I posted this in another forum and the response I got was somewhat weak. Instead of re typing everything I will cut and paste my posts and hopefully you guys can guide me in the right direction!
Here was post 1 -->
I just bought a Rooted Nexus S from ebay. It is running this ROM Nexus S ICS 4.0.4 stock OTA ROM (IMM76D)
Now, I know nothing about android, I'm coming off a series of old turd phones because i'm always breaking them. I'll probably break this one too, but hopefully not for a while.
When I got the phone I put the battery in and turned it on, then charged it overnight. It will only charge to 54% and stay there. I talked to the seller he said it charged normally for him. He said he did a complete wipe and USB wipe before he shipped it.
The battery seems to drain normally (I guess, I have nothing to really compare it to) from 54% but it would be nice to have it charge to the 90% -ish range haha. I allowed the battery to drain to 40% and put it back on charge, it been on charge for almost an hour and will only charge to 41%? Do you guys have any ideas what I can do to fix this? Is this a sign it needs a new battery, or a software glitch? The seller said the battery shouldn't need replacing.
Also in the battery app under setting, Android System is using 28% is that a lot?
My last question is an important one to me haha. Is there anyway to convert the querty keyboard to a T9? I 've gotten used to texting with one hand and T9 makes it so much easier to do so.
Thanks everybody!
Someone recommended I try the battery calibration app So I did!
Post 2
Ok, I ran the Battery Calibration app. I let my phone charge for hours. It would only charge up to 38% this time. However, the percentage was 38% but it was charged to 3810 mV (and would not charge past this point). And full charge is approximately 4200 mV according to the Battery Calibration app. So I assumed that 3810 mV was my current battery's max charge (keep in mind it is a couple months old) and set battery calibration at that point.
This is from the app description --> It's suggested, but not necessary, to let the phone fully discharge after calibration, then charged to 100% without break.
So thats what I'll do. I should mention that even though I ran the battery calibration, the battery percentage has been draining from 38%. In other words, my phone now reads 26% battery charge, but is at 3758 mV.
I'm thinking that when I go to charge it after fully draining the battery, it will hopefully charge close to 100%. It seems as though the percentage is the only thing that is off. Because the mV reading seems accurate.
Here is a screenshot, what do you guys think?
This site won't let me post the screen shot until 8 posts, but I will do that once I get there!
Post # 3
The app says to let the phone fully discharge after calibration. I am now at 15%, but mV is at 3658. Should I recharge when the percentage has dropped lower, or when the mV reaches a low point? Are these phones really this finicky. I'm starting to miss my old 2007 flip phone haha
It's now at 14% and now asking for me to plug it in to charge lol but mV is still way high (3655)
Post #4
update, charge % reached 0 and the phone shut down. Now charging, Current charge is at 0%, 3595 mV. No one has any idea whats up?
Shouldn't mV be near 0 when charge is at 0%, and be near 4000mV when charge is near 100%?
hopefully you guys can help me fix this issue. Otherwise it'll have to go back to 'ol reliable, the 2007, multiple cracked screen, nokia slider lol It's not pretty, but it works!
There is a built in safety feature in our batteries to prevent deep discharges. IIRC, the safe cutoff point is around maybe 34xx mV. I could be off, but its to prevent damage to the battery. Here's more on them
http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/is_lithium_ion_the_ideal_battery
As for voltages, a full battery should be around 4100mV. Mine tops out around 4196. I'm not too familiar with all of it though. Most of the stuff I learn is through observation and links others provide.
Thanks for the reply! So are you saying that when the voltage is around 34xx the battery charge % should be close to or around 0%. And when the voltage is near the 4000mV range the charge %tage should be approximately 9x%
Do I have the right idea here?
Its hard to say while its charging. My phone is at 4000mv around 70% so I don't really know exactly how it works. But a full battery should read around the voltages I posted. There's people on here who know more about it, so hopefully they'll chime in.
But yes. When its close to zero, it should be around that range. It will differ from battery to battery.
Ah k thanks! My original problem was that the phone would only charge to 54% and would not go past that point. I'm waiting to see if it will get into the 90 ish % range after running the battery calibration now.
