If your battery isn't charging properly, don't immediately assume your phone charger or your battery is broken.
Based on personal experience, the problem and solution may be much simpler than you think.
If your phone or tablet isn't charging properly or at all, take a look at these 12 ways to fix a phone that won't charge.
Why a phone doesn't charge
The problem occurs in various degrees. Either your phone won't charge at all when it is plugged in, or it will only charge very slowly (sometimes barely faster than it is discharging). It’s a very common complaint, so here are a few solutions.
1. Do-It-Yourself USB port fix
The quickest, easiest, and often most successful solution, is to do a little DIY repair on your actual hardware. The problem is often that the metallic surfaces inside the USB port and the micro USB charger are not making good contact, either through a manufacturing defect or because of the continual plugging and unplugging of the charging cable.
All you need to do is shut down your device, remove the battery if possible and use something small, such as a toothpick, to 'lever up' the little tab inside the USB port on your Smartphone or tablet. Do so very carefully and gently, then reinsert your battery and plug it in again. Nine times out of 10 this is all that is required.
2. Remove lint, candy and dust
Do you keep your phone in the pocket of your jeans? If so, lint could be the culprit: we've lost track of the number of times the reason for unreliable USB charging turned out to be lint from the pocket of our Levis.
We've seen phones with charging ports choked with chocolate after they were chucked in a handbag alongside a packet of sweets. A can of compressed air can blow out the offending irritants and get your USB connection back to normal.
3. Switch cables
The flimsiest part of a charger is the cable, not the adapter that plugs into the wall socket. Apple users are particularly vulnerable here because Apple's proprietary (and expensive) Lightning cables appear to have a life expectancy of around 15 minutes. But all cables have a tough life, and endless flexing and curling can take its toll. Substituting a random USB cable for the one that came with your phone is another shortcut to an unenjoyable charging experience.
The easiest way to diagnose a faulty cable is to try a different one and see if that works properly with your device. If it does, you know the original cable was at fault. If it doesn't, that's another potential villain we've ruled out.
4. Diagnose a dodgy adapter
If the cable doesn't seem to be the problem, check the wall plug adapter – especially if it's one where the charging cable can be removed. We've encountered issues in multiple chargers where the USB port becomes a little loose after endlessly plugging in and unplugging the cable.
Also check whether the same charger/cable combination works on a different device because this will help you eliminate the possibility that it is your device at fault, rather than the cable or charger. You should also make sure there isn't a problem with your wall socket.
5. Remember – safety first
Don't charge your phone near water or in excessively hot or humid conditions. Also, if you're replacing a charger or cable, be wary: the internet is stuffed with reports of cheap third-party chargers that went bang in the middle of the night or turned smart phones into toast. As with any electrical equipment, make sure that anything you buy complies with all the relevant safety standards.
To give you an idea of how much energy is stored in your battery, check this video out (but don't try it at home).
A previous version of this article warned users of charging devices overnight, but I want to clarify that this is not because you can overcharge your device. Modern smartphones have measures in place to prevent damage when batteries continue to be charged at 100 percent capacity.
That said, charging a battery does generate heat and, if a smartphone is in a tight space – like under a pillow or inside a case – there is a chance it could become too hot. Essentially, if you're going to charge your phone overnight, just make sure it's out in a safe place.
6. Replace the battery
Batteries don't last forever, and after a couple of years they start to struggle to hold a charge. The more often you discharge and recharge them, the sooner they'll need replacing. If your battery's busted after just six months, it's probably faulty and you should make a warranty claim for a free replacement, but if the battery's older than two years, it's probably approaching the end of its lifespan.
Some defective batteries are easy to spot because they start to bulge or leak fluid. If nothing like that is obvious from the outside, remove your device's cover and inspect the battery (if you can; some devices have sealed battery compartments).
If the cover doesn't come off, you could try laying the device on its back and spinning it. A bulging battery will deform the case – you might not be able to see this bulge, but it might be enough to allow your phone to spin. If you suspect your battery might be swollen or leaking, get your phone to a repair shop and buy a reputable replacement.
