Strange battery issues

[TurboFool]

I'm running a Sprint Mogul using no2chem's nueROM 2.2 Preview 7 (8's touchscreen issues made me downgrade), and having some very peculiar battery problems I'm hoping someone has advice about.

A few weeks ago I woke up, pulled my phone from the charger, and watched the battery instantly drop from 100% to around 83%. Over the next 15 minutes it dropped to the mid-70s before leveling out and discharging at a more normal rate. This occurred the next day and so on. Now this was with Seidio's 3200mAh extended battery. I then switched to my (sigh) OEM battery and didn't have the same problem, so assumed it was Seidio's battery, filled out an RMA, and sent it off to be repaired.

Now a couple of days ago the OEM battery started doing the same thing. I'd pull it off the charge and it would have somewhere in the range of 60% battery remaining. I'd have to plug it into my car charger or USB cable on my notebook to charge it up the rest of the way (albeit very slowly).

This morning I decided to watch the process from before I even unplugged it. First I noticed the orange light was on after a full night's charge. If memory serves me, the light's supposed to go out when it's at 100% (I may be mistaken). Meanwhile the battery meter was at 60%. I unplugged it and it remained there. I plugged it back in and watched no2chem's charge meter show the power connection, and I went ahead and left it plugged in for a little while before checking it again. It was now at 63%.

So what I'm finding is that at some point during the night my phone stops accepting a charge, despite the charge light remaining on.

I'm going to experiment with two things to further troubleshoot: tonight I'm swapping chargers with my wife's. I'm pretty sure the phone controls whether or not it's continuing to charge the battery, but I'm going to rule this out the only way I can. Then if that doesn't improve it I'm going to flash back to a Sprint official ROM (sigh) and see if maybe no2chem's power applet or power management settings are somehow causing this oddity.

Does anyone have any extra experiences with problems like this that might give me an idea of what else to try? Otherwise my thinking is if those two steps yield no improvements, then it's the phone's physical battery management hardware that's faulty and I'm going to have to use my insurance to replace the phone. I'd like to exhaust all the other resources before I spend the $50 on the deductible, though.

Thanks!

[defaultdotxbe]

sometimes mine overheats while charging, at that point the LED flashes orange until it cools down enough to resume charging, this might be happening to your in the middle of the night

[TurboFool]

I thought I heard purple meant overheating. Either way, it's not clearly describing it. Also this has never happened before, so if it's happening every single night now, I've definitely got a problem.

Anyway, just plugged it in with my wife's charger. Let's see how it turns out in the morning.

[worwig]

You said :
"I'd have to plug it into my car charger or USB cable on my notebook to charge it up the rest of the way (albeit very slowly)."

Sure sounds like a bad charger.

[TurboFool]

Sure sounds like a bad charger.

Now confirmed. Just pulled it off my wife's charger after a full night, at 100%. Five minutes later, 99%. Much better. I wonder what would cause the charger to stop charging halfway through the night, but keep the charge light on. Well, at least the mystery's been solved.

[jeffgman]

I am sort of having the same issue. A couple of weeks ago I decided to upgrade from the standard Verizon ROM for my xv6800 to DCD's 3.2.2 ROM. The upgrade went perfectly. I always plug in my phone every night before I go to bed. The light turns orange while it is charging and then it is green when I wake up. The phone always showed 100%. Now with the updated ROM, I do the same, plug in before I go to bed, the light turns orange, and it is green when I wake up. But, when I look at the battery level when I unplug it, it is usually at about 94%. The battery level also seems to go down quicker than before, but I figured that had to do with the GPS radio and WM6.1. Why do you think the battery would no longer show 100% when I unplug it? Seems very weird that right after I upgrade the ROM my battery would start failing.

[worwig]

I am sort of having the same issue. A couple of weeks ago I decided to upgrade from the standard Verizon ROM for my xv6800 to DCD's 3.2.2 ROM. The upgrade went perfectly. I always plug in my phone every night before I go to bed. The light turns orange while it is charging and then it is green when I wake up. The phone always showed 100%. Now with the updated ROM, I do the same, plug in before I go to bed, the light turns orange, and it is green when I wake up. But, when I look at the battery level when I unplug it, it is usually at about 94%. The battery level also seems to go down quicker than before, but I figured that had to do with the GPS radio and WM6.1. Why do you think the battery would no longer show 100% when I unplug it? Seems very weird that right after I upgrade the ROM my battery would start failing.

DCD roms included new code to show 1% changes. The original code showed 10% changes only. Originally, you likely saw 100%, 90%, 80% etc. Now you see 95%, 94%, 93%, etc. It seldom goes to a perfect 100% and it LOOKS like it is discharging faster. In reality it is simply showing more detail.

[jeffgman]

DCD roms included new code to show 1% changes. The original code showed 10% changes only. Originally, you likely saw 100%, 90%, 80% etc. Now you see 95%, 94%, 93%, etc. It seldom goes to a perfect 100% and it LOOKS like it is discharging faster. In reality it is simply showing more detail.

Yes, I noticed the 1% increments, I figured it was Windows Mobile 6.1 compared to 6.0. I think the old method was reporting in 5% blocks.

So, your battery never shows 100%? Very weird. So, my battery is probably fine and it is probably behaving just like it always has?

Thanks for the information.