Database Info

SDA won't power on: How to determine a working battery

I woke up to find my SDA powered off and unable to power on, which was odd considering it was plugged in to a (Motorola) charger.
Since the orange charge light doesn't come on at all, I suspect it's just a dead battery. I've touched the battery contacts to a battery tester with no response - as if the battery is totally dead, which is promising. However, I can't be sure I'm doing it correctly since I've never tried this on a battery I know is working.
There are 4 contacts on the battery, and I'm wondering if there's more to it - like needing to have 2 contacts touching the positive lead and the other 2 touching the negative lead.
Can someone try testing their battery and see which contacts give a live (charged) result?
Thanks

kentchristopher said:
I woke up to find my SDA powered off and unable to power on, which was odd considering it was plugged in to a (Motorola) charger.
Since the orange charge light doesn't come on at all, I suspect it's just a dead battery. I've touched the battery contacts to a battery tester with no response - as if the battery is totally dead, which is promising. However, I can't be sure I'm doing it correctly since I've never tried this on a battery I know is working.
There are 4 contacts on the battery, and I'm wondering if there's more to it - like needing to have 2 contacts touching the positive lead and the other 2 touching the negative lead.
Can someone try testing their battery and see which contacts give a live (charged) result?
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Normally you shouldn't try to use chargers not designed for your phone. What has probably happened is that there wasn't enough current output in the charger, and it completely drained your battery. Your battery is probably fine. Get a proper SDA charger and try charging it again. You can even take it to a store and ask them to plug it in for 15 minutes while you browse the new phones.

Yeah - I lost the original charger, but I've been charging with this Motorola one (output 5V / 550 mAh) and via USB for the past 6 months without problem. I still think it may be the battery because it was at 50% when I went to sleep.
What are the output specs of the original charger?

kentchristopher said:
Yeah - I lost the original charger, but I've been charging with this Motorola one (output 5V / 550 mAh) and via USB for the past 6 months without problem. I still think it may be the battery because it was at 50% when I went to sleep.
What are the output specs of the original charger?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The stock HTC charger (model ADP-5FH K) has output of 1A at 5V. But if you had no trouble charging before it shouldn't be a issue, unless the charger/battery is faulty.
If you have a multimeter you can verify this. To check if your battery is charged place contacts in (+) and (-) contacts on your battery and it should show ~3.7V. I just tried this.

s!lencer said:
The stock HTC charger (model ADP-5FH K) has output of 1A at 5V. But if you had no trouble charging before it shouldn't be a issue, unless the charger/battery is faulty.
If you have a multimeter you can verify this. To check if your battery is charged place contacts in (+) and (-) contacts on your battery and it should show ~3.7V. I just tried this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, silencer. I don't have a multi-meter, but I was using the battery tester as a way to gauge whether it was putting out any current at all, and it sounds like it's not. You were testing the 1st and 4th contacts?
I have read elsewhere that if your battery goes below 10-20% you won't be able to charge it with anything but the stock charger, so I think that's the problem, but I'll probably order a new battery as well just in case.

Yes I check the voltage between first and forth contact. What sort of battery tester are you using? Is there a digital read out display?
You can also try a USB to mini-usb cable to see if the battery get charged. From what I can remember USB ports are designed to give 500mA at 5V, but I have charged my phone when it was flat using a USB cable.

To follow-up in case anyone has this problem in the future: I ordered a new original charger (ADP-5FH) off eBay and with it, the phone's orange charge light came on right away and after giving it a full charge my phone is back up and running.
I'm inclined to think that it's not the difference in mAh of the original charger (1000mAh) vs USB charging (500mAh), but that there is something unique to the original charger which can "turn on" the charging when the battery is completely dead - perhaps something communicated by one of the extra pins in the mini-USB connection.

Charging via PC

Hi guys,
I know if you unplug a charging phone in and out a lot it kills the battery, however my question is (as this was a big battery killer on my nokia n95) if I plug my touch pro into my pc and it has charged, will it then run purely off external power?
On my n95 it would charge, use a tiny bit of power on the battery and very shortly charge again. Obviously if my battery dipped again by a whole bar id want it to kick in the charger but that was crazy.
I'd like to leave my touch pro plugged in a lot for activesynch etc and charge at the same time so it would be nice to know if it's going to kill my battery.

I find that when the battery is charged the USB power will stop charging it. I charge overnight with my PC off on USB and come back and the full charged status is on.