7. Charge from the right source
Charging from a wall socket will always be faster than charging via PC or laptop, because computers' USB ports don't deliver very much power. A wall socket can deliver twice as much power as a USB port, and fast chargers it can deliver as much as five times the power – which means much, much faster charging. So if your phone is charging slowly and you're connected to a laptop: there's your problem.
If your wall charger doesn't appear to be delivering the goods, check that it's appropriate for your device. A charger from another phone might not deliver the right amount of juice — for example, a charger for a Bluetooth headset won't put out as much power as one designed specifically for smart phones. In the case of recent high-end phones, you might have a phone that supports fast charging but a charger that doesn't deliver it. Read the fine-print.
8. Update or roll back
Software updates and new Android versions can wreak havoc with your battery life, especially when upgrading an old device to current software. Newer devices are often optimized to take advantage of the latest software, whereas a two-year-old device can struggle when it gets updated.
If this happens to you and you can't troubleshoot the problem, consider rolling the device back to an earlier Android version; though be warned that this carries security risks. The latest software versions are always recommended to keep your device protected, and while the risk of keeping your smartphone on an older version is often negligible, it’s worth noting.
Similarly, sometimes device battery life can be significantly improved by an update, so if you think you might be way behind on your Android software version, head to Settings > About phone to check for an update.
9. Switch it off
Using battery-intensive apps/features while you are charging your device will affect how quickly it gains battery life. If you are charging while Skyping somebody at 100 percent brightness, the device will naturally take longer to charge than it would with its screen, Wi-Fi and 4G turned off.
Switch the device to airplane mode, or off completely, when you are charging if you want to see the fastest energy injection. Think of it making your device take a power nap.
10. Calibrate your battery
Sometimes the battery level your device 'thinks' it's at is wrong. The effect of this is that your phone may function differently, including limiting performance before it needs to or taking an hour to chew through the last two percent of battery.
We’ve already written an extensive guide on how to calibrate your Smartphone battery, so I won’t retype it all here, but this is a thing to try before completely ditching your defunct power pack.
11. Check your battery pack's voltage and amperage
This tip was pointed out in the comments below by Patrick and it can help you quickly identify a defective cable. Download the free Amperage app from the link below and open it. Now, connect your charger and the interface should go green and the text at the top should say "measuring". If you don't see this, or nothing happens, it means there is no current going to your device.
If it identifies a current, the app will now show the charging statistics for that charger, including the minimum and maximum load levels (in milliamps), voltage and maximum current. This is also a great way to find out which of your chargers is performing best.
Try connecting the different charge packs you own, including portable battery packs, to see which has the highest maximum charge value, or the highest average (the app makes it fairly easy to get an idea of this). It's not an exact measurement but it's an indication if nothing else and the app is completely free.
12. What about water damage?
A number of people in the comments asked about battery problems caused by water damage. If your phone fails to charge after falling in water you don't have many options: your best bet is to try and replace the battery – if that's even possible.
You should, however, try to prevent this from ever happening. Read our article explaining what to do when you drop your phone in water to find out the first steps you should take when trying to rescue it.
If all else fails, double-check that you have the power point switched on. That is the first thing they will ask you if you call your manufacturer for help, which might need to be your next step if none of these solutions has worked for you.
This guide is not specific for Honor 5X. This is for all mobiles.
Related
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
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Its not a Cisco? Ive been using it like that for years. Seriously,I have.
I actually use mine in my truck and the nice thing about it is I have a phone holder that clips on the air vent. So while running WMWifiRouter on the road for our laptop I just keep the AC on the back of the phone and no heat issues or charging issues.
Lately – I’m not sure when this stated, my Nexus 7 (running 4.4.2) has been charging absurdly slow. I’m talking 20%-30% in a span of 24 hours. It’s like it’s hooked up to a trickle-charge. I’ve tried 2 different OEM cables and 2 different OEM chargers (I had the one that came with it, and I ordered an official Asus OEM replacement charger with cable as well, to have as a spare).
