[Q] Phone reboots itself, then battery low - Galaxy S III Mini Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Hi all,
I've been having this problem:
The phone is charged, around 80%.
Suddenly, it reboots. There isn't a specific action that causes it to reboot, neither a message of any kind.
When it's done rebooting, the battery is lower by at least 50%, and usually it's around 5% or less.
Then it reboots again within a minute and continues until no battery is left.
Ways to temporarily solve it, so far:
connect to a charger and charge from 5%. It never rebooted while charging.
-or-
Take out the battery and turn it on only when connected to a charger. This way the battery is back to 80% or how much it was before the 1st reboot.
Ways I've tried to solve the problem permanently and didn't work (some solutions I found and tried)
Factory reset.
Putting a piece of paper between the battery and the back panel, in case the battery is loose.
Had the phone and battery connectors tested- no result
Installed an app that tells me what is the battery health- it's healthy.
Tried to understand if it happens only when phone is hot, cpu high, etc- found no pattern.
My phone has 4.1.2, unrooted.
Did this happen to anyone? any other ideas?

Put the battery on a flat surface and see if it wobbles.
Sounds like it got swollen, so it's time to get a new battery.

Same here, found a solution yet?
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda app-developers app

Related

[Q] Low-Battery Boot-Loop

Hey,
I just installed CyanogenMod 7 on my milestone using openrecovery. Everything was working perfectly, but the battery was draining like there's no tomorrow.
Started at 50% when I first booted, I downloaded a couple of apps from the Market, and went down to 20% (in the space of about 10 minutes). So I plugged in the phone charger (USB into back of my computer), and then while configuring settings, battery went to 4% (it was checking in 1% increments, which I have since found out that drains the battery). The phone then died. So, the phone was using WAAAAAY more power than the USB port could supply. Anyway, thought I'd let it charge for a while, then go back into the settings, and remove the 1% increments, to try and get normal battery life.
The phone recharges, and automatically reboots. Its still on 4%, but I went in, turned off the 1% increments. Phone dies again.
Charges about 10 minutes, reboots itself again. During this period, I did some research, and found that the battery draining can be caused by excessive CPU usage, resulting in the screen staying on even when it's off (?).
But, alas, no luck. I don't have enough battery to flash the stock SBF.
All I really want is:
a) a way to just have the thing charge without turning itself on, and
b) a workaround to get at least half-decent battery on CM.
Thanks,
David.
[Disclaimer: not guaranteed to work, I don't take responsibility for anything you do your phone!]
Try deleting your /data/system/batterystats.bin before trying this procedure out. You can use an app like Root Explorer to do this. If you're unable to, proceed with bump charging.
Try bump charging:
1. Remove battery, put it back in after a good 2-3 minutes and connect phone to a wall charger. Make sure the phone is still switched off while it's charging.
2. After it finishes charging completely (green LED), let the charger be switched on and connected - remove the battery alone (without switching off charging).
3. After a few seconds, you will see a "?" on your screen, after which you insert the battery back in (while charger is still switched on).
4. Wait till charging completes again (green LED).
5. Plug out charger, wait for 2-3 minutes and plug charger back in and start charging again. It should now be fully charged.
6. Turn phone on while charging, after booting into CM, try OC'ing it to 800MHz interactive governor, apply settings on boot and restart your phone.
Hope this fixes your problem. Good luck!
Anyone can feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
rampee said:
[Disclaimer: not guaranteed to work, I don't take responsibility for anything you do your phone!]
Try deleting your /data/system/batterystats.bin before trying this procedure out. You can use an app like Root Explorer to do this. If you're unable to, proceed with bump charging.
...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had the same problem some time ago and tried all this to no avail. I even changed to froyomod for some time, but CM7 is far superior so I just came back to it. The problem happened again this morning just after using google maps. I then rebooted and uninstalled all google maps updates. Seems to be working o far.
hey, yeah, just one problem with that - i can't boot into android for longer than about 3 seconds, and now there is no way to revert, as the bootloader says Battery Low.
Can't you boot into recovery, flash another rom and then reboot into android?
Don't charge from usb, use wall charger. That way, the system will boot only to charge-only screen, android system itself not running.
Hey, kabaldan, I found that out.
Charged 100% using the bump method instructed above. Battery life is still worse than useless, 50% in about a half hour.
will performing those other steps help?
Can you try another fully charged Milestone/Droid battery?
If that doesn't work it might be a problem with your phone's hardware. I know it might be a long shot, try cleaning your phone's and your battery's leads (connectors) if they might've accumulated rust/dust or something. Not sure.
Don't know if this is a similar problem but mine goes down in % pretty fast too but then it can stay for 1% for half a day
No, mine definitely dies. At around 5%, although I did turn off the 1% increments, because I heard they guzzled battery.
The battery life is getting progressively better, but as soon as I use 3G, or open any half-decent games, it drops to about 40% in ~.00001 seconds.
Although, to be fair, I didn't get great battery life on stock rom, either. And my ram always seem chokkas. Like usually only have about 50mb, and I'm not running anything too hectic.
Unfortunately, I think I'll get the Samsung Epic as soon as they bring out the GSM version. I just want an android phone with an unlocked bootloader, insanely large screen, and hardware keyboard, not to mention ~20 days battery life. Is that too much to ask?