The app itself doesn't actually do anything. The stats will get reset once the charge reaches 90% My girlfriend's phone was the same way. It wouldn't charge past 75%. I let the phone run dead and charged it while it was off and it fixed the problem. If it doesn't go to 90%, try charging while off and just letting it run until it gives the warning to charge, turn it off and let it charge overnight .
Ok. Well I let the phone run dead earlier today as I mentioned in one of the above posts. But I didn't charge it with the phone off. I put it on charge with the phone on, and now it won't charge past 11%
It just seems to be getting worse and worse? It's been going between 10% and 11% and has been at 11% for about 2 hours now. Maybe this time I will drain it again and try charging it with the phone off like you suggested.
This is slightly annoying
All else fails grab another battery. They're dirt cheap on eBay. Just get one from a reputable seller
Ok, so I let the battery drain. then fully charged it with the phone off. When I turned it on, it had 47% charge.
The guy I bought it from said that before I buy a battery I should download an app called rom manager and download a new rom. he thinks its a software bug because he had no problems with the battery when he was running cyanogen mod 9 on it.
I wouldn't mind giving trying this, except I don't even know what a rom is. Is it operating system? I like the way the phone works now, If only I could get it to charge fully.
Thoughts?
Ok, I just did a bunch of reading and downloaded ROM manager premium. Hopefully I get this figured out. Owning one of these phones is a lot of work
lts pretty much a pocket computer. Coming from an older type of phone, a lot of things are going to be different. Gotta start somewhere. Reading up on it and toying around with the phone will help in the long run. Trust me.
or not....
louderstill said:
or not....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Haha, pretty much. I'm slowly starting to learn more. I didn't think there was this much of a learning curve, thats what took me by surprise thats all. I'm a fast learner so I'm not too worried. I didn't have time to play around on it tonight, maybe on the weekend. I found out I could use it without the sim card which is awesome! Because now I can use old faithful while I learn more about android.
Thanks for the help so far though, I'm sure I'll have more questions soon haha
Haha. Yep. You can have tons of fun just using it over wifi!
Do keep in mind, fully dishcharging a lithium ion (li-ion) battery deteriorates the battery even more. We only discharge because older phones use nickel cadmium batteries which need more maintenance to get to their maximum life span and use.
Off topic though.
Battery calibration just wipes your battery stats. You can do this by going into any recovery program eg clockworkmod receovery or team win recovery project. You can wipe the battery stats yourself. If that still doesnt work. Try doing a clean install of your custom rom or kernel. If your not on a custom rom or kernel. Nor your rooted. Try formating the SD card in the Nexus S (or fully wiping the sd card). Than do a factory reset.
Ok, so I finally had some time to learn to flash etc. After backing up, I downloaded and flashed the same rom from SD, I cleared davlik cache and also selected the wipe data and cache option from ROM Manager (I assume that this is what is called a clean install?)
This is the ROM I am using http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1653713 Slightly customized stock ROM, rooted.
After start up I waited a while and then plugged it into the charger, it only charges to 54% still. Sometimes it creeps up. One thing I noticed is that if I use the phone while it is charging, it actually drains the battery. So it will go from 54% to 52% and slowly drain. Is this an indication of a pooched battery?
Any suggestions? I will order a battery. Where do you guys order your batterries, I read that the oem samsung 1500 is reliable.
Related
I've installed the Yelp, Movies, and Amazon app, nothing else, and I'm losing around 15% an hour with light/normal usage.
I've let the battery run down to 0 and recharged completely, I've turned off gps and wifi, and still get really bad life. I live in the Bay Area and get a solid signal all of the time. There's really no excuse for it.
Please don't tell me to flash to a rom, because that's obviously not fixing the issue. Light browsing and the occasional Google Maps has my phone at <20% by the afternoon.
Battery stats just show android system and screen brightness taking up power. What's the deal?
I also constantly have at least 255 / 328mb in use even with all applications closed.
Sent from my SCH-I510 using XDA App
The mb usage is normal i noticed this on stock because of Verizon apps that run in background. As far as not using the phone and only getting 6 good hours of use. i would take to the store and ask if they could change out the battery. Hope this helps.
+1 for that, sounds like you have a defective battery.
Sent from my Droid Charge
Thats about how long my battery gets me.
And if I forget to power down my phone at night, or put it on a charger it is dead by morning no matter how much of a charge it has before I go to bed.
