My HDX 7" has developed a behavior such that when plugged into charger it shows 100%. But immediately after disconnecting the charger a low battery alert is seen and then it shuts down.
Sometimes (just after that happens) it can be immediately restarted, and the battery shows 100% when it boots, and it behaves normally (gradually discharges) for a while.
Then, again, suddenly the charge will drop from from, say, 87% to 0% instantly, and the machine issues a warning and shuts down.
So I think the battery is actually OK (because it can come back and behave normally for a period, powering the unit for a reasonable time-span, even though it has previously issued the low-battery warning), but there is some sort of bad connection associated with the 'low battery' sensing. .
(I -can- work around it by keeping it permanently on the charger.)
Unit is about 4 years old.
Thanks for any thoughts, and especially if anyone has also had this behavior and been able to correct it.
skyhawk64 said:
My HDX 7" has developed a behavior such that when plugged into charger it shows 100%. But immediately after disconnecting the charger a low battery alert is seen and then it shuts down.
Sometimes (just after that happens) it can be immediately restarted, and the battery shows 100% when it boots, and it behaves normally (gradually discharges) for a while.
Then, again, suddenly the charge will drop from from, say, 87% to 0% instantly, and the machine issues a warning and shuts down.
So I think the battery is actually OK (because it can come back and behave normally for a period, powering the unit for a reasonable time-span, even though it has previously issued the low-battery warning), but there is some sort of bad connection associated with the 'low battery' sensing. .
(I -can- work around it by keeping it permanently on the charger.)
Unit is about 4 years old.
Thanks for any thoughts, and especially if anyone has also had this behavior and been able to correct it.
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Sorry for bad news - textbook symptoms of a failing Li-Ion battery. Voltage momentarily collapses and reported charge level drops dramatically (often to zero). You may be able to nurse a few more good cycles from the pack but total failure is likely not far off. Replacements are getting hard to find; cracking open an HDX without shattering the screen is a greater challenge due to copious use of glue. Your best defense is to keep the device tethered to a power source which *may* slow internal decay and eventual total shutdown due to high internal resistance. Good luck.
Related
This might be wishing the impossible but I was wondering if there any charger and/or dock on the market that will automatically cut the power when the phone is fully charged.
I know the concept is workable because I've seen a different product that works along the same principles - a trailing socket that completely cuts the power when the load drops.
This could be adapted to suit a phone charger so that when it drops to a trickle, the charger cuts the power completely.
I know it's probably unnecessary but the reason I'm asking is that I know it's not advisable to leave your phone on charge overnight but given how easily the HD chews it way through batteries, having to do so is bound to prove inevitable at some point and I'd like to avoid having to switch off my handset when it does happen (after all, what's the point in having a phone if you can't be contacted on it?).
I suppose the alternative is some sort of program that chimes when the handset is fully charged, so that I'd be woken up and can take it off but I'd rather have a good night's sleep
Step666 said:
I know it's not advisable to leave your phone on charge overnight
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Click to collapse
Why do you think that?
Surely the charging circuit is controlled by the handset, and it stops feeding power to the battery when it is fully charged...
Two parts.
Firstly, whilst there is a charge control circuit in the handset, that's all well and good whilst the handset is off but not so good if it's left on.
If the phone is off, it will charge 'til full then drop to a trickle charge to stay there without damaging the battery. If it's on, it will do the same thing, except when the phone checks in with the network or does anything else that uses the battery, the charge level will drop, the charger will ramp up to full power, hit maximum, drop back down to a trickle and so on - it's just not as good for the battery over time.
Secondly, it's better for the environment.
Since I first posted this, Carphone Warehouse in the UK has released a range of 'eco-chargers' for Nokia, SE and Samsung phones that cut out when the load drops (ie when the phone reaches full charge) and will stay off until the user presses a button on the wall plug.
It's a good idea, if a somewhat-impractical design. Placing the button on the wall plug is a bit stupid IMO.
I was actually using a Motorola wall charger at work recently and it seems it has the same function built-in.