battery acting weird

hey everyone my sister has a milestone and she is having trouble with the phone battery. she says that she fully changes the phone and then at any point, the phone shows the sign that the battery is discharged and then reboots... then the battery shows the charge again, I tried moving from stock to cyanogen which took the problem away for some days but today it happened again. what can it be help!
hmm. i dunno. anyone?
the weird thing is that she just got it back from warranty... the screen was not working
Sounds like a battery problem. I once had my phone show 1% battery-level for like 7 hours (!) before it shut down. Some other time it would show 100% even though it just had been charged for minutes (starting at 5%). I fixed both issues by recalibrating the battery (search the forum, there's lots of info, most OR even have a script for that). I also leave the phone connected to the charger a couple of hours longer even after it says it's fully charged.
But if the phone actually reboots even though the battery has been fully charged, it really sounds like a hardware problem.
try a new battery
Before buying new batteries, just try calibration.
For me, the mentioned case of shutting down with a so-called empty battery was happening only with a stock 2.1.
Since then this issue never occurred again. So a faulty battery is not necessarily the first answer.

(Not) Brick - Didn't Calibrate Battery After ROM

Right off the bat, my Revo is non-responsive, no buttons will light, backlight, vibration, sound, and of course no splash screen since the screen isn't lighting. The only sense that it is partly there is after a time connected to USB/wall charger the battery warms as if it is charging. Yet, there is no indication during charge on the screen, it stays totally black as described above.
I have been poring over forum posts, CWR threads, and the like, but have come up short on a method of reviving this puppy. thecubed had posted something that seemed promising but doesn't work for me here. At all steps, the phone remains non-responsive and connecting it to the PC yields no mass storage connection. The only step I have abbreviated is letting it charge for an hour since the phone had charged about four hours since it shut down.
Two evenings ago, I flashed from Revolt ROM 1.0 to 1.1. It was successful but since I had just gone through battery calibration and running my battery down until the phone shut down the day before when I flashed it to 1.0, I was hoping (naive?) that I wouldn't have to do it this time (yes, naive!). So, I left the phone on all night, on the wall charger.
I was using it the next day and at one point, while using it in a low reception area, browsing the web, it rebooted on me. No biggie, had that happen in the past. After reboot however, the battery level seemed different so I wanted to get it topped off then calibrate. 1-2 hours later I noticed that the calibration app was showing the mV lower and capacity was at 70%. The battery felt unusually hot. I shut it down, removed the battery and cooled both battery and phone in a small fridge to accelerate the process (was near time to leave work).
Next boot was I recall having an extra FC, one beside the CarHome normal FC with Revolt ROM 1.1. This boot the battery showed maybe 20% capacity so I said "screw it" and deleted battery.bin with the battery calibration app (I recall the mV was low, in the 3600 range). I discharged it on the way home and left the display on to run the last couple percent down. It appeared to try and shutdown but ended abruptly. That was the last time I saw any life from my Revo.
The day after its first and only ever root, I did have an odd occurrence which I posted.
Boot Trouble - Rooted After Phone Downloaded OTA, Not Installed
That time, I had not installed a ROM yet but the phone got itself into a boot up funk. Removing the battery, connecting to wall charger, watching buttons flash ~5 times, disconnecting (which stopped the flashing lights), then battery in, power on... success! I was hoping that would happen this time around but I haven't been able to.
Full history, being my first root, I used S1C successfully, installed Titanium Backup (ran system and app backup), and RevoToolkit. The phone did download the OTA but I never let it install, instead selecting to delay it by 24hrs when it asked to install. Fearing that deadline and getting one more warning that it wanted to reboot and install the OTA, I went ahead and installed the Revolt ROM 1.0. All went fine, no drama. The next afternoon I thought going to 1.1 was going well too, until this brick hit me.