I have an extended battery starring me in the face and can't use it yet since I couldn't find a door and had to have one shipped from Samsung.
Hopefully the extended battery cures my issues.
(I am running Gummy Charged 2.3.3 Beta, currently waiting for the 2.3.4 release)
Abradax said:
Thats about how long my battery gets me.
And if I forget to power down my phone at night, or put it on a charger it is dead by morning no matter how much of a charge it has before I go to bed.
I have an extended battery starring me in the face and can't use it yet since I couldn't find a door and had to have one shipped from Samsung.
Hopefully the extended battery cures my issues.
(I am running Gummy Charged 2.3.3 Beta, currently waiting for the 2.3.4 release)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am curious as to what you guys are running. And if you go to bed with your phone on , and its dead by morning I can PROMISE you there is either something going on with your phone, or you are doing something wrong (i.e. you have your phone set to never sleep, your screen is set to maximum brightness, your are leaving your phone in desk cradle mode, etc etc etc.) But it's not the phone. May be a bad battery, but without being at your house and seeing what you are doing, I have no intelligent answer for you.
dragonstalker said:
I am curious as to what you guys are running. And if you go to bed with your phone on , and its dead by morning I can PROMISE you there is either something going on with your phone, or you are doing something wrong (i.e. you have your phone set to never sleep, your screen is set to maximum brightness, your are leaving your phone in desk cradle mode, etc etc etc.) But it's not the phone. May be a bad battery, but without being at your house and seeing what you are doing, I have no intelligent answer for you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
charge phone to 100%, boot into clockwork recovery and wipe your battery stats, then use the phone until you completely drain your battery until it shuts off. Then charge back up completely. This will calibrate your battery. try running a customer rom such as gummy charged or humble to see if you get bettery battery life... thousands of users have reported great battery life with both
I had same crummy battery life. I followed the calibration instructions and i went from about 5-6 hr batt life to ( right now im at almost 11hrs with 66% battery left on wifi with moderate use). Ill test tomorrow on 4g only and see how it does. I would get like 4-5 hrs before.
Sent from my LG-P920 using XDA App
danalo1979 said:
charge phone to 100%, boot into clockwork recovery and wipe your battery stats, then use the phone until you completely drain your battery until it shuts off. Then charge back up completely. This will calibrate your battery. try running a customer rom such as gummy charged or humble to see if you get bettery battery life... thousands of users have reported great battery life with both
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am running the latest humble and my battery drops really fast. If I go into task manager and clear my RAM, I get better battery. I calibrated per the instructions as well about a week ago or so and saw no improvement. Please note that I have not been scientific about it at all.
Stopping Data obv helps a million and clearing RAM seems to help as well.
EDIT: I am recalibrating in case it was not done properly before. Hopefully it will help. I am hopeful!
I charged my battery to full, booted into clockwork recovery and wiped my battery stats.
When I rebooted my phone it shows a 73% charge?
Abradax said:
I charged my battery to full, booted into clockwork recovery and wiped my battery stats.
When I rebooted my phone it shows a 73% charge?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you are on humble 1.x then that means your battery stats were way off. Basically your battery still needs 23% more charge before its full... thus better battery life... because you had a miscalibrated battery, your phone is erroneously reporting a full charge... charge it back to 100% then discharge fully then charge all the back up
Sent from my SCH-I510 using XDA Premium App
I'm on Gummy Charge GRE, but I assume the same reason?
I exchanged my battery at verizon. So far it seems better. Ive let it drain and am recharging now. I will also try uninstalling g+ if the new batt hasnt solved the problem. I will post back with an update.
Sent from my SCH-I510 using XDA App
I switched out my battery 2 days ago, and I'm still getting under 6 hours with moderate use.
Has anyone had luck with ROMs drastically improving battery life? I can't imagine it being the phone itself, but I might try exchanging it too.
EDIT: it seems like the new battery charges a bit faster. My old battery would take around a minute for one percentage gain. Can anyone comment on their charge times?
Okay, so each time I reboot my phone, my battery capacity increases dramatically! At one point, I got the notice to put the phone on the charger, and after a reboot, I was back to some 25%? Just now I was at 40%, a reboot now brings it to 56%!
