Hey guys I have a bit of a dilemma. I have a verizon note 3 that has the bootloader unlocked by me. It's rooted with Temasek's CM13 Rom. My only issue is that I am having problems charging my phone whether it is turned on or off. I have replaced the battery recently in hopes to troubleshoot and solve my problem but came to no avail. When turned on and plugged in it shows the icon in the top right with the lightning bolt to indicate it is charging however it seems to drain still and will eventually turn itself off. If I try to charge it when it is turned off it just vibrates every 1-2 seconds repeatedly. I have replaced the charger cable and block with a brand new one from the store as well. Any help is appreciated.
Try the following and report your results.
1) Pull the battery with nothing plugged in to the USB port. Put the new battery into the phone. While watching the screen carefully, plug the ORIGINAL charger and ORIGINAL cable in to the phone.
Do you see:
(A) Nothing at all
(B) A battery charging animation, or
(C) A static battery icon graphic followed by a brief appearance of the Knox message "Knox Warranty: kernel"
Hopefully the answer is (A) or (B). If not you might have a chicken-vs-egg problem getting your battery to charge.
Answer these questions:
2) Is the original charger the OEM (Samsung) 2A Wall-wart charger, or something else?
3) Perchance was the new charger identified as "Apple Compatible" or "For iPhone", or similar?
4) Are you able to use both cables (old & new) for data connections to a PC (testing with some other devices that can exchange data)
5) What are the rated charging capacities of the old & new chargers? 2 Amps?
The business about Apple compatible chargers is that Apple intentionally violated parts of the USB specification (to suit it's own needs) that detail how devices are supposed to interpret signals on the 4 wires of a USB 2.0 connector during initialization. So a lot of "Apple compatible" chargers produce out-of-spec signals during initialization, and many Android devices will conclude that those chargers can only provide 500 mA of current. So even if they are rated at 2A, the charge controller in the device won't pull anything more than 500 mA.
Similarly, there's all sorts of counterfeit junk being sold, even USB cables. I bought a "USB 3.0" cable in a box that appeared to be Samsung's from Fry's electronics. Despite it having blue connector inserts, it didn't even have any D+ or D- connections. It was neither USB 3.0 nor even a data cable - it couldn't even be used for charging beyond 500mA (because of the missing D+/D- connections). If you can use the cable for communication, at least you know that all four wires are present.
The amount of current that gets pushed into a handset battery during charging is typically controlled by a charge controller chip that sits either on the motherboard or on the (replaceable) USB connector daughterboard and the battery, and also watches transitions taking place on the D+/D- lines shortly after plug-in. (The external charger is just a dumb power supply rated to provide 5v up to whatever it's maximum current draw is before the voltage collapses... unless it is an Apple charger, and then it wiggles the D+/D- lines around inappropriately, confusing any device you plug them into that actually follows the USB spec, aka all Android devices)
Were it not for some certain odd behaviors that the Samsung bootloader engages in when there is an unsigned boot image flashed to the device, the scenario I'd be most likely to suspect is the following:
That you have a bad charge controller chip and you need to replace the USB connector interface. (IIRC, I think the charge controller chip might be on the connector module behind a flex connector, but I can't remember).
Sorry for all the questions - just trying to eliminate possibilities which could be interfering with your debugging.
https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Samsung+Galaxy+Note+3+Teardown/19209
1: Nothing at all.
2: The original charger is a verizon 2.1A micro-usb charger that I bought from a direct verizon store.
3: No it is a Samsung usb3.0 charger directly made for the galaxy note 3 from verizon. Guy pulled it out of the box for a old note 3 he had sold out of the store and the customer already had a charger.
4: Yes I can use both on a galaxy s5. The old charger is a micro-usb and the new is a usb3.0. They charge and transfer data through both cables to the S5.
5: Old charger: 2.1A New charger: 5.3v=2.0A
I have replaced the charging port before on this same phone because my charger would only work being held a certain position and that fixed my issue. However now it won't charge hardly at all. Some time I can get lucky if I leave it overnight but not always. It's temperamental. But I honestly thought it would be a software issue considering it doesn't do anything. When it does do something the battery logo will come up but will not animate, it will remain static and then disappear forcing the phone to turn on and will slowly charge.
Captain Skeet said:
1: Nothing at all.
2: The original charger is a verizon 2.1A micro-usb charger that I bought from a direct verizon store.
3: No it is a Samsung usb3.0 charger directly made for the galaxy note 3 from verizon. Guy pulled it out of the box for a old note 3 he had sold out of the store and the customer already had a charger.
4: Yes I can use both on a galaxy s5. The old charger is a micro-usb and the new is a usb3.0. They charge and transfer data through both cables to the S5.
5: Old charger: 2.1A New charger: 5.3v=2.0A
I have replaced the charging port before on this same phone because my charger would only work being held a certain position and that fixed my issue. However now it won't charge hardly at all. Some time I can get lucky if I leave it overnight but not always. It's temperamental.
But I honestly thought it would be a software issue considering it doesn't do anything. When it does do something the battery logo will come up but will not animate, it will remain static and then disappear forcing the phone to turn on and will slowly charge.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
TL;DR Maybe it is a software issue.
There is something subtle that happens when an unsigned boot image is in the boot partition. This is going to sound kind of strange, but it appears that in some conditions where you would expect the phone to be off, when the bootloader detects an unsigned boot image, it will start the kernel up in some kind of software prison where the kernel is actually running, but unable to complete the normal boot. (See this thread, posts #483-#494 where @Zzim posted a very similar set of observations to yours - again with CM13.)
Just now I repeated this experiment - flashed a unsigned image into boot and observed what happens plugging to either a charger or a PC, and then flashing a signed image into boot, and observing what happens in the same circumstance (in each case plugging done after a battery pull & replacement)
Unsigned boot image: Pull battery, replace battery. Plug an active device such as a PC or a dumb charger into the phone. A STATIC battery icon image appears - not an animation - and then a few seconds later you'll see "Set Warranty Bit: kernel" appear momentarily on the screen. If it's a PC you are plugged into, 15-16 seconds later the USB device port changes to a VID/PID device which is exactly the same as the device ID used during a normal boot. But the screen stays dark - the boot never completes! (I don't know if many minutes or hours later the USB device disappears.) That 15-16 second interval is also exactly the amount of time it normally takes for the boot process to be reaching the spot where it is setting up the USB port.
Signed boot image:: Same as above - Pull battery, replace battery, Plug in PC. A battery ANIMATION appears, no Knox message (expected) but also this: with a PC you are plugged into, no USB activity.
It seems a little weird, but its almost as if the bootloader is executing the kernel, but in a way that it's ramdisk has been spoofed or something so that init() never does anything meaningful. Rather suprising but maybe the kernel actually needs to be alive to control the charge control chip? Or produce a battery animation? That sure seems extreme.
Anyway, my experience is that the temasek/CM13 kernel eats through a lot of battery compared to stock kernels. If this phenomenon is still taking place when you plug to a charger and the charge controller isn't working very well, I suppose that could prevent you from gaining any charge on the battery. But I wouldn't expect even that to be chewing through 2A* ~3v ( = 6W) of power in that state, so there must be something else going on. OTOH, if the non-stock kernel messes with the charge controller somehow, then this mechanism potentially *could* interfere with charging.
I tried booting my phone plugged in to the USB charger but with no battery present, thinking, "well, maybe as an experiment he could restore a stock kernel termporarily using a custom recovery". But no joy, phone does nothing.
If both your batteries are so completely discharged that the phone isn't going to do anything, it would seem you are going to need to figure out how to get one of those batteries charged with enough juice so you could boot TWRP and put a stock boot.img in the boot partition. Seems like you need a friend with a Note 3 or a battery store that can juice up your battery enough to flash a stock ROM. Or there's this: boot into TWRP instead of your ROM (& temasek's kernel) and see if it starts gaining charge more rapidly than if temasek/CM13 was booted.
