Database Info

Dead Tornado

So.. here goes my problem..
Got my Qtek 8310 three days ago, and the very same day I got it, decided to upgrade from WM5 to WM6. However, the battery charge meter gave me wrong info about the battery charge percentage, and the phone battery died just after I formatted the BINFS and re-setted the device in TeraTerm.
The device still powered on, after each USB cable re-insert, but died, after 5-10 seconds. After a couple of attempts, the phone didn't turn on at all.
Did some info search on the web and found out, that my battery fell to an critical voltage level. Li-Ion batteries require a certain voltage to even be able to accept a charge.
As I got an non-original battery (Sanyo ST26C) I suppose it is poorly designed and doesn't have good under-voltage protection (I have read about other HTC models (e.g. Wizard) having this problem as well), so the battery dropped below these limits and phone now identifies the battery faulty and doesn't let it charge. This is for consumer safety, because attempting to charge damaged Li-Ion cells can be dangerous, as Lithium is known to be able to catch fire/explode.
So the phone doesn't let to charge the battery in any way (1amp wall charger or USB cable).
Anyways, I tried to jump start the battery (charge with bare wires) to give it initial charge and... it worked. However, there goes my main problem: As soon as I insert the battery which has the initial charge, the phone starts immediately and boots to a bootloader (as there is no OS, formatted BINFS) and the the phone does not charge while in bootloader.
Then, I tried to turn off the phone: Hold down power off button for 5 seconds - phone turned off. But as soon, as I release the button, red light flashes once (as it does everytime, when you try to turn on the phone, it's normal) and then orange LED comes for a second, indicating a charge (as the battery is no longer considered faulty - phone lets it to charge), BUT then phone starts again to the bootloader and it somehow prevents further charge.
So: as soon as I release the power off button, after the phone has shutdown, it starts again, everytime, and soon the battery dies again.
My own thoughts of solving this:
* Get a fully charged battery from a friend, install the windows on the phone, and then charge my own battery (I know noone, who may have HTC Tornado, will be hard to get);
* Buy some standalone dock charger, which can charge batteries directly and charge the battery happily (haven't seen any around yet, so will be really pain in the arse, to get one);
* Charge battery with bare wires for an extended period of time, to give it enough juice to install windows (which I strongly doubt, as battery damage could occur);
Any other ideas? Ideas and comments, from people who know, or had similar experience is more than welcome. Looking forward for answers

Its funny. Reading you I've realized what people tell me about "I make a question and I answer it myself" So... You have the answers my friend. For options 1 and 2, use E-Bay. As a matter of fact, there is an aftermarket charger in ebay that charges your phone and a spare battery and it includes the spare battery when you buy the charger. I believe it runs for under $20.00. For option 3 use some wood cloth pins(those used to hang cloth to dry). I would say with at least 2hrs charge you should get a good 50% charge on your battery, enough to flash your phone.
Edit: Here is an Ebay Search. But, keep searching till you find the one that includes the extra battery. Chances are your battery is no good or won't last you very long.
Good Luck!

Get a new battery man, these li ion batteries, are no joke, especially the fact that they are made in China/Taiwan, I myself had used a tornado battery even till the days when the battery has bloated and cracked the back cover, when a single charge could not even last 4 hours.
Those days, were like having a timebomb in your pocket, ended up I got mysel a new tornado at a price cheaper than a replacement battery.

markanthonypr said:
Its funny. Reading you I've realized what people tell me about "I make a question and I answer it myself" So... You have the answers my friend.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well yes, I have some suggestions, but I am also expecting others to have some, too. And by sharing the knowledge, maybe I could prevent myself to spend more money on this issue
markanthonypr said:
For options 1 and 2, use E-Bay. As a matter of fact, there is an aftermarket charger in ebay that charges your phone and a spare battery and it includes the spare battery when you buy the charger. I believe it runs for under $20.00.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The main problem with e-bay is... my country. at least 80% of the items, don't ship to my location.
markanthonypr said:
For option 3 use some wood cloth pins(those used to hang cloth to dry). I would say with at least 2hrs charge you should get a good 50% charge on your battery, enough to flash your phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the suggestion. The main reason why I am in serious doubt about this option, is that standard chargers usually have some sort of regulators and monitors the charge, prevents from overcharging, etc. But on the other side, USB charge output is only 100 mA, so it couldn't be that bad if you think about it
karhoe said:
Get a new battery man, these li ion batteries, are no joke, especially the fact that they are made in China/Taiwan, I myself had used a tornado battery even till the days when the battery has bloated and cracked the back cover, when a single charge could not even last 4 hours.
Those days, were like having a timebomb in your pocket, ended up I got mysel a new tornado at a price cheaper than a replacement battery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, the fact, that it is manufactured in China actually says nothing Many companies choose China to manufacture their products because of low costs. And the most of electronics is manufactured in China and other Asian countries.
Anyway, before getting myself an new battery, I would like to try resurrect this one If this won't last long for me - no problem, I will get an new one. But until I'm convinced enough, it's a waste of money, which I don't like doing

And one more thing.. maybe someone knows a way to keep the phone power off?
Because as I said earlier on, it's charging only when it's turned off, and not in the bootloader. And problem is that, as soon as I put the battery, it starts-up the bootloader.

