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Severe and strange battery issues - Please help!

Hello, I've recieved my AT&T Tilt 8925 (Kais100) unit a week ago and ever since I've experienced awful battery performance. The item shipped new (not refurbished supposedly nor defective) and included a Samsung battery. I changed to Dutty's v3 ROM right away (flashing was successful, I also switched to radio version 1.27.12.27) and last night switched to Q-Mobile v1.2 to see if the ROM was the problem, but it persisted.
My battery drains extremely fast, even when the unit is off it drops 10% after 8 hours (overnight and also throughout the day, I'm leaving the unit at home while I solve this issue and it's always off). The unit does not have a SIM card inserted and the Phone function remains off, so does WiFi, Bluetooth, Beam, 3G, etc. It's also muted and has no alarms activated, nor background programs running (I'm currently running a freshly flashed Q-Mobile v1.2 ROM with a hard reset done as well).
I've read about battery perfomance extensively but haven't ever read about the battery discharging while the unit is off, and given the fact that I'm NOT using the phone functions, I barely believe this can be normal behaviour. I purchased 2 units from the same source and both are having similar issues with battery perfomance.
I'm currently testing a borrowed OEM Dynapack battery from a friend's Tilt to see if it shows the same behaviour as well to discard the possibility of a faulty unit. Note that I'm using the OEM 1A charger and leave the unit charging for several hours.
If the battery proves to be defective I'd have to get one (or contact the seller to see if he'd respond to the issue). Can someone recommend a cheap/reliable battery that could be bought online (eBay, etc.)?
Thank you very much! I hope that someone has a clue on this issue.
Best regards
Sebastian

Just to clarify, is the phone actually OFF, or is it in standby? If it's in standby, 10% after 8 hours wouldn't be unreasonable at all.

Uhm, it's on standby I guess (when I turn it on again it's instantaneous, not like when you soft reset the unit)...

I'm new to PDA phones, I had an IPAQ RX3715 before with WM2003SE and I could leave the unit off for days without battery drainage. However I may not be too familiarised with these new units' standby/off functioning. If in standby and with the Phone function off (meaning that the device has "nothing to do" other than being off) it's normal for the device to drain the battery so much I would be disappointed.
As a sidenote, my friend's Tilt is not draining while it's on standby being on the same conditions other than the fact that his unit has the Dynapack battery.
Regards!

Bat Drain
I have the same rom and the same problem. I was at the hospital all day i made two calls and about mid day my bat was at 30%. I think its duttys rom V3 causing the problems. Changing roms now.

I could be wrong, but I think your phone is fine, these devices just consume a lot of power. 10% over 8 hours would be totally normal in my opinion. Is that the main reason that leads you to think there is a problem with your phone? Have you ever had a pocket PC before that had better battery life? When I got my first PDA I thought the same thing, but I realized that they are not like normal cell phones, where you could just recharge once every couple of days. PDA's must be charged at least every night. If you use GPS or wi-fi a lot you're probably going to be charging sometime throughout the day as well. I just got into the habit of plugging it in every time I get into the car, and when I get home I plug it into either the computer or the wall charger. There are after market batteries available, but if you want a drastic increase in amp-hours, the battery is going to be bigger and it will require a new battery cover. This is totally unacceptable in my opinion, as the device is relatively large to begin with. My advice would be to only activate a radio if you are using it, and de-activate it when you are done. Also just get into a routine where you are charging it whenever possible. Another thing, I just flashed Dutty's V4 RTM, and I must say the increase in battery life was very noticeable. Don't let me confuse you, though. From the information you supplied, I really am not able to tell if there is a problem or not, so give some more information and examples of battery life so we can figure out if somethings wrong, or if you just aren't used to the amount of consumption of this type of device. Hope I could help. Cheers!

kevinniven said:
I have the same rom and the same problem. I was at the hospital all day i made two calls and about mid day my bat was at 30%. I think its duttys rom V3 causing the problems. Changing roms now.
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Yeah that's not normal. You got any radios besides phone running throughout the day?