I downloaded Battery Monitor Widget and while it sees it as plugged in via AC, the charge rate is -9ma (in other words, while plugged in, running nothing but the battery monitor, instead of actually charging, it simply reduced the discharge rate from negative 718ma to negative 9ma).
The only thing I can think of is this: as I understand it, USB AC adapters capable of “fast charge” (2ma) first test the device to see if it’s compatible, to avoid potentially over-charging the unit. Perhaps my device is not properly responding to this test? Perhaps that’s why it’s not providing enough juice?
Or maybe someone else has some better insight and can educate me. I’m certainly open to learning. Any ideas?
WraithTDK said:
The only thing I can think of is this: as I understand it, USB AC adapters capable of “fast charge” (2ma) first test the device to see if it’s compatible, to avoid potentially over-charging the unit. Perhaps my device is not properly responding to this test? Perhaps that’s why it’s not providing enough juice?
Or maybe someone else has some better insight and can educate me. I’m certainly open to learning. Any ideas?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
[apologies in advance for a long-winded reply; hopefully some of it will be useful to you]
The OEM charger should be capable of 2 A (not 2mA).
Dumb chargers don't "talk" to the tablet. (Well, except for Apple USB dumb chargers - Apple violates the USB spec with their proprietary hardware, and that raises the meaning of "dumb" to a whole new level).
The tablet tries to draw what it wants, and if the wall charger is capable of supplying that current, everything will be fine - meaning, that the output voltage of the charger will be stable (near to 5V). If the tablet tries to draw more current from a charger than the charger is designed for, what usually happens is that the output voltage of the charger will start to droop down. (Sometimes, even worse things can happen, such as the voltage coming from the charger will start to oscillate.) This will have the effect that the voltage drops down to the point where it is barely larger than the voltage from the battery, and so the current flowing out of the charger gets limited that way.
But you shouldn't have this problem as you have at least two OEM chargers, and more than one cable, suggesting that your difficulty is with the tablet somehow.
I note (from your post) that you can observe the actual charging current; this suggests that you have a custom kernel on your tablet, as the stock kernel doesn't have the BQ27541 patches which allow current monitoring (only battery voltage and percent charge).
Here's the reason why I mention this. (Oh boy, get yourself a beverage, this is a long story).
I was going to be making some long drives (>13 hr) and I wanted my N7 in the vehicle, WiFi tethered and active (Google Nav and so forth) As you have observed, when you have the tablet running and are poking away at the screen, it can draw anywhere from 300 mA to more than 1000 mA, depending on how many cores are alive, which CPU frequency is in use, the screen brightness, streaming activity, etc.
And unfortunately...I was in a hurry: I couldn't wait for a car charger to be delivered following an online purchase. And all the local electronics stores seem to only sell high-capacity car chargers that are "Apple Compatible", which is marketing speak for "violates the USB spec". The N7 expects compliant behavior from chargers.
So, I bought two of those "Apple Compatible" car chargers from different manufacturers, and also bought a micro-USB cable that I could hack. I opened up the cable, clipped the D+/D- wires, connecting them together on the "Nexus 7" end of the cable, and left them open on the charger side (open but insulated of course). This has the effect of preventing the N7 from thinking there is a data connection present - the Apple chargers twiddle those D+/D- lines a little bit, and that prevents the (USB spec-compliant) N7 from thinking there is a dumb charger on the other end of the cable.
I wanted to be sure that what I had was actually working correctly, and if either of those two car chargers really would provide enough current, so I installed a dev kernel that has the BQ27451 battery current monitor patches in it. I think several of the dev kernels have this; I used M-kernel.
OK, so far so good.
