclip all spots all around the screen
kensheen said:
I m also suffering from this charging problem...i wish to reseat bt i have a question...after opening the back cover does it reinsert normally or i need glue..?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is some adhesive between the cover and the tablet itself, but mostly there are a lot of small plastic pins that lock in place. I did not add any new adhesive, and I honestly can't tell the difference.
paokaras45 said:
I tried first to remove the back cover. Some of the clips chipped off. So I removed the screen. No damage removing the screen. Just be patient to unclip all spots all around the screen
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh that doesn't sound good. Is the back cover still fine now with the chipped pins? I personally didn't try via the screen since I saw an image in a different thread of someone getting bubbles of some kind in one of his screen corners.
The fit close to the ir port is not as tight as before. I don't mind because i use a case. The screen came off without any issues.
PS: after power on the tablet for the first time, i forgot to set time and date. It didnt connect to any secure site or servive (play store, youtube, facebook). So keep in mind to set them correctly
paokaras45 said:
The fit close to the ir port is not as tight as before. I don't mind because i use a case. The screen came off without any issues.
PS: after power on the tablet for the first time, i forgot to set time and date. It didnt connect to any secure site or servive (play store, youtube, facebook). So keep in mind to set them correctly
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So, after some days, how do you note the battery? Improved indeed?
favero_ said:
So, after some days, how do you note the battery? Improved indeed?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think yes. I now get full charge every time (5 times from various percentages) and screen on time increased by an hour approximately. Maybe its from the better changing cycles.
With medium usage (tapatalk 20%, greader 30%, facebook 20%, youtube 30%) no gaming at all i get about 6 or more s.o.t. at 20% brightness most of the time.
Right now i am at 30% left with 5 hours sot, unpluged 13 hours ago.
I reseated my battery..now my tab pro showed it is full charged after long time. Previously it didnt cross 29% even i charge it for whole day..battery is better now. I opened the back cover by ruler and reseated only the battery connection as shown by video...
thankx sicron.
are you guys sure there is nothing wrong with your charger, you should get a usb amp reader (like $5 on ebay) and make sure the tablet is pulling 1800~ mA when it charges from 50% or less (rate will drop when it gets close to full)
Also always use the Samsung cable that came with the tablet since it has high quality Copper wires that can carry the correct 2A current , if you use another cable it is most-likely only rated for 500 mA (Computer USB current) and will either
1. Not carry enough current to properly charge the tablet.
2. start charging ok but as the cable heats up (or contact pins on the usb parts) it will start to degrade
I suggest only using the Samsung wall charger, and never Ipad , iphone, computer or other brand chargers to charge it.
otyg said:
are you guys sure there is nothing wrong with your charger, you should get a usb amp reader (like $5 on ebay) and make sure the tablet is pulling 1800~ mA when it charges from 50% or less (rate will drop when it gets close to full)
Also always use the Samsung cable that came with the tablet since it has high quality Copper wires that can carry the correct 2A current , if you use another cable it is most-likely only rated for 500 mA (Computer USB current) and will either
1. Not carry enough current to properly charge the tablet.
2. start charging ok but as the cable heats up (or contact pins on the usb parts) it will start to degrade
I suggest only using the Samsung wall charger, and never Ipad , iphone, computer or other brand chargers to charge it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It is definitely not the charger, otherwise the problem wouldn't be fixed by reseating the battery. Which happens to work for a lot of people. I personally tried a Nexus 7 2012 2A charger both with the original cable and with my Samsung cable. I also tried the OnePlus One charger (2A or 2.1A, not sure) with both cables and it didn't charge. It seems to me it is some kind of calibration issue, that somehow gets fixed by unplugging the battery and plugging it in again.
Sicron said:
It is definitely not the charger, otherwise the problem wouldn't be fixed by reseating the battery. Which happens to work for a lot of people. I personally tried a Nexus 7 2012 2A charger both with the original cable and with my Samsung cable. I also tried the OnePlus One charger (2A or 2.1A, not sure) with both cables and it didn't charge. It seems to me it is some kind of calibration issue, that somehow gets fixed by unplugging the battery and plugging it in again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah strange, maybe some-kind of a bad connection on the battery clip where on the assembly line it didn't get fully pressed down or just comes loose overtime, and maybe the battery wasn't reporting back stats correctly (if you look in logcat you can see it constantly is getting updates from the battery circuitry)
would be interesting to see what logcat reports on a device with this problem (might need root logcat)
IE mine shows this.
