Battery drains quickly... while plugged in! wtf?!

[ericmcintire]

okay so this is a new problem... if I plug my tilt in to my car charger, the battery actually drains faster than if it's unplugged... about a percentage a minute... when I come home and plug it... it charges regularly. I've tried 2 different roms, 3 different radios and 2 different car chargers... any ideas? been doing a lot of soft resets lately, wondering if that would burn the battery out?

[ericmcintire]

okay so after my car charger "drains" my battery... I put the regular charger in and charge it from 74% to 85% in about 20 minutes... then I took the battery out and put it back in.. upon reboot my battery is at 97%... does this mean the car charger is somehow ACTUALLY charging the battery but for some reason making the phone think it's discharging it... this is tricky.

[smads]

okay so after my car charger "drains" my battery... I put the regular charger in and charge it from 74% to 85% in about 20 minutes... then I took the battery out and put it back in.. upon reboot my battery is at 97%... does this mean the car charger is somehow ACTUALLY charging the battery but for some reason making the phone think it's discharging it... this is tricky.

is the battery heating up while it is charging in the car?

[ericmcintire]

I don't think so... I'm not 100% but I'd probabally remember something liek that
I just remember it was dropping like crazy after I plugged it in.. once it jumped from 39% to 34% when I was using it while it was plugged in for 4 minutes

[smads]

I don't think so... I'm not 100% but I'd probabally remember something liek that
I just remember it was dropping like crazy after I plugged it in.. once it jumped from 39% to 34% when I was using it while it was plugged in for 4 minutes

sorry, should have asked in my first post but are you running TomTom or similar?

[ericmcintire]

no, no abnormal software... even turned off the 3g and wifi... I'm starting to think it's not actual battery drainage because of how fast it's dying.... it dropped to 2% and shut itself off last night when I plugged it in.. took 5 minutes to go from 28% to "dead" then when I was charging it in my house that night it slowly went from 0% to 45% then it jumped to 98% and was full.. I'm so confused

[sWuRv]

Maybe let the battery drain out all the way so the phone won't even turn on, and then charge it back up. I've never heard of this happening before, but I know the phone has to "calibrate" the battery, for lack of a better word. Draining the battery all the way lets the phone set a "zero point". I dunno if it will help, but it would be worth a try.

[ericmcintire]

haha it kinda did that on it's own last night... recharged it, it's got the same problem as of 20 minutes ago.. maybe it'll work itself out.... but I really need to be able to plug it into my car.

[anjew]

This is my second Tilt I'm playing with as the first one after I messed around with started to act funny.

1) Battery would be 100% - I wake up 6 hours later and it's dead.
2) Network consistently was being dropped even though it stated I was connected.

I've spend 5 hours on this site reading now and still don't know if I've learned much lol

Good luck to you...

[GSLEON3]

Check the USB port. Is it slightly bent on the right side? I had this same problem & had to RMA. I confirmed that there was higher discharge using SK Tools & Anton Tomov Batery Meter. However, home charger still worked fine.

[ericmcintire]

Check the USB port. Is it slightly bent on the right side? I had this same problem & had to RMA. I confirmed that there was higher discharge using SK Tools & Anton Tomov Batery Meter. However, home charger still worked fine.

YES! the usb port looks a little messed up on the very last pin.. WTF? it looks squished or something... RMA? that doesn't sound good.. I hope I dont have to RMA... what's RMA? but yes there is definately something messed up about the right side of the USB port

[smads]

haha it kinda did that on it's own last night... recharged it, it's got the same problem as of 20 minutes ago.. maybe it'll work itself out.... but I really need to be able to plug it into my car.

Hmm... I would charge to 100% (or near enough) unplug it and then put the media player on and play it solid on repeat until the battery dies. Then charge it up to full again and see if there is any difference. These batteries don't have a memory as such, but as the previous poster said it may have got itself slightly 'confused' :)

[botmans]

Same problem here with a carcomm cradle for the TyTN II,. When I plug my phone in, the orange light comes on, the phone says it is charging but the battery just seems to drain faster and after a couple of minutes the light goes out. I have BatteryStatus installed, when I connect the phone to my pc with the standard usb/synch cable BatteryStatus shows +0mW for a short while and after a few seconds it'll say it's at +1300mW or something like that.

In the car when I put the phone in the cradle it'll show +0mW for a few seconds, then around -250mW (Idle) and the orange light turns off...

But I actually caught it charging once with +22mW when turning it on (from standby). I tried all obvious things, softresetting the phone while charging etc. But nothing helps, the cradle is connected straight to the carbattery.

[ericmcintire]

Same problem here with a carcomm cradle for the TyTN II,. When I plug my phone in, the orange light comes on, the phone says it is charging but the battery just seems to drain faster and after a couple of minutes the light goes out. I have BatteryStatus installed, when I connect the phone to my pc with the standard usb/synch cable BatteryStatus shows +0mW for a short while and after a few seconds it'll say it's at +1300mW or something like that.