What exactly is up? I charged my phone till it said 100%, then used an app called battery calibration to remove the battery stats file, and then let the phone drain till it shut off. (I couldnt reboot it). I put it on the charger, and let it charge back to 100%. I am confused?!?! This is, by the way, a chichitec 1900mA/Hr battery which has lasted me about 16 hours so far today with pretty moderate use! LOTS of web surfing, internet, and about an hour of phone calls. Its at 50% (or whatever it really is). I know its a great battery, but I hate thinking there is such an oddity about it.
Should I charge back to 100%, then wipe that stats, this time with CWM?
Matt
this is exactly what i was talking to you about yesterday in my "charging times" thread.. seems lots of people are having this issue...is your phone brand new? could just not be calibrated yet
mattdub1 said:
this is exactly what i was talking to you about yesterday in my "charging times" thread.. seems lots of people are having this issue...is your phone brand new? could just not be calibrated yet
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
New battery, new ROM, it takes a couple of charging cycling for these things to get working properly....give it time after the initial calibration.
and its not a problem that the phone won't switch om after discharge, it just shows that your battery was completely empty....plug in charger and wait for LED to light!
Quick question,
Is the Battery Calibration (CWM wipe at 100%) a phone, battery or ROM calibration ? I know you need to go through a few cycles after calibrating.
I have done it and since changed ROMs a few times so just wondered. Phone is only a week old so far.
Alright so it's difficult to explain this fully but I'll try. I came across battery calibration information and I went ahead and wiped the stats. I then let it drain, charge full then drain again. Now as it was charging I decided to flash another ROM, done. So that ROM took a while to fully charge but when it did I got 13hrs of battery life out of it. Now when I charge it, pretty much it stays around 50% and wo't bump higher. Literally haven't hit higher after leaving it plugged for more than 3 hours. Anyways I'm about to flash a update of said ROM and use a different kernel that is know to be more stable. But curious if there is hope for my battery? I don't plan on wiping battery stats anymore, after further readings I see it's not worth the trouble.
I'm having issues with my phone shutting off when the battery meter is low but not dead.The indicator will be yellow and still shut off. When I power it back on and plug it in, its completely dead .
is the phone innacurately reporting the battery percentage?
Sounds like the battery isn't conditioned correctly. There are apps in the market to help with that.
Look in battery configs battstats prob in /data/system and prob elsewhere
Sent from my HTC VLE_U using xda premium
Arent there other ways to condition the battery with an app? i heard like running the phone to empty and then fully charging? any advice?
The problem with running it empty is the battery will never fully discharge because the phone is reading the stats incorrectly.
can you recommend any specific app for this? do you have to be rooted?
You'd have to look at the requirements per app but I do believe you need root.
Your phone isn't going to report one thing, but "believe" a different thing because of bad battery stats. A Google employee has already debunked "conditioning" your battery by deleting battery stats; the phone uses it for reference only, not to make any decisions, especially when to shut down. Something is wrong with the battery itself, or your phone, not your stats.
Swyped, not typed, from my Digital Brick
It might be better over time. Had mine for two weeks now, and I had it run out on me three times. First time it shut down at about 13% left on the meter, second time around 8% and this last time at 2%. Good enough for me, but it's annoying if an untampered new phone doesn't report at least somewhat close to real battery-state.
I usually hook it on the charger at 15%-30% (approx 12-16 hours usage) in the evening, and sometimes have a few short charges (25-30 minutes) from the car-charger during the day.
I've never let mine get below 50% since I got it, but I just ran it into the ground with a terminal process ('yes && yes') and it went all the way to 0% and then powered off.
Hi everyone,
I've had my Sensation for about 14 months now and for the past month I've been having battery issues. Primarily, it's very quick to lose charge and will lose charge even while charging from the wall. First I bought a replacement battery but was still having the same issues. I've started using Better Battery Stats and Battery Monitor Widget but I don't have anything out of the ordinary running. In fact, not a lot is running at all. BMW has allowed me to see how the charging is going though which has been nice. During this period I have used Elegancia, Bruce's CM10, and am currently on ParanoidAndroid. All experienced the same issues.
Last night, for example, I put the phone on the charger at 16 percent. It charged up to 22 and then started the downward slide to death and I ended up waking up 35 minutes late.
Where do I go from here so I don't have to constantly be paranoid about my battery levels?