Your PC should be able to provide 500mA through the port if the Touch Pro requests it, however the standalone charger is rated at 1A (1000mA) so if you are worried about using your device while charging then perhaps use it with the external charger.
I see no reason why your battery wouldnt be charged adequatly by the USB port though, generally you would be using less than your are getting from the usb port.

Scribe said:
I know if you unplug a charging phone in and out a lot it kills the battery
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
erm... where did you hear that?
no it doesn't
maybe you mix it with the car ignition eating too much gas if you do it a lot?

Well, it used to be that way with the old NiCd batteries. Nowadays it's not an issue anymore.

My apologies, whilst lithium ion's don't have memory they do still lose overall power by each charge and discharge, even if it's not a complete one.

my 5 years old LOOX 720 disagrees with you

also my 5 year old HP IPAQ disagrees.
battery is as new and i charged it whenever i wanted.
same situation with my HTC Artemis, i bought it since the first day it went on sale and battery is as new!

Upquark said:
Well, it used to be that way with the old NiCd batteries. Nowadays it's not an issue anymore.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This issue has come up so many times ..... i post again a link to a website with details on how to maximise a li-ion batterry. It clearly states that it prefers small discharges, with full discharges in every 30 charge cycles.
http://www.batteryuniversity.com/parttwo-34.htm

Battery Care P3110...

Hello Guys!
I got today a new P3110 and I discacharged it to 2% and I plugged it now to load.
I have seen the charger pushes 2A @ 5V , this is pretty much for a battery of 4Ah, I know from my batteries ( AA AAA and others) that the charging current should be max. 1/3 of the capacity of battery.
So my question is: IS it better to charge it with the Samsung Galaxy S2 charger which provides only 0,[email protected],1V ?
It would last app. 6h to charge it till its full ( can be done over night, hopefully the charger wont melt)....
What do you think about that? Woul it harm to battery(li poly) to do it with small current?
cheers

If the charger seems much then tell me why Samsung made it.

Luigi2012SM64DS said:
If the charger seems much then tell me why Samsung made it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
to destroy the battery faster, through much more currency than actually needed, so you have to buy a new one....

sh0ne said:
to destroy the battery faster, through much more currency than actually needed, so you have to buy a new one....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You have got to be kidding me. ITS SO THE TAB CHARGES FASTER. IT WON'T KILL THE BATTERY!!!!

Its because the tab has a much bigger battery 4000mah vs 16xxmah.
It charges it faster

MrAndroid12 said:
Its because the tab has a much bigger battery 4000mah vs 16xxmah.
It charges it faster
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Of couse it charges faster, but for long therm it will kill the battery faster. Its usual, like every battery. Every fast charger is not good for battery, I just wanted to know if somebody have a expieriance...

sh0ne said:
Of couse it charges faster, but for long therm it will kill the battery faster. Its usual, like every battery. Every fast charger is not good for battery, I just wanted to know if somebody have a expieriance...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Battery life span is a matter of charge cycles 0%-100%-0%. That is 1 cycle and surely batteries don't discharge to 0% not charge fully to 100%

-AFAIK- Even with lithium, Its the heat build up when "fast" charging that shortens any battery life - (same with fast discharging- I would never use those apps that do so) , so I agree with shOne. I have the same model & have noticed the battery does get quite hot when mains charging,( though have never thought to check charging AH).
I would imagine that the only damage you would do with using phone charger would be to the charger, by sucking out more than it can handle, not the battery ! -
-- But why not charge it via a pc usb port - this take a lot longer (so presume much lower AH) than the mains plug in charger - Most usb pc ports are nowadays - permanently live, even when pc off - same with the usb on a modern sky/virgin box. My battery does not get hot, charging this way. I dont know what the charge rate is charging this way ,because both the inbuilt notification & my battery app say "discharging" - (although actually charging)
(I agree that Samsung have provided a quick mains charger, and wouldnt be averse to selling replacement batteries earlier than would otherwise be neccessary, !! (I wouldnt use cheap replacement batteries in any I.T. stuff - I "blew up " a laptop once as a result!!)