The next step was to crank both the min and max CPU clock limits way down (300 Mhz iirc), turn on the "performance" governor and turn the screen brightness all the way down. I may have even used Trickster Mod to set Max_Cores to only 1. This was done so that the tablet would draw a smallish and constant current. That way, when I plugged in the car charger, I would actually know what the total charger current was - the sum of the (absolute) values between the unplugged state (discharging) and plugged in (charging)** If you leave the CPU frequency controls in their normal state, the amount of current the tablet draws can jump all over the place depending on tablet activity, and then it would be hard to know the total current the charger is actually producing. (It is the SUM of the battery current displayed plus whatever the tablet is drawing).
When I did the above, my N7 (grouper, WiFi off) was drawing just under 300 mA of current from the battery in the unplugged condition.
Still with me? (it gets better, trust me).
So, what I observed was that, yes, one of the two chargers was better than the other; I could get get the monitored battery charging current up to 1400 mA with one, and maybe 1100 mA with the other. (That's total current from each charger of about 1.7A or 1.4A respectively after adding in the 300 mA the tablet is drawing)
Finally though, an explanation of why this is relevant to you:
When the tablet was plugged in to either charger, the current would not immediately jump up to the maximum value; instead, it would sometimes takes minutes or more for the current to jump up to that maximum value!
It would, however immediately jump up to about 800 mA total current right after plugging the charger. That's better than a 500 mA computer USB connection, but if the tablet is active, it's no guarantee that the tablet will gain any charge - as in your situation.
So why the delay? To be honest, I don't really know. In my panic to get ready for my travel, I only spent a little bit of time fooling with it - for a while I had a hypothesis that the kernel was doing *something* that made the current pop up to its full 1.7A value only after the tablet had left a deep sleep state. The good thing was that once the current stepped up to the full value, it would stay there despite the level of activity on the tablet.
[size=+1]The point is that the maximum charging current condition seems to be dependent on some condition(s) happening which is under control of the kernel - it is not just an "analog" behavior that happens as soon as you plug the charger in.[/size].
So I suppose it is possible that you simply have a configuration where the operating trajectory that your tablet passes through does not trigger the right conditions in the kernel to command the SMB chip (USB interface controller) to max the current out close to the 2A limit.
You might want to try an experiment where you:
- Observe the charging rate with the tablet completely turned off. Should be about 100% in 150 minutes (2.5 hrs) or about 6-7% every ten minutes. Note that because the battery is 4.235 A-h capacity, that works out to a charging current of at least (4.235 A-hr / 2.5 hr) = 1.7 A. (It is probably greater than that due to charging losses).
If your tablet charges at about this rate when it is off, then nothing is wrong with your charger, cable, battery, or SMB chip, and it points a finger at your kernel's code - and possibly other things like applications holding wakelocks which prevent the tablet from entering deep sleep.
I won't go so far as to claim that it is "coming out of deep sleep" that triggered the M-kernel to twiddle the SMB chip so it would draw 2A; in all my experimentation, I couldn't faithfully reproduce the behavior. The good news was that that it would eventually (within a few minutes, possibly due to the tablet sleeping) ramp completely up and then stay there.
Anyway, I hope this gives you some food for thought and maybe some experiments you can run to narrow down the problem.
- What kernel are you using?
- Does your tablet ever enter deep sleep? (I don't mean simply that the screen is off - it is a state where the hardware is placed in a low-power state where even the memory bus is no longer operating. A wakelock might prevent this from happening, but in any event you should be able to observe this in the kernel log - the clock values get wonky and you might see a message about "G" state)
- Does your tablet charge even a little bit when the screen is off?
** I sort of recall that that "Current Widget" app always displays a positive value for current, but changes the display color red/green depending on whether the tablet is discharging (red) or charging (green). Something to watch out for.
.
Kernel: It's rooted, but otherwise completely stock. Battery Monitor Widget doesn't seem to have an issue display the charging rate (and yes, I meant 2A, not 2ma).
Sleep mode: It should; I have one of those cases whose covers are supposed to put it in sleep mode. It DOES charge; but it does it at a snail's pace; a battery info app has it at 30% over the span of 24 hours with it never being touched during that time.
I turned it completely off 3 hours ago at 37% and I just turned it on to 76%
Unfortunately, Current Widget is not compatible with the N7.
