Help Strangest bug

[fastgun]

I charged the phone last night. Everything was normal, battery was at %100.. at 11 am.

Then after using the phone a bit by making a 5 min phone call and 10 mins of Wi-fi usage, it slept for about 2 hours.

At 2 pm. after seeing the battery at %77, I decided to charge it. I connected the usb cable from the charger, it started charging. However phone started to go in and out of charging state, and keeping the phone running %100 during this time.

I tried shutting down the phone and charging like that, checking the usb cable, checking the charger etc. However, everything was at their normal state..

I hoped the phone would charge normally after shut down but it booted by itself after just a fraction of time. (I guess this can happen when the phone thinks the battery is full.)

After booting, it kept this alternating (charging/not charging) state... and the phone can't sleep (even a second) at this state.

I pulled the plug, now the phone is not connected to the charger.
It can sleep normally.

Battery was at %77 before this incident, now it shows %16 !!

REALLY strange...
and I can't charge my phone

 

[Rastaman-FB]

remove the battery for 30 seconds replace it and then try charging

 

[fastgun]

I tried charging with the usb port of the computer. Still problematic.

 

[fastgun]

Rastaman, why do you think this happens ?
Any theories ?

 

[Rastaman-FB]

Rastaman, why do you think this happens ?
Any theories ?

ive had the phone turn back on with me before when ive powered off
the phone is still in a live state even when powered off as the battery keeps a small amount of charge in the phone and there is probably something stuck in memory.

taking the battery out for 30seconds will usually give enough time for the phone to deplete any residual power left on the phone and clear memory.

if it continues, check there are no buttons held down. weve seen on a couple of threads now that the camera button has a tendancy to be stuck down and causes wierd things like these

 

[fastgun]

remove the battery for 30 seconds replace it and then try charging

I did this, removed it for 1 min.

Still problematic!

 

[fastgun]

I guess I'll try by removing it for 10 mins and checking again.

 

[Rastaman-FB]

checked the camera button is not stuck down

 

[fastgun]

checked it, camera button is fine, the phone is on the table, nothing to accidentally press it.

 

[fastgun]

STILL problematic

 

[Rastaman-FB]

dunno what that is then

 

[spottyelephant]

Maybe a strange process running from something you installed?? Try killing everything.

 

[kam187]

Last resort factory reset. If it still happens, it sounds like a cell in your battery has died.

 

[fastgun]

Status update:

a) I tried killing everything the day I opened this thread. It didn't work.
b) I waited for the battery to fully deplete up to now. It depleted like 10 mins ago and when I connected it to charger (phone is off), strang things happened again:
* Phone doesn't start charging normally. It MAY enter charging state.. then randomly stops charging etc.
* When charging, the battery charge meter shows 4 bars as baseline at first (when the battery is indeed empty), then 3 bars, then 1 bar and 0 bars (empty). After showing 0 bars for some time, it stops charging.
This repeats randomly..
* Phone boots randomly. I suspect the phone thinks it's full (5 bars) at these times.

Yes, battery may be broken but I cannot understand these:
A) Phone is brand new man.. So the battery is too.. How can a battery get broken so easily ? Are 1500 mAh batteries so fragile ?
B) As I could observe, there is no cause of this issue. I didn't leave the phone in the case or under sunlight, in the cold etc. I just left it on the table.
C) My guess is that charge level measurement circuit in the battery is broken. Thus, the battery senses different battery levels randomly. According to this information, the phone randomly boots, starts/stops charging, shuts down etc.

I have never seen such a problem with any electronic device in my life!
I'm quite surprised that it happened on a brand new, normally working phone without any reason!

 

[Rastaman-FB]

if its a fault its a build fault in the battery, this can happen like anything else
its like dead pixels on monitors. we can both get a dell monitor out of a box at the same time but yours is perfect and mine has a dead pixel

the battery his probably at fault from manufacturing

 

[kam187]

This sounds alot like a dead cell and not like the charge controller. The charge controller in the battery is usually pretty simple, and the smart stuff happens in the phone.

The battery is made up of a bunch of cells connected together. If one of these dies (build fault, you just got unlucky), then the battery may be able to output 3.7v in most conditions BUT cannot supply the peak current in other conditions. Since P=IV and power must remain constant, a higher current draw means the voltage drops rapidly. A normal phone battery is about 4.3v full and 3.3v empty - with zero load.