I've only had some older versions of (temasek) CM13 on my phone, so I can't vouch for recent stuff, but I will say that even though it ate up battery, it never caused me to lose charge while the ROM was up and running and the phone was plugged in to a 2A Samsung OEM wall-wart. (I would think that also your phone would get really HOT if it was really getting 2A of current and still could not keep the battery charged)
Which exact version of CM13 were you one when this started happening? I sort of remember someone over there reporting "massive" battery usage for a recent build.
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Honestly it has done this since I can remember being on Temasek's CM13. But I have been using it since it was released. I never noticed it until recently because my old battery I've had since the note 3 was released did have some major drain issues. But my new battery on the updated build (OTA) has been pretty decent battery life....just won't charge when plugged in. CM13 is the only rom I use and is on my only phone unfortunately but If I have to start from square one I won't hesitate to if does solve my charge issues. I can usually get my phone to boot to download mode after 15-20 tries. And it usually won't turn off in download mode. So if you have a theory/hypothesis you would like to test that won't brick my phone then i will be more than happy to try/test. Maybe if others have the same issue then we can resolve it for others before they throw their phone in a lake because it won't charge lol.
Captain Skeet said:
Honestly it has done this since I can remember being on Temasek's CM13. But I have been using it since it was released. I never noticed it until recently because my old battery I've had since the note 3 was released did have some major drain issues. But my new battery on the updated build (OTA) has been pretty decent battery life....just won't charge when plugged in. CM13 is the only rom I use and is on my only phone unfortunately but If I have to start from square one I won't hesitate to if does solve my charge issues. I can usually get my phone to boot to download mode after 15-20 tries. And it usually won't turn off in download mode. So if you have a theory/hypothesis you would like to test that won't brick my phone then i will be more than happy to try/test. Maybe if others have the same issue then we can resolve it for others before they throw their phone in a lake because it won't charge lol.
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Click to collapse
I wouldn't risk flashing anything with a poorly charged battery, even if you can get to the Odin screen.
I'd figure out some way to get both of your batteries charged about 25% or so - got a friend with a different Note 3? I suppose you could even take your battery in to a VZW retail store, give them a sob story about how you are not sure if your phone is dead or not, could you please charge this for me just a little bit so I can find out if it's my phone or my charger? Or something like that - get creative.
If you are comfortable with electronics, a 5v supply and two 1/4 watt 22 ohm resistors in parallel ( == 1/2 watt 11 ohm resistor) would safely add charge to a discharged NiMH battery at about 180 mA while not exceeding the thermal rating of the resistors, or creating a dangerous situation by charging with too much current. (When discharged, NiMH batteries are about 3v. So: (5v-3v)/(11ohms) = 0.18 amp. P = I^2*R = (0.18)^2 * 11 = 0.36 Watts). Or you could use a different phone with a similar battery size and get creative by insulating the battery terminals of the battery that fits, tape two wires to your battery, and stick the other ends of those two wires in the little spring contacts of the other phone. Obviously you need to be absolutely sure you are observing the correct polarity here and making sure that nothing is going to come loose and create a short. (A battery meter/DMM helps here making sure you are not doing something stupid)
Then stick a partially charged battery in your phone, boot to TWRP, put it on the charger, and see if the charge % is going up or down. That's a different kernel, so if the fault is with the temasek/CM13 kernel, presumably you will get more rapid charging when TWRP is running. I think it displays battery percentage right on the main screen. Or if you wanted you could restore a stock ROM. (Not the whole thing including bootloader! Just boot, system, and cache. Remember that with an unlocked bootloader you can flash whatver ROM components you want in Odin in the AP slots)
When I ran the charger tests just now, I made a TWRP backup of my boot partition (only), and manually flashed an older sprint kernel into my boot partition
Code:
dd of=/dev/block/mmcblk0p14 if=/sdcard/bkup/0407-hltespr.img
and then ran my testing experiments making sure to avoid accidentally booting up the main ROM (so that the mis-matched kernel couldn't bollux anything in /data up). When done testing, I just restored the TWRP backup that only had the boot paritition in it.
Anyway, you get the idea. If it really is temasek/CM13 that is causing the problem, then temporarily putting a stock boot.img into your boot partition will give a different charging result.
But at the moment you have a chicken-vs-egg problem: you can't get the temasek/CM13 boot image off the phone (even temporarily) until you get a little charge on a battery first. I think that means you need to get one battery charged a little bit using some other device.
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I managed to get a charge on my device somehow; (55% so far) . It seems that with CM13 Build for Hlte has changed the "Offline charging" images to be modified. I searched the rom thread and seen your theory about the device not fully turning off and being in a weird state. It seems users are having similar effects and it is different per user. What I have found (may not be 100%) is if you take the battery out, unplug it and put the battery back in, then go to download mode as if you were going to flash something through odin then press and hold the power button - it turns the my phone off and then shows static image with "Set Warranty Bit: kernel" on top then disappears. Supposedly (guess) that means it is charging offline (turned off). However I wish I could change it so it would pulse the top light or show an animation when the home button is pressed or something.
Just seen where you were the one explaining the process happening in the CM13 thread..It is exactly the same issue.
Captain Skeet said:
I managed to get a charge on my device somehow; (55% so far) . It seems that with CM13 Build for Hlte has changed the "Offline charging" images to be modified. I searched the rom thread and seen your theory about the device not fully turning off and being in a weird state. It seems users are having similar effects and it is different per user. What I have found (may not be 100%) is if you take the battery out, unplug it and put the battery back in, then go to download mode as if you were going to flash something through odin then press and hold the power button - it turns the my phone off and then shows static image with "Set Warranty Bit: kernel" on top then disappears. Supposedly (guess) that means it is charging offline (turned off). However I wish I could change it so it would pulse the top light or show an animation when the home button is pressed or something.
Just seen where you were the one explaining the process happening in the CM13 thread..It is exactly the same issue.
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Click to collapse
When you see that "Set Warranty Bit: kernel" message, that means that the Bootloader is very likely starting the kernel up (especially likely when you notice USB activity 15-20 seconds later). On my phone - which has a much much older MJ7 bootloader, every time you unplug the charger and then re-plug that charger, that "Set Warranty Bit: kernel" message re-appears. Even though the phone is supposedly "off"
I suppose it is possible that the Signed, stock kernels get started up in exactly the same fashion. You don't see any warning message on the screen because the stock kernel is signed, so the screen just stays dark and it appears that nothing is happening other than maybe a brief battery charging animation. OTOH, it's a little odd that there is no USB activity after a delay in that case.
It's pretty counter-intuitive. You would want the phone to charge as fast as possible when it is "off", so using the minimum amount of power would help that. And there's no way that a modern Linux kernel with several million lines of code is needed to paint a simple animation on a screen or charge a battery - the bootloader is more than capable of that. (The Code Aurora LK "LittleKernel" bootloader from which a lot of these vendors have derived their proprietary bootloaders is actually a tiny operating system capable of running multiple threads simultaneously as separate "apps".)
These phones appear as if there is always something going on even when they are "off". I built one of those UART jigs to be able to see kernel messages before init() even is launched. If I yank the battery, replace the battery, and then plug that thing in to the USB port.... the phone boots immediately without me touching anything else.
You are not on 10.4 are you? There was a user over there that was saying that the battery usage was quite high...
Yes I'm on 10.4. My battery drain isn't really high surprisingly it just doesn't charge usually when the battery is below 20%. If I plug it up to the wall it has the lightning bolt and says it's charging however if I leave it alone and come back then it has a lower percentage on the battery than when I plugged it up. And I just checked your twrp method and it seems to charge my phone when not in the rom as well. The rom thread OP posted another kernel version of the one that comes with the rom in the thread. Original is v1.86 and new version is v2.05. Maybe it has some changes that might help?
http://temasek.rajasthanautoworks.in/Samsung Galaxy Note 3 - HLTE/CM13.0/Kernel/
My girlfriends note 3 is gOing through these same exact issues, she needs something stable so I'm going to put her back on Alliance, I will try a fresh restore and flash alliance.
Currently going from 10.4 to alliance battery drain is still present.
VJmac15 said:
My girlfriends note 3 is gOing through these same exact issues, she needs something stable so I'm going to put her back on Alliance, I will try a fresh restore and flash alliance.