When I checked to see if it was fully-charged, my HD wasn't showing as being connected to a charger, it was just showing a full battery. At first I thought it had been un-plugged it switched off by a colleague but when I checked, it wasn't. So I disconnected the phone and re-connected it and the charger symbol appeared in the bar at the top of the screen but, lo-and-behold, a few minutes later the same thing had happened.
Surely chargers these days are intelligent enough to drop to virtually zero output once the battery has charged and then only supply sufficient to maintain that charge.
It's not like leaving the tap on in the bathtub running overnight and flooding the bathroom.
The vast majority of chargers are capable of trickle charging but I already addressed that in my last post.
I know for a fact that my battery level is incorrect. It's a 2500mAh battery, and yet after a couple minutes of heavy use, the battery level will drop to zero and the device will shut itself off.
Weirdly enough, I have this same issue with my MacBook, and I've figured out (at least on the MacBook) what the problem is: the machine isn't calculating the remaining time/percent correctly. If I don't use it to do power-instensive tasks, it will be fine up until the battery truly drains. But if I run, say, high-graphics video games, it will detect the battery's getting used very quickly, somewhere along the line it will freak out thinking that this battery drain is leaving it with seconds to spare, and will shut down. If I press the power button to start up, it won't, only displaying the 'out of battery' symbol on the screen. But, in actuality, there's usually about 30-50% battery left in there. How do I know? If I apply the charger for a bit, even for two seconds and then detaching, forcing the machine to recalculate the remaining battery, it will turn back on and have 30-50% left for me to use.
Here's the thing, though: with my phone, I usually don't have anywhere to charge it. So I'll unplug it in the morning to last me all day, hop on a bus to explore the city, forget about this issue and launch a graphics-intensive game, and then only realise what I've done four or five minutes later when it shuts down on me, thinking the battery's completely depleted.
So here's my question: How can I force the phone to ignore the battery level, and keep sucking juice from it whilst there's juice to be had? I know, I know, it shuts down for my own good, to make sure it has enough battery so that it can power back on again later. But right now, this usually-useful feature is rendering my phone virtually useless. Any advice?
Thanks.
This is a defect I have observed all the way from Android 1.6 to Android 5.1.1, and I cannot understand how it can still be there without ever getting repaired.
The problem is that the battery indicator shows a positive number, for example, 8%, although the battery is actually at 1% and the phone will shut down any moment now.
This alone would be bad enough, but it gets worse. After the phone shuts down on its own, either due to an immediate, disorderly power cut or by performing an orderly Android shutdown, Android should have registered the obvious, namely that the battery is empty.
However, it does not. When I connect the charger and start Android, it still shows 8% charge. I have just tested this again three times in a row with at least one orderly shutdown on my latest phone, a OnePlus One running CyanogenMod 12.1, and it never went below 8%.
How can this be? How difficult is it to program that after a shutdown due to an empty battery and a restart one minute later the battery is indeed empty? It is not physically possible to charge a battery from 0 to 8% in a minute. It would explode if you tried.
Do the charging electronics not store and provide information at least about the very recent charging history? And can the phone not evaluate the battery voltage, which it measures? At least when there is no load on the battery for a little while, its voltage and its temperature allow to determine precisely whether the battery is empty. Why does the phone not do that?
Needless to say, this defect is damaging. To know how soon the phone is going to shut down is one of the most crucial bits of information for every phone user. To show the user 8% while already shutting down is beyond stupid, it is derisive.
I have something in my head that I call the idiot bells. They ring when I notice idiocy in my surroundings. And whenever I see the phenomenon described above, they ring loudly.
Can anyboy who really knows how Android and the charge electronics work explain what is happening? Or is it just the ordinary idiocy that we have to keep living with?
Do not suck nonsense replies from your fingers. If you don't know anything reliably and in detail, keep quiet.
Phone is a ANS UL40 running 7.1.1
Battery will randomly go from partial charge to 0%.
This just started happening after having the phone about 6 months.
If I leave the phone unplugged overnight, it will be dead by morning (this is a new thing, it holds a charge pretty well). Doesn't have to be overnight either, could be just a half hour or something. The battery just dies randomly.
