[SOLUTION] Slow Charging!

★★★This topic is for them who are having problems with stock charger and cable. If you don't have any problems, ignore this ★★★

Well, since I purchased my Note 2, I kept facing this slow charging problem. Now what is slow charging some of you will ask? Well, it's simple. The device is taking more than normal time for charging. Now how do you know the default/should be rate for charging? Simple again. The AC adapter clearly says output rate as 2000 mA or 2.0 A. So with that calculation Note 2's monstrous 3100 mAh should be fully charged with 2 hours. But as we've seen steady 2.0A is not the output case in some/many scenario, so add another 30 mins to it. So whatever it is, from 0-100%, the device shouldn't take more than 2 hours 30 minutes.
And for me, it was taking around 5 hours! Sometimes 4 hours 30 minutes, and if it's very fast then 4 hours. Well I was never gonna wait 4 damn hours before going to my office and irritate myself, and I don't have the habit of charging overnight, unless I absolutely need it.
So I kept calling my retailer, asked for replacement, and they did, well, you won't believe, they replaced three times actually, so I had three different Note 2, with three different charger. Well, each of them acted absolutely fine at first 3-4 charge, then the problem was back again and again. I in fact turned off the device and put it into trash once.
Then I thought let's try some different USB cables, I tried my friend's Galaxy Ace cable. Charging current kept fluctuating between 1000-1200 mA. Which was better than those faulty stock cables, which provided steady 900 mA. Sometimes it even was detecting the AC current as USB, which would provide a mere 460 mA and would take God knows how long! Then I found my piece. I went to my retailer, frustrated and angry, asked them to give me the thickest and shortest possible cable, and they provide me one from a Samsung phone's box, but I can't recall which device was that! And then I sat there for half an hour, kept plugging and unplugging, and the current rate was rock steady at 1800 mA. I took it, paid just 10$ and came back.
Since then I have charged my phone almost 10 times and the current rate never went below 1800 mA / 1.8 A.
This is the cable I am using, do notice that it has 5 pin set up against stock cable's 4 pi, if that matters in any way, and it's about 10% thicker than the stock cable and also about 9" shorter.

And how will you monitor the charging current, three ways are there,
1- Battery Monitor (yet I don't know how to exactly use it)
2- If you are rooted (which is a must anyway), then just go to, /sys/class/power_supply/battery/current_avg
3- Use the app from the link below. It basically reads the current value just exactly as above but it saves the time to go into that file every time. A big thanks to Deadvirus.

Galaxy Charging Current application's apk can be found here:
http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=36124435)?

Play Store link: (Paid)
https://play.google.com/store/apps/...S5hYm1hbnRpcy5nYWxheHljaGFyZ2luZ2N1cnJlbnQiXQ..

Thanks to this post and it's poster for informing us about the current output reading path,
http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=33585646&postcount=31

Poor quality of cables and chargers

It is really sad that we're almost 2015 and most micro usb phone cables are still made with ridiculously puny wires, with envelopes that are stiff and can't be rolled up neatly, that can't properly supply current to our devices, and that there are so many conflicting hardware charger designs most of which can only supply a fraction of their stated capabilities.

Over the past year I purchased several chargers and cables on eBay and NONE produce the power for which they are rated. I had to to get several claims going with eBay to get refunded. As for the chargers, I was able to make myself one oout of a couple of those fakes so it would produce close to the power output the OEM has, and transformed a data cable into a charging cable by doubling the power wires for increased current carrying capacity and it has worked.

Not only are the wires, even on the fattest looking cables, extremely thin, more often than not the soldering is shabby as well.

As for the fake chargers, one thing is clear: although they look very much the same from the outside, they are lighter, have much less and smaller components inside and produce much dirtier current.

What I can't understand in all of this, although the component type and count is only half those of OEM chargers, the price is more than 10 times less than that of a legitimate charger!

I sure wish there was an alternative between useless junk and super high markup OEM products. Unfortunately in that regard, it seems Chinese manufacturers don't understand the need for OEM like quality without the outrageous OEM quality markup that comes from dealing with protected manufacturer distributors.

Following are in order of appearance a comparison between a Real (as supplied with the phone, $30) and a Fake ("OEM is Not Manufacturer Original", the seller told me afterwards - Brother!) Samsung Galaxy Note 2 Charger ($2): Outside, Inside, and Power Output comparisons.


PS: the only way we'll get decent products is to raise hell when crappy products are falsely represented as genuine and knowingly sold as the real thing. Enough of this 'buyer beware' bull. Perhaps when sellers get punished for lying and dishonest behaviour with stiff fines this will change, but I'm not holding my breath.

For anybody interested in this thread: I provided a new charging interface in the newest Perseus.