Currently going from 10.4 to alliance battery drain is still present.
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Click to collapse
It seems to be a current issue after being unlocked. Either put the phone in download mode then press the power button it should restart the phone in the off status and should charge. Or put it in recovery mode in twrp and it should charge that way as well.
Captain Skeet said:
Yes I'm on 10.4. My battery drain isn't really high surprisingly it just doesn't charge usually when the battery is below 20%. If I plug it up to the wall it has the lightning bolt and says it's charging however if I leave it alone and come back then it has a lower percentage on the battery than when I plugged it up. And I just checked your twrp method and it seems to charge my phone when not in the rom as well. The rom thread OP posted another kernel version of the one that comes with the rom in the thread. Original is v1.86 and new version is v2.05. Maybe it has some changes that might help?
http://temasek.rajasthanautoworks.in/Samsung Galaxy Note 3 - HLTE/CM13.0/Kernel/
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Click to collapse
Dunno but your test of the TWRP kernel vs. the temasek kernel seems like a smoking gun, so it's probably worthwhile to investigate. I thought I remembered someone saying they swapped kernels for lean kernel but I couldn't find that post, so I'm not sure what I remembered.
Trying to run a simple test over here (unpack and repack a stock kernel to break the Sammy signature - see if the observable behavior has nothing to do with signing and is all about the kernel) but I'm mucking it up... need sleep.
lates
Better Information About Battery Charge Animation on unlocked Phones
@Zzim @VJmac15 @Captain Skeet
I have some unambiguous clarifying information now about the "battery charge animation" when the phone is supposedly in an "off" state but plugged to a charger. Read on.
I took a stock (MJ7) boot image and unpacked it, and then simply repacked it, and flashed it to the boot partition in my (MJ7-firmware) SM-N900V.
Because there are very slight differences in "cpio" and libgz from linux release to release, this has the effect of making very tiny differences in the re-packed ramdisk image - enough that the Samsung signature is now broken, but likely nothing different at all from a functional perspective with the stock kernel or ramdisk (The kernel itself and it's device tree are bit-for-bit identical).
So what do it observe when I turn the device "off" and then plug to a dumb charger? The exact same stock "battery charge animation" that you would see on a retail device with a locked bootloader - plus one additional detail: that "Warranty bit set: kernel" message on the screen. After the battery animation runs for a while, the screen goes dark and the LED lights up according to charging state (red=charging, blue=charged, etc).
So the implication here is quite clear: the "off state" charging behavior you get depends on the kernel you have installed, and there is no difference in animations between signed and unsigned versions of the same stock kernel+ramdisk. An unlocked bootloader gives the same animations and LED illuminations as pure stock - so long as you are using a stock kernel.
Before I thought this was the bootloader running the (battery animation) show; but now I am beginning to believe that the bootloader fires up the kernel in some sort of jail when you plug power to the device. So if you are using a kernel that defaults to using a lot of power in it's idle state, (especially if it uses "init" to tweak into place battery savings) it's not going to charge as well as a less hungry kernel does - even when the device is supposed to be "off". It's even possible that the kernel could use more power when in this curious "off " state than when the ROM was running! (For instance, if the kernel developer decided "I'm gonna make this thing boot fast by setting the governor to performance; I'll reset it back to "interactive" with init in the late boot")
I watched the stock boot (MJ7) carefully, and realized that I couldn't conclude anything from USB behavior, as the MJ7 stock boot doesn't do anything with USB until well after init() has started running. I guess that the "jail" the bootloader creates for the kernel is probably a dummy ramdisk, perhaps including a very thin "init" program. That would explain why USB activity is seen with CM13 in this case, but not with the stock kernel. In the stock ROM that happens late in the boot after init has begun running, whereas the CM13 kernel fiddles with the USB interface before init is started.
Based on the evidence we have, I think this suggests that even with 100% stock retail devices & locked bootloaders, the same thing is going on - it's just not easily noticed because there is no on-screen activity other than that battery charge animation.. (It could be detected perhaps with an EMI sniffer or something)
So anyway - are the missing animations the fault of the kernel? Yeah, looks that way. Is it possible that the charging rate you get when the device is supposed to be "off" depends on the boot image kernel? Yeah, sure looks that way.
cheers
Amazing. Thank you for your investigation work detective. lol At least now we know it has nothing to do with signed or unsigned but more rather what kernel you have. Thanks for all your help man. If you ever need help with mimicking an issue you have shoot me a pm and I'll be more than happy to use my device to troubleshoot the same issue.
bftb0 said:
@Zzim @VJmac15 @Captain Skeet
I have some unambiguous clarifying information now about the "battery charge animation" when the phone is supposedly in an "off" state but plugged to a charger. Read on.
I took a stock (MJ7) boot image and unpacked it, and then simply repacked it, and flashed it to the boot partition in my (MJ7-firmware) SM-N900V.
Because there are very slight differences in "cpio" and libgz from linux release to release, this has the effect of making very tiny differences in the re-packed ramdisk image - enough that the Samsung signature is now broken, but likely nothing different at all from a functional perspective with the stock kernel or ramdisk (The kernel itself and it's device tree are bit-for-bit identical).
So what do it observe when I turn the device "off" and then plug to a dumb charger? The exact same stock "battery charge animation" that you would see on a retail device with a locked bootloader - plus one additional detail: that "Warranty bit set: kernel" message on the screen. After the battery animation runs for a while, the screen goes dark and the LED lights up according to charging state (red=charging, blue=charged, etc).
So the implication here is quite clear: the "off state" charging behavior you get depends on the kernel you have installed, and there is no difference in animations between signed and unsigned versions of the same stock kernel+ramdisk. An unlocked bootloader gives the same animations and LED illuminations as pure stock - so long as you are using a stock kernel.
Before I thought this was the bootloader running the (battery animation) show; but now I am beginning to believe that the bootloader fires up the kernel in some sort of jail when you plug power to the device. So if you are using a kernel that defaults to using a lot of power in it's idle state, (especially if it uses "init" to tweak into place battery savings) it's not going to charge as well as a less hungry kernel does - even when the device is supposed to be "off". It's even possible that the kernel could use more power when in this curious "off " state than when the ROM was running! (For instance, if the kernel developer decided "I'm gonna make this thing boot fast by setting the governor to performance; I'll reset it back to "interactive" with init in the late boot")
I watched the stock boot (MJ7) carefully, and realized that I couldn't conclude anything from USB behavior, as the MJ7 stock boot doesn't do anything with USB until well after init() has started running. I guess that the "jail" the bootloader creates for the kernel is probably a dummy ramdisk, perhaps including a very thin "init" program. That would explain why USB activity is seen with CM13 in this case, but not with the stock kernel. In the stock ROM that happens late in the boot after init has begun running, whereas the CM13 kernel fiddles with the USB interface before init is started.
Based on the evidence we have, I think this suggests that even with 100% stock retail devices & locked bootloaders, the same thing is going on - it's just not easily noticed because there is no on-screen activity other than that battery charge animation.. (It could be detected perhaps with an EMI sniffer or something)
So anyway - are the missing animations the fault of the kernel? Yeah, looks that way. Is it possible that the charging rate you get when the device is supposed to be "off" depends on the boot image kernel? Yeah, sure looks that way.
cheers
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My gf reports that the Rom change is perfect for her, said she was on her phone all day and only lost about 7% feels like a new phone. Booting into download mode then restarting seemingly fixed the issue as suggested. Thank you for your replies!
---------- Post added at 02:47 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:46 PM ----------
Captain Skeet said:
Amazing. Thank you for your investigation work detective. lol At least now we know it has nothing to do with signed or unsigned but more rather what kernel you have. Thanks for all your help man. If you ever need help with mimicking an issue you have shoot me a pm and I'll be more than happy to use my device to troubleshoot the same issue.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah that 10.4 kernel must've wrecked phones!
Related
Trying to fix a family members xt907 so here's the situation which has been nothing but headaches for me:
1. The Phone is only 7 months old and the bootloader is unlocked so warranty exchange is out of the question. She let the battery run down until the phone died. Then without charging the phone she turned it back on and it died again. From that point she couldn't get it to charge or turn back on while plugged in. At this point she brought it to me.
