is it... the battery?!?!

[jonathanrobertbolton]

I'm at a loss.

A week ago, phone started random resets and looping resets - usually when using a significant resource (i.e. camera, web).

I removed everything, reflashed rom, reflashed the Cingular rom etc. to no avail - same problem.

Today, I'm running the bare bones cingular rom without add ons. Seems like I'm doing fine - battery down to about 88% at 5pm which seems okay (I push mail from the exchange server). I take a picture with the camera and go to send it via email and the phone starts looping resets. I soft reset and I get a low battery message - 12%. I went from 88% to 12% in about two minutes.

Any expert opinions? Is it just the battery or is my phone turning into a brick?

Thank in advance.
Sincerely,
Jonathan

[Madcap180]

First off how old is the phone? It could be time to get a NEW battery.. these batteries have shelf lifes.. lol.. there days are numbered.

[jonathanrobertbolton]

Phone is about 1.5 years old.

[jonathanrobertbolton]

Interesting update:

Powered the phone off to pull the battery and check it out as I am looking for a new battery on ebay.

When I power the phone up, it now says battery is at 67%

- this makes me concerned that there is a hardware problem with the power management system in the phone...

thoughts?

[jonathanrobertbolton]

"bump"

Any help, all. I would really appreciate your insight.

[kegobeer]

I'd start by buying a new battery. 1.5 years is a long time for a rechargable battery.

[kagudesu]

I am having the EXACT same problem.

I even bought an OEM Sanyo on eBay. No change. Then, I complained to Cingular and they replaced the phone (it took a LOT of complaining).

I put the new battery in the new phone, totally vanilla install. It worked great for a couple of hours, then the problems started happening again.

WTF? New phone, new battery and it's still happening.

[jonathanrobertbolton]

Yeah - probably no way any level of complaining is going to score me a new phone from Cingular because of the age. I have a new battery on the way, but I am worried that it might be something with the charging circuit or something. Wish somebody with some expertise would speak up on this...

[Junner2003]

If you are lucky: they sell extended batteries on eBay. I bought me one for my TMO USA VARIO. The stand-by times are really amazing!

In case you consider to buy an extended one make sure that it comes with the battery door as pictured at the link below!

In general the prices on eBay are very low, so, if you are planning to keep your phone a bit longer you might want to buy 2 or 3 batteries at once? (Saves shipping and I really expect that the batteries will soon not be available any longer since the WIZ is discontinued.)

Link to eBay item:
http://cgi.ebay.com/For-Cingular-8125-Extended-2400mAh-Battery-w-Door-OEM_W0QQitemZ250127554170QQihZ015QQcategoryZ15034Q QssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

[jsdoyle]

I had this problem. Looping reboots, might work for 5 minutes but then a constant cycle of reboots. Mine is a years and 2 months old.

I though it was the phone and was ready to ditch it. The battery showed a good charge.

I bought a OEM battery off of eBay for 10 bucks and the phone has not had one issue since.

No question it was the battery in my case.

[jonathanrobertbolton]

Excellent. Thanks for the response. New battery was purchased last week and should be here soon, so I'll let you know how that turns out.

Might also take a look at the extended battery - seems like a neat feature, although it looks like it would keep the phone from fitting in my car stand (I use tomtom with it).

I'll post a reply when I find out if it is indeed the battery.

Thanks again.

[Ray_jai]

Its a battery issue.
I had this problem before.
I would charge my phone using some 3rd party cradle and some how it screws my battery up.
for exmaple. The phone would say the battery is fully charged. but when i use it. the phone only lasts 5 mins.

after awhile. not matter how i charge the battery the battery never went to it's full charge. and like you, it keeps looping.
this was an OEM battery that i had for less then a year.

i got a random cheap battery off ebay to test it. and now it works fine.
i threw out the old battery.

[jonathanrobertbolton]

UPDATE: It was..... the battery. Easy OEM replacement off ebay for less than 5 bucks. Running like a champ again. Thanks for the insight. Hopefully this helps someone else in the future.

Cheers!
- JB