Thanks for your thorough reply. Picking on what you mentioned, it's true that I'm new to PDA Phones, as I mentioned I also own an iPAQ rx3715 with WM2003SE and my idea was to replace it. Judging the fact that PDA-only devices, to my eyes, are nowadays dying I thought I'd get me the latest and most complete device available WITH GPS, since I was using my iPAQ together with a GPS Bluetooth Receiver with much delight.
What I experienced with my previous device was that battery performance was never an issue, it did consume power as any PDA, but I didn't find myself worrying about it, it never dropped when off and it would last me several days.
Since I'm using my Tilt with the Phone function off I _thought_ it wouldn't need any power for anything... but it might be that these new devices, or the new WM6 architecture is different to that of WM2003SE/PDA only devices... I don't know, but it just sounds strange to me, although if it's normal I'll live with it- as you say, I'll have to be charging it 1-2 times a day.
On the one hand it would be good for me to know that my device is ok, but on the other hand it means that battery life isn't even close to what I expected... I had read people complaining about it but in general I tend not to be overly critic about the defects of devices... but it seems that it's the case. I meant not to use the phone features and thus I thought it wouldn't be consuming power on standby seeing that the phone should not be running anything on background...
Thank you again for your reply. If anybody else has a word on this I'd appreciate it.
Best regards

Just as an aside you will notice the battery life getting better after a couple weeks it seems the battery has to be conditioned so to speak. Also do you have any kind of push email on your phone as if you do that does use quite a bit of power, you might want to set it up as a pop3 account and set it to check emails every so often instead of getting them as soon as they come in.But I have amde it a habit to always use my charger whenever I am able to as these batteries seem to be happiest when topped off whenever possible.

Hello again, I'm still experiencing this problem and it seems not normal.
Simply put, I fully charge the device. I turn it off. It discharges by itself with all wireless functions off.
Today I did a hard suspend (keeping off pressed) with battery at 60%... when I turn the unit on 7 hours later the battery was at 6% with a critical warning sign.
I'm NOT using the device, I turn it on, use WiFI for 3-5 minutes then switch it off and put the device to suspend. I turn it on after a couple of hours, play with the menus and turn it off again. Just by doing that the battery drains by 10% every 5 hours or so, sometimes it won't even turn on due to battery drainage.
Is this NORMAL? I need to know if my unit or my battery is defective so I can return it to the seller in time...
Thanks, best regards
Sebastian

Battery life DOES seem to improve with time. The first day my battery wouldn't last for 5 hours! Keep charging your battery and letting it drain as much as you can (whether or not to let it fully drain is debatable), and I bet you'll see some guaranteed performance.
Also, what would help a lot is if you found and installed the Today plugin BatteryStatus and checked the "Show More indicators" option, and see what your battery drain was. The normal is between 150mA and 300mA when you're on the Today screen. Any more than that, and you most likely have a problem, assuming connections besides phone are off.

sounds normal to me, turning off you mean by pressing the button on the right side of unit? if so, mine is the same way

I'd say that was definitely not normal performance. On average, I use mine for at least an hour worth of talk time, an hour or two running TomTom, numerous SMSs, and at least a couple of hours reading books. I charge it every night, and the battery is generally running at around 50 to 60% by that time. I'm surprised at how quickly yours is draining.
I have an RX3715 inhabiting a drawer, and, while the battery life was a lot longer on that device, the battery was a lot larger, and the screen lower quality. The fact that it is not connected to a mobile network gives the battery a much longer life too. When I used it purely for TomTom, connecting to a bluetooth receiver, the battery faded very fast.

I've had a Kaiser since day one. I have found that adding a comm manager that allows forcing the phone to Edge give huge battery savings. In standby with the phone radio On and BT radio ON, WiFi OFF, my phone drops 4% over night very consistant. On Edge battery lasts days.
The only time I get fairly high battery consumption is streaming with 3G. Edge is so much more efficient on the battery, so if you don't need the speed, throttle down!
The only time I've ever found the phone Dead or close to dead after only a few hours on standby was when I had WiFi ON and the phone in standby. I can't pinpoint what exactly causes the condition, but when it occurs, the phone is HOT and the battery heavily drained in a short time. This has happened with both Hermes and Kaiser. I never leave WiFi ON when not needed, and have never seen severe battery drain since.
I do sometimes turn off all radios except WiFi, and then use wired ear buds and stream Slingbox video to the phone over my home WiFi LAN. I can get almost 4 hours of watching on a charge.

The battery should not be draining when powered off, but not much at all when put in sleep mode. Get yourself a replacement Testing.
As an aside, Alex's WM 6.1 BETA 2 has given me the best battery life of any rom. Only about 25% of the battery drains per day. With most other roms it's 50-100% per day.

