[Q] Battery problems -- software or hardware? - Captivate Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

So ... I have 2 problems that are buggin my Capi.
1) I cannot reach full charge. I have reset calibration, tried to power cycle, charge both on and off etc. Once in a blue moon the phone charges up to 100, but most of the time it tops off at ~85% ... Today it seems stuck at ~65% (yikes!!)
2) Once in a while if I am under 40% and I freeze or simply reboot, I loose almost all my charge coming back in the red, with "plug in" notifications.
New battery is not expensive (recommendations? 1500mah? 1600mah from I9000? 1800mah from SGSII? ... thoughts) .. but I want to rule out any and all software issues before working on hardware ...
Thanks for any help ...
I am running Senedipidy VII with all (kernel, modem, etc) "stock" to that ROM.
Thanks

have you tried flashing stock? If you flash stock, or go to a different rom, and still can't get a full charge, or your battery dies way too quickly. I'd suggest a new battery. I got a 1800mah battery from the sgs2 epic and it's perfect. Battery easily lasts all day. only $20

Related

Battery empty as fast as the speed of light

I know those Pocket PC devices drain their power very very quickly, but when I wifi for let's say about 5 minutes on some websites, my power is drained like 10 percent maybe. Is that extreme or 'normal' for the kaiser?
On the other hand I must admit that when I do nothing with my kaiser it can last very long without recharching.
Which rom and radio are you using? These devices are not exactly renowned for their great battery life (the cost of 3g and hsdpa), but there are ways to optimize them...
PDACORNERultimate. But I also used a HTC P4350 earlier, and it was all the same with the battery life , just wondering how I can measure what battery is better because I have 2 tytnII's until tonight, so I was wondering how I can measure what the best one is .
ALL batteries lose the ability to keep a charge as they get older. Any battery over a year old should be highly suspect.
Get the Tytn II that appears newer, then get a BRAND NEW battery for it
burtcom said:
Any battery over a year old should be highly suspect.
Get the Tytn II that appears newer, then get a BRAND NEW battery for it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A new battery cured my fast discharge problem. At the time Amazon had the best price on batteries.
I've observed with my TyTnII (1yr old) that the battery drains faster from 100% to 70%. However, it retains charge from 70% to 0% for a longer time.
_MsG_ said:
when I wifi for let's say about 5 minutes on some websites, my power is drained like 10 percent maybe.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A 10% change on the meter means nothing. To evaluate your battery life/drain, start with a fully charged battery and run it down completely until the PDA switches off.
As said above, the percentage reading is approximate and won't always go down in a linear way. It can go down from 100% to 30% in one hour, then take 3 more to go down to 0.
I think you are using the wrong charger. The charger u are using is nog strong enough. I had the same problem. You need the original charger.

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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Click to collapse
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.

Using an extended battery

Hi
Got an extended battery for my G1 a few days ago from ebay.
The problem is, the phone doesn't recognized it after I switched the battery. I had the same charging % as the previuos battery right after I changed it (even though I never charged it) and the max use time in Battery time lite is the same....
Any ideas ?
Thanks,
Nati
bad phone ? my ext batterys work fine from ebay
is there any way I can be sure ?
Maybe it a firmware thing ?
natim9 said:
Hi
Got an extended battery for my G1 a few days ago from ebay.
The problem is, the phone doesn't recognized it after I switched the battery. I had the same charging % as the previuos battery right after I changed it (even though I never charged it) and the max use time in Battery time lite is the same....
Any ideas ?
Thanks,
Nati
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had similar issues when I first got an extended battery (Seidio 2600mA). After performing the steps below, I had no problems at all. I hope it works for you.
Try a COMPLETE drain and recharge cycle, a couple times.
Run the battery down until the phone shuts itself off, restart the phone and let it run until it shuts itself off again. Repeat until it will NOT boot anymore. This will take a surprisingly longer time than you think. Load up your music player, youtube via 3G, etc... kill that thing.
Once the batter is so dead that it can't even load the splash screen for a boot charge it up, but do not turn it on. Let it charge up to full for a few hours (usually four will do it) and turn it on. If it's not at 100% yet, let it charge for a while longer. When it's at 100% take it off the charger and run it down again like before. Run it until it is totally dead.
After a couple cycles like this, you shouldn't have any problem with your phone and battery giving accurate charge status results and operating as it should.
I've read, from a few sources, that between the internal monitoring on the battery works, and the way the G1 reads the battery state, that this complete drain and recharge cycling helps to establish baselines for "empty" and "full" and keep them synchronized. If your phone has never seen an extended battery and the battery was at partial charge when inserted, it may not have been able to accurately gauge the minimum and maximum extents and give faulty readings based on prior battery data.
That could be wrong, and I don't know for sure. But, a complete drain and recharge never hurts anyway, and in my case it actually seemed to solve the problem for me.
Good luck!
-Mark