WraithTDK said:
Kernel: It's rooted, but otherwise completely stock. Battery Monitor Widget doesn't seem to have an issue display the charging rate (and yes, I meant 2A, not 2ma).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It actually displays instantaneous current? Maybe I should restore a 4.4.2 ROM and see if the newer stock kernel has those BQ27541 patches.
WraithTDK said:
Sleep mode: It should; I have one of those cases whose covers are supposed to put it in sleep mode.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, "screen off" is not equal to "deep sleep". The tegra3 has multiple low-power modes, but the one I am thinking of is really low power - kind of like a "suspend" state for PCs. If there is an application holding a wakelock, the tablet will never enter deep sleep. (As I mentioned, the "deep sleep" mode is very near to the tablet being completely off - the lpRAM is still drawing a little bit of current (it is in self-refresh mode) ). When my N7 sleeps, it charges nearly at the same rate as when it is turned off. (But, see below; in light of that I don't think this is your problem)
WraithTDK said:
It DOES charge; but it does it at a snail's pace; a battery info app has it at 30% over the span of 24 hours with it never being touched during that time.
I turned it completely off 3 hours ago at 37% and I just turned it on to 76%
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
39% in 3 hrs? Hmmm. If things were linear, that would be: 0.39*4.235 / 3 = 551 mA.
You are right, that isn't very good at all. Your tablet will discharge if you are using it even though it is plugged in.
Well - that "tablet off" charging test is pretty diagnostic - the kernel and OS are not even running, so they can't be altering anything. So maybe they can't be blamed for anything either.
But, that Summit Microsystems SMB347 chip is sitting there acting as the battery charger, even when the tablet is "off". Maybe it has something stateful in it (like a few non-volatile memory registers) that could have been altered by past activity on the tablet. Summit doesn't allow datasheet downloads without a NDA, so I don't know.
When the N7 is fully turned off, there is still something tiny running - otherwise, how would that "charging animation" get painted on the screen when you plug the tablet in when it is off? I don't know if that is something in the tegra3 miniloader or just a low-power personality of the bootloader; hard to know really. I guess I am speculating whether something in the bootloader could have "programmed" the SMB chip, but the only thing I remember seeing here (on XDA) is a toggle via a fastboot OEM command that causes the tablet to boot up as soon as power is applied - the guys who do car installs use that.
Well, I'm sort of out of ideas. It sounds like you have tried the obvious stuff already. Do you have any reason to believe the USB port has an intermittent connetion? Or maybe that the battery itself has an intermittent or resistive connection at its power connector?
cheers
Had a very similar problem on my s3 and the problem was the microusb port on the phone
Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk
WraithTDK said:
Lately – I’m not sure when this stated, my Nexus 7 (running 4.4.2) has been charging absurdly slow. I’m talking 20%-30% in a span of 24 hours. It’s like it’s hooked up to a trickle-charge. I’ve tried 2 different OEM cables and 2 different OEM chargers (I had the one that came with it, and I ordered an official Asus OEM replacement charger with cable as well, to have as a spare).
I downloaded Battery Monitor Widget and while it sees it as plugged in via AC, the charge rate is -9ma (in other words, while plugged in, running nothing but the battery monitor, instead of actually charging, it simply reduced the discharge rate from negative 718ma to negative 9ma).
The only thing I can think of is this: as I understand it, USB AC adapters capable of “fast charge” (2ma) first test the device to see if it’s compatible, to avoid potentially over-charging the unit. Perhaps my device is not properly responding to this test? Perhaps that’s why it’s not providing enough juice?
Or maybe someone else has some better insight and can educate me. I’m certainly open to learning. Any ideas?
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You might have an issue with your USB on your device. Mine was starting to charge slow but not quite to the degree as yours. I also found that my device would no longer communicate to any computer. If you have tried different cables & charger then you may have to RMA your device.