2. I got the phone and did a soft reset which finally got the charging screen to come up (showed the actual charging icon and the fill meter would flash up and then back down periodically). Problem is it never went past 0% after charging all night. I went ahead and tried to power it up thinking maybe it was just a glitch with the charging screen. Phone wouldnt boot. Just stuck at the Motorola logo. Another soft reset and the phone finally boots but now the battery icon showed a '?' and status showed '5% - Unknown'.
3. Performed a factory reset. No change. So I used RSD to flash the stock 4.1.2 firmware/kernel/modem, etc... What I found strange here is that despite the low battery Fastboot AP showed battery as OK, not low and let me flash (bootloader is unlocked, not sure if that affects low battery flashing or if that safeguard just wasnt built into the M).
4. So phone boots back up and shows 7% battery. Plugging in the charger at first notice has no affect. Battery stats shows '7% - Not Charging'. So I unplug the charger and the low battery warning pops up. Plug it back in and phone still doesnt register as charging, but says 'Not Charging'. Then I notice that the lockscreen shows '7% Charging'. Weird. Regardless of all that, the battery was not charging. The percentage never goes up and after reboots the percentage will remain the same. The battery does slowly discharge on the charger if I have it powered on.
5. I tried flashing a couple different roms before flashing back to stock and all had the same problem. I've formated /system hoping it was a problem with the OS but it didnt help. All of these charging tests were performed with the stock Motorola usb cable plugged into the wall charger. I tested the Motorola charger against my S4 to verify it works and also tried my Samsung charger on the Razr and it made no difference. However, booting the Razr M up with the Samsung charger resulted in the '?' in the battery icon and a notification in the status bar saying something about a CommServer starting. This notification was persistant and could not be dismissed. If I reboot the phone with the Motorola charger or no charger then that notification and the '?' dont appear.
6. I should also point out that I opened the phone up and disconnected the battery from the board and discharged the board. As a last resort I completely removed the battery and peeled back the tape on the bottom of the battery to expose the + and - terminals on the battery and wired it up to a stripped down charger and left it for a bit. Upon putting the battery back in the phone it showed a charge of 30% but still had all the same problems otherwise. So the battery is capable of taking a charge, it just wont take it through the phone, whether powered on or off. Thats what leads me to believe the battery itself is not bad. Its not practical for her to pull the battery to charge it, obviously. The phone detects the cable being plugged in and I can transfer files via usb cable to/from the computer no problem, so I'm fairly sure the Micro usb port is ok. Just refuses to charge.
A little lengthy but I'm at my wits end on this and really dont want to have her buy a $50 battery and then its a problem with the phone. I dont usually get stumped when it comes to fixing something but this one really has me. So if anybody can shed some light on this situation it would be greatly appreciated.
CallMeAria said:
Trying to fix a family members xt907 so here's the situation which has been nothing but headaches for me:
1. The Phone is only 7 months old and the bootloader is unlocked so warranty exchange is out of the question. She let the battery run down until the phone died. Then without charging the phone she turned it back on and it died again. From that point she couldn't get it to charge or turn back on while plugged in. At this point she brought it to me.
2. I got the phone and did a soft reset which finally got the charging screen to come up (showed the actual charging icon and the fill meter would flash up and then back down periodically). Problem is it never went past 0% after charging all night. I went ahead and tried to power it up thinking maybe it was just a glitch with the charging screen. Phone wouldnt boot. Just stuck at the Motorola logo. Another soft reset and the phone finally boots but now the battery icon showed a '?' and status showed '5% - Unknown'.
3. Performed a factory reset. No change. So I used RSD to flash the stock 4.1.2 firmware/kernel/modem, etc... What I found strange here is that despite the low battery Fastboot AP showed battery as OK, not low and let me flash (bootloader is unlocked, not sure if that affects low battery flashing or if that safeguard just wasnt built into the M).
4. So phone boots back up and shows 7% battery. Plugging in the charger at first notice has no affect. Battery stats shows '7% - Not Charging'. So I unplug the charger and the low battery warning pops up. Plug it back in and phone still doesnt register as charging, but says 'Not Charging'. Then I notice that the lockscreen shows '7% Charging'. Weird. Regardless of all that, the battery was not charging. The percentage never goes up and after reboots the percentage will remain the same. The battery does slowly discharge on the charger if I have it powered on.
5. I tried flashing a couple different roms before flashing back to stock and all had the same problem. I've formated /system hoping it was a problem with the OS but it didnt help. All of these charging tests were performed with the stock Motorola usb cable plugged into the wall charger. I tested the Motorola charger against my S4 to verify it works and also tried my Samsung charger on the Razr and it made no difference. However, booting the Razr M up with the Samsung charger resulted in the '?' in the battery icon and a notification in the status bar saying something about a CommServer starting. This notification was persistant and could not be dismissed. If I reboot the phone with the Motorola charger or no charger then that notification and the '?' dont appear.
6. I should also point out that I opened the phone up and disconnected the battery from the board and discharged the board. As a last resort I completely removed the battery and peeled back the tape on the bottom of the battery to expose the + and - terminals on the battery and wired it up to a stripped down charger and left it for a bit. Upon putting the battery back in the phone it showed a charge of 30% but still had all the same problems otherwise. So the battery is capable of taking a charge, it just wont take it through the phone, whether powered on or off. Thats what leads me to believe the battery itself is not bad. Its not practical for her to pull the battery to charge it, obviously. The phone detects the cable being plugged in and I can transfer files via usb cable to/from the computer no problem, so I'm fairly sure the Micro usb port is ok. Just refuses to charge.
A little lengthy but I'm at my wits end on this and really dont want to have her buy a $50 battery and then its a problem with the phone. I dont usually get stumped when it comes to fixing something but this one really has me. So if anybody can shed some light on this situation it would be greatly appreciated.
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I presumed you tried to wipe the battery stats via the battery calibration app? not that I think it would make a difference. another option is enable/disable USB debugging. you could also try charging into a PC or a different outlet (perhaps that outlet does not provide a good current)?
not really sure, just tossing out some ideas...
jco23 said:
I presumed you tried to wipe the battery stats via the battery calibration app? not that I think it would make a difference. another option is enable/disable USB debugging. you could also try charging into a PC or a different outlet (perhaps that outlet does not provide a good current)?
not really sure, just tossing out some ideas...
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Click to collapse
I actually installed cwm recovery just to wipe battery stats. Im assuming it works the same way but I'll give the app a try. I'll try anything at this point. Tried your other ideas already though and didnt make any difference.
I appreciate the input. I'll give that app a try and see if it does something different from wiping battery stats in recovery.
CallMeAria said:
I actually installed cwm recovery just to wipe battery stats. Im assuming it works the same way but I'll give the app a try. I'll try anything at this point. Tried your other ideas already though and didnt make any difference.
I appreciate the input. I'll give that app a try and see if it does something different from wiping battery stats in recovery.
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Doubt it. However, the issue seems to be with the hardware, and since it is not a software issue, Motorola could honor the warranty. Last resort would be to unroot and see if you can get an exchange.
Sent from my XT907 using xda app-developers app
have you tried a non moto cable? the one that came with my fone was total crap, would continuously connect and disconnect when i hooked it up to my comp or try to charge it, so i tried my old samsung cable and i didnt have any disconnect problems at all. just a suggestion
CallMeAria said:
I actually installed cwm recovery just to wipe battery stats. Im assuming it works the same way but I'll give the app a try. I'll try anything at this point. Tried your other ideas already though and didnt make any difference.
I appreciate the input. I'll give that app a try and see if it does something different from wiping battery stats in recovery.
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Did you ever find a solution? I am having the same issues with my xt907.
What did you have it plugged in to? The fact that it said it was not charging indicates maybe you didn't have enough power coming through the charging port...