Extended Battery Problem

Please help i have bought Extended Battery 2400mAh for my HD2 but the battery is discharging same as with normal battery, the strange thing is that when i restart phone after discharging to 0% it says 66% battery again. After that i discharge again to 0% restart and again 53 but these 53 discharge very quickly.
Is there something im doing wrong?
these numbers are from WINMO or Android?...which version/ROM of WINMO?/Android?
Its from WinMo
its Artemis v42/Radio 2.15
Same Problem - suggestion ...
jirka607 said:
Its from WinMo
its Artemis v42/Radio 2.15
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hello,
I also use a HD2 now with even a 3400 maH-battery. Also I had to notice that discharge is with this battery the same as with 1230 maH-battery.
First: thank you for your tip, I now will try also to restart my HD2 before re-charging.
Second: this phenomena means at my knowledge that battery-controler has problems with recognition of used battery: so I think that HD2 thinks having still a 1230 maH-battery, even if a 3400 maH-battery is used with it.
This could be then in my eyes a software-problem (would be solvable) - or, in worst case, a hardware-problem, meaning, that battery-controler of HD2 is unable to recognize batteries stronger than 1230 maH-capacity.
If you get more knowledge about that, I would be glad if you could tell me.
Thank you very much for proceeding,
inuli
There is one tip try it :
Discharge battery till phone turn itself off than take out battery for 1minute
Put the battery back
Start the phone
discharge again till switch off
again 1 minute out
repeat till phone turn itsellf even when booting Winmo
Take battery again for 1minute out
put back batt and charge with phone turned off
when charged take battery out for 1 minute again
put battery back and start up the phone
i had this problem with my extended battery. I was curious so i opened it up and found it was two batteries stuck together.
pics here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=815231&highlight=extended+battery
I bought the official 2300mah extended battery with kickstand after reading problems with 3rd party extended batteries and the poor quality of back cover. I bought the official htc from ecell on eBay for £25.95 delivered - no problems. Somtimes it's worth paying the little extra for quality and the difference in price is not that big instead of wasting £10-15 on these 3rd party batteries...
Well maybe i will buy the official sometime but this one was fr 13USD so its bad luck but i can live with that restarting charge
it better to buy a oficial htc batery like i have one .with havy using its last about 40 h . so dont bay fake bateries.
But maybe i know how to fix it some one here at XDA talk ed about wiping battery stats maybe it will help
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=827355
Here it is
I went into the T-Mobile store and asked the guys about the extended battery the other day and here's what the guy told me. The HTC official extended battery is basically two batteries in one package, just as jjbdoggg mentioned. When the charge runs out, if you power back up you'll have access to the 2nd battery. The thing is, they don't really instruct you on how to properly charge the extended battery.
When you first buy any cell phone battery, you want to charge it 100% before using it, some even say to charge it two to four hours over 100%. With the extended battery, you have to do this twice, first on the initial charge, then again on the second battery. Otherwise you will run into discharge issues like you've mentioned where the battery will drain faster than normal. I believe this is because the batteries have charge memory built in, but I'm not positive.
Anyway, make sure that if you do end up buying one of these batteries, HTC official or not, (I bought a $15.00USD one and it works just the same, just no kick stand... but it does have a nicer battery cover.) you need to charge both batteries like this:
1.) Charge 100% + 2-4 hours more if possible
2.) Drain battery completely to switch over to second battery
3.) Charge second battery 100% + 2-4 hours more if possible
4.) Drain battery completely
5.) Repeat steps 1-4 once more and your battery should function as expected
wafflefaust said:
1.) Charge 100% + 2-4 hours more if possible
2.) Drain battery completely to switch over to second battery
3.) Charge second battery 100% + 2-4 hours more if possible
4.) Drain battery completely
5.) Repeat steps 1-4 once more and your battery should function as expected
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you i will do it properly
get the original extended battery. also the 2300mah battery from the company "leicke" is working for me. i had a cheap 2400mah chinese battery before and had the same problem.
the thing is, that these chinese batterys are faking, they are normal ones because the driver of the hd2 origininally didnt support bigger batterys in the first roms.
the chinese batterys are out of date and also the capacity is mostly a giant fake!
my battery did cost 21 euro incl shipping and is working correctly.
dont try to fix the problem with hints and tricks or calibrations, it will NOT work with the cheap batterys! i already tested it
Well thats mazbe true but i have mz from china for 13USD i have calibrated it and now it stay 2 days then i pull out and put back the battery and i have another 1,5 day
What I suggested is not a trick, this is just how the manufacturers recommend you charge your batteries. If you don't want to follow instruction and do your own thing fine, but it sounds like jirka has solved his problem.
wafflefaust said:
I went into the T-Mobile store and asked the guys about the extended battery the other day and here's what the guy told me. The HTC official extended battery is basically two batteries in one package, just as jjbdoggg mentioned. When the charge runs out, if you power back up you'll have access to the 2nd battery. The thing is, they don't really instruct you on how to properly charge the extended battery.
When you first buy any cell phone battery, you want to charge it 100% before using it, some even say to charge it two to four hours over 100%. With the extended battery, you have to do this twice, first on the initial charge, then again on the second battery. Otherwise you will run into discharge issues like you've mentioned where the battery will drain faster than normal. I believe this is because the batteries have charge memory built in, but I'm not positive.
Anyway, make sure that if you do end up buying one of these batteries, HTC official or not, (I bought a $15.00USD one and it works just the same, just no kick stand... but it does have a nicer battery cover.) you need to charge both batteries like this:
1.) Charge 100% + 2-4 hours more if possible
2.) Drain battery completely to switch over to second battery
3.) Charge second battery 100% + 2-4 hours more if possible
4.) Drain battery completely
5.) Repeat steps 1-4 once more and your battery should function as expected
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is no second battery, it is a single battery with 2 cells, soldered together in parallel giving the higher capacity.
If your phone's charging firmware is not compatible then you need to update your ROM.
What you are doing with the above is charging the battery to 50% and then charging it to 100%
xaccers said:
There is no second battery, it is a single battery with 2 cells, soldered together in parallel giving the higher capacity.
If your phone's charging firmware is not compatible then you need to update your ROM.
What you are doing with the above is charging the battery to 50% and then charging it to 100%
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do you own one of these or something? Because it doesn't sound like you have ever used one...
Yeah wafflefaust Thank you very much i have propperly charged it and its as i told up to 2 days on first part and 1-1.5day on 2nd part so Thank You
wafflefaust said:
Do you own one of these or something? Because it doesn't sound like you have ever used one...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes I do own one.
I've also been making my own custom lithium batteries out of individual cells for over 5 years, I know battery technology.
I'm not sure if you've ever used the specific batteries we're talking about however. They do ACT like two separate batteries, but are packaged as one "extended" battery. When one runs out, you can usually pull the battery for about 5-10 seconds and when you put it back in, voila 100% battery left... (that is if you know how to properly charge a battery...)
Maybe you've figured out some sort of magic trick to make these batteries drain in parallel or serial? But the way it stands, the battery that I have does not act like you're suggesting.