Hello, thanks to everyone for your replies. It's strange because I've been doing lots of test, switching batteries (I have 4 units to test now) and I get inconsistent results... the 2 most problematic units were bought from the same eBay seller and got their ROMs changed the first day, the 3rd unit still has the AT&T ROM and was apparently not draining as fast. The problem is that the 2 first units seem to get battery drains overnight in flight mode of 10% and 2 times one of them got a 0% critical battery status just by being in standby and not in use (none of them are working as phones and have the function off)
The odd part is that for some reason this happens only sometimes, now I've switched to Sleuth's WM6.1 ROM and the problem is gone for now, I'm still at 90% since 2 nights ago having turned on GPS and WIFI for 5 minutes each 2-3 times... the other 2 units have been in standby from 100% charge and they haven't dropped either! And they're using the AT&T ROM and Q-Mobile v1.2 respectively... what kills me is that I cannot say what's wrong, cause I've swapped batteries, swapped chargers, swapped ROMs but cannot trace which is the problem (or if there's a problem at all)...
Perhaps it's normal for the unit to sometimes drain 10% after 8 hours of standby in flight mode and on other times remain at 90% for 2-3 days if not in use...
Thanks everyone for the read, I'd appreciate any comments
Regards
Sebastian

What radios are u using. Try changing radios

10% loss overnight in standby would be normal.
Does the unit get warm when you notice rapid drain?
I wonder about the "old" active sync problem - does the device show any running programs when you turn on?
In general you should expect to get a days worth of power using it for the odd call, perhaps an hour of wifi and perhaps an hour of prgram use. Of course all taht is very variable but I generally get away with a charge once a day. Occasionally, I take it from it's holder and it's warm to touch, but usually it's 'cos I've forgotten and left something like tomtom running.
Mike

Is it necessary to charge my phone for 8 hrs?

Is it really necessary to charge my phone for 8 hrs before the first use? I just got my phone and i dont know whether or not charge for 8 hrs or just use it right out of the box. thanks guys!

It's not 'necessary', your phone won't brink if you don't do it.
However, if you condition your battery - charge for 8 hours on first use and then drain it until it's dead, and repeat 2 or 3 times, the battery will have a much better life and useage time (in my experience). This is because all batteries have memory, even ones that say they don't.

xconradx said:
It's not 'necessary', your phone won't brink if you don't do it.
However, if you condition your battery - charge for 8 hours on first use and then drain it until it's dead, and repeat 2 or 3 times, the battery will have a much better life and useage time (in my experience). This is because all batteries have memory, even ones that say they don't.
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Are you sure what you are talking able? Li-ion don't have memory effect. And if fact "A stand-alone Li-ion cell must never be discharged below a certain voltage to avoid irreversible damage." (quote: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_ion_battery)

so its not necessary? im confused what did everyone else do when you first received your phone?

I work in the business... I'm sure.
First off, wikipedia is not the most reliable source. Second, your phone won't let you discharge your battery that far, it will shut off long before the battery gets that dead. Lithium Ion batterys can lack the 'memory effect' (effect being the keyword), but they do have memory.
Either way, no need to get up in arms about it. Just charge your phone up all the way, use it till the kaiser tells you to recharge, something like "Replace or recharge your battery to avoid data loss". It's like 10 or 15 percent. When you get there plug it in and charge it all the way up.
You arnt going to hurt your battery as posted above. Correct, if you get way too low you may have issues (why batteries go dead when they sit for a long time), but your kaiser won't let that happen. It will shut itself off first.

xconradx said:
I work in the business... I'm sure.
First off, wikipedia is not the most reliable source. Second, your phone won't let you discharge your battery that far, it will shut off long before the battery gets that dead. Lithium Ion batterys can lack the 'memory effect' (effect being the keyword), but they do have memory.
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Thanks for the info. If they don't have the effect, then what's that memory going to hurt us?