Sounds like you might need another battery. In better battery starts did you notice any unusual wake locks? This could drain a battery. But since it looses charge even when charging I'd think it was the battery. I personally was experiencing some battery issues myself finally I broke down and got a mugen 3800mah battery from mugen. It was expensive but really worth it for Me.with really heavy and constant use I get 20 hours out of my battery, with normal use I get two days. I'm also running paranoid Android rom. For me the big battery solved my issues. Only one draw back, it does make your phone thicker. New back included with battery. This didn't bother me much because of the excellent battery life I receive. Now I finally don't. Worry about battery. However it's expensive at about 95 dollars. But I was so fed up with poor battery life it was worth it for me. You have to be careful when buying inexpensive batteries because there are a lot of fakes going around. And the mah is not really what it says it is on the packages. You can test the battery and make sure it is what it's advertised to be. If you don't want to go with that large of a battery you can also try anker extended battery. It's a lot less expensive and is a good battery. I personally needed more juice so I went with the big battery. I know you said you replaced the battery but sometimes the bargain batteries go bad quickly. It makes me suspicious of the battery because it's even dropping while charging. This is strange. If you ruled out any apps or wake locks that might be draining the battery I would buy a good reliable battery. The draining while charging is a red flag. I'd say the battery is going bad. I don't at all regret my purchase of the big battery. It for me, solved my issues. I do Hope this helps and I wish you the best. Hopefully you will get your issue resolved soon.
Sent from my HTC Sensation using xda premium
its either an issue with the battery or the battery reporting.
Only thing you can really try is to charge it up to 100%, wipe battery stats in recovery, then let it empty totally and charge it up again, see how its behaving. There is a chance that its the reporting that is off.
otherwise this looks like the battery is on its way out im afraid
realsis said:
Sounds like you might need another battery. In better battery starts did you notice any unusual wake locks? This could drain a battery. But since it looses charge even when charging I'd think it was the battery. I personally was experiencing some battery issues myself finally I broke down and got a mugen 3800mah battery from mugen. It was expensive but really worth it for Me.with really heavy and constant use I get 20 hours out of my battery, with normal use I get two days. I'm also running paranoid Android rom. For me the big battery solved my issues. Only one draw back, it does make your phone thicker. New back included with battery. This didn't bother me much because of the excellent battery life I receive. Now I finally don't. Worry about battery. However it's expensive at about 95 dollars. But I was so fed up with poor battery life it was worth it for me. You have to be careful when buying inexpensive batteries because there are a lot of fakes going around. And the mah is not really what it says it is on the packages. You can test the battery and make sure it is what it's advertised to be. If you don't want to go with that large of a battery you can also try anker extended battery. It's a lot less expensive and is a good battery. I personally needed more juice so I went with the big battery. I know you said you replaced the battery but sometimes the bargain batteries go bad quickly. It makes me suspicious of the battery because it's even dropping while charging. This is strange. If you ruled out any apps or wake locks that might be draining the battery I would buy a good reliable battery. The draining while charging is a red flag. I'd say the battery is going bad. I don't at all regret my purchase of the big battery. It for me, solved my issues. I do Hope this helps and I wish you the best. Hopefully you will get your issue resolved soon.
Sent from my HTC Sensation using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Argh. I hope it's not the replacement battery too. I got a replacement HTC battery. The problem I'm having getting anything useful from Better Battery Stats is that rarely am I off the charger. In the settings it says I can log while charging but it may mess up the stats so I've shied away from doing that. I'm not against getting a bigger, better battery but I would hate to do that and have it actually be something else hardware-wise where I would need to get rid of my phone.
Hawke84 said:
its either an issue with the battery or the battery reporting.
Only thing you can really try is to charge it up to 100%, wipe battery stats in recovery, then let it empty totally and charge it up again, see how its behaving. There is a chance that its the reporting that is off.
otherwise this looks like the battery is on its way out im afraid
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll give this a try if I can get it back up to 100%. Is the reporting in Recovery always correct? The battery never has issues charging while it's in Recovery mode. If that's the case then I'll charge it to 100% in recovery and then wipe and start fresh.
Thanks
I don't think it's the battery. This phones have errors in battery readings. I feel your pain man. Mine is from T-Mobile (Sensation 4G) and it discharges if I use it even at lowest brightness when it's charging too.