D/BatteryService( 944): level:61, scale:100, status:3, health:2, present:true, voltage: 3836, temperature: 248, technology: Li-ion, AC powered:false, USB powered:false, Wireless powered:false, icon:17303447, invalid charger:0, online:1, current avg:-784, charge type:0, power sharing:false
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X
xx
I completed the battery reseating and can say it definitely has improved the battery charging and performance. Prior to I was having the charging stopping issue at various percentages. Since the reseating it now charges 100% and the battery performance has definitely increased by at least 20%. Would recommend to do this if your having battery issues. Take off the back cover as it is very easy. Just need to go slow around the perimeter. It is help on by small clips and glue. Use a slow and forceful prying with a credit card and the back cover will slowly become undone. Area around the charging port has a little extra glue so may take a little more force.

Nexus 6 battery replacement and charging issues

Long-time lurker, first-time poster. I've gotten a lot of good insight from reading posts and figured I would join to share what I've learned.
Its a long one and if you get all the way through it you will understand why.
Nexus 6 XT1103 with original battery running stock 7.1.1. Started showing issues in early 2020. Apps would be slow to respond. Camera would take forever to open and take a picture. Scrolling through news feed would be annoying because it would register my scroll as a tap into a news story. Weird static sound coming from speakers during scroll. Phone started to shut off on its own at around 20-30%. Installed Accubattery and it showed battery was at about half its original capacity. Progressively got worse throughout the year. Got to the point where it would shut off around 50% or even at 80-100% if opening something that would result in high CPU use spike. It was time to replace the battery.
Looked up battery recommendations. Ebay batteries seemed iffy. Initial install reviews would be fine but some reports of lasting for a year and then crapping out, or just no long term follow-up. Review of Akku Polarcell for a Nexus 5 seemed promising. Email to Wannasee was answered quickly. Batch of batteries they were offering was made in late 2019. They could have just made that up but I had no reason to doubt them. Looks like an actual brick and mortar operation. Ratings are pretty high. $10-15 for unknown battery off Ebay vs $35-40 for something made in 2019 from a reputable vendor. I decided to go with the Polarcell. Bought it after trying to open the phone up the first time to make sure I could. Could have bought the Polarcell from Wannasee’s store on Ebay. Waited for one of those mythical Ebay coupons to show up in my inbox but that never materialized, by which time the phone was really in bad shape. Compared the price for buying the Polarcell off of Wannasee’s Ebay store to buying directly from Wannasee’s site. Went with the direct buy since it was a buck or two cheaper with the exchange rate at that time and I didn’t have any Ebay coupons to use anyways. Paypal payment using credit card. Pay attention to currency conversion setting in Paypal. Was better for me to have my credit card do the conversion rather than let Paypal do it, but that’s because my card doesn’t charge foreign transaction fees. Came out to $36.68 when I bought it. Their email comm is pretty good. They let me know when it was going to ship, when it shipped, when it was expected to arrive and provided a tracking number.
By the time I was ready bite the bullet and buy the battery, the phone wouldn’t even recognize the charger. Went through multiple chargers and cords trying to figure that out. Seemed possible that it was cord or USB port related. Sometimes if the cord was held just so it would charge. Got to a point where it wouldn’t charge at all while on. Wouldn't even recognize the charger was plugged in. I did figure out that it would charge while off, but even that was hit or miss (more hit than miss though). Even while off it did seem like it wanted a higher output charger. I had been using a 1.5A HTC charger mainly. Eventually that didn't work. I tried 2A Samsung and that didn't work. A 4A Asus charger seemed to work the most reliably. So at this point I am debating whether its worth it to buy an almost $40 battery if something is seriously wrong with the phone. What made it worse was that my first attempt to open the phone ended up slicing through a flex cable part of the wireless charging coil. So I could have tried to figure out whether the charging issues were due to the USB port by trying a wireless charger, but not anymore! I was using plastic cards to separate the back from the frame; nothing metal. But the amount of force required to push through the glue was enough that when it broke through the card slipped and it was enough to slice through the thin plastic and copper of that ribbon. Irritating due to the loss of ability to troubleshoot the charging issue further, but I wasn't too burned up about it because I never use a wireless charger so I just took it out and left it out. Works fine without it, except of course no more wireless charging ability.
Looked up lots of videos on how to open up the phone. Most helpful ones were:
Most warn about the cable for the power and volume buttons; rightfully so. None mentioned the wireless charger flex on the opposite side. The power/volume ribbon did get a decent crease into it as well, but luckily no damage. Straightened it out and it works fine.
22 screws. They are tiny but they come out easily. Pretty much everything I read and watched said they were T4 screws, but at least with my screwdriver kit the T3 bit is the one to use. Besides getting the back off the rest of opening the phone to get the battery out was pretty simple. The videos say to separate the two halves of the power/volume ribbon where they intersect but I didn't have to do that. I just removed the end that plugs into the board. Seemed easier than messing with the tiny connector at the intersect and it was. Removing the battery connector didn't work how it should have. The plastic had become brittle with age and just broke apart when prying at it from the opening in the frame. Had to get under the frame and pry it off from the back side of the connector where the ribbon cable goes into it. By the way, by luck I had a decent charge on the old battery before removing it. More on why that was important later.