jackleung said:
Thanks for the info. If they don't have the effect, then what's that memory going to hurt us?
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I'm not completely sure what you are asking... but...
The memory won't hurt you. True, you could probably take it right out of the box and use it however you wanted. The memory just helps tell the battery know when it's completely full (to switch to trickle charging if supported by the application), or when it's dead and in danger.
I'm too lazy to try and explain it, so I copied this... I should have refered to it earlier as "digital memory" earlier because it's not at all the same as NiCAD memory which is what most people understand - hope this clarifies.
From - http://www.batteryuniversity.com/parttwo-34.htm
"Although lithium-ion is memory-free in terms of performance deterioration, batteries with fuel gauges exhibit what engineers refer to as "digital memory". Here is the reason: Short discharges with subsequent recharges do not provide the periodic calibration needed to synchronize the fuel gauge with the battery's state-of-charge. A deliberate full discharge and recharge every 30 charges corrects this problem. Letting the battery run down to the cut-off point in the equipment will do this. If ignored, the fuel gauge will become increasingly less accurate." ...
"Batteries with fuel gauge (laptops, *cell phone {added by me}) should be calibrated by applying a deliberate full discharge once every 30 charges. Running the pack down in the equipment does this. If ignored, the fuel gauge will become increasingly less accurate and in some cases cut off the device prematurely. "
Hope this helps. There is a reason why the manufacturer recommends this. Battery performance as well as the accuracy of your gauge can somewhat depend on this sort of conditioning. This is the reason you may see your battery gauge go up after a restart, or when you charge your phone it may say 90% one second and 100% a few later.
Regardless, this is a crash course in batteries.

Charge: slow until 65%, then jumps to 100%?

Lately, I noticed that when charging my tilt with the charger, it takes forever to get to 65% and then in almost no time, jumps to 100%. Is that normal? Does something need to be done? Do I need a new battery? If so, what's recommended?
Separately, when using WIFI, it uses over 400 mA -- that's outrageous.. Any way of improving that, while still being able to stream audio (ie power saving settings may be an issue)?
What's a good battery meter to help debug things?
Thanks

I have the exact same deal going on with my battery charge. Started happening not too long ago. With the stock ROM and with hyperdragon III ROM, I always see the jump.
I'm not sure what the problem is but I figured it was a false charge in that the battery's capacity has really lowered from the original 1300mAh. Also, thus why your batter drains much faster than it does (so does mine). If anything, it's probably just a normal battery problem which could probably be solved if you got a new battery. I haven't tried (yet). The battery life went from 3 day's of casual use with some data connecting here and there, to 1 day and if im lucky, a day and a half.
Hope this helps out a little. And if anyone has the real solution, do tell. Thanks.
Regards,
K

I had the same problems. Took forever to charge. Battery life was horrible. Could only make a 3 minute phone call on a 100% charge before the phone would shut off. Ended up being the OEM battery was done. Lasted about 1 year on heavy use. Bout a battery/cradle charger from Amazon that came with an extra battery. Also bought another 1600mah battery. Both of them work great. No more charging problems.
Simple answer, like us, batteries die.

bigjoemann said:
Simple answer, like us, batteries die.
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I too think it's a faulty battery (which may still be covered under warranty). It's always a good idea with the TyTN II to have at least one spare battery for long trips etc (I have the original and 2 spares as well as a cradle which recharges spare batteries). The O/P should try another battery to confirm that works normally and if so and the original battery is still under warranty, contact HTC/The supplier to see what can be done. IF they need the phone (and I've never tried claiming on a battery under warranty), make sure it is fully reverted to 'as from the factory' status using all official ROM/Radio/SPL before sending it in.
Edit: The o/p could also try cleaning the battery terminals (using a cotton bud soaked in contact cleaner) to make sure high electrical resistance has got nothing to do with it.

hot while charghing

hello, is it a common problem? or is there a problem with mine? Not actually very hot, but hotter than the room temperature

I have the same thing, especially if the handset is charging through USB from my laptop.

I don't recharge from USB as I've read that it is bad for the battery. Again, not very hot. Also slightly hot when using UiFi for a very long time, or playing a lot. I guess it's normal. Being used a lot ... :-? I don't know, just asking

Hi georgeono,
I can't remember how to disable charging on connectivity to the PC. Can you please point that out to me?
Many thanks,
Ayman

Hey, I already found it. Don't bother yourself )
It's Settings -> All Settings -> System Tab -> Power -> Battery Tab

And why would charging through USB be bad??

well, to make a good charge, you should leave the phone 5-6 hours (even though the led is green, I let it even up to 10 hours (charging at night)). When at PC, I don't think you all the time keep the phone pluged. In order to make a good charge, the battery has to be nearly empty (new phones work well without this waiting, but still, in time ... you see the differences). And I don't think anyone waits for his phone to be empty to connect via USB. .
I previously had an SE 850i (4 years used). Always charged when battery was empty, charged about 6 hours, and now, in stand-by, the battery resists 10-11 days. That is something ... 4 years!!!