Sent from my XT907 using Tapatalk 4 Beta
uthkuknwme said:
have you tried a non moto cable? the one that came with my fone was total crap, would continuously connect and disconnect when i hooked it up to my comp or try to charge it, so i tried my old samsung cable and i didnt have any disconnect problems at all. just a suggestion
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Click to collapse
yeah I tried my Samsung cable as well.
jgramkow said:
Did you ever find a solution? I am having the same issues with my xt907.
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No. Verizon finally sent her a refurb replacement. I got the battery to charge up by taking it out and rigging a charger to it. But the phone still wouldnt accept a charge with the battery back in and it lost the charge it did have 2-3 times faster than normal. Battery Stats also showed the battery was showing a pretty decent voltage so unless the battery itself has a low charge circuit that gets tripped I'd be hesitant to point to the battery itself. And the charger port transfered files just fine and the phone recognized when the charger was plugged in (would go from 'discharging' to 'not charging'. So yeah, I was left stumped. Hopefully somebody else can get this solved for you.
CallMeAria said:
yeah I tried my Samsung cable as well.
No. Verizon finally sent her a refurb replacement. I got the battery to charge up by taking it out and rigging a charger to it. But the phone still wouldnt accept a charge with the battery back in and it lost the charge it did have 2-3 times faster than normal. Battery Stats also showed the battery was showing a pretty decent voltage so unless the battery itself has a low charge circuit that gets tripped I'd be hesitant to point to the battery itself. And the charger port transfered files just fine and the phone recognized when the charger was plugged in (would go from 'discharging' to 'not charging'. So yeah, I was left stumped. Hopefully somebody else can get this solved for you.
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Just an update: I ended up buying a replacement battery and it fixed the charging issue. I rsd back to stock. Then, playing around with it, I booted to bootloader and selected "Factory" and it immediately booted back to stock, but, the battery had a "?" again. Ready to throw the damn phone against the wall, I rebooted it. The "?" is mysteriously gone. What is the "Factory" setting? I think I tried it before, but had CM10.1 installed. My theory is that this "factory" boot from bootloader actually soft bricked the phone. Either that or the issue was truly the battery and simply replacing it fixed things. I am up and running now, cm10.1 is flawless, imho. Thanks for the quick reply and I hope this helps anyone with similar issues.
Beware of the "Factory" bootloader option...........
Here we go again. Upon a reboot into recovery. Recovery is twrp 2.5. What I notice is the motorola boot img takes an extremely long time (2 minutes) to turn off and cyanogenmod to begin. Could there be something corrupt in the bootloader? Is there any way to reload the bootloader on this device? Anyone have any ideas? Could it be Recovery?
So, I plugged my Nexus 4 into a generic car charger and it went black instantly. The battery was at about 92%. With the hope that a proper AC or computer USB charge connection would bring up the white battery icon and fix things, I stopped by an out of town T-mobile. The manager tried the button battery-reset (up volume + power for 60sec) and I googled alternatives and tried the - enter recovery by pressing those buttons for 15sec off the charger and connecting while still holding down the buttons - trick. Neither worked.
The manger seemed familiar with that and the other button pressing tricks, and said that really, my only real hope would be to reset/replace the battery, but that would void my warranty. However, although the T-mobile site claims my Google bought phone is under warranty (and I've been paying for it each month), technically, it isn't. Under them or Google (any more). So, I purchased the tools to open the phone, as well as a replacement battery. In the interim, I tried to use all the button combos and various charging connections to get it to come back to life. I *did* manage to get it charging the old battery. I know because the blinking red light turned constant for an hour or two, and the battery got warm. I can only guess that the battery was too damaged to keep the charge however, because I could never get it to turn on during or after. My best guess is that the software battery reset allowed the phone to send a charge to the battery - at least once.
After getting my tools and replacement battery, I managed to get the phone open (with great effort - I think there must be a difference between batches there). I removed the old battery connection and looked to see if I could get the charge icon with it unattached and on the charger. I couldn't. Reconnecting the old battery didn't seem to make any difference.
I was about to go through the process of prying up the old battery when I realized that you can actually connect the new battery to the board connector without getting the old one out. So I did that. Leaving it charging like that for awhile didn't do anything, so I decided to do another software battery reset and I'm letting it sit on the charger overnight. All of this has been without reattaching the back.
So my major question is - does anyone know for sure if the phone actually charges the battery with the back off? I know there are important circuits there - which seem to shut down the phone after the battery or google image when not detected (at least that's my deducement after reading posts). But are those connections also used in charging? The Qi goes though the back to the charger function, so perhaps that connection has to be there? I would like to try and find out though beforehand. It took 2 hours and two mangled guitar picks to get it open the first time, and the second may be just as trying. (And believe me, towards the end, I was not concerned with being gentle.)
I am also curious about the four prong battery connection. I've seen the post about charging the battery using external sources by connecting to the two outer pins. Does that mean the two inner pins constitute a second circuit between the charged battery and the phone? And if I find another 3.8v battery fully charged, I could perhaps connect that to the phone instead by wires and get it booted into recovery? As to why I'd want to do that, I don't recall the last dated CM version I had installed, so finding that in their folder plus pulling off everything from /data... assuming I replaced this with another Nexus 4, I might be able to save myself a lot of setup hassle.
In terms of the red light... it actually seems to be an error code. When triggered, it blinks 7 times, and on the eighth stays lit for a bit before repeating.
cetkat said:
So, I plugged my Nexus 4 into a generic car charger and it went black instantly. The battery was at about 92%. With the hope that a proper AC or computer USB charge connection would bring up the white battery icon and fix things, I stopped by an out of town T-mobile. The manager tried the button battery-reset (up volume + power for 60sec) and I googled alternatives and tried the - enter recovery by pressing those buttons for 15sec off the charger and connecting while still holding down the buttons - trick. Neither worked.
The manger seemed familiar with that and the other button pressing tricks, and said that really, my only real hope would be to reset/replace the battery, but that would void my warranty. However, although the T-mobile site claims my Google bought phone is under warranty (and I've been paying for it each month), technically, it isn't. Under them or Google (any more). So, I purchased the tools to open the phone, as well as a replacement battery. In the interim, I tried to use all the button combos and various charging connections to get it to come back to life. I *did* manage to get it charging the old battery. I know because the blinking red light turned constant for an hour or two, and the battery got warm. I can only guess that the battery was too damaged to keep the charge however, because I could never get it to turn on during or after. My best guess is that the software battery reset allowed the phone to send a charge to the battery - at least once.
After getting my tools and replacement battery, I managed to get the phone open (with great effort - I think there must be a difference between batches there). I removed the old battery connection and looked to see if I could get the charge icon with it unattached and on the charger. I couldn't. Reconnecting the old battery didn't seem to make any difference.
I was about to go through the process of prying up the old battery when I realized that you can actually connect the new battery to the board connector without getting the old one out. So I did that. Leaving it charging like that for awhile didn't do anything, so I decided to do another software battery reset and I'm letting it sit on the charger overnight. All of this has been without reattaching the back.
So my major question is - does anyone know for sure if the phone actually charges the battery with the back off? I know there are important circuits there - which seem to shut down the phone after the battery or google image when not detected (at least that's my deducement after reading posts). But are those connections also used in charging? The Qi goes though the back to the charger function, so perhaps that connection has to be there? I would like to try and find out though beforehand. It took 2 hours and two mangled guitar picks to get it open the first time, and the second may be just as trying. (And believe me, towards the end, I was not concerned with being gentle.)
I am also curious about the four prong battery connection. I've seen the post about charging the battery using external sources by connecting to the two outer pins. Does that mean the two inner pins constitute a second circuit between the charged battery and the phone? And if I find another 3.8v battery fully charged, I could perhaps connect that to the phone instead by wires and get it booted into recovery? As to why I'd want to do that, I don't recall the last dated CM version I had installed, so finding that in their folder plus pulling off everything from /data... assuming I replaced this with another Nexus 4, I might be able to save myself a lot of setup hassle.
In terms of the red light... it actually seems to be an error code. When triggered, it blinks 7 times, and on the eighth stays lit for a bit before repeating.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I RAN INTO A SIMILAR PROBLEM
I found that holding the power button for a while allowed my nexus 4 running stock Lollipop 5.1 to boot back up.