Even if I do have the phone plugged in and have the screen on (watching a youtube stream) it will randomly go to 0% and self shutdown.
Stock battery which seems to be stuck inside the phone. It doesn't seem to come out, I don't know if it's glued in or what.
ANS branded 3.8v 1700mAh 6.46Wh part # UL40BATT limited charge voltage: 4.35v
Printed: "Warning: This battery is built-in and is not removable"
boogersugar said:
Phone is a ANS UL40 running 7.1.1
Battery will randomly go from partial charge to 0%.
This just started happening after having the phone about 6 months.
If I leave the phone unplugged overnight, it will be dead by morning (this is a new thing, it holds a charge pretty well). Doesn't have to be overnight either, could be just a half hour or something. The battery just dies randomly.
Even if I do have the phone plugged in and have the screen on (watching a youtube stream) it will randomly go to 0% and self shutdown.
Stock battery which seems to be stuck inside the phone. It doesn't seem to come out, I don't know if it's glued in or what.
ANS branded 3.8v 1700mAh 6.46Wh part # UL40BATT limited charge voltage: 4.35v
Printed: "Warning: This battery is built-in and is not removable"
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Its actually removable -
I have the same issue with mine and I just received it as a replacement phone about 3 months ago. If anyone has a clue as to what to do please share. Been to all the blog pages and customer pages related to this model and it seems to be a recurring issue and so is overheating and a dozen other things. What the point in having Lifeline when all the phones that they give or sell don't work.
And I thought it was just me. Needing a lifeline phone seems to mean we get the worst of the worst devices. I had to pay extra for the UL40 because the "free" phone was useless. The UL40 is near useless, and this battery issue makes it unreliable.
i have the UL40 and requested a replacement phone (because of unsustainable malware issues that survived a factory reset) and the L50 they sent me had this issue. i couldn't find a solution and had to request another replacement.
oddly, i occasionally experienced an apparent battery discharge (phone powers off, needs to be connected to power to boot up again) but when it powered back on the battery was at ~65%, clearly plenty of power.
my completely uneducated guess is that the battery terminals in some of these phones are loose, either causing the battery to discharge completely or simply disconnect momentarily, resulting in the phone losing power.
Got this device around a week ago and I'm finally daily driving it. I've noticed a big issue though... I can't charge the device past 80% when its turned on. It stops itself from charging it seems like. I have to turn off the phone completely, and plug it in when powered off to get it to 100%.
Is there a setting I have checked or something? maybe a Kernel Tweak I don't know about that could be causing this that I could change/reverse/modify?
Thanks!
KaptinBoxxi said:
Got this device around a week ago and I'm finally daily driving it. I've noticed a big issue though... I can't charge the device past 80% when its turned on. It stops itself from charging it seems like. I have to turn off the phone completely, and plug it in when powered off to get it to 100%.
Is there a setting I have checked or something? maybe a Kernel Tweak I don't know about that could be causing this that I could change/reverse/modify?
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Turn off optimized charging.
ohhhhhhh. Epic. Thanks
It's not a good idea to charge with screen on especially in high temperatures or in direct sunlight. You can cause hardware damage like this... auto thermal shutdown may not engage fast enough to save the device.
In general charging while using skews the charging curve, increases charging time and battery stress. These phones have a fixed heat sinking capacity which cases and glass screen protectors further compromise.
Constant operation with battery levels near 100% will impact battery longevity noticably.
Keep watch for any signs of case bulging. It indicates battery swelling/failure. Replace it immediately if this happens. Other signs of a battery failure are a sharp drop in capacity, erratic fast charging or failure of fast charging to engage. A swollen battery can destroy the display.
The risk of a thermal runaway event increases exponentially with a failed or degraded Li.
Replace them when their capacity falls below 80% of new to avoid a failure.
blackhawk said:
It's not a good idea to charge with screen on especially in high temperatures or in direct sunlight. You can cause hardware damage like this... auto thermal shutdown may not engage fast enough to save the device.
In general charging while using skews the charging curve, increases charging time and battery stress. These phones have a fixed heat sinking capacity which cases and glass screen protectors further compromise.
