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3rd party charger screwing with touch screen?

So I've got a bunch of these cheap ebay USB chargers. I was using them with my HTC Kaiser but now I have my desire - When the phone is on charge using one of these, the touch screen won't work properly. It goes crazy, registering its own "touches" so menus fly about, etc. and if I try touching it, it either doesn't register it, registers the touch about 10 times or in the wrong place!
As soon as I unplug, back to normal!
The HTC charger says output: DC 5v, 1amp
This charger says output: DC 5v+- 0.20v, DC500mA +- 30mA
Does this mean these chargers arent quite powerful enough or something? Could I be damaging my phone by using these? They do charge ok but seem to take longer than the HTC charger.

I had exactly the same problem with the G1 and after a fair amount of time researching that issue, I read, and was told that the voltage on many 3rd party charger are not as well regulated as on HTC charger's or pc's USB ports.
On my G1 the problem stayed even after unplugging the charger.
You'd be much better off with a genuine HTC charger or just using your pc's USB ports.

I have the same problem with my phone .. the problem still remained after unpluging and using my own charger.
Does it go away in some time? is your phone ok now?

Well, on my Dream, the problem wasn't constant, but it was there very often, it seem to occur less when I was swapping with some spare charged batteries.
On my Dream the trick was to turn the screen on and off, and it would work most of the time...
I suggest you try to charge of your computer, the voltage output is regulated properly and I was told several times that the opposite, i.e. cheap chargers, were messing with capacitance screens.
I have been charging my Desire with the HTC charger and my PC and haven't had any issues yet.
Better safe than sorry, I wouldn't have got an upgrade if my Dream didn't have that problem in the first place, and it quickly becomes a massive pain! Especially when you have no keyboard.

Problem didn't go away, so I sent my phone to the waranty service.
Using the original charger and original usb cable everything was ok, the problem appeared when I used an usb extender with my computer. First, windows didn't recognize my device, and then the touchscreen problem appeared.

I had the same problem with charger and usb extender but the problem doesn't stay when I take it out. I Won't be using it again that's for sure...thanks for the heads up

manks said:
I had the same problem with charger and usb extender but the problem doesn't stay when I take it out. I Won't be using it again that's for sure...thanks for the heads up
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i was having screen freezes and stuff with my HD2 HTC desire rom using a 3rd party charger
my guess is , STAY AWAY

I have a JMB branded car charger ([email protected]) with a mini USB connector, but with a Force branded mini USB to micro USB converter. I have no issues whatsoever.

I use a Samsung Micro USB charger and I notice no problems whatsoever, it's like an older version of the charger that comes with the Galaxy S in Europe.
Straight from the plug as it were, it's great, no issues and charges extra fast

[Q] got a generic charger....it says-5v 500mah,original is 5v 1a(amper)is this ok?

it says- output :5v 500mah
the original says-output:5v 1a(amper i guess)
will this screw up the battery?

chances are no, considering it is half what htc recommends you charge it with, either it will charge it very slowly (half the current of the original) or the voltage wont provide enough to kick the phone into charging mode and nothing will happen (i.e. the charger "wont work")

Thanks for the help

It'll work, but as panyan said, it'll recharge much more inefficiently than with a 1 amp charger.

Actually... It will charge the phone exactly as charging via USB, as USB is limited to 0.5A.

Yep, it will charge your phone just fine @ USB charging speed, I have a similar charger.

And some of you forgot to mention that the phone will struggle when for example you will play games or use gps. Charge will be insufficient and instead charging it will slowly discharge while using it.
Sent from my Desire HD uing XDA App

Well yes and no, in normal usage it will charge phone, but when you use your phone the way that you would drain the batty in two hours, then it will discharge.