I believe that the 2 amp charge is reasonable with the out put of most lithium batteries for this type of device. Since it is a lithium it will not be overcharging or over heating due to sensing, it would be a serious fire hazard... fyi I use a2 amp charger from Wal-Mart and I do not notice my device really heating up...
Sent from my GT-P3110 using xda app-developers app

Buff52 said:
-AFAIK- Even with lithium, Its the heat build up when "fast" charging that shortens any battery life - (same with fast discharging- I would never use those apps that do so) , so I agree with shOne. I have the same model & have noticed the battery does get quite hot when mains charging,( though have never thought to check charging AH).
I would imagine that the only damage you would do with using phone charger would be to the charger, by sucking out more than it can handle, not the battery ! -
-- But why not charge it via a pc usb port - this take a lot longer (so presume much lower AH) than the mains plug in charger - Most usb pc ports are nowadays - permanently live, even when pc off - same with the usb on a modern sky/virgin box. My battery does not get hot, charging this way. I dont know what the charge rate is charging this way ,because both the inbuilt notification & my battery app say "discharging" - (although actually charging)
(I agree that Samsung have provided a quick mains charger, and wouldnt be averse to selling replacement batteries earlier than would otherwise be neccessary, !! (I wouldnt use cheap replacement batteries in any I.T. stuff - I "blew up " a laptop once as a result!!)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Agreed. The worst I got was a cheap replacement off a street without a packaging for a dollar. When I plugged it in for a few minutes the battery turned extremely hit and the battery expanded as if it was a puffer fish that took an electric shock

"Agreed. The worst I got was a cheap replacement off a street without a packaging for a dollar. When I plugged it in for a few minutes the battery turned extremely hit and the battery expanded as if it was a puffer fish that took an electric shock"
--------
LOL.........mine was a supposed "genuine" DELL replacement battery I got on EB from HK. On the first charge (in the bedroom) heard a strange hissing then a loud "pop". Some of the underside casing was actually melted and there was battery gunge all over the internals!

Buff52 said:
"Agreed. The worst I got was a cheap replacement off a street without a packaging for a dollar. When I plugged it in for a few minutes the battery turned extremely hit and the battery expanded as if it was a puffer fish that took an electric shock"
--------
LOL.........mine was a supposed "genuine" DELL replacement battery I got on EB from HK. On the first charge (in the bedroom) heard a strange hissing then a loud "pop". Some of the underside casing was actually melted and there was battery gunge all over the internals!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A lot of things I bought from Hong Kong off Ebay actually came from mainland China pfff.....
It's those low quality defects they send you. Mass market goods in china doesn't require quality passes unlike Hong Kong where it's illegal once they get pass customs.

sh0ne said:
Hello Guys!
I got today a new P3110 and I discacharged it to 2% and I plugged it now to load.
I have seen the charger pushes 2A @ 5V , this is pretty much for a battery of 4Ah, I know from my batteries ( AA AAA and others) that the charging current should be max. 1/3 of the capacity of battery.
So my question is: IS it better to charge it with the Samsung Galaxy S2 charger which provides only 0,[email protected],1V ?
It would last app. 6h to charge it till its full ( can be done over night, hopefully the charger wont melt)....
What do you think about that? Woul it harm to battery(li poly) to do it with small current?
cheers
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OK, electronics 101, chargers DO NOT PUSH power to a a battery, 2 AMPS is the chargers MAXIMUM OUTPUT, the device plugged to the charger PULLS what it wants (up to a maximum of 2A of current) so it can charge in a reasonable amount of time, you may be able to charge your tablet with a lower output charger but all it would do is take longer to charge (if the charger even had the power output greater then the static draw of the device), which is why most tablets simply CANNOT be charged by the USB 2.0 port on a computer or other small .5 A output chargers. You may very well charge while generating less heat, because of the slower charge cycle using the .7A S2 charger, but at the same time if you try to use the tablet while it's charging on the smaller charger it may very well drop in battery percentage as the smaller charger may not be enough to maintain the current requirements to charge the battery and run the device.
So in short, would charging with the smaller charger harm the battery, NO, but if it is enough to actually charge the device it will take atleast DOUBLE the amount of time to recharge as it would with the regular 2A charger.