Constant operation with battery levels near 100% will impact battery longevity noticably.
Keep watch for any signs of case bulging. It indicates battery swelling/failure. Replace it immediately if this happens. Other signs of a battery failure are a sharp drop in capacity, erratic fast charging or failure of fast charging to engage. A swollen battery can destroy the display.
The risk of a thermal runaway event increases exponentially with a failed or degraded Li.
Replace them when their capacity falls below 80% of new to avoid a failure.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
99.9% of the time I'm charging, the screen is off and I'm watching tv before bed. I'll unplug at 100% and go to bed. I also won't plug in until I'm under 15%.
I work in cell phone whole sale and repairs, so one thing I understand well is taking care of a device.
But, disabling that setting recommended above, it still stops charging at 75% entirely and never goes to 100 unless I turn it off entirely
KaptinBoxxi said:
99.9% of the time I'm charging, the screen is off and I'm watching tv before bed. I'll unplug at 100% and go to bed. I also won't plug in until I'm under 15%.
I work in cell phone whole sale and repairs, so one thing I understand well is taking care of a device.
But, disabling that setting recommended above, it still stops charging at 75% entirely and never goes to 100 unless I turn it off entirely
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Click to collapse
If the screen is on it may not charge at all.
This is normal.
Cycling the battery like you do stresses it and will reduce its lifespan.
Li's like frequent mid range power cycling.
Not under 30% or over 80%
If it didn't use to behave like this the battery may have degraded. 1-2 years is a typical lifespan for a heavily used Li. Approximately 200 full charge cycles.
Replace when it degrades to less than 80% of its original capacity to avoid a failure.
This phone has only been out since January 2021, so its not a batter degrade issue. Plus, it was pulled brand new out of the box like this. You also didn't read what I said. I'm not using it while charging at all. Its sitting on a table next to me while I'm watching tv or gaming on my PC/Switch. I'll check it once in awhile to see battery percentage and it will stop at 75%, then discharge as if its not plugged in at all. I have to turn the phone OFF COMPLETELY to charge it to 100% once I get to 75%
I'm assuming software issue. when I had GSI roms on the phone, it worked fine.
KaptinBoxxi said:
This phone has only been out since January 2021, so its not a batter degrade issue. Plus, it was pulled brand new out of the box like this. You also didn't read what I said. I'm not using it while charging at all. Its sitting on a table next to me while I'm watching tv or gaming on my PC/Switch. I'll check it once in awhile to see battery percentage and it will stop at 75%, then discharge as if its not plugged in at all. I have to turn the phone OFF COMPLETELY to charge it to 100% once I get to 75%
I'm assuming software issue. when I had GSI roms on the phone, it worked fine.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Li batteries can fail at any time.
Symptoms; diminished battery capacity, erratic fast charging. Any signs of phone swelling, usually the rear cover is a battery failure in progress. Replace immediately.
If the phone is drawing more current than the charger and/or the power controller can supply, it will drain the battery.
It may be a software, firmware or hardware issue...
Check all settings, disable all power management. Enable fast charging (toggle on/off 3 times then leave on).
Clear system cache and do a hard reboot.
Return associated updated apps to their factory loads.
If you did any major firmware (OS) updates do a factory reset.
A defective/improper charger or cable; try known good Samsung charger/cable.
Defective C port PCB.
A failed mobo.
Time to send it in for service or replacement.
blackhawk said:
Li batteries can fail at any time.
Symptoms; diminished battery capacity, erratic fast charging. Any signs of phone swelling, usually the rear cover is a battery failure in progress. Replace immediately.
If the phone is drawing more current than the charger and/or the power controller can supply, it will drain the battery.
It may be a software, firmware or hardware issue...
Check all settings, disable all power management. Enable fast charging (toggle on/off 3 times then leave on).
Clear system cache and do a hard reboot.
Return associated updated apps to their factory loads.
If you did any major firmware (OS) updates do a factory reset.
A defective/improper charger or cable; try known good Samsung charger/cable.
Defective C port PCB.
A failed mobo.
Time to send it in for service or replacement.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's a standard OnePlus feature at work.