Hey... Yeah if the charger is a car charger then it may not charge fast enough if using GPS software which can drain the battery fast. 1Amp reccomended for faster charging... other than that should charge fine but just slow like USB charging (which has a max of 500mA).
One question guys... I bought a car charger from ebay listed as for HTC phones. It looks like a cheap knock off product with a glowing blue HTC logo when used in the car. The device is rated at 2Amps. Now from what little I know about electronics I've been told that AC/DC Plug packs with more Amps are ok and the device just only uses what it needs. I'm not however familiar whith battery charing when you have a higher rated Amps charger... Would the battery on the phone just be greedy and "ask" for the full 2Amps? Would this then put strain or be dangerous by charging the phone too quickly?
Secondly while we are on the topic of electronics... I'm trying out a super cheap ebay battery supposedly rated at 1600mAH (I know these rating are usually fake). I've noticed the HTC battery is around 4.17V when fully charged. This battery charged up to 4.2V fully charged... Is that dangerous for the device?

2 amp is better, correct me if i am wrong. So the output is 5V and 2A, is that mean the power is 10W every hour ?

2 A charging current (if the phone takes in that much) will damage the battery in a long term use.

It is incredibly unlikely that the phone will discharge the battery faster than it charges unless you're doing something very wrong, e.g. Running a console emulator while downloading a large file over HSDPA with WiFi enabled (but not connected) and using GPS navigation with screen brightness at maximum!
Screen and background services take approx 150mAh, and I doubt radio will take much more than that combined. That puts drain 200mAh less than USB charging, 700mAh less than direct charging.
FYI: There's a spec for USB charging of mobile phones from supported USB ports which can pull up to 1500mA.

DeathJester said:
It is incredibly unlikely that the phone will discharge the battery faster than it charges unless you're doing something very wrong, e.g. Running a console emulator while downloading a large file over HSDPA with WiFi enabled (but not connected) and using GPS navigation with screen brightness at maximum!
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Hmm... not sure for Desire HD I haven't tested GPS with SatNav software using current widget... I do know that I'm pulling well over 200mA just with basic use at home with Wi-Fi on and GPS & Bluetooth off and I kill all backround apps. I do know that I've been in the car and seen TomTom app on my friend's jailbroken iPhone 3G (or 3Gs) and with the GPS on and not doing anything intensive... we were actually travelling down a long straight highway, the phone was chewing more battery than the car charger could charge, so he switched off GPS.
Ah also guys no need to worry about the 2Amp charger... It sh*t itself on the 3rd car use and no longer works at all. Junk! I also noticed on the 2nd car trip that opening Android SpareParts the charge is displayed as USB Charging not AC Charging so yeah I believe that the car charger was only a standard USB (max 500mA) power output and not 1Amp let alone 2Amps. Annoying how false advertising or labelling is part and parcel with cheap Chinese products.I was meaning to test the charger's output with Current Widget (which is what I'll do for my next car charger) but the charger crapped out and was useless before I got a chance.
One thing I did notice from looking at a log using Current Widget while charging my phone on the A/C charger in standby, the charge tapers off the power output the more the battery is charged. To get an accurate idea of if the car charger is going to be outputting 1Amp I'd be sure the phone battery is down to 40% (or in the 40s) then with all other stuff switched off I'd run a log on Current Widget and turn the screen off for a few minutes. You should have a reading of around +700 to +800mA if the car charger is rated at 1Amp.
Be wary of the cheap Asian knock of car chargers with the coil spring cord and the HTC logo that lights up blue.... Not worth the 3 or 4 bucks they sell on ebay for.
There's a spec for USB charging of mobile phones from supported USB ports which can pull up to 1500mA.
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There's commonly those double USB cables for laptop hard drives so yeah I can see that if the USB ports are actually giving you the full rated maximum of 500mA you can get 1Amp output with this kind of cable but 1500mA?!? The only way I'd see possible for this is either you have a tripple USB cable connected to 3USB ports that are all outputting the full 500mA (and that's if a triple cable even exists or lets say you solder another one onto a double cable) or you have a USB AC/DC charger or some other USB port/hub you've rigged up which provides more than the USB standards of max 500mA per port. How else is this possible?!? Has the max power output of 500mA changed since USB 2.0 standards?

yeah there are usb 2.0 ports with more than 500mA power supply.
some companys give some extra juice to their (or often only one) usb ports.
for example: i've got an Dell Studio XPS 16 Notebook here. it has 3 usb ports, 2 with normal 500mA supply and one with 1A (for charging your phone, etc).
DN41

Got a New Charger, Now the Screen Doesn't Work While Plugged In!

