Sudden battery issues

**TurboFool** · #1 (**permalink**) 07-12-2008, 12:57 PM

Last two nights in a row I've woken up to my battery at around 80% instead of fully-charged, despite a full night of being plugged in. Just now it was at 81% and worked its way down to 79% while I watched. I finally pulled the battery, then started it back up again. After about five minutes I'm now down to 73%.

Anyone experience anything like this or have any thoughts?

**cornelious2** · #2 (**permalink**) 07-12-2008, 01:31 PM

did you drop your phone recently? whats your free memory at?

dallas contractor · #3 (**permalink**) 07-12-2008, 01:37 PM

Maybe you battery has run its course and is dying?

**TurboFool** · #4 (**permalink**) 07-12-2008, 01:54 PM

Phone hasn't been dropped. Battery's the Seidio 3200MaH battery and it's only about six months old.

The battery's held strong at 73% since I posted, but something's definitely not right that it won't fill up after a full night's charge.

datawrhsdoc · #5 (**permalink**) 07-12-2008, 02:55 PM

TF,

It could be as simple as the battery meter losing track of the battery.

When was the last time you run the battery down to the point where the PPC shuts off? If you don't do this once every 30 charges followed by a full recharge with the device powered down, the power meter can't track the battery properly. With a LiOn, by the way, forcing a full discharge is NOT recommended as it will damage the battery, and LiOn's have no memory to worry about like the old NiCad's did

If you are occasionally cycling as I describe above, the problem probably is the battery, but you may be able to make sure that its not something else by tracking power draw during various operational configurations. If power draw seems reasonable, then the battery is toast. If not, perhaps you can find the bad component as you turn things on.

To do this, I like to use acbPowerMeter (http://www.acbpocketsoft.com/Product...verview-2.html), which charts the real-time usage.

It would be best to start with a clean slate, so go ahead and hard reset before installing acbPowerMeter and testing (install nothing else after the hard reset, as we don't want to get confused by an errant piece of software, or a registry hack). Once that is done, start the testing with SD removed, backlight as low as it goes and in airplane mode. Don't forget to go into power properties to disable timed backlight and device standby when on batteries was well as turn off IR.

By way of comparison, over a 2min reference interval, I observe the following on no2chem 2.2 prev 5 ROM while the device remains idle and SD card is in:

Airplane Mode: 79 mA average, 68 - 73 Ma typical
Phone On (no data): 87 mA average
Phone + BT on (no data): 94 mA average
Phone + BT + Data: 86 mA average
Phone + BT + Data + Wifi (wifi searching for router): 295 mA, spikes up to 488 mA - Yikes!!

If you are getting numbers like this, and the battery still drops quickly in airplane mode, the battery is toast. If your airplane mode numbers are much higher than mine, your phone is probably hosed, although it could still be the battery. Other operational modes will give you a sense of which radio component might be the culprit if airplane mode looks normal.

Then install your software, and see if things go wacky.

-Doc

**cornelious2** · #6 (**permalink**) 07-12-2008, 02:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TurboFool

Phone hasn't been dropped. Battery's the Seidio 3200MaH battery and it's only about six months old.

The battery's held strong at 73% since I posted, but something's definitely not right that it won't fill up after a full night's charge.

try deep cycling the battery twice, maybe the phone is just reading the charge wrong and needs to learn how that battery functions again.

datawrhsdoc · #7 (**permalink**) 07-12-2008, 03:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cornelious2

try deep cycling the battery twice, maybe the phone is just reading the charge wrong and needs to learn how that battery functions again.

I don't believe that twice is needed, especially given the risk to the health of the battery. Shouldn't one deep cycle do it?

-Doc

holo · #8 (**permalink**) 07-12-2008, 06:48 PM

are you using an aftermarket charger? I have noticed that with some (most) aftermarket chargers (including plugging into usb on a computer) they will not top off the battery as completely as the oem charger will..... This seems to be even more true if you are doing anything on the phone (or if it is not asleep when it thinks it is finished charging). If I am on the phone it is not unusual for my car charger to think it has topped off the charger when it is very significantly lower than full charge (and this might be even more true with a large capacity battery such as the 3200 you are using).... Even the oem charger thinks it is full occasionally when it isn't but it happens far less often... I believe this happens because the phone uses a different (slower) charge mode when it detects a non-oem charger....

**TurboFool** · #9 (**permalink**) 07-21-2008, 10:19 AM

I read all of the feedback here, went through the deep cycle, hard-reset it, etc., with no improvement. Finally put in an RMA request to Seidio and sent off the old battery and switched to my OEM (sigh) battery which would charge fully and keep its charge (as much as that battery's capable of). But suddenly this morning I've taken it off the charger and it's at 60%. That's not even a usable amount to start the day with. This is getting weird. Wonder if I need the phone replaced...

**cornelious2** · #10 (**permalink**) 07-21-2008, 10:22 AM

always a possibility, try using rubbing alcohol to make sure the contacts don't have a film/corrosion on them. you are using the OEM charger right?