Get a desktop charger perhaps?
Or if you are adventurous enough, mod the USB cable, and charge the battery directly, only if you know what you're doing, and only if it works

karhoe said:
Get a desktop charger perhaps?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well.. thanks for the answer, but we've already discussed this option and now I am asking whether or not, someone knows a way to turn off the phone and keep it turned off (prevent from self startup) while the phone has no OS (got formatted BINFS).
karhoe said:
Or if you are adventurous enough, mod the USB cable, and charge the battery directly, only if you know what you're doing, and only if it works
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've already done that, and yes, it works. But I need someone to confirm, if it is safe enough to charge the battery for an hour or two.
Have anyone tried that?

I don't think that it's very safe. But I was having a similar problem, and I just left the phone connected to the power cable, and even though it seemed like it was not charging, it apparantly was.
Or you could just get a new battery. On expansys I saw a new one for ~$20.

nav1 said:
I was having a similar problem, and I just left the phone connected to the power cable, and even though it seemed like it was not charging, it apparantly was.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well..
With a modified USB cable (bare wires), which got power output of 100mA I have charged battery directly for approximately 3 minutes, and the phone turned on, and was operational for 4-5 minutes until the battery died again.
And before that, I've tried leaving it on an mains charger, which got power output of 1A (1000mA, 10 times USB). I left it for a hour or two, although no led was showing up to indicate a charge. The phone didn't event turn on after this 2 hour "charge".
And the reason for this is explained in my first post. Will try to leave it charge over a night, though, expecting for a miracle
nav1 said:
Or you could just get a new battery. On expansys I saw a new one for ~$20.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But new batteries usually come empty, so it's no use to me. I have also explained why, on my previous posts.
So before buying an cradle charger, I would like to find out if these budget-friendly solutions will work:
1) Find out how to keep the phone powered down (because it's the only moment, when it truly charges);
2) Find out if it is safe enough to charge battery with bare wires for extended period of time (1-2 hours);

Just came up with another idea. Searched the forums and found a very similar problem to mine:
fritzgerald said:
For some odd reason my wizard likes to say the battery is full when its actually dead and that it's dead when it's really full. Well a few days ago I was reflashing to try and take care of the issue and it died during the middle of flashing. It would only goto the bootloader screen and would not charge. Well I decided I'd post a few pictures of my recovery technique utilizing my wife's phone. Cat5 cable striped at the end and twisted to each of the positive and negative battery terminals and the Blackberry's battery put it so I could use it to power the wizard.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So.. I've got a Sony Ericsson w810i, would this technique work? The w810's battery is Li-Polymer, 900mAh 3.6V (although some sources say, that this exact battery is 3.7V..), compared to Li-Ion 1150mAh 3.7V Tornado's battery.
Voltage seems suitable..

Haven't got any answers to my previous posts, so I tried.
The trick worked, Sony ericsson's battery can feed HTC Tornado perfectly. However... got another problem..
Here's how I wired it up. The positive wire takes two contacts and the negative takes another two aswell. The ends of the wires are then connected to the sony ericsson's battery. Phone starts, and boots to a bootloader. Everything's seem to be perfect.
Then I plug in the USB cable into the computer, the other end to the phone. Phone recognizes the cable and puts label "USB" at the bottom of the screen.
However, there's something wrong with the connection.. TeraTerm fails to connect and Update ROM utility fails, too, with an "cannot connect" error..
After that, I have tried using the original battery, with no wires attached, just plugged it in (gave it an initial charge again) and the USB worked without any problems: TeraTerm can connect.
So the problem seems to be in wiring.
I have tried to connect the wires in different random ways (crazy, I know), but only one alternate way did worked. Although, phone did heat-up rapidly at the area, where it says "HTC Innovation" and phone's display showed "USB" even if no USB cable was connected.
So.. looking forward to some thoughts or any knowledge, of why is this happening, wiring schemes, or any other suggestions..