In the car when I put the phone in the cradle it'll show +0mW for a few seconds, then around -250mW (Idle) and the orange light turns off...

But I actually caught it charging once with +22mW when turning it on (from standby). I tried all obvious things, softresetting the phone while charging etc. But nothing helps, the cradle is connected straight to the carbattery.

check your USB port... is your's messed up too?? you know what? I probabally accidently poked the stylus in mine while trying to reset a couple days ago... since I tried to do 20 resets when I was rom upgrading and adding software...

[botmans]

check your USB port... is your's messed up too?? you know what? I probabally accidently poked the stylus in mine while trying to reset a couple days ago... since I tried to do 20 resets when I was rom upgrading and adding software...

Just checked and yes it is, stylus thing happened to me also once....

It's a little bend downwards (when having the screen on top) @ the last 2 pins...

[ericmcintire]

well looks like we've narrowed down the problem.. and it looks like the fix is gonna cost $80!!

http://www.pocketpctechs.com/main~unit~ATT_Tilt-974~area~repairs~item~75H00465-00M~name~AT%26T+Tilt+Sync+Connector+Replacement+Se rvice.htm

anyone know of a solution we could try out? my other phone (s710) had a USB cover so this never happened

[botmans]

well looks like we've narrowed down the problem.. and it looks like the fix is gonna cost $80!!

http://www.pocketpctechs.com/main~unit~ATT_Tilt-974~area~repairs~item~75H00465-00M~name~AT%26T+Tilt+Sync+Connector+Replacement+Se rvice.htm

anyone know of a solution we could try out? my other phone (s710) had a USB cover so this never happened

What kind of carcharger do you have? Been reading about this problem and alot of ppl say the charger needs to be able to put out at least 1A for the phone to charge, I used some cheap cigarettelighter charger that was rated @ 650mA. It worked but charged so slowly that it would've taken days to fully charge. And besides that it didn't last long, 3 days before it blew the fuse and some more parts (worked for 2 secs after replacing the fuse)

[ericmcintire]

I've tried several different ones... I think that since 3 people on this site all seem to have a "crushed" pin in our USB ports that's probabally the issue... now.. about a fix...

[sWuRv]

The amperage on your charger doesn't really matter. 1 amp is recommended so that you can use the device while charging, and the rate at which the battery charges does not diminish. If you used a 500mA charger, and had wi-fi & gps on, and media player blasting, for example, the battery may not charge at all because all the power coming from the charger is being used immediately. 1 amp chargers remedy this problem. Hope this makes sense, I've been having problems finding the correct words to express my ideas lately. Probably just stressed out! It sounds like the bent pin on the usb port may be resulting in a V+ pin shorting to ground (or V-). Which would drain the battery quickly. When you use battery power or charge the battery, it is normal for the battery to get warm. When you plug yours into the car charger (the one that drains it) does the battery get abnormally hot? This would indicate a short. Maybe try to put a real thin piece of film or something under the bent part of the port to insulate it while charging and see if that fixes it. This might offer a temporary fix until you get a new port. Maybe you could spend some time learning how to solder! I had to fix a broken port on a wizard a those solder points are friggin' tiny. Hope I could help. Good luck.

[ericmcintire]

The amperage on your charger doesn't really matter. 1 amp is recommended so that you can use the device while charging, and the rate at which the battery charges does not diminish. If you used a 500mA charger, and had wi-fi & gps on, and media player blasting, for example, the battery may not charge at all because all the power coming from the charger is being used immediately. 1 amp chargers remedy this problem. Hope this makes sense, I've been having problems finding the correct words to express my ideas lately. Probably just stressed out! It sounds like the bent pin on the usb port may be resulting in a V+ pin shorting to ground (or V-). Which would drain the battery quickly. When you use battery power or charge the battery, it is normal for the battery to get warm. When you plug yours into the car charger (the one that drains it) does the battery get abnormally hot? This would indicate a short. Maybe try to put a real thin piece of film or something under the bent part of the port to insulate it while charging and see if that fixes it. This might offer a temporary fix until you get a new port. Maybe you could spend some time learning how to solder! I had to fix a broken port on a wizard a those solder points are friggin' tiny. Hope I could help. Good luck.

this sounds like it makes a lot of sense... I've got big clumsy hands, man I wish I had been more careful... well looks like I'm gonna be out $80! but quick question.. why would the wall charger operate normally while the car charger reverses charge?

[Farsquidge]

this sounds like it makes a lot of sense... I've got big clumsy hands, man I wish I had been more careful... well looks like I'm gonna be out $80! but quick question.. why would the wall charger operate normally while the car charger reverses charge?

I think if you look at the stock wall charger, the shape of the plug is exactly the same shape as the non-standard mini-USB port on the Kaiser ie. tapered only on one side giving a better fit, whereas third party car-chargers are standard mini-USB and are tapered both sides and can 'wobble' a small amount.