Hello all,
So I just bought a new charger (just a wall charger) and now when I plug my TB in, the screen does not respond to anything! I have to take the plug out to work my screen. It is completely unresponsive (regardless of where I'm at on the screen) while charging. As soon as I unplug it, it's fine.
Any ideas?

Where did you buy the charger from? Some crappy no-name/ebay/cheap chargers do that because they are crap. I had bought a cheap charger for my HTC Touch Pro 2 and that same thing happened, used the regular charger, no problems at all.

I know when I used the charger and cable that came with the thunderbolt, it used to become laggy or less responsive. Not terrible, but I could notice it. It was like all the memory was tied up. It doesn't do it anymore though. I rarely use the original cable and charger anyways.

g00s3y said:
Where did you buy the charger from? Some crappy no-name/ebay/cheap chargers do that because they are crap. I had bought a cheap charger for my HTC Touch Pro 2 and that same thing happened, used the regular charger, no problems at all.
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Indeed. The cheap $1.00 chargers may also harm your battery.

daniel178 said:
Hello all,
So I just bought a new charger (just a wall charger) and now when I plug my TB in, the screen does not respond to anything! I have to take the plug out to work my screen. It is completely unresponsive (regardless of where I'm at on the screen) while charging. As soon as I unplug it, it's fine.
Any ideas?
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Today I tried to charge my phone at work using my original.al charger that I always use and while it was plugged in, the screen wouldn't respond at all. I thought the phone was the problem but I later troubleshot it to low voltage from the extension cord, not my charger.

There are in fact quite a few micro-usb chargers that cause the screen to become unresponsive when plugged in.. This doesn't necessarily mean that the charger is crap, but it's best to use your manufacturer-approved (oem) chargers whenever possible. I work in wireless, and although our supplier is reputable, their generic chargers don't work well with the Atrix & a few other smartphones. I use them only when necessary, but do your phone a favor & stick to manufacturer chargers.

I had this problem, when I use a properly grounded surge protector the problem doesn't happen any more. It also happens to me when I charge out of my old macbook pro which tends to have a 'staticy' feel to it.

zoso28 said:
There are in fact quite a few micro-usb chargers that cause the screen to become unresponsive when plugged in.. This doesn't necessarily mean that the charger is crap, but it's best to use your manufacturer-approved (oem) chargers whenever possible...
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You're two months late with your incorrect post. There's a well defined standard for USB chargers, which the TB follows. Non-OEM ones work every bit as well as the HTC one as long as they, too, follow the standard and provide clean power.

mike.s said:
You're two months late with your incorrect post. There's a well defined standard for USB chargers, which the TB follows. Non-OEM ones work every bit as well as the HTC one as long as they, too, follow the standard and provide clean power.
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Sorry my timing bothered you I was just browsing around for info about the touchscreen issues i've seen. I'm well aware of the standard, 5 +/- 0.25 volts 500–900 mA, and they all seem to charge perfectly well but certain phone/charger combos cause some screens to lag & I just wondered why. For example the motorola adapters all seem to be 5.1 volts @ 850mA, whereas samsung adapters are 5.0 volts @ 700 mA, and the samsungs charge fine on our standard 5/500's while the moto's lag.

zoso28 said:
SI'm well aware of the standard, 5 +/- 0.25 volts 500–900 mA, and they all seem to charge perfectly well but certain phone/charger combos cause some screens to lag & I just wondered why. For example the motorola adapters all seem to be 5.1 volts @ 850mA, whereas samsung adapters are 5.0 volts @ 700 mA, and the samsungs charge fine on our standard 5/500's while the moto's lag.
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It's not clear where the "500-900 mA" and "standard 5/500" figures you give come from. Neither is from the USB Battery Charging Specification.
The spec supports up to a 1.5 A current from a Dedicated Charging Port. The HTC charger is rated at 1 A, and it seems the TB will use all of it. I've seen charging rates of 800 mA, with the phone also running screen, GPS, and more.
Cheap ones, regardless of output, may be poorly filtered with a significant AC component. Those are the ones which will really cause problems.