If I reboot, I get the battery boost. I have tried EVERYTHING I read here and nothing worked. I even have 4 batteries. All of them in good condition.
I even tried three times discharging it fully and without turning it on, charge it in the night and when I wake up 7-8 hours later, it's still charging. I tried wiping stats, changing ROMs, changing the usb cable and the charger. Everything... I believe it's a hardware issue. (Thank HTC for that) I'm not buying another HTC when I have to upgrade.
KerberosKomondor said:
I'll give this a try if I can get it back up to 100%. Is the reporting in Recovery always correct? The battery never has issues charging while it's in Recovery mode. If that's the case then I'll charge it to 100% in recovery and then wipe and start fresh.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Interesting...so if you were to charge the phone in recoery how long do you think it would take to get to 100%?
I would definitely do what you said, charge in recovery then wipe battery stats and go from there.
If you're interested in having something to compare to, it takes my phone about 3 hours to charge to 100% (by the way I'm using an Anker extended capacity battery), with a peak current usually around 800 - 900 mA. Fully charged I have somewhere around 4100 mV. If you haven't already, I'd suggest adding a Battery Monitor widget with mA, mV, and % available being displayed and it will be pretty easy to get an idea what's going on.
KCuadrado said:
I don't think it's the battery. This phones have errors in battery readings. I feel your pain man. Mine is from T-Mobile (Sensation 4G) and it discharges if I use it even at lowest brightness when it's charging too.
If I reboot, I get the battery boost. I have tried EVERYTHING I read here and nothing worked. I even have 4 batteries. All of them in good condition.
I even tried three times discharging it fully and without turning it on, charge it in the night and when I wake up 7-8 hours later, it's still charging. I tried wiping stats, changing ROMs, changing the usb cable and the charger. Everything... I believe it's a hardware issue. (Thank HTC for that) I'm not buying another HTC when I have to upgrade.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm leaning towards hardware issue too. That's why I figured I'd post and see if there was anything else that I can try. It's also why I don't really want to buy an expensive battery since who knows what it'll fit next. I know what you mean about the reboot battery boost. You can almost gamble and bet on percentages when you reboot. I've seen 50% swings before.
goatee84 said:
Interesting...so if you were to charge the phone in recoery how long do you think it would take to get to 100%?
I would definitely do what you said, charge in recovery then wipe battery stats and go from there.
If you're interested in having something to compare to, it takes my phone about 3 hours to charge to 100% (by the way I'm using an Anker extended capacity battery), with a peak current usually around 800 - 900 mA. Fully charged I have somewhere around 4100 mV. If you haven't already, I'd suggest adding a Battery Monitor widget with mA, mV, and % available being displayed and it will be pretty easy to get an idea what's going on.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In recovery I would guess that it wont take very long to charge to full. I have battery monitor widget installed and while plugged into the wall with my 1.0A charger, it will typically pull 100-200mA but sometimes it'll spike to 700-900mA. No rhyme or reason. When idling and functioning properly, without a charger plugged in it drops 9-100mA. Sometimes though while charging it'll sit at negative 100-200mA.
HA! Just rebooted my phone and it went from 68% to 100%. So I rebooted into recovery, it also said full so I wiped stats.
KerberosKomondor said:
In recovery I would guess that it wont take very long to charge to full. I have battery monitor widget installed and while plugged into the wall with my 1.0A charger, it will typically pull 100-200mA but sometimes it'll spike to 700-900mA. No rhyme or reason. When idling and functioning properly, without a charger plugged in it drops 9-100mA. Sometimes though while charging it'll sit at negative 100-200mA.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I normally get 2 to 3 mA drain with the phone sleeping. When charging you may not necessarily get close to the 1 A current delivery of the charger straight away, typically it will ramp up over time and reach peak charge current as it gets closer to 100%. Once at 100% it wants to just "trickle" charge to maintain 100% charge until the charger is disconnected, so any wakelocks etc. that cause a current drain during that "trickle" charging will actually decrease battery charge until the charger ramps up to compensate for the drain. Random spikes in charging current would suggest a hardware problem where the electronics are struggling to properly govern the charging process, as would a large negative current drain with the charger plugged in. Silly question but what's the actual plug connection to your phone like? Nice and solid, pins all OK?