Have considered that you may have a faulty USB port ?
Just pop the old battery out install the new one plug in the charger and it will charge. You can boot up without the back on. The back contains the antennia.... and the NFC circuit board.
Good luck
Blacksmith5 said:
I RAN INTO A SIMILAR PROBLEM
I found that holding the power button for a while allowed my nexus 4 running stock Lollipop 5.1 to boot back up.
Have considered that you may have a faulty USB port ?
Just pop the old battery out install the new one plug in the charger and it will charge. You can boot up without the back on. The back contains the antennia.... and the NFC circuit board.
Good luck
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Click to collapse
Well, still no luck. I ended up putting the new battery in and closing it up to try the Qi charger, but all I can get is either 7 or 10 red blinks followed by a short solid light. No white battery charging symbol or anything else.
When you say a faulty USB port, what are you referring to? The cable works (though I've also tried my Nexus 7 one too) and even though it won't boot, my computer does recognize that something is there when I plug my phone into it (it just can't figure out what's plugged in - which is normal). I want to say that it's trying and failing to charge the new battery. At this point, I think the charger messed up more than just the battery.
Hello everyone my brother's Ph-1 keeps shutting down right after powering up, I have tried everything from factory resetting to trying a different charger, nothing seems to work. This happened after he didn't use the phone for almost a month, it worked perfectly before.
It powers off even when on charge or connected to the laptop.
The phone doesn't stay on for more than a minute or two which means i cannot use ADB to side load an update
The phone is running Android P and the April security update patch.
Please do help me out
Thanking you
Kalasingha said:
Hello everyone
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Hello everyone
Kalasingha said:
Hello everyone my brother's Ph-1 keeps shutting down right after powering up, I have tried everything from factory resetting to trying a different charger, nothing seems to work. This happened after he didn't use the phone for almost a month, it worked perfectly before.
It powers off even when on charge or connected to the laptop.
The phone doesn't stay on for more than a minute or two which means i cannot use ADB to side load an update
The phone is running Android P and the April security update patch.
Please do help me out
Thanking you
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It could be corrupted though it sounds a bit like a battery issue, to me. If battery discharges too much eg it didn't shut down itself properly when battery was at a low level (they retain more charge than shown to user so it can shut down with proper procedure) & the battery ran down past it's reserve the battery may not be able to be recharged with a normal charger even though you charge it. (Thought a battery specialist could possibly revive it with a boost charge, though I've only seen these used with industrial batteries)
with a "dead battery bootloop" sometimes you can get it going by booting when connected to the charger, but you'll probably need a new battery. Maybe also try boot into safe or recovery mode when connected to Essential charger. (I'm assuming your phone not corrupted, though as you haven't given us much info about exactly what happens & what you are seeing)
IronRoo said:
It could be corrupted though it sounds a bit like a battery issue, to me. If battery discharges too much eg it didn't shut down itself properly when battery was at a low level (they retain more charge than shown to user so it can shut down with proper procedure) & the battery ran down past it's reserve the battery may not be able to be recharged with a normal charger even though you charge it. (Thought a battery specialist could possibly revive it with a boost charge, though I've only seen these used with industrial batteries)
with a "dead battery bootloop" sometimes you can get it going by booting when connected to the charger, but you'll probably need a new battery. Maybe also try boot into safe or recovery mode when connected to Essential charger. (I'm assuming your phone not corrupted, though as you haven't given us much info about exactly what happens & what you are seeing)
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The phone shuts down even when in recovery or safe mode whilst connected to the charger.
It does sometimes fully boot up and then shutdowns, but mostly shuts down while still on the essential logo.
If I may ask what do you mean by the phone might be corrupt?
Can one month of non usage cause the battery to die out?
Kalasingha said:
The phone shuts down even when in recovery or safe mode whilst connected to the charger.
It does sometimes fully boot up and then shutdowns, but mostly shuts down while still on the essential logo.
If I may ask what do you mean by the phone might be corrupt?
Can one month of non usage cause the battery to die out?
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Click to collapse
by corrupt I mean some data that is part of the boot process causes bootloop so it shuts down, but as your phone is shutting down at different points in boot cycle I think it's probably battery
Leaving the phone turned off unused for longish periods should not be a problem normally even with a few % left in battery. And even if left turned on it should shut itself down when battery low & be able to boot up again after a month due to the battery "reserve" capacity (but possibly a month was too long). And if it was not recharged straight away and/or rebooted multiple times the battery "reserve" could fall too low and not have enough power to start/shutdown properly (possibly causing data corruption ... though l don't know if there is some sort of fail-safe boot procedure ) Then there is a possibility there is a hardware fault with battery/phone that meant battery lost too much power.
There were some tricks ie "boost charge" you could do with removable batteries that were in "deep sleep" as shown here for example
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TEXA7qIJ968
But they don't really work without taking your battery out (for us we might as well get a new battery when opening phone up, & there would be some risk that you damage battery as we do not know the exact charge to apply on this battery, which could cause unsafe battery) I wouldn't want to freeze my phone even though it should survive OK, as I'd be alittle concerned about long term effect on our screens small pixels (I remember the guys at popular mechanics put an old flip phone with little LCD screen in liquid nitrogen & it still worked after being warmed up!).
See https://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/low_voltage_cut_off
for more tech details
firmware issues do not cause the issue you are describing
you have a hardware problem
sounds like a bad battery to me
good news is the battery is not difficult to replace (don't listen to ifixit I am not sure what they where smoking when they did there tear down)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCKxAQXdTJ8
don't bother with silly and wrong tricks like trying to hack the battery back to life its the wrong way todo
if the battery ever gets to that point then the battery is bad enough said
Legitsu said:
don't listen to ifixit I am not sure what they where smoking when they did there tear down
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So true! )) As much as I respect the guys from iFixit, they screwed this one up pretty badly - basically, made a tutorial on how to destroy your phone. Fixez.com did much better.
Please can someone help me with a problem I’m having with my Samsung Galaxy s5.
I put my phone on charge before I went to bed and when I woke up it was still showing a red LED. I knew this was wrong because it should have had enough time to charge and turn green. I had not powered the phone off before putting it on charge and I plugged it into the same USB 3.0 charging lead I have been using for the past six months. I unplugged the phone and pressed the power button to light up the lock screen but it didn’t light up.
I’m thinking possibly something has either shorted or over heated and fried something either on the charging port assembly or one of the chips adjacent to the port while the charger was plugged in. It seems like only a trickle of power is getting through to the phone. When I plug a different USB 2 charging cable into the phone, without trying to power on, the charging icon appears but shows no charge at all in the battery.
I have also tried the spare battery I have but it’s still the same. I know the spare battery is 100% fully charged because I store it in a separate charging/storage box which shows a green LED when it is full. In fact the one which was in the phone at the time is also fully charged according to the charging box. Neither battery has got warm at all inside the phone. I’m confident both batteries are fully charged and totally fine and the problem isn’t with the batteries.
At this point I removed my sim card and also the MicroSD card. I needed the sim to use in my spare phone and I wanted to see if the sd card could be causing the issue but after again trying a normal reboot it made no difference.
I’ve tried several possible things I found on google but nothing has worked. Between each different thing I tried I had to remove the battery for 10 seconds and insert it again to get it out of the boot loop so I could try something else.
Initially when I tried booting into safe mode, then recovery mode and then download mode it brought up the screens for those but in each case after a few seconds the phone powered off and went into a boot loop so I couldn’t attempt any recovery options such as clearing cache etc. Now I cannot even get it to start any of those modes at all and all that happens is the phone does a little vibration, displays the Samsung logo and then just boot loops no matter what I try.
I have tried removing the battery and leaving the phone for a few hours then powering on again but it still just loops.
I have tried pressing and holding Vol-down when plugging it into my PC using a different USB 2 cable and windows acknowledged a phone was plugged in but said it couldn’t connect or recognise the phone and suggested the phone could have a fault.
I don't know if maybe my USB 3.0 lead has a fault that could have caused it or if there could have been some electricity spike while the phone was plugged in, or as I said a component has just fried.