On Charge Draining Like No Tomorow

I Have A Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 I Got It About 8 Months Ago I've Used The Samsung Official Charging "Cable" For Most Of That 8 Months but about 2 months ago the cable became loose at the Samsung cable to tablet end exposing the wires so I was careful with it and put it away and used my friends official cable then he needed it back so I went off and brought a generic cheep cable for $3.50 So all was good there but slowly I've noticed my battery going crazy like taking longer to charge "2 Days to full" and things like it discharging by 2% when I am on Google while its on charge and when its off charge playing 1 game uses almost all the battery.
so being the awesome soldier that I am I made myself a 5cm cable hoping that the long cable I was using had something to do with it but still I had the problems listed above so I did some Googleing and maybe a 2.5A charger would be helpful But its not recommended. also I sent a email to Samsung and being the "SUPER HELPFULL COMPANY THAT THEY ARE" has not responded to my emails in the past week's Also I Spoke To A live chat person thing and Being "Soo Helpful! " Said that its a hardware fault and I need to take it into a Samsung repair place and fork out $100+ Bucks to get it fixed "HELL NO AnT No BoDy GoT TiMe FoR ThAt" so I didn't go to Samsung to get it repaired so I want to know if any of you guys out there have any idea to fix this problem im having because its so hard to do anything.
Just Checking my emails while its on charge uses %4, On Google for like 5 mins Uses 2%, Playing A Game For 30Mins Uses Well Almost Flattens It, And Watching Some YouTube Takes It Down To 0% And Then Shuts Down( I Watch Lost Of Videos) All This While Its On Charge
At The Moment How Im Copeing Is I Carry Arrount An Inverter And A 12V Battery To Keep It Charging

The SGN 10.1 charging cable is a specially designed cable to deliver 2.1A 5V to the device.
Most "cheap" cable on the market can only deliver 0.5A - 1A 5V when used to charge SGN 10.1
You should find the correct cable specifically built for SGN 10.1

uMUm
d4rkkn16ht said:
The SGN 10.1 charging cable is a specially designed cable to deliver 2.1A 5V to the device.
Most "cheap" cable on the market can only deliver 0.5A - 1A 5V when used to charge SGN 10.1
You should find the correct cable specifically built for SGN 10.1
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks but how can a cable make all the difference i managed to charge off my old one its just got exposed wires and it still drains when i use it

Are you certain that the battery is actually draining that fast and not simply misreporting it in the UI?
I had a similar problem where the battery didn't seem to last but I eventually noticed that a reboot would completely change the amount of charge remaining, sometimes by as much as 20%. I cleared the battery stats and is been fine since.
Sent from my GT-N8013 using xda app-developers app

Well
bsaman said:
Are you certain that the battery is actually draining that fast and not simply misreporting it in the UI?
I had a similar problem where the battery didn't seem to last but I eventually noticed that a reboot would completely change the amount of charge remaining, sometimes by as much as 20%. I cleared the battery stats and is been fine since.
Sent from my GT-N8013 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well actually when-ever I turn it off it doesent charge much and if I restart it the battery stays the same but over the last few days ive noticed something weird when its on chatge and I play a game it drops about 20-30% but when its not on charge and on battery it drops by about 5-6% could the charger be draining it? also I have a new new cable its generic (IM NOT PAYING $60 FOR A CHARGER CABLE) and there is no difference still does the weird charging thing also I tried the old cable and still does the same thing the olny thing wrong with the old cable is that the wires where exposed so I dident want to use it just incase it broke
THanks -Commander_Shran

If you don't want an OEM cable and charger you can buy a crap chinese one. But as you and many others have discovered - they suck. This is one of the biggest complaints I have always heard about Samsung.
The solution, and the only on that I have found that works 100% of the time is to buy a replacement from Samsung. Period. Nothing else works like the OEM parts because they aren't OEM parts.
Sent from my GT-N8013 using XDA Premium HD app

ok
Temetka said:
If you don't want an OEM cable and charger you can buy a crap chinese one. But as you and many others have discovered - they suck. This is one of the biggest complaints I have always heard about Samsung.
The solution, and the only on that I have found that works 100% of the time is to buy a replacement from Samsung. Period. Nothing else works like the OEM parts because they aren't OEM parts.
Sent from my GT-N8013 using XDA Premium HD app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok i will buy new cabLe and note its olny the cable that is broken also any chance samsung might send a new one im still under warrenty and is there any chargeing habbets i can get it in to like drain then charge and drain and charge or something like that to reset the battery'S memory? Or is it diffrent

Commander_Shran said:
Thanks but how can a cable make all the difference i managed to charge off my old one its just got exposed wires and it still drains when i use it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The wiring on the OEM cable is somehow different than most cheap cable.
I'm experimenting by buying a 3M long "cheap" N8000 cable on eBay, may be it can help (delivery time is VERY long )
Commander_Shran said:
Ok i will buy new cabLe and note its olny the cable that is broken also any chance samsung might send a new one im still under warrenty and is there any chargeing habbets i can get it in to like drain then charge and drain and charge or something like that to reset the battery'S memory? Or is it diffrent
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What ROM are you using?
Stock or Custom?
Rooted or not?
If you are Rooted (Stock or Custom) you can use Battery Calibration app to erase batterystats.bin to calibrate your battery percentage which are needed if you change ROM.