The Polarcell didn’t come with a curve in it like the OEM battery; it was just flat. But it wasn't hard to massage the edges down. Used the old battery as a guide to bend the new battery into shape. Other than that it went in just fine. Ribbon cable was already folded in the right direction so it just plugged right in. Frame went back into place without any interference. The phone turned on just fine. I dont remember if it charged while on that first time, or if I had charged it while it was off. Probably the latter. But it went to full charge. I did get a capacity reading from Accubattery so it was charging while on. It was in the low to mid 90s vs the rated capacity. That was worth it for me. The phone didn't shut off randomly anymore. The apps were quicker. The camera took pictures the way I remembered it used to. No more static noise. But the charging issue was still there.
The back came off a few more times after that as I tried troubleshooting as best I could to see whether there were any issues with the charge port. There were no visible issues. I did end up picking out some dust with a needle, but not any significant amount that would have explained why it wasn't recognizing being plugged in while on. I probed with a meter on the backside of the USB port while the phone was apart and plugged in to make sure voltage from the charger and cord was coming through. No issues there, but also not advisable to do. The contact points that need to be probed are very tiny and very close to other things. I was lucky I didn't short the 5V to anything important. Pretty sure I did short it at least once and it didn't do any damage, after which I stopped while I was ahead. Cleaned out the port with an old toothbrush dipped in isopropyl alcohol. That definitely seemed to help it charge more reliably while off, but it still wasn't charging while on.
I’ve read posts that suggested the charge port was bad and needed to be replaced, but the fact that the 5V was coming through the USB port meant it had to be something else. Before I had opened the phone up the first time and was troubleshooting this problem I had tried a full reset. Backed up the whole phone manually. It wasn't rooted at that time. At the same time I unlocked the bootloader to get ready to root it once I replaced the battery because I wanted to use a charge limiter with the new battery to extend its life (whether or not that actually works to extend the life I don’t care, its worth the tradeoff to me). The factory reset had made no difference to my charging issue. I had not reflashed the factory image at this point. I was just doing a factory reset with the image that was already on the phone.
After I replaced the battery and it was still having issues, I tried flashing the factory image. Even going in and wiping cache and data through stock recovery made no difference. In addition to charging issues while on there would also be connection issues. It would connect and disconnect if the USB cable was not held in the right way. Not the ideal condition to be flashing a ROM but I managed to keep it connected for long enough. This was not just once. I tried a couple different methods. The first probably was using the Nexus Root Toolkit. Then when that didn't work I went in and manually flashed each file with adb from the command line. At some point I had gotten it to a condition where I did not recognize what it was doing during boot and it was just sitting on the Google screen before the animation starts. Didn't realize then that it should not be on this screen for long. I let it sit like that overnight. I had it plugged in to a charger but I had no way of knowing whether it was charging… it was not. Drained the battery just sitting on that screen all night. Phone came apart again. Battery was down to 2.7V and the phone would not charge. Green light in the speaker came on once (I didn't even realize that light was there before this). It would charge a bit, screen would come on and then immediately die. Started looking up how to charge a Li-Po battery outside of the phone. Eventually my brain cells started working and I pulled out the new battery and put the old battery back in. It had a 4V charge in it still. Was able to get the phone to boot into the OS for the first time after the ROM flash. Turned phone off, pulled old battery out, put new battery in, plugged it in while it was off and it started charging. I kept the back off and had a fan blowing across it while it charged to make sure it didn't get hot. It charged to full. I pulled it out again to see that I hadn't done any permanent damage. It felt the same thickness as before. Nothing was swollen. Will eventually know for sure when I have some more charge/discharge cycles on it, but I think it will be fine since it wasn't discharged lower than 2.7V.
Phone back together. Still only charging while off. Last thing to try is what other posts were skeptical about working. Time to root in order to get access to the batterystats files. Tried to flash TWRP to recovery. It would take but it would not stick. Tried a few times and then gave up and moved on to installing Magisk without it. Turns out Magisk will work just fine with the stock recovery. Used Magisk to patch the boot image. Flashed the patched boot image with adb (still with a wonky USB connection that seemed like it needed to be held just right, but it was only 8meg so it flashed fast). Went with FX File Explorer to browse root. Navigated to data/system folder and moved the three batterystats files off the phone. Kept the files on my computer just in case something went south and I needed to put them back. Rebooted the phone. Booted up without any issues. Plugged in the charger. Recognized immediately and started to charge while on for the first time in a long time. But then it would do the same thing again where the next time I tried charging it would not. It would recognize its plugged into power but would not charge unless I turned the phone on. After a while I realized it would charge while on if I just rebooted it. I still haven’t figured out why this is happening, but its a minor inconvenience. Went through a few weeks worth of charge cycles and Accubattery is showing the Polarcell is at 95% health which seems good to me. I also installed Battery Charge Limit and set it to 80%. Whether or not that’s really going to extend the life of the battery I don’t know but its working fine for me. I get more than a full day out of it before I have to charge again, but I’m not really putting a heavy load on it.