My hope of hopes is it's just a bad battery and the phone won't respond because the mV is too low. Reading thecubed's comment in his first link (above) how recoverable this phone is lends me hope.
It sounds like a bad battery. I would take it to a verizon store and see if you can try a different battery. If it still will not boot then they should warranty it out for you.
Sent from my VS910 4G using XDA Premium App
P.s. I never do anything for my battery. I charge until full then use until empty. Yesterday with moderate tI heavy use I made it from 6am until 8:30 pm
Sent from my VS910 4G using XDA Premium App
Thanks for the responses. I will be going to VZW shortly to figure this out. This phone is maybe two months old so hopefully the battery is the answer *fingers crossed*
Impressive battery life! At my office, I'm in a bit of a metal cubicle area and a bit low on signal strength. My phones will sometimes use up the battery trying to keep connected, it seems, so I am usually plugged in most of the time.
While I have your ear, thanks for the great work on Revolt ROM. I am very happy with it and look forward to its future development
Good news and bad.
The good news was they swapped in a new battery and the phone worked. Having the warranty, it didn't cost anything.
The bad news is that it looks like there may be another problem. On the way out of the store the battery was indicating 1% so I quickly got it on the charger in the car. Driving home, about 10 minutes later, I got a warning for battery temperature. Thinking the low battery may just be taking a charge and getting hot from that, I turned the car A/C on full, took the back cover off, and kept the phone in the cold air.
In about two minutes, just feet from home, I noticed the display was off. Faintly I could see the battery charge symbol that shows when the phone is powered down and charging, but the backlight was off and I couldn't see if there was any color or animation to it.
As soon as I shut the car off and the power quit, that faint display disappeared, full black, dead. Now it seems it is behaving exactly the same. I haven't fiddled with it much, holding out hope of hopes it can be started and maybe recovered.
Could calibrating the battery at the wrong time have caused something like this? Do batteries have a safety lockout if they overheat? To be fair, I was running an intensive app at the time, Waze GPS. Maybe the battery didn't keep up and the phone decided it was too low and shut off. I will post back after letting it sit, cool, hopefully charge, and see what comes of it.
My phone is behaving exactly the way you describe too. A couple of days with Revolt 1.1, and this is the only problem. I had my phone hooked to a lithium ion usb battery pack all day, and it showed "100%" while hooked up, but as soon as I disconnected the battery pack, the battery icon changed to red, then it refused to boot like the situation described in the Revolt 1.1 thread in Development. It also would not go into charge mode on the battery pack, but when I came home and hooked it to a genuine AC adapter and it went into power-off charge display. I'm going to give it a few hours on the charger before I attempt to boot it again, and I'll report back.
Still no luck. I haven't charged it too much yet for fear that it isn't charging properly. Seeing the new battery work for about 20 minutes yesterday lent me hope that if I figure out how to get a fresh battery in or just shell out for another new one, I can have a window of opportunity to change ROMs and see if that has anything to do with it.
This morning I got out my digital multimeter to measure the battery pos to neg and am getting nothing (unless you consider 0.01v something). I tested my old LG clamshell's bulging, old, and damaged 1000mAh battery and it reads 3.99v but couldn't keep my old phone up (lacks oomph now).
Comparing that battery to the Revo's, they have the same four contact pattern but different connection scheme which just stops contact when test fitting. After shaving down its casing on the bottom a little bit, it was just enough to make contact. Using four hands (yes, I am very talented ) to hold the phone, hold the test battery properly, and hold the power button, I was able to get the power-up vibration and the first LG splash screen. We lost it after that but that's likely due to the very weak test battery and/or losing contact while holding it in the Revo.