Commander_Shran said:
Well actually when-ever I turn it off it doesent charge much and if I restart it the battery stays the same but over the last few days ive noticed something weird when its on chatge and I play a game it drops about 20-30% but when its not on charge and on battery it drops by about 5-6% could the charger be draining it? also I have a new new cable its generic (IM NOT PAYING $60 FOR A CHARGER CABLE) and there is no difference still does the weird charging thing also I tried the old cable and still does the same thing the olny thing wrong with the old cable is that the wires where exposed so I dident want to use it just incase it broke
THanks -Commander_Shran
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
$60 just for a cable? Really? I live in the UK and I bought a whole new charger (official Samsung one, too, including a cable) for about £12 on amazon. Just go to Amazon and replace the charger, it sounds like it'll be cheaper than just the cable (probably 15-20 USD or maybe 30-35 AUD, I'm not sure what the rate is and where you live ) and if it is a charger related issue that'll be fixed too.
Just so you know, I bought the 'travel charger' (the white one) and it works perfectly. Supplies the same current and voltage, and it's a smaller unit, and cheaper! I'd just look into getting one of those.

Galaxy 10.1 n8010 won't charge. Tried all solutions.

So I bought a cheap cable from eBay that converts microusb to the proprietary Galaxy connector on this device. Tried to charge the device but it entered a bootloop. Unplugged the cable and tried charging with the stock cable and left it overnight. Woke up and the device was completely dead.
Wouldn't boot at all.
Tore it open, unplugged the battery and plugged it back in. It booted! BUT the battery was critical and it shut off immediately. Tried charging again, no dice.
So I unplugged the battery and applied 4v to get some charge into it. Got the battery up to about 3.6V, booted again and it showed 3%. So in the time I had with the device turned on I tried both cables again but neither would charge the device. I used a multimeter to test the stock cable and it was all good, I even did a beep test between the 4 USB pins in the stock cable and the places they're wired up to inside the note and everything was fine so it's most likely not the cable.
Anyway the 3% is long gone now and I can't boot or charge. The device and battery are fine and definitely working, it just won't charge through USB no matter what. I've tried different power points, different adapters including stock and normal usb ports.
I've also cleaned both the plug and the jack with a toothbrush.
Could it be that the internal charging circuitry got fried when I tried the dodgy cable? If so, is there any way to fix/bypass this?
I'm at a complete loss so any help would be greatly appreciated.
Regards,
Nas.

I would not recommend to charge battery directly outside the device or even remove the battery at all.
First you gotta make sure your cables are capable of charge other galaxy devices if a friend has Tab 7 or Tab 10.1 or other note 10.1 or another try your cables to see if they really work.
Because it may just be your cable, remember batteries have their own circuits boards of sort and batteries are sometimes picky on how they are charge especially OEM batteries that are not suppose to ever be out of the device unless are change for a new one in a repair.
So first of all cable check it a must, again is not as simple as check if all the pins works as this is not a simple USB (Universal Serial Bus) port is a proprietary port and cable, check the port in the tablet too.
As well it may be just a defective battery or worst case even a board problem.

Unfortunately I have no other device to test it with. I might just buy another cable and see how I go.
I know about the circuits on the battery, but I always thought they were just there as a safety measure due to the potentially volatile nature of Li-Ion when it drops below a certain voltage. I'll probably take your advice and stay away from charging it externally, I only did it once to see if the tab died or it was just a dead battery. The voltage never dropped low enough to trigger the circuit to 'kill' it, evidenced by the fact that I could get it back up to 3% just applying a constant voltage.
I'm guessing you've hit it on the head with the last sentence, might be a board problem which would be quite sad. Silly reason for a great device to die.
Thanks a lot for the reply, I'll update this thread once I try an alternative cable for future reference.

Ok, So to update:
I've bought and tested 3 separate cables, all provide 4.99V inside the device, but none of this makes it to the battery so I'm fairly certain it's the charging IC that's dead.
I bought a new battery that was charged to 40% so I was able to flash the device to see if it was maybe the custom kernel messing something up. Flashed to stock via Odin, still not charging.
From what I've read, I need a cell balancing circuit (since the battery is 2-cell Li-Ion) and a charging IC. I've found a suitable IC for fairly cheap, but I'm not sure if the balancing circuit is necessary. The battery already has one of these inside, but I'm not sure if this is just for Voltage/Current protection or if it also balances.
MP24AG: http://eng.it-m.co.kr/cnt/prod/tep_5l/MP24AG.pdf
If anyone knows I'd be very grateful.