FINALLY! SUCCESS!! I've connected the wires from the sony ericsson's battery to touch only one pin on the phone, instead of two, as shown in the picture. The phone didn't turn on, as I've tried this before.
But then remembered that the same pins charge the original battery, so inserted the battery and VOILA! Phone turned on to the bootloader and the USB circuit wasn't blocked no more! Flashed the phone to WM6.5 now successfully and the original battery is charging, as I write this post )
So, if anyone got HTC smartphone dead, while flashing, let me know, will try to help you out, since I've walked through this hell myself
Thanks goes to karhoe, for an excellent guide for flashing, also dharvey4651 for an excellent guide on installing vista's USB drivers (got new PC, upgraded to vista) and last, but not least - the whole XDA-developers community for helping me out

1A Wall Charger Works!!
I've had the same problem discussed above. I was trying some of my own 6.5 ROMs, which by the way were getting stuck at the initial boot screen itself. Due to some unavoidable reasons and circumstances, the phone freely was left to itself at this exact state, untethered to any power source, for extended periods of time, during which it slept and refused to wake up again, all my pleadings going in vain. And when it did boot, it went into the tricolor screen conveniently and switched off in ten seconds. I turned to the net for help and found that any charger with rating above 1A would help in giving it the required juice. I didn't want to waste any of the 6 USB cables I have.
I got the original charger, which is an 1A charger, after 2-3 hours of searching my room (Hey, Don't be too hard on me! In the end, I got it, right? Actually, I use the PC for charging, and a smaller 550mA one sometimes-- both didn't work this time) and then, when I connected it showed the screen again. But this time, I found that it was capable of running it without the battery being present.
So, all I did was I kept the charger connected to it with the phone switched on in the tricolor mode and with the battery inside. After half an hour, I tethered it to the PC and flashed a proper ROM. And Voila!!! IT WORKED!! It was 2.45 in the morning!!
I guess the power from the 1A charger is enough for the phone to run and charge it too which is not the case in the 550mA one and the USB cable.

rajathvsm said:
I've had the same problem discussed above. I was trying some of my own 6.5 ROMs, which by the way were getting stuck at the initial boot screen itself. Due to some unavoidable reasons and circumstances, the phone freely was left to itself at this exact state, untethered to any power source, for extended periods of time, during which it slept and refused to wake up again, all my pleadings going in vain. And when it did boot, it went into the tricolor screen conveniently and switched off in ten seconds. I turned to the net for help and found that any charger with rating above 1A would help in giving it the required juice. I didn't want to waste any of the 6 USB cables I have.
I got the original charger, which is an 1A charger, after 2-3 hours of searching my room (Hey, Don't be too hard on me! In the end, I got it, right? Actually, I use the PC for charging, and a smaller 550mA one sometimes-- both didn't work this time) and then, when I connected it showed the screen again. But this time, I found that it was capable of running it without the battery being present.
So, all I did was I kept the charger connected to it with the phone switched on in the tricolor mode and with the battery inside. After half an hour, I tethered it to the PC and flashed a proper ROM. And Voila!!! IT WORKED!! It was 2.45 in the morning!!
I guess the power from the 1A charger is enough for the phone to run and charge it too which is not the case in the 550mA one and the USB cable.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Glad to hear that it worked for you Unfortunately, it didn't for me (as I only have an after-market charget, not the OEM one, although it is 1A), so I had to search for alternative methods.

Phone gets hot and discharges battery power when plugged to USB

I've had my Sensation 4G for a while. Recently, I've encountered an occasional, and somewhat alarming, problem when my phone is plugged into the USB port of my laptop. It begins to discharge power very quickly and become very hot (~118+ Fahrenheit). When this problem occurs, the phone becomes so hot that the safety feature of the phone kicks in and stops the flow of power from the computer. I would then have to use the AC adapter to charge my phone. This issue has occurred about 3 times already, so I know it wasn't a fluke occurrence.
Could the current be too unstable for my phone to be plugged into my computer? I have my laptop connected to a power strip that is also shared with my 40-watt sound system and 70-watt fluorescent lamp, though they aren't necessarily used all at once. Or could this be a battery issue? Does anyone know what's going on? Thanks.

Hello,
I've heard of this problem before, not only phones connected to USB but also to the regular charger. Some phones seem to get to a temperature where the housing and/or the sim gets soft. I work at a store of one of the bigger providers in The Netherlands, and if we get a customer with this problem we have to send it back for repairs! Currently we're not aware of the source of this problem, if anyone knows, please share!!
For now my advise is, return the phone

Do you use any taskmanager??? if so DONT!!!
and lose alle batery savers apps to.
if you have root acces boot to recovery and wipe batt states when batt is at 100%

Failing battery sensor(?), unable to boot normally.