Since the spankin' brand-new battery is now reading zero, I'm left second guessing my decision of not shutting the phone down when I got the temperature warning. Maybe these batteries do have an internal protection to prevent runaway failure and it too is trash. I have no experience with this otherwise so this is just guesswork.
I'm contemplating rigging the new battery into my old LG phone to see if it can tell it "all clear" and charge it up. I'll post anything I find out here. Any other suggestions are highly welcome. Still, last ditch, I'm pretty certain I can set up another ROM to flash on the SD ahead of time, get another battery, and Clockwork to test another ROM if it's the phone or ROM. I may have had 20 minutes of uptime on the last battery.
I think I've gotten to the bottom of my problem. It's a syndrome of things that I have hopefully untangled.
First off, I had been messing with Power Manager, and wanted the phone to not sleep or timeout the display when plugged into both AC and USB. I figured that would help when I'm plugged into the computer, but it was probably a bad choice.
Yesterday I was out on a boat, which probably put me into a weak signal area, causing the phone to expend extra energy staying locked on a tower. In addition, I had plugged it into the external USB power pack, and thrown them in a bag together. This did two very bad things: 1) It allowed heat to build up from both the charging and 2) it invoked the "USB powered" Power Manager profile which kept the display active which created both additional heat AND crazy battery drain.
Here's what I think happened:
1. The battery overheated
2. The USB battery pack couldn't charge as fast as the display and radio could suck it out -- so five hours in that mode BOTH drained the internal battery AND tapped into about 30% of the external battery pack.
3. The USB battery pack will not provide enough initial juice to restart a flat-dead, overheated phone, or the firmware "knows" it is hooked to USB and refuses to start the phone -- for some bizarre reason.
So, I think my phone demonstrated normal behavior for a flat-dead, overheated phone, and hooking it up to AC brought it right back to life -- after about 5 hours of continuous charging. The battery also got very warm during charging -- more than I recall feeling ever in the past.
I'm hoping there is nothing that software power management could have done to physically damage the battery, but I assume Verizon would claim it could -- as part of the reason they forbid system modifications, and therefore withdraw their warranty if you modify.
At this point I think I have dodge a bullet, and my phone is fine -- other than a few of the quirks others are seeing in Revolt 1.1 (Phone occasionally FC, etc.)
Good to hear your phone is fine. Seems like mine is too as posted above but time will tell. I got the Revo battery set up and charging on my old phone. It seems to be connected well enough. The phone complained the first try that there was no battery but my second try has it displaying that it is charging. The battery isn't warm at all but maybe that's due to a different charging rate for the old phone's 1000mAh battery vs. the Revo's 1500mAh. Or, it really isn't connected perfectly. We shall see.
Success. The surrogate charge setup got the Revo battery up to 4.11v and indicated charge complete. The Revo completed a full boot on the battery and appeared normal.
Not normal was quick heating (still unsure of the cause). Going straight to Battery Calibrator, it indicated 68% and around 3.7v and falling. Not wanting to push my luck, I shut it down. Battery now read 3.9v. Not bad but it sure seems to be getting drained quickly which would explain all the heat. Going to set up later and see if I can get it back to stock and see if the behavior persists.
I don't know how to fix any of your issues but I would like to say thanks for giving such a detailed display of what you've been doing to fix this problem should anyone else run into this issue. Also, That picture in you one post: That is the most jerry rigged set-up to charge a phone I have ever seen in my life and I love it. Good luck getting your phone working I hope everything turns out for the best.