This summarizes troubleshooting and fixing that spans at least three months, for an issue that has been going on for about a year. I’m sure a lot of the issues I had are interrelated. There were definitely a few red herrings along the way. There is no physical damage to the USB port or cables or chargers even though the behavior would have indicated there was. I’m sure the old battery caused issues with either corrupting the batterystats files or just loading it with bad data, and that somehow caused the charging issues I was having. That also seems like it was causing general connectivity issues via the USB port.
Normal people would not go through this much trouble for a 6 year old phone that was presenting so many problems. Safe to say I’m not normal. But I like fixing things and I don't like waste. Hopefully this experience, or at least portions of it, helps someone else keep their Nexus 6 going or maybe even other phones since none of the issue I encountered seem to be specific to the phone.
Quite an adventure!
I would think that your USB connector is physically damaged. You should not have to fiddle with the cable to flash a rom, and also, charging isn't just passing 5V to the phone, it checks the data lines as well to identify the kind of charger.
People say that it is possible to replace the USB connector, but I guess you need to be a real pro at soldering. Maybe a repair shop can do it.
Replacing the charging coil is probably easier - I've done that, though it took some tries before I got the connectors aligned.
It could be the connector or it could be something further downstream (inside the phone). The connector looks physically fine; nothing obvious. Either way, if that's the issue it will be time for a new phone. I've seen those videos and that is well beyond my capabilities. The coil seems simple enough to replace but I've never used wireless charging anyways so I am fine without it.
However, I tend to think its more software related than hardware related just because I can do nothing else besides turn the phone off and it will start charging just fine. I have stood absolutely still, not moving the phone or cable at all and just turned it off and it will start to charge. And when I turn it back on it will still be charging and recognize that it is charging vs before turning it off it would seem like it recognizes its plugged into a charger but it would not be charging (Battery Usage screen goes from telling me how much time it estimates is left with the charge the battery has on it when the cord is not plugged in to saying "Not Charging" when the cord is plugged in).
Any pointers on where to read about how the operating system controls charging? I'm running stock 7.1.1 (N8I11F) with bootloader unlocked and Magisk installed.
Also, what controls charging when the phone is off? I'm assuming that its not the OS.
Thanks
You can always try clearing the bootloader logs:
[Q] Dying at 17% battery
My Nexus 6 is dying at around 17% battery. I've tried using battery calibration apps to fix it but they haven't worked. I've also factory reset, and went from LMY47D to LMY47M, both of which would die at 17%. Any suggestions?
forum.xda-developers.com
That should reset the battery status. It doesn't delete any user data.
I had tried clearing the bootloader logs before, and have tried it again. I had seen a response on a post (that i can't find anymore) that suggested the logs were cleared during a power cycle anyways. Not sure if there's any truth in that, but that's why i thought charging while powered off was working. However, i think i'm agreeing with you now that its the charge port. Last week it stopped working on the charger/cord combo (4A Asus charger and cord that came with some other device) that was reliable up to that point while powered off. Now it will only charge if i push in the cord real hard (won't work with the cord i was using, now i'm back on the OEM cord still with the 4A Asus charger). I think once this method stops working it will be time to move on to another phone.
Any battery recommend ?
I like the Polarcell. Accubattery says its at 94% health (3000mAh compared to the 3200mAh design rating). It hasn't changed since I first installed it two to three months ago. I don't use the phone for anything much more than phone/text/email/alerts so I don't have much screen-on time. I have other devices for that. With that lite use it will take two full days to drop about 50% charge before I put it back to charge. Phone is just as responsive as when I first got it. No random shutdowns or app crashes.
Vincent Adultman said:
I like the Polarcell. Accubattery says its at 94% health (3000mAh compared to the 3200mAh design rating). It hasn't changed since I first installed it two to three months ago. I don't use the phone for anything much more than phone/text/email/alerts so I don't have much screen-on time. I have other devices for that. With that lite use it will take two full days to drop about 50% charge before I put it back to charge. Phone is just as responsive as when I first got it. No random shutdowns or app crashes.
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Thanks for your post. Which ROM are you using?
Stock, 7.1.1, N8I11F

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