So my issue is that my phone believes that the battery is out of power. Weather the phone is on or off it charges just fine when connecting the charger, it just doesn't show any indication. When it's on it reacts by activating the display when connecting the cord.
I found a workaround to boot up the phone though, but I'd like to be able to know what's left of the battery anyhow!
To boot up my device I have to disconnect the battery and connect the charger. That way I'm able to boot up download mode. Once I'm there I reconnect the battery and choose start. The phone boots just fine and I don't experience any issues at all.
It all happened when I switched out my cracked display for a new.
I even tried replacing the battery, as well as the flex cable connecting the USB port to the motherboard.
The only thing I could imagine be wrong would be some hardware sensor failing, but then again I don't see how that could have happened.
Is that sensor on the motherboard?
A thing I haven't yet tried is a factory reset. Would that have any impact?

No ideas, huh?

pingaan said:
No ideas, huh?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can try a factory reset but I don't know if it makes any difference since it sounds like an hardware problem.
Sorry :\

It's a hardware problem... Head to the service centre & let them know how it happened. They'll diagnose your problem.

Shield K1 - Charging slower than normal, no indicator

I have the new Shield K1, and it worked great for a few weeks.
Lately, my shield isn't charging as fast as it used too, and when it's plugged it, it doesn't show the charging icon in the status bar. I've tried dozens of cables and adaptors, none of them had any effect. The tablet still charges, but very slowly. OTG accessories still work fine.
When I first got my shield, it charged super fast (using my nexus 7 2012 charger), but now none of my 5v2a chargers work.
A point of interest, I have a portable battery pack that also used to charge my tablet fine. It used to fully discharge in about 4-5 hours with my tablet, now it takes about 14-15 hours, does that mean my tablet is not drawing as much power as it needs?
Shield Tablet K1 / 5.1.1 - rooted / TWRP - multirom

Figured it out. I flashed multirom for the original shield tablet, and it overwrote the firmware for USB support. To fix it, I flashed a full stock OTA image for the original shield to the K1, then I flashed the system image of the K1 lollipop. Multirom and USB work fine now.

28362836 said:
Figured it out. I flashed multirom for the original shield tablet, and it overwrote the firmware for USB support. To fix it, I flashed a full stock OTA image for the original shield to the K1, then I flashed the system image of the K1 lollipop. Multirom and USB work fine now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nice! Always like to see questions be answered by OP. Im looking forward to rooting mine.

Any idea how to get rid of this issue on stock ROM?
28362836 said:
I have the new Shield K1, and it worked great for a few weeks.
Lately, my shield isn't charging as fast as it used too, and when it's plugged it, it doesn't show the charging icon in the status bar. I've tried dozens of cables and adaptors, none of them had any effect. The tablet still charges, but very slowly. OTG accessories still work fine.
When I first got my shield, it charged super fast (using my nexus 7 2012 charger), but now none of my 5v2a chargers work.
A point of interest, I have a portable battery pack that also used to charge my tablet fine. It used to fully discharge in about 4-5 hours with my tablet, now it takes about 14-15 hours, does that mean my tablet is not drawing as much power as it needs?
Shield Tablet K1 / 5.1.1 - rooted / TWRP - multirom
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

ntn_labs said:
Any idea how to get rid of this issue on stock ROM?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you are having slow charging issues on your Shield K1, here are a few steps that might help you. (please note: the average complete charging time for the Shield K1 is between 2-2.5 hours under continuous operation.)
-First off, your power supply. Your Shield Tablet requires a minimum 2A 5V power supply to charge at any reasonable rate, and I suggest using a 2.5A power supply along with a high quality cable to ensure quicker charging.
-Secondly, are you using the tablet while it is charging? Keeping the screen on, playing games, watching videos, or even apps running in the background while charging can cause it to slow to a halt easily. Try turning the tablet completely off and charging it then to see if it charges significantly faster, if so, that might be the problem.
-Thirdly, the tablet's USB port. Check to see if there is any debris in the Micro USB port on the tablet. Make sure the port isn't broken by gently wiggling the USB cable to see if it's loose, or if it disconnects in certain positions. Check that the cable is plugged in all the way, it should "Click" when inserted.
-Finally, you said the tablet is running a stock ROM, but do you have any custom recovery/bootloader installed? If so, try flashing the stock bootloader and recovery, and see if that helps.
If none of this helps you, and you still have a warranty in place for your tablet, I would suggest sending it in for repair or replacement.