What will interest most people is the option to disable unstable power detection, this will completely disable the downgrading of the input current such as reported throughout this thread. I'd like to hear some empirical feedback on people encountering these problems with that option activated.

debernardis said:

What physics is behind this huge difference in cables' performance? Is it size/internal resistance or are there other factors?

Sent from my GT-N7100 using xda premium

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The Maxim 77693 charger chip is capable of detecting voltage differentials in the charger lines; if it decides that this differential is too great, then it reports a sort of "unstable power" to the kernel, which in turn reduces the input current in 100mA steps until the chip stops reporting problems. That's what's happening.

What is physically happening, is anybody's guess (The datasheet on the specific feature of the chip is not available). By all evidence it seems that this detection is too sensible and too aggressive, and that's why so many people have problems. If you are sure your charger can handle the stock currents set up, then in my opinion, you're safe to just disable this and get rid of the issues.

mat9v said:

First thing, I would be carefull with that charger as it supplies 5.3V and not the default 5V. I do not know what will be the effect on your phone/battery if you continue using that.

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Probably nothing much, especially considering resistive cable losses.

mat9v said:

But to your question - I do not know if those values indicate "input current" or "battery charging current" so I would strongly recommend using STweaks or TricksterMod as they have clearly labelled settings.
To values then:
DCP and AC Charger Input Current - set 2000
DCP and AC Charger Charge Current - set 1400
CDP and SDP Input current - set 1000
CDP and SDP Charging current - set 1000

Those are safe values, unless you have some very bad charger withous overheat protections or really, really bad USB port in your PC you will be safe with those values.

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Although I'd play it safe with my motherboard (I have a 4 year old machine - I suppose newer machines have higher output USB ports), as for the charger I've been using these values or slight variants thereof ever since I loaded this kernel several months ago and made some experimentation with it. In the course of this experimentation my chargers did not suffer, I've been able to steady my charging rate and, probably most importantly for those who do not care for the electrical concepts, the battery never overheated.

---------- Post added at 07:14 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:24 PM ----------

jeep447 said:

Oh ok I think I get what he was saying now. The input current is in regards to what's provided while using the phone, and the battery charge current is in regards to charging the battery only. I don't have those options with my kernel so I had no clue what he was talking about, but now it makes sense.

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The INPUT CURRENT is the total current going into the phone from the charger. It defines the maximum current to ask from the charger. Going above what the charger can actually produce (let's say, asking 2.1A from a 2.0A charger) could lead to charger overheating, which may cause temporary thermal shutdown or could even burn the chip itself and by that I don't mean the chip will catch on fire, you probably won't see nor smell anything funny except that suddenly there is no output anymore no matter how long you wait.
The CHARGE CURRENT on the other hand is, from the input, the current set aside for charging the battery.
For those interested in trying, if you invert Input and Charging values, the phone defaults to a very low current input as measured from Battery Monitor Widget, probably disallowing charging altogether.

jeep447 said:

As far as the 5.3V charger goes I've actually been using it for about 6 months with this phone and I haven't had any issues whatsoever

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It's unlikely you will, especially considering losses from the cable, you probably get less then 5V at the device. Good rule of thumb: check to see if it gets hot at the microUSB port (not merely warm).

jeep447 said:

I'd also rather not burn my house down while I'm sleeping

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Don't worry about the charger, if it's UL tested, it won't burn the place down. They really, I mean, really torture these things to make sure it won't cause serious damage even under the most extreme conditions. The only thing that is remotely dangerous on a cell phone is the battery, and it has a chip that will blow a fuse before it goes into meltdown. If you use an OEM battery there should be no problem.

jeep447 said:

Anyway as far as the AC Charger Current goes with my kernel if it helps the default untouched setting is at 1700mA, and I have been using this charger with that setting and I haven't had any problems so far. So I was just wondering if I could turn it up a little to possibly decrease the amount of time it takes to fully charge the phone, but now I'm under the impression that it doesn't work like that? If that AC Charger Current that I can adjust with my kernel does control only the battery charge current and set to 1700mA by default, what would the advantages of increasing that be if it's not possible to increase the rate of charge?