I strongly suspect this is a hardware fault and not a software fault but as I’m not a phone engineer I have no idea about how to trace any possible hardware issues or what might have gone wrong. I would really appreciate any help or suggestions about what the problem might be as this has been a great phone for the last 2 years since I got it and I’d be sad to have to junk it and buy a new one.
Thank you.
I would not junk it yet......
You had mentioned that you go through a lot, just to get phone into Recovery ( " Initially when I tried booting into safe mode, then recovery mode and then download mode it brought up the screens for those but in each case after a few seconds the phone powered off and went into a boot loop so I couldn’t attempt any recovery options such as clearing cache etc. Now I cannot even get it to start any of those modes at all and all that happens is the phone does a little vibration, displays the Samsung logo and then just boot loops no matter what I try." )
OK, just my 2 cents here on this... Why not trying to goto Recovery by pressing and holding the Volume Down (vol-); Home button, and The Power button all at the same time. (yes, if you have a Recovery, and its works, you should be able to boot right into Recovery- >Now, (I would, cause I've been there..) I would also have a PC going with Odin open (Plus the Latest Stock Rom) ... If it works, you would flash the Stock ROM, to clean up anything, giving you all stock, but you can change that of course ...then go from there...
Second, if you can not still get to Recovery.... Have you tried a Stock USB Cable, only asking.... Obliviously something is a miss... with Power... IF phone is off, and you plug it to a power source ... then system has power, and these can power up with just the usb cable, without having the battery in..... Been there. Can add the simple fact, if using just a Micro SD cable, they can bend the Power Board. Believe me (Had to fix the Wife's S5 a few Frinkin' times....) That is why, I say using the Stock Cable, or even a USB 3.0 Cable (like the stock one) does help with power issues when the Micro has bent up the power board...
Will check back and see if this may have you to Recovery or fixed... sure hope this can help you out
Thanks for replying godofsalt.
At the time the phone was plugged in to my USB 3 lead which charges faster and all I can think is that perhaps there could be a fault with the lead or the higher ampage of using this lead caused a circuit to burn out.
I have around a dozen USB 2 leads and I've tried your idea with 3 different ones but none of them will fire up the phone at all with the battery taken out.
I am sure this is going to need some kind of replacement either of the charging port or the motherboard. I don't rate my chances of trying to do it myself and I don't think it will be economic to take it to a shop so I've found a better option by buying the same phone which is second hand but in good condition. That way I know I have all the additional accessories already for probably the same price any shop would charge to fix it.
In future I'll stick to using a decent USB 2 lead on the 1 amp charger I used to use before and hopefully this will not occur again.
G500F battery graphic/boot loop
Had the same problem a few days after installing a 9.0 Rom. My battery is brand new and all cables aren't too aged, so I thought this had to be a physical fault of some kind, but then I had the thought to flash an older bootloader and just like that my battery started taking a charge again and I could boot up. Switched to Flyme os for a while the went back to 9.0 again, with the lastest bootloader and the thing stopped working again. Don't know too much, but I'd try and flash a different bootloader to see if there's any difference. My device failed right at the Galaxy logo, then looped the charging graphic endlessly but would strangely go into download mode and not fail. Don't know if this helps, just thought I'd share my solution.
Thanks for replying henderia93.
My symptoms are very slightly different in that the phone couldn't maintain any of the modes I tried for more than a few seconds before going back to the boot loop again so there was no chance of trying any software fixes including flashing the ROM. Now it won't enter any of those modes at all. I'm certain that's due to only a trickle of power getting through to the main board, not enough to maintain any recovery modes, so there is just enough power for it to attempt to boot, but no more so it just keeps looping, most likely caused by something that has blown while on charge.
MarylinC said:
Thanks for replying henderia93.
My symptoms are very slightly different in that the phone couldn't maintain any of the modes I tried for more than a few seconds before going back to the boot loop again so there was no chance of trying any software fixes including flashing the ROM. Now it won't enter any of those modes at all. I'm certain that's due to only a trickle of power getting through to the main board, not enough to maintain any recovery modes, so there is just enough power for it to attempt to boot, but no more so it just keeps looping, most likely caused by something that has blown while on charge.
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I ha e taken so many of these a part... Like I may have mentioned, there is a Board, just for the USB (data and power (i still have 2 of them)).... In short, you really have to pretty much take the phone a part. Being very careful with the Screen, and the "Sticky" LEDs and the Home button. There is a lot to it actually.
Like I said, been there done that... Cheap to get, takes some time but it is possible to replace that board. It's a separate board different from the actual main CPU board.
I would have to find it, but I had a manual, for taking these a part.
godofsalt said:
I ha e taken so many of these a part... Like I may have mentioned, there is a Board, just for the USB (data and power (i still have 2 of them)).... In short, you really have to pretty much take the phone a part. Being very careful with the Screen, and the "Sticky" LEDs and the Home button. There is a lot to it actually.
Like I said, been there done that... Cheap to get, takes some time but it is possible to replace that board. It's a separate board different from the actual main CPU board.
I would have to find it, but I had a manual, for taking these a part.
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Click to collapse
While I've been looking for answers about this I've seen teardown videos for the s5 so I can see what the port assembly looks like with it's little PCB behind it. As I have a replacement s5 on it's way all I need to decide now is whether to keep the old handset for spare parts or see if I can follow the teardown video to try and install a new port assembly to get the phone working again as a spare.
MarylinC said:
While I've been looking for answers about this I've seen teardown videos for the s5 so I can see what the port assembly looks like with it's little PCB behind it. As I have a replacement s5 on it's way all I need to decide now is whether to keep the old handset for spare parts or see if I can follow the teardown video to try and install a new port assembly to get the phone working again as a spare.
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Click to collapse
Yep, me too, seen many vids on the tear down. I decided to go a bit more, IMHO, to have an actual manual, PDF, when I did my first one, many years ago. So, can read, and use photos wisely. Seen too many Utube crap, where the break it, destroy it..... crazy!
Well, at this age, not too sure what to do my self. In our case, our present service is cheaper to Keep these. Grandfathered in, and we pay a but less, than going to any other carrier. Plus, these newer phones are not cheap at all.
True, it up to you. hope all goes well.
Sorry I am a novice so please excuse my question.
Are you assuming that the usb port is shorting even when no usb cable is inserted? As you put a fully charged battery in with no change it would seem that the act of charging is not involved.
Have you tried a voltmeter to check the voltage at the battery charging pins?
Have you tried to check the voltage at the two pins commonly used for a wireless charging adapter (to the upper left of the battery) to see what the voltage is?
Sorry if I am off base.
I have an ASUS ZenFone Max Pro (X00T/X00TD)
It is/was discharged and powered off. When i plug it in for charging, it is cycling in start of chaging:
1. vibration
2. the icon of empty battery
3. The bootloader is unlocked... text
4. the icon of empty battery
5. empty screen
1. and then starts again from vibration
I tried to clean the phone's connector, even wiped and stracthed the connector a littlebit, and changed cable, charging source. (One cable is in the 1A charger, another cable is connected to PC.) It doesn't get better.
I tried to leave it in the cycling, i hoped it gets some power.
Does the phone charge always when connected to power, or it just start the charging process after it shows the charging animation (which i don't reach)?
I tried to step in Fastboot mode. It stays in this mode, no cycling.
Does the phone charge in fastboot mode?
I tried to step in Recovery mode.
1. vibration
2. powered by android
3. The bootloader is unlocked... text
4. powered by android
5. empty screen and turns off
In fastboot mode i tried to flash stock recovery, and also TWRP recovery. The flashing process works, but i still cannot get in recovery mode, to see something more, maybe about battery or i dont know.
Of course the phone does not turn on. The same as when i try to get in recovery mode.
1. vibration
2. powered by android
3. The bootloader is unlocked... text
4. powered by android
5. empty screen and turns off
I did not do anything special nowadays with the phone. Bootloader unlock and rooting was years ago, nor i did upgrade, so nothing special. I just used the phone, it discharged, and i'm in this state.