Well, first of all I guess I'm gonna say that I'm not a newbie. If that thing to the left is of any indication, I should be able to diagnose most of those steps myself. And I did
The thing is, my tablet was charging from zero to full more than three days and it still wasn't on 100%. And that damn thing was turned off. The charger is the same I used last week when it was (like You wrote) about three hours. The cable is the same. Everything is the same.
The only thing that happened was that my kid was running a YouTube marathon and discharged the battery completely so it shut off. After that, slow charge as hell.
And when I said it is stock, it means it's stock. No loaders no nothing.
I was hoping You know like... Clear the cache or battery stats could help. I'm not in the mood to go thru the warranty hell. Not yet...
28362836 said:
If you are having slow charging issues on your Shield K1, here are a few steps that might help you. (please note: the average complete charging time for the Shield K1 is between 2-2.5 hours under continuous operation.)
-First off, your power supply. Your Shield Tablet requires a minimum 2A 5V power supply to charge at any reasonable rate, and I suggest using a 2.5A power supply along with a high quality cable to ensure quicker charging.
-Secondly, are you using the tablet while it is charging? Keeping the screen on, playing games, watching videos, or even apps running in the background while charging can cause it to slow to a halt easily. Try turning the tablet completely off and charging it then to see if it charges significantly faster, if so, that might be the problem.
-Thirdly, the tablet's USB port. Check to see if there is any debris in the Micro USB port on the tablet. Make sure the port isn't broken by gently wiggling the USB cable to see if it's loose, or if it disconnects in certain positions. Check that the cable is plugged in all the way, it should "Click" when inserted.
-Finally, you said the tablet is running a stock ROM, but do you have any custom recovery/bootloader installed? If so, try flashing the stock bootloader and recovery, and see if that helps.
If none of this helps you, and you still have a warranty in place for your tablet, I would suggest sending it in for repair or replacement.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

ntn_labs said:
Well, first of all I guess I'm gonna say that I'm not a newbie. If that thing to the left is of any indication, I should be able to diagnose most of those steps myself. And I did
The thing is, my tablet was charging from zero to full more than three days and it still wasn't on 100%. And that damn thing was turned off. The charger is the same I used last week when it was (like You wrote) about three hours. The cable is the same. Everything is the same.
The only thing that happened was that my kid was running a YouTube marathon and discharged the battery completely so it shut off. After that, slow charge as hell.
And when I said it is stock, it means it's stock. No loaders no nothing.
I was hoping You know like... Clear the cache or battery stats could help. I'm not in the mood to go thru the warranty hell. Not yet...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm sorry if I made you feel like a newb, I wasn't trying to, but I work with what I am given. Based upon these new factors, it is quite possible that your tablet's lithium-ion battery is suffering from over discharge or overheating. When a lithium battery is drained below a certain voltage, irreversible damage is done that typically significantly reduces the amount of energy it can store, as well as it's ability to charge. If a lithium battery is heated to over 90c the same or similar is true. Of course, the shield tablet has protections against these things, but nothing is 100%.
It may also be possible that the charging circuit in the tablet has somehow became damaged, either through an electrical surge or a 1 in a million drop scenario. If none of that is true, it's also possible that you received a defective battery to start with, and the symptoms are only showing just now. The battery could have been damaged by radiation (nuclear or magnetic). the tablet could have gotten wet. Maybe a defunct soldering job from the factory. Defective Internal Controller Circuits. Bit rot affecting the Charging firmware. Freezing temperatures affecting battery chemistry. High intensity magnetic fields messing with battery polarity.
See where I'm going with this? There are literally thousands of things that can go wrong, and it can be one of them, some of them, or none of them. Either way, I would recommend replacing the battery yourself or sending the tablet in for the warranty.

I was hoping that since Your problem was "fixed" with software that maybe I could use Your solution and maybe my problem is not HW related...
So far it looks that even on a charger (and "charging"), the device is still discharging....
Anyway, thanx for the help.

INTERNALS - N5 Power Routing

Recently disassembled and replace the original battery but have been having issues with the reassembly. Battery indicates charging and wireless charge status but does not hold. N5 must be powered via USB/external batt. and instantly powers down upon disconnect.
Is anyone familiar with the internal components to troubleshoot this issue? Ribbons look properly connected visually, however there is obviously an issue. Maybe a internal ribbon pinch/break somewhere?
Please reference photos to indicate how the charge process works, much thanks!
Beers on me for the genius with the solution

Are you sure the replacement battery is good? What happens when you put back the original battery?

Original battery does not work either

Did this problem ever occur before changing the battery? Do you have a way to check to see if the replacement battery is working properly such as trying it in another Nexus 5?
I'm admit that I'm just guessing. I've changed the battery many times on the Nexus 5 using 3rd party and OEM batteries but never experience what you are experiencing.