[Q] CM (and others?) battery meter complete screw-up

My battery never charges above ~76% when plugged in. After rebooting however, it is very much at 100% and lasts for a good amount of time. This is not necessarily a question, but I wonder if others are experiencing this too and if there is a fix? Read below.
I noticed that my battery life got very bad after installing custom roms. I also found out that this happened because I sometimes kept the phone plugged in while flashing, something that totally screws up the battery reading. So, I followed this guide to calibrate my battery and it worked.
Now, whenever the phone is plugged in it NEVER goes to 100% when charging. Maybe 80% if leaving it for a while (10 hours overnight). I'm worried about frying the battery. Is there a fix?
It is only a matter of presentation. It actually doesn't mean your batt is broken. Plug it and charge it overnight. Then discharge only for few percent and plug it back in. It should go to 100%.
Sent from my HTC Legend
Thanks, I'll give it a try.
What I'm concerned about is if the phone "thinks" the battery isn't recharged and keeps squeezing juice into it when in fact it is full (which a reboot will show)? That's not good for the battery. It should go into trickle charge after reaching 100%..
The process described in the desire forum is also known as formatting the battery. In fact most of battery manufacturers (lithium battery manufacturers) recommend doing this in a slightly different way:
Before first use:
1.) Before powering the device on, plug it in and let it charge until the LED is green (fully charged)
2.) Then take the battery out of the device and wait an hour (to make sure all the chemical processes in the battery are as idle as possible)
3.) Then plug it back in, while still off and let it charge untill green LED
4.) use the device....
You can practice this slightly modified with first step being:
Discharge the battery (by normal use)until only few percent are left (1 - 5 % are OK)
I've done these steps with my Mugen extended battery and I was getting around 4 - 5 days on Legend, now I'm getting 2 - 3 days on Desire S, but the ROM isn't very optimized yet, I believe it will be better in time...
Just one thing... Why is this in Development!?
No Idea.....
can mods move this?
BlaY0 said:
It is only a matter of presentation. It actually doesn't mean your batt is broken. Plug it and charge it overnight. Then discharge only for few percent and plug it back in. It should go to 100%.
Sent from my HTC Legend
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
sz1a did this solve your problem? Have the same problem with every firmware i've tried....
peddalion said:
sz1a did this solve your problem? Have the same problem with every firmware i've tried....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Definitely did not solve it but at least the battery performance is ok. It just stays at 78% for a few hours drops from there. Very weird but as long as the battery doesn't get broken I guess it's ok.
Do you have some 3rd party battery installed in your Legend? I have one 1,5 Ah in mine and it is acting the same way. It doesn't bother me too much coz it was cheap... it lasts 48 hrs with data always on and moderate usage. I noticed this that when I charge it overnight and it reaches 80%, unplugging it stays at 80% for several hrs and just after it starts dropping if I plug it again, meter reaches 100%. It's weird but as I said I can live with that
I've got exactly the same issue with stock 2.2 ROM. I've never rooted or CM my phone; I was wondering if CM would do it, but doesn't look like it.
android forums /htc-legend/265545-battery-doesnt-fully-charge.html
(sorry, I can't post links; maybe an admin can fix the link for me?
This seems to indicate it's a phone hardware fault and requires a new Legend to fix! My big worry is, as stated, that the charging light never goes green; therefore is pumping lots of power into a potentially full battery.

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