What can i do? Is it something with charging, or it has enough power after connected in fastboot mode, but the problem is something with the software?
Please help.
Was it discharged until it turned off or left more then a few weeks in a very low charge state?
Auto shutoff is about 5-6% of battery capacity.
If allowed to sit until it self discharges below 1% the battery's microprocessor will permanently disable the output to prevent a possible runaway thermal event from charging a depolarized LI cell(s).
blackhawk said:
Was it discharged until it turned off or left more then a few weeks in a very low charge state?
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It discharged today morning, turned off (or maybe i turned it off, i don't remember), and about one hour later i tried to charge.
blackhawk said:
If allowed to sit until it self discharges below 1% the battery's microprocessor will permanently disable the output to prevent a possible runaway thermal event from charging a depolarized LI cell(s).
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Does it mean really permanently, without any possibility of get it back?
One more thing: maybe i "pressed" the buttons randomly in my pocket. Is it possible that in an unlucky situation i got into the recovery mode and pressed something away in recovery menu?
Even if discharge to the 6% cutoff you have at least a few weeks in cool temps until permanent auto shutdown.
It is permanent. If disassembled you could bypass the controller and attempt to charge.
Once the cell voltage reaches the controller threshold (if it takes a charge) it would function as before. Generally this is impractical to do.
If the cell has completely dipolarize it may not charge and will simply overheat with a potential thermal runaway if not manually disconnected.
Inspect port for debris, clean if needed.
Try a -known- good charger/wall socket and cable.
Normally phones will take a charge regardless of their power on/off state.
Otherwise the port, battery or the internal phone power control circuit may have failed.
A cable, charger, port failure are the most common causes though.
Best to use a 3 foot long cable; longer ones can cause charging issues.
blackhawk said:
Even if discharge to the 6% cutoff you have at least a few weeks in cool temps until permanent auto shutdown.
It is permanent.
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Click to collapse
It was definitely not a few weeks.
blackhawk said:
Inspect port for debris, clean if needed.
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Sure, this was the first thing i checked. I also tried to carefully scratch off the possible oxid/dirt layer with a paper clip's end.
blackhawk said:
Normally phones will take a charge regardless of their power on/off state.
Otherwise the port, battery or the internal phone power control circuit may have failed.
A cable, charger, port failure are the most common causes though.
Best to use a 3 foot long cable; longer ones can cause charging issues.
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Click to collapse
So should i try to leave it in the cycle? Or better leave it in the fastboot state?
Hm. But i tried to charge in fastboot state for a few hours.
I don't understand.
blackhawk said:
Otherwise the port, battery or the internal phone power control circuit may have failed.
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Click to collapse
Yesterday with a third charger everything was fine. And this charger was fine, last time i used it two weeks ago. I tried to charge in my car now - the same cycling of starting to charge.
Okay, so i keep trying to charge, if you don't have better ideas.
But why does not it go into recovery mode? Maybe i could inspect the things more in recovery mode.
Thank you very much for your detailed answers.
If the battery is nearly fully discharged ie >5-6% and not recieving enough current or voltage from the cable, it will not power up even to its boot menu.
blackhawk said:
If the battery is nearly fully discharged ie >5-6% and not recieving enough current or voltage from the cable, it will not power up even to its boot menu.
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Click to collapse
But it should start to charge without cycling, and show the charging animation, right?
Edit #1: Ah, you mean, IF enough current. And if three different charger and cable was not enough for it, then probably the connector damaged. But i don't know how and why.
Edit #2: No, you mean this for booting up. But charging should start normally without the cycling.
trob83 said:
But it should start to charge without cycling, and show the charging animation, right?
Edit #1: Ah, you mean, IF enough current. And if three different charger and cable was not enough for it, then probably the connector damaged. But i don't know how and why.
Edit #2: No, you mean this for booting up. But charging should start normally without the cycling.
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Click to collapse
Your first concern is getting the battery to at least 60%
That's why you use a known good wall socket, cable and charger; a process of elimination.
I've had 2 bad power cables in a row before; more bad cables, etc. doesn't help.
For the boot issues someone here will hopefully recognize your problem if it persists.
blackhawk said:
I've had 2 bad power cables in a row before; more bad cables, etc. doesn't help.
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Yes, i threw out a bad cable last week. But these 3 cables were good, there is not a big chance that all of them get wrong suddenly and at the same time, i think. I would be happy, because this would be the most easy solution for my problem.
In fastboot the red/green LED is dark, even if the cable is plugged in. Is this LED controlled directly also by the charging controller? Or does not the dark LED show anything, because it controlled by software, what does not run now, while the charging still work?
Or maybe both of charging start cycling and fastboot are use power of battery, while they don't charging it, so power is only getting lower? (Although you said the opposite, as phone is charging, not matter of the power state.)
Could be a bad batch if all are the same brand.
That's why you use a >known< good cable etc.
Don't have that phone so can't say how it behaves.
If it's below 5% power it won't do anything except maybe try to boot maybe not even that. Plus each attempt drains the battery more towards that critical 1% auto disable in the Li pack.
Killing the battery won't help your cause...
blackhawk said:
That's why you use a >known< good cable etc.
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Click to collapse
Okay, i try.
Thank you very much for your help.
Is it possible to turn off the charging screen, charging vibration, screen turning on from fastboot mode? Maybe flash something on or similar?
Because then it won't use the slowly chagring power.
So the screen is active abnormally when it's charging?
Is it stuck in a boot loop?
I know zero about rooting and firmware flashing.
Eventually someone here with that knowledge will step up... be patient.
blackhawk said:
So the screen is active abnormally when it's charging?
Is it stuck in a boot loop?
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1. I plug the cable in.
2. It recognize there is power, so vibrates a littlebit, then starts to charge OR starts to start to charge - it would be in important thing to know which.
3. It shows the big battery icon at the center of the screen.
4. It notices its boot loader is unlocked, so it warns me - i can pause the phone for one minute in this step.
5. It shows the big battery icon at the center of the screen for a second.
6. But i think it feels its battery is too low, so it turns itself off, even from the charging process.
2. Then it feels the power again, so the cycle starts again and again...
In step 2., if i would know it is already charging itself, then i played with it, i pause every time for a minute, and everytime the battery gets a little more power. Because every vibrate and starting charging take a littlebit power from the battery i think.
So, for example, in every unpaused charge cycle (about 10 seconds) it gets 5 mAh, but uses 7mAh from the battery, then it get worse and worse. But if i pause it for a minute, it gets 30mAh, uses 7mAh, then every minute it gets 23mAh more, so this game eventually worths.
But, if in step 2. it does not start to charge itself, just later, after the "unlocked" text, then playing with this does not help, worse, take the battery lower and lower.
But: if i could disable the charging screen and the vibration, then it won't use the power just for showing to me it charges. And maybe the screen is the one who use the power and makes the controller feel low power from battery/cable.
Or, maybe, charging is already disabled, so no matter what i do, it does not help, and the only solution is to take apart and charge the battery directly.
I just put
blackhawk said:
Eventually someone here with that knowledge will step up... be patient.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Okay i try to be patient.
Good news!
This gets the voltage of the battery:
Code:
fastboot getvar battery-voltage
It says it's 4,32 V. If i remember right, this is around a fully charged battery. So probably it charged up when i left in Fastboot state for some hours. And the cycle/loop meant not that it cannot charge, but rather it does not need to charge.
Bad news!
Then what the heck is with my phone?
Summary:
1. My phone is fully charged.
2. It does not boot into normal.
3. It does not boot into recovery, nor by hardware keys, nor by command from fastboot. I tried to flash TWRP, RedWolf and the original recovery too.
4. Fastboot mode works normally.
Believe it or not...
The solution was very stupid.
I cleaned the phone inside, especially the bottom part. Around the connectors, lot of dirt and drying moisture got in. Just enough for - probably - some short circuit.
I don't know why was it okay for fastboot mode, and not okay for recovery and normal boot.
Blackhawk, Thank you soooooo much for your help and your time. I learned a lot from you now.
Excellent.
Guess it was getting mixed signals...