Seems the 'wobble' of a standard plug is breaking the delicate inner connections.

Quite a few people are finding this port problem and it begs the question, Have HTC made an error with this port design for the wired headsets or have they gotten around that somewhere with yet another disclaimer saying that you should only use their OWN chargers??

I very much doubt it when they ALSO supply a USB cable in the box that is standard...:)

[chrisnash]

Quite obviously a design fault.

[chrisnash]

My pin is bent in the corner also - a lot of people are going to be out of pocket!

[Farsquidge]

Puttimg
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=362679
as a center to this. F.

[ttt123]

Just going to list problems seen/reported, and look at how the USB plug pins are laid out/used and how they would match up to the different areas of concern:
1) bent usb pinout on the Kaiser. This needs further investigation, to try to understand why the home charger works, but other will not.
2) some chargers cannot charge the Kaiser/PDA properly. Charge light will come on, and then go off. Sometimes, it takes awhile before the charge light comes on. These chargers are not charging properly, but should not drain the existing charge.
3) some people are experiencing battery drain problems.

Looking at the standard USB cable, there are 4 pins. The outer 2 are V- and V+, and the center two are for data (D- and D+) and on the mini USB end, there are 5 pins, put 1 of them is not used. So if the V- and V+ pins are connected to the motherboard, then charging will work. These 2 pins are the same/only pins that are used for charging, no matter which charger is used. If charging works for one charger and not another, then the problem is that the non-working setup must be not making a connection to one or both of the V- V+ pins.

The Kaiser USB plug uses the top pins for the standard USB interface, and the bottom pins are used for headphone, mic, lineout, etc. Only the HTC cable uses the bottom pins.

Theories for the different problems:
1) Charge with home charger, but not car charger, and discharges -
- the bent USB plug may cause the right pin (V+) to not make connection. The bent plug may also cause the bottom pins to short against the metal of the mini USB plug. This would be unplanned, and could cause a short/drain. The fact that it charges on the home AC charger says that V- and V+ are OK, and the home charger cable is able to make a connection, while the car charger cannot. Can only suspect that this is due to different tolerances, resulting in no connection to the right V+ pin.

Things to try:
- straighten the plug
- put something underneath to push up, and also insulate against shorting the bottom pins to the metal body of the mini USB plug.
- put some clear nail polish on the bottom inside of the mini plug to provide insulation. (I use this as an insulation method on difficult locations)

2) you have one of the chargers (AC or Car) that cannot properly charge a Kaiser/PDA. Try another one. One that works for me is an iPod charger, or a charger made for an iPod.

So the above is just my attempt to make sense of all the different symptoms seen, and expecting that understanding what pins are used for charging will help people to try to understand/fix/workaround the problems.

[Lakva]

Hi guys!

Well, I have a half-solution. I still dont like it yet...
BUT

Do you have setting "When device is turned on, do not charge the battery when connected to PC" checked on? I bet you do ;-)

And that's the one part of the problem - if you plug the device to car or some other then original charger, it probably thinks that it's connected to PC - it may take some curent from the charger, but never stop to drain battery as well.
As soon as you uncheck the box and close the dialog, the orange LED goes on and device starts to charge.
Well, at least, that's how my Polaris works... ;-)
There is still possibility, that some of you have some other problem..

So!
If we do not want to switch setting avery time (it is still temporary solution for me), we need to make the device to think it's not conected to PC but to the original charger.
This is the part I have not solved yet. I have tried to insulate the data pins on both ends of cable, but it did not helped. Nevertheless there is still some chance here, because I have not had enough time, so it's possible, thet my insulation was bad.

Well, this is all from me for now...
Excuse my bad english, please, I am realy in a hurry now!

[bennyj71]

Thank eavens. I have been suffering with this for a while now. The corner of USB pin is also bent. I do not have the box checked that you are talking about. I charge my phone when it's connected. So I don't think that's it. BTW, Guys I used the ATT car charger that came with my 8525. Every third party looked had exactly the same tip so I decided to use the "Official" one. My battery last about 3-5 hours now as opposed to 9-12. Have any of you tried taking the battery out when it gives the low battery warning. I've done about six times now. When I put it back in and turn on the phone, it shows my battery at some random status( sometimes 45%, 38%,22%) what do guys make of this. Thanks for the help on this.

[jwlionking]

I am having the same issue. The phone discharges while any charger is plugged in. I have tried a home charger, car charger, and a usb cable from computer to charge it. I have a charger just for the batterys so that is how I have lived with this issue.

This is not my first occurance with this problem. It seems to be intermittant. This issue arrose a few months back. Lasted a week and went away.

When the problem occurs, I have tried various methods of troubleshooting it and blind fixing (cleaning, etc.) I have even performed a clean re-install. Oh, update as of 2 days ago, I installed a cooked ROM and has dont nothing.

Any ideas short of asking for a warrently replacement are greatly appreciated! My thoughts are there is some sort of shorting going on internally.