[Q] Sidekick 4g doesn't charge via wall, but very slow via usb to pc

Sidekick 4g will not charge via wall, but does charge very slow on usb. I tried different wall chargers except the "official" wall charger, even a samsung branded usb detachable wall charger, but it still keeps doing in and out with a beep sound and doesn't charge. Am I missing something??? Please help, this issue is extremely aggravating especially when you use your phone for business. X(
I am on the final smooth maximus rom btw.

Well in my experiance with samsung phones and even some htc modles you have to use an offically branded charger for your modle sometimes, it has to do with the pins and how they line up, now if you use the usb cored and a travle wall charger (I use this set up in my truck for work) you should see a faster charge time cause the voltage is higher and its the right pin set
Sent from my SGH-T839 using XDA App

The connector is an industry standard. There's no problem with the pins not lining up. There's also no difference in voltage between chargers. Being USB, it has to be 5v.
However, some chargers have higher capacity than others. The USB spec allows for 500mA from a PC's USB port, but chargers sometimes increase it to a full amp for faster charging. The phones will still charge from a PC's USB port, but they'll take longer.
Also, some companies (Like Motorola) require a special Motorola-branded charger. It's just because they want to sell more chargers. The only difference between a real Motorola one and a generic one is a resistor between two pins to identify it to the phone.
The Sidekick doesn't have this vendor lock-in crap. It'll charge from just about anything you can plug it into. If it's not charging I'd suspect a broken USB connector on the phone, a faulty battery, or a damaged charging circuit inside the phone.

Jax184 said:
The connector is an industry standard. There's no problem with the pins not lining up. There's also no difference in voltage between chargers. Being USB, it has to be 5v.
However, some chargers have higher capacity than others. The USB spec allows for 500mA from a PC's USB port, but chargers sometimes increase it to a full amp for faster charging. The phones will still charge from a PC's USB port, but they'll take longer.
Also, some companies (Like Motorola) require a special Motorola-branded charger. It's just because they want to sell more chargers. The only difference between a real Motorola one and a generic one is a resistor between two pins to identify it to the phone.
The Sidekick doesn't have this vendor lock-in crap. It'll charge from just about anything you can plug it into. If it's not charging I'd suspect a broken USB connector on the phone, a faulty battery, or a damaged charging circuit inside the phone.
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Thanks for the response guys.. Yeah, this stuff is pretty weird.. it would blow if the port is messed up. The phone is brand new though, would they be manufactured faulty?? In that case samsung tech department sucks!

When you make a million of something, statistics say that a few mistakes will happen. If it's new I'd suggest taking it back. I charge my Sidekick off of my PC's USB port and am often surprised by how quickly it charges.

Jax184 said:
When you make a million of something, statistics say that a few mistakes will happen. If it's new I'd suggest taking it back. I charge my Sidekick off of my PC's USB port and am often surprised by how quickly it charges.
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lol. I see. See, the thing is now its charging fine after a certain %. My guess is the battery is faulty then...

Skyrocket can't function as GPS Navigator?

This weekend I went on a trip and decided to try out using my Skyrocket as a GPS navigator using Google Navigation. I had my phone mounted and plugged in the whole time for about a 2 hour trip. The screen was on the whole time usually at high brightness (it would dim every once in a while.) When I removed my phone from the mount I noticed the power was down to the low 60's, which struck me as slightly odd since it was plugged into the charger the whole time. The next day I tried to use it as a GPS system again, but even as it was plugged in, this time I literally saw the battery gauge draining. When I turned off navigation and the screen the phone would finally start charging.
Is this a common thing or is there an issue with my phone or possibly my charger? Does doing all those things really drain the battery faster than it can charge it? One last note is that I was not in an LTE area during this, or at least not the whole time (I only noticed it was LTE at one time during the trip.) When I saw my battery draining in front of me I definitely was not in an LTE area.

Might be your charger. I'm having no problems using it as my primary driving, hiking and general outdoor GPS unit. When on car charger, it's charging faster then it drains.

I believe my charger is an old Motorola car charger that came with my wife's old dumbphone. It's actually not even a Micro-USB charger, but rather a Mini-USB with an adapter.
This may be a dumb question, but the actual charging port shouldn't be the issue right? I'm assuming those are always the same standard.