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I doubt the OEM battery will let you charge it any faster (remember the battery chip is the ultimate boss here), so I don't see the point, unless that current is meant to apply for the total of Charging and Input.
OTOH, if you were lucky enough to get a top tier cell in your battery that is inherently better than nominal and will accept a faster charge while still staying cool, you may well ened up charging the battery at a mcuh faster rate. Or you could be fooling yourself with a battery that charges normally, but has lower than specified effective capacity (say, 2500mAh instead of 3100mAh) and therefore, charges faster.
If you look around, most people here get between 35% and 45% charging rate per hour. Considering the actual current and charge percentage are only estimated from battery voltage, it is doubtful this higher charging rate will make much of a difference in real life, although of course it's OK to try and find out for yourself, since it is unlikely to be unsafe for the phone and after all, a few percentage points is nothing to sneer at. Heck, the difference between gold medalists and ordinary athletes in olympic games is only single digit percentages, so there, might as well try to claim the gold medal of charging .

jeep447 said:

I guess that's where I'm confused because if you increase the amount of charge coming from the charger (and as long as the charger is capable and can handle it), wouldn't that technically make the battery charge faster? I'm definitely not disagreeing with what anyone has said whatsoever just to clarify, I'm just asking because I think I'm missing something.

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The current is controlled this way: Charger Output -> Kernel Power Management -> Battery Charge Controller
In other words, the charge rate depends on each and every step. You MUST have a powerful charger and a good cable; you MUST tell the kernel to max out the power and ignore charger instabilities; you MUST have a battery that can actually take the current you are directing towards it.

Hope it helps, and sorry for the confusion. I guess I wouldn't make a very good professor

---------- Post added at 07:21 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:14 PM ----------

jeep447 said:

Ok thank you for responding and now that I understand that there's difference between input and battery charge current, I'm not anywhere near as confused as I was before lol. I understand what you're saying about the battery having a max charge restriction, so I'm assuming that the GCC app is only showing the input and not what's going to the battery (battery charge current) correct? The reason I'm saying that us because whenever I change the value of the AC Charger Current, it reflects the same in the GCC app so for example if I set it to 1900mA, it shows all 3 max current and average at 1900mA. So if the battery has a limit of max charge current, GCC would only show up to that limit if it were displaying the battery charge current correct? Anyway I appreciate you pointing out that it's a 5.3V charger because it never even crossed my mind to be honest, and I definitely understand that just because it's working fine now doesn't mean that something couldn't happen eventually. I'll start looking for another charger to use just to be on the safe side because I can see it toasting my phone out of nowhere with my luck! Lol Thanks again!

Sent from the bag phone in my Pontiac Fierro

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Do yourself a favour and use Battery Monitor Widget instead, and check current over time, at least 20 minutes. GCC is pretty useless.
As for the charger... I disagree and explained why before. I have a USB powered device using 500mA and guess what they recommend for off line power? 4 AA Alcaline batteries. Yes, that's 6 volts right here.

---------- Post added at 07:31 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:21 PM ----------

Formhault said:

So...

When the phone is used, and it is consuming ~600mA... Say it has 2000mA current input and 1400mA current charge... It will charge battery by 1400mA BUT the phone will USE 600mA provided from the charger (to not use the battery)? Like a laptop when it is plugged in to the charger but with the battery not inserted?[/quite]
Right. However should the power consumption rise, it will get the power where it comes from and the battery WILL CHARGE SLOWER, or even discharge.

Formhault said:

Using a higher voltage charger could alleviate amy potential loss through the cable. Right?

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Right.

Formhault said:

~0.2V is anyway gonna be wasted... And the phone's got an internal regulator which only takes in 4.35V (so the rest translates to a bit higher current, right?), so I'd say you're safe...

Sent from hyperspace

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Congratulations, you just graduated from Electricity 001 and probably now understood why we need high voltage to carry electricity over long distances

---------- Post added at 07:41 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:31 PM ----------

jeep447 said:

That's awesome I was just going to mention that the internal regulator limits the voltage to 4.35v (just like you said), so I wouldn't think it would matter anyway.

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Although some of it is indeed lost as heat, the device only uses what it needs. That's the basic idea behind modern switching power supplies.

jeep447 said:

But I was also going to say that I have no idea what happens to the rest of the voltage though, so I appreciate you clearing that up!

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Imagine you have more power than you need. Instead of putting a resistor in between and losing the excess as heat, you simply take the full amount, but only for a certain amount of time, let's say, 80% of it, to get an effective 4V from 5V, so the power is effectively SWICHED on and off, usually several thousand times a second, this averages out to what you need..

---------- Post added at 07:43 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:41 PM ----------

Formhault said:

As far as I know, when you lower the voltage, the current goes up. As far as I know = I could be entirely wrong.

The voltage regulator does transform the input voltage (5V, 5.3V...) to a steady 4.35V, but I don't know how much voltage it can take until it breaks... I'd say 5.3V is not enough to cause any damage, and it can be handled by the internal regulator easily.

I mean... what the f***, this phone has a chip to detect unstable current & broken cables and it doesn't have a powerful enough voltage regulator to work with +/-0.5V?

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As far as the other thing goes... input/charge current (1A goes in the battery, 0.5A goes in the phone, laptop style)... I really don't know and am waiting for others to answer on the issue.

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Two thumbs up, Man!

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