You're welcome. It was a bit of impromptu brainstorming with some fellow tinkerers that helped come up with a way to test charge the battery. Having it come back to life
I've come to a conclusion. Somehow, I think when the battery overheats, it must internally soft protect itself. Charging it on the old phone reset it and then it worked again on the Revo. Why the old phone works and not the Revo, unsure. That would at least explain why the battery tested at zero volts before the charging rig.
After many starts and stops on my Revo now, I have found that what was heating up first was the casing of the phone. I'm guessing heat conduction of heat from the processor as it wasn't the display which was set to minimum brightness (those are the main heat sources, right?). Looking into Settings > About > Battery Stats, it only showed Android System at 98%. It seems like the processor got locked into some some high power continuous use situation which survived reboots.
The battery gets hot later due to the high consumption and proximity to the hot casing (processor), especially with the back on. Withing 1-2 minutes from start, the sides of the phone would be quite warm and after 5 minutes becomes concerning. It seems that's why the battery was never able to get to 100%, but instead its percentage was always falling, phone over consuming greater than charge rate.
With the processor going full tilt, battery cover on, protective case on phone, sitting in a warm car without A/C, that got the battery too hot within 20 minutes. It was a similar situation with the prior battery when the problem cropped up.
I don't know what the cause of this predicament was in the first place however. The phone was plain stock, then rooted, later flashed Revolt 1.0, then Revolt 1.1. Between Titanium Backup, RevoToolkit for CWM, basically nothing unusual, I have no idea how it happened. Maybe I should have done Decrap first since I've read others doing such. Thinking back to my first post/thread, I had a boot issue and only had rooted, Titanium, and RevoToolkit, no ROMs yet.
And, don't get me wrong. I'm not placing blame anywhere, just documenting my "progress." There was a time I was on Revolt where it wasn't behaving this way. I am left without a solid conclusion as to the cause.
How to avoid the battery drain?
I had a similar situation, downgraded and then installed Revolt 1.3. Can't say what did it, but the battery got hot and drained so far it would even start charging.
I got the battery charged on the old phone, and the new one, with Revolt 1.3 is working. But I'm not sure how to make sure the overheating/draining problem doesn't occur again. After 10 minutes the phone is starting to get hot again, battery is down to 57%. With the phone on or off, it does not charge the battery, even with an AC wall charger. With the phone on, it indicates 57% charge, with the phone off, the battery icon just sits at red, no charging is happening. I erased the battery stats in ClockworkMod, but is there anything else to do? Any other ideas?
It sounds like Haxid had it happen and he got back to LG stock and unrooted, all good.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1233668
Mine happened again this time totally dead battery. Trying to get some charge in it now to boot and remove cwm so I can take it to verizon.
Decrap 1.0 rom this time w/ CWM
I do not believe it is the rom. It has to be an app or hardware.
Were you having spontaneous reboots? That's when it happened to me, after a spontaneous reboot.
Good luck. Hope it all works out.
Bait-Fish said:
Were you having spontaneous reboots? That's when it happened to me, after a spontaneous reboot.
Good luck. Hope it all works out.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No my phone is actually super stable it just is sucking battery like its candy. Been off charger only 1 hour right now and its down to 83%. It has to be an app doing it but I have no idea which one. The phone shows 64% battery usage by android system.
When mine was hogging battery, same here. All I saw was Android process.
just to add my 2 cents here. I noticed my phone draining like crazy, I tried everything, then I changed the battery. boom. everything is now stable. I'm going to try to exchange that battery I think its my drain and reboot culprit.