Asus Nexus 7 draining while plugged in to charge
My Nexus 7 was totally dead. Hit the power button and five blinks of a white LED. Plugged it in it went to 68% then next day it was 28% - 19% and on down. Before it got to zero I turned it off and took off the back. I noticed with the aid of a magnifying glass, that the soldered connections of the mini USB charging port were very possibly fractured. Having had experience at soldering, I added solder and reflowed the connections (about 4 or 5). I then plugged it in. For the first time since the beginning of this mystery I saw the battery icon actually indicating that it was charging. It was 100% within three hours. Haven't had a problem since.
I have been searching all over and found many ideas from - try another charger to - install another charging board. When you think about it, that connecter sees a lot of push and pull. If it is not soldered well and sturdy it's no wonder that it will fracture. I don't think there was enough solder on there to begin with.
If you do not know someone who can solder on a very small scale and want to brave this yourself, make sure you have a very small tip on the iron, not more than 700 degrees and some extra flux. You will most likely bridge a few connectors but keep brushing the tip of the iron away from the connections with flux added. You will get it eventually. Just don't burn the board. And clean it all with a brush and alcohol. Good luck.
I've had my S5 for about 2 months now. and i've been having charging problems? My phone only charges when it's turned off. And does it at a very slow pace. When i turn it own, it indicate it's charging but it's going down.. Now it's not charging at all..... I check my usb voltage and the max was 1800 and it would switch from 300 to 1100?
This makes me believe it's the usb cord. Because i haven't dropped it, bent the ports. no water damages. nothing it just stop.. making me think its the usb or the battery. What is your insights on this? I am always on business trips and don't have time to send it in for repairs. please tell me its the usb cord or battery not the port or hardware?
I've also done 2 factorys resets so it's no hardware issue. i don't know how much this helps but someone told me to take the battery out to see if it would turn on. it didn't. this is a new phone that shouldn't behaving issues.
Have you tried to use your USB cord to charge other phone? Did it charge correctly? If it's yes, then try to buy a new battery.
Xx_Evlo_xX said:
I've had my S5 for about 2 months now. and i've been having charging problems? My phone only charges when it's turned off. And does it at a very slow pace. When i turn it own, it indicate it's charging but it's going down.. Now it's not charging at all..... I check my usb voltage and the max was 1800 and it would switch from 300 to 1100?
This makes me believe it's the usb cord. Because i haven't dropped it, bent the ports. no water damages. nothing it just stop.. making me think its the usb or the battery. What is your insights on this? I am always on business trips and don't have time to send it in for repairs. please tell me its the usb cord or battery not the port or hardware?
I've also done 2 factorys resets so it's no hardware issue. i don't know how much this helps but someone told me to take the battery out to see if it would turn on. it didn't. this is a new phone that shouldn't behaving issues.
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Your description of the situation is murky. Are you charging from a wall adapter or from a computer USB port? It sounds like the latter and the problem may well be on your PC end or a bad cable e.g. have an intermittent connection. Or you may simply have a high app draw e.g. high screen brightness, processor use, gaming, etc that exceeds the current available from your USB port.
Your statement about USB voltages doesn't make sense. The nominal USB voltage is 5 volts. If it was anything near 300 - 1800, something would be on fire. Possibly you are referring to current draw in mA. But even with that assumption it's unclear what you are describing.
It's almost certainly the USB port, cable or battery. Perhaps a damaged USB port if it has been abused. It's unlikely to be the actual power circuit inside the phone. You haven't provided enough detail to really narrow anything down. Try charging from a wall charger or at least a different computer. If it works, then your port has an issue. Next try a different cable to see if the cable is obviously bad. Testing the battery without proper equipment is harder, but if your battery life is notably short or erratic then suspect the battery. Perhaps borrow a battery from a friend to try and rule out a bad battery.
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It's got to be software.
My son and I have the same phone. My S5 will only charge powered off. So I'm constantly swapping batteries with him which obviously rules out the battery or any powering cords because his is fine with either battery and cords. Time to upgrade
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..?
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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
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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
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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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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.
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