Check the car charger amperage output. I have an old car charger to USB that only puts out 750mA and another thats puts out 1A. Anything less than 1A with the navigation running (which means the screen and GPS stay on, of course), and it'll still drain the battery (and even at 1A it may still drain).
I've been putting off getting a powerful enough car charger myself. You'll need one that puts out 1-2A I would think. Most of the common ones off the shelf are 1A or less, and I've heard that some chargers reported max output is not as good as reported.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727

jslanger said:
Check the car charger amperage output. I have an old car charger to USB that only puts out 750mA and another thats puts out 1A. Anything less than 1A with the navigation running (which means the screen and GPS stay on, of course), and it'll still drain the battery (and even at 1A it may still drain).
I've been putting off getting a powerful enough car charger myself. You'll need one that puts out 1-2A I would think. Most of the common ones off the shelf are 1A or less, and I've heard that some chargers reported max output is not as good as reported.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727
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i second this...my phone won't even charge on some wall chargers, unless 700mAh or higher. let alone do any battery heavy functions like GPS. get something with at least 1a output

I'll try swapping the chargers. I have an overpriced AT&T one that I got for free that is collecting dust.

If the charger has 1A output then it should be OK

I'm having the same problem with my Skyrocket and cheapy charger that I bought at Fry's. Use the navigation with screen on and my battery is less than when I plugged it in.
Going to buy this combo 2A and 1A charger.
http://www.amazon.com/GTMax-2-Port-..._1_5?s=wireless&ie=UTF8&qid=1329796381&sr=1-5

Its the amount of mah your charger is putting out. Not the phone. The charger is not supplying enough power
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using Tapatalk

CZ Eddie said:
I'm having the same problem with my Skyrocket and cheapy charger that I bought at Fry's. Use the navigation with screen on and my battery is less than when I plugged it in.
Going to buy this combo 2A and 1A charger.
http://www.amazon.com/GTMax-2-Port-..._1_5?s=wireless&ie=UTF8&qid=1329796381&sr=1-5
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When I was looking for a more powerful option, I saw that one on Amazon as well. My only hesitation at buying it was why it was so much cheaper than all comparable options at local stores, or even online...I've heard that the cheapie chargers may not actually output what they say...though for $4 plus shipping, I guess it's not much of a gamble. Let us know how it performs!
P.S.-Pulled up the reviews...not too many positive ones (though 1 or 2 were good): http://www.amazon.com/GTMax-2-Port-...iewpoints=1&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending

Its actually more than just the charger output that is a problem. If the center two pins on the USB connection aren't shorted, the phone will treat it as a USB connection to a computer, not an AC connection from the wall, and only draw a max 500mah. I had bought a 1amp and 2 amp charger for my car and would get the same results as the 500. I started to think it was my car limiting my output!
But I then found an article detailing this problem that I've since lost the link to, but the method worked. Pop open the charger and solder the 2 middle connectors together and all is good.
I don't know why the charger manufacturers don't know this... Or maybe this phone is doing something new? Maybe someone makes a USB-> micro USB with the center pair shorted in cable?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using Tapatalk

Just Google "Solder USB Car Charger" and you'll find plenty of tutorials about how to do that. Personally I'd rather just buy one that out of the box works.

Tried out my AT&T charger (which can be found here) and it worked perfectly. Set up the GPS and everything and now it will charge even while doing all that stuff. Thanks for the help

I have the same issue with my SkyRocket. LTE makes no difference. If I'm using Google Navigation or Waze and the Screen is on my charger/phone can't keep up with the battery drain. If I turn the screen off and keep the GPS app running the battery either doesn't drain or doesn't drain as fast.
I've checked my car charger and it's one of those dual usb ones, with a 1 amp port and a 2.1 amp port. It has no indication of which port is which, so I don't know what port I'm using at any particular time. I've tried both and the effects are the same.
Regardless, when the phone is plugged in to that charger the phone reports that it's an AC charger. Supposedly that means I'm getting at least 1 amp, right? So why is 1 amp not enough?
I don't like the car charger you guys suggested because it has the curly cord. I'd rather use a car charger that doesn't come with a cable so I can plug in my own usb cable.
Any suggestions?