[Q] Battery faulty?

Hi,
My battery life/indicator has been behaving very strangely since yesterday, so I'm wondering if the battery is dying. I know about battery calibration, and attempting it hasn't solved anything. I haven't flashed any firmware recently.
When I plug in the charger while on, it almost immediately tells me it's 100% charged, but the number displayed will still be something low, like 50ish. When I unplug it, the number stays. It drops extremely quickly, to around 1-2%, then 0% and turns itself off. After turning it on again, it may rise to 10%, but drop again to 0% shortly thereafter. After a couple of times of turning it back on, it will refuse to turn on. Charging only seems to work when phone is off, but even then the charge won't last much more than a couple of hours of idling - no calls, no web, nothing.
I've tried charging to full while phone is off (drained), and removing battery stats via cwm before booting up. Doesn't help.
Is my battery faulty? It's a very sudden problem, and my battery has been lasting me for days before this happened
So, I got a new battery. The problem persists. I've tried a factory reset/wiping battery stats, but it's still that way. Could this be a hardware problem somehow?
Any advice is greatly appreciated!!
Which fimware are you on? In your case I'd go back to a stock firmware from samfirmware.com and test once again. If the problem persits, you likely have a hardware issue and I'd have it swapped for a new phone whilst within warranty.
BTW: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=21612299
I'm using tweaky rom, JVS. I'm not too sure what the local firmware is (Singapore), the one I had before I switched to custom was 2.1, and I don't feel too safe flashing bootloaders when the phone is prone to turning off...
nwsk said:
[…] I don't feel too safe flashing bootloaders when the phone is prone to turning off...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yeah, you are absolutely right. Have you tried betterbatterystats? ( http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1179809 ) It will show you wakelocks when your phone should be idling.
Did it help ?
Mate, out of curiosity I was wondering if your issue got resolved.
Also, you should check what is draining off your battery.
I tried reading elsewhere and found "Battery Monitor Widget" could be useful for you to identify this.
Nope, still same problem. It's not a wakelock issue, because the battery dies /so/ fast. I can literally charge it to 100%, unplug the charger, and in 30 seconds it says 0% and turns itself off. The phone itself isn't running hot or anything, and seems to be just idling. [Edit: To clarify, it also charges to 100% in about 10 minutes or so. I'm guessing that for some reason the phone thinks the battery is 'full' and stops charging, leading to the quick drop. I've no idea what could cause this though]
I'm hoping that maybe it's a software issue now since the new battery isn't working either (the battery is probably a fake since i got it for cheap, but even then it should last at least a few hours before draining), and that the phone is confused with battery voltage levels or something when I put the new one in.
Anyway, I flashed JVU stock, didn't even root, and will be charging the new battery overnight while phone is off. It says 100%, but gonna leave it on charger anyway. Hopefully if I wake up tomorrow it'll be working :/
If that doesn't work, will be flashing DXJV9 (My original firmware was dxj4), and hope that it's the official one here. Then bring it to a service center and act dumb and hope they can fix it i guess...
Service center replaced motherboard. There goes a hundred bucks :/

Battery drain and charge problem

Hello, I have a problem with my Galaxy S Advance; I reinstall the system with Pure Vanilla ROM (I had JellyMod before) and now I have getting problems with battery.
When I charge the phone when it is awake, it won't charge, the only way to charge it is to turn the phone off so it begin to charge, and then I'm able to turn on the phone with the cable plugged in. But when I unplug it when the charge is over, the icon on the phone is stuck to 100%, it only shows the real battery amount left when I restart it.
Besides, now my battery drains really fast, during the night, it can drains to 40 to 0% in 8 hours.
Does someone knows what the problem is?
Try battery caliberation
I will sugest another rom like harsh jelly with cocore.
Sent from my GT-I9070 using xda app-developers app
You could try to take your battery out to see if something is wrong
Or, after all the options above didn't help to solve the problem, then you should consider changing your battery
I tried battery calibration, but no results. And I already took the battery out, but nothing more happens.
But I noticed that with Better Battery Stats there's a process that is always awake in the kernel wakelock section, "ab8500_charger_attached_lock". Could this be the problem?
No one knows if I can delete the "ab8500_charger_attached_lock", and if there is a way?
Well, I found the solution, if anybody has this problem; the usb connecter was the cause: the metallic part in the center seemed close to one other and even when the phone wasn't charging, it made it think like it was. So I just took a knife and straightened it up and now everything is back to normal.
max355 said:
Well, I found the solution, if anybody has this problem; the usb connecter was the cause: the metallic part in the center seemed close to one other and even when the phone wasn't charging, it made it think like it was. So I just took a knife and straightened it up and now everything is back to normal.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You are my Savior!!for a week my phone has been broken,i wanted to repair at repair shop
but i saw your method and it works!!

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