It's normal,the battery heats up when under heavy use/if charged. It's nothing to worry about

Thanks. Had the same opinion, but still asked. never know ...

Hi
In order to make a good charge, the battery has to be nearly empty (new phones work well without this waiting, but still, in time ... you see the differences).
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This is a myth for lithium rechargeables
Lithium type batteries do not mind when they are charged, and topping them up is perfectly fine. Topping up little but often is probably going to extend the life of the battery if anything and not reduce it, why? The biggest killer of lithium type batteries is heat, and giving it a charge from nothing to the maximum means it gets opportunity to get very warm which ages it, whereas lots of little charges will not up the temperature nearly as much.
Also another myth, you can't damage lithium batteries by overcharging them, this is because the current is stopped when they are fully charged as if it wasn't they would explode!
Lithium batteries also have a use by date, and as soon as they are made they start to age and reduce in capacity, so you are better off using and abusing the battery to get as much from it as you can, as age and heat will probably kill it first.
Regards
Phil

My device is very hot when charging... Much hotter than my Touch Pro2 gets

i experienced a few times that my compact V (topaz model from T-mobile) freezes while using navigation software in the car, meanwhile charging... When i took my phone from the holder, it was extremely hot! After holding it in front of the airco for a while and restarting, everything worked fine again. Anyone else with the same problem?

I found out, that using GPS uses the battery extremely.
It drains with about 300 mA, while normal usage ist at <70-80 mA and standby even a lot less.
Additionally I found out, that the device becomes sluggish due to processor-Usage of nearly 100% (while using gps).
That might be what you are seeing.
Regards Thorsten

talking about GPS usage, when ever i'm on iGo when i minimize it to make a phone call, it doesnt connects. i had to exit iGO n wait a while before it is available to dail. or a quick soft resets solve it.
any of u have the same problem?

hellboy1970 said:
i experienced a few times that my compact V (topaz model from T-mobile) freezes while using navigation software in the car, meanwhile charging... When i took my phone from the holder, it was extremely hot! After holding it in front of the airco for a while and restarting, everything worked fine again. Anyone else with the same problem?
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Click to collapse
similar problem here - igo gets disconnected from gps receiver because it's getting hot !

[Q] Unreliable Battery!

Hi
I have noticed when I soft reset my phone the battery drops anywere from 5% up to about 70%! It varies from rom to rom. If i plug it in and softreset it a couple of times the battery goes up to around what it use to be. If it makes a difference I flash roms alot and don't usually install to many applications.
Is this normal at all or is my battery faulty? It's only about 8 months old.
Any ideas? Tips I could try?
Thanks
Imran

you know, i have the same problem when installing, touch x legendary rom, battery is about 96,96% but when i install that rom, battery drops down to 8,7%, i just plug in power for second, and battery jumps to 98%, and then all working fine...

The way phones and other devices display their state of charge (%) isn't always accurate, hence why it jumps back up 5% after plugging it in. I don't think your battery is unreliable, it's just reporting the wrong percent of charge...

I see. Mine is more like 50% so I guess mine is just really wrong! any ideas for fixing this?
Also i have the typical xperia x1 problem were it thinks the headphones are plugged in for the last 4 days. I have plugging and unplugging the headphones in heaps but it doesn't seem to work
Thanks

I have the same problem.
Phone has one year and 8 months.
Wine phone or battery?

I just got exact problem this morning
I agree with comment above, I think it just battery indicator not accurately represented battery state.
I also noticed the problem happened when I get my phone idle for a while

I was just going to start a new thread about this kind of thing. My phone's original battery has run out at anywhere between 0 and 30%... it tends to go for a couple of days if I don't use the phone much. I've tried recalibration and it doesn't really help. I thought that was bad, but I just bought a backup battery and it's even worse... yesterday it went from 100 to 50% over half a day on standby, then I used it for about ten minutes and it just went off! At 50%!
I was only expecting rubbish life from the cheap battery but at least report the charge properly so I have a chance! Old phones could always do it... why can't one that cost hundreds of pounds when it was new?
I take it there's nothing you can really do?