In this case you see various things like

- The battery look like its 40% then suddenly drop to 0% and turns off.
- During charging the phone says the battery is full, but you'll notice it drop to less than 100% very quickly
- Battery won't charge correctly or at all

I design electronics for a living, and work quite a bit with batteries and tranceivers which have very different current draw over time.

 

[fastgun]

I tried:
a) factory reset (2 times)
b) buying a new battery

both options did not work..

I think this problem should be linked with Strange charging problem

This problem is really a nightmare for me..

Any ideas?

 

[kam187]

Hmm very strange. Maybe there is a hardware fault in your phone then. The only other thing to try is a firmware flash. Perhaps this is a known problem and fixed in new firmware. Pretty unlikely tho. Sounds like you may have to use waranty.

 

[fastgun]

Conclusion from all my observations and tests:
* USB slot of the phone got broken because of a reverse voltage condition.

Second (scary) conclusion: The protection against reverse voltage is seriously weak. The fact that reverse voltage condition occurred when the phone was charging from Samsung i7500's original charger (not the computer) makes me think that sooner or later more people will experience this (sadly).

 

[Cougar]

Two things,

1) the protection against reverse polarity and surge protection in a lot of consumer electronics is seriously weak, I don't think that's a 'feature' of the Sammy particularly.

2) How on Earth did you come to the conclusion that it was a polarity issue from the charger? Unless you've knowingly swapped wires about, that seems like a pretty random thing to have happened (and how would you know)?

 

[fastgun]

how I know:
I've seen the same thing happening to USB drives.
I've tried to connect the phone to the computer (while using another battery), phone USB slot acted just as these kind of drives. Another reason I feel so sure of this cause is that there was no effect on the phone except charging when this incident happened. I have a problem about treating these kind of things as random events.

But sure, I didn't open the device and tested USB slot with a multimeter so you can still treat this as a theory without evidence.

 

[Cougar]

I don't doubt that "I plugged it in and it went pop" could well be what happened. But I seriously doubt it's a polarity issue (unless you're heavily into home-made cables, in which case all bets are off).

It's - I'm loathe to say 'impossible' but I can't see any way you could plug in a USB connector and get +ve and ground crossed over, they're at opposite sides of the plug and the connector is specifically designed to prevent this sort of shennanigans because it's a hot-pluggable protocol.

What I would readily believe is that it's perhaps a fault on the power supply providing the supply voltage. Car kits (of the cigarette lighter > USB variety) and Happy Shopper mains chargers are more than capable of annihilating a phone; a cheap charger probably won't offer any real protection or regulation in the event of an internal failure. A shorted out supply and no surge suppression will give you an expensive paperweight in quicksticks.

 

[fastgun]

I totally understand your view on the issue and believe me, I thought about these things and tested different scenarios: charger, computer USB, charger plugged into different outlets, firmware reset, multiple factory resets etc. all tested using 2 different batteries.

Phone works perfectly except USB connection/charging. In USB connection problem, phone gets connected/disconnected alternatingly and since this happens frequently, Windows can't even recognize and use the device (it shows device name but it reports problem). In USB charging, phone changes charging/not charging states like crazy and randomly. Once a battery depletes, phone cannot recharge it and stays empty.

I'll take the phone to maintenance but I don't have warranty for the phone so the situation is a little problematic for me if they can't fix it.

Looks like I have to build an external charger for the battery. How can I do that? What do I have to buy? A voltage regulator ? How can I force the battery to charge ?

 

[kam187]

Hmmmmm, electronics devices usually have a bridge rectifier to protect from reverse voltage. These rectifiers can actually handle pretty high voltages but not huge current surges.

They are not exactly 'weak' because of design failure, but actually due to design limitation. A bridge rectifier that can handle large currents would have to be pretty large. Their idea is that worst case the rectifier blows before any key components on the mainboard do.

Usually if the rectifier blows, it just wont charge at all. The next level of protection is a regulator. These usually can't handle overcurrent, and you'll see blue smoke if you blow the rectifier stage

If indeed your problem is a hardware fault, it sounds like something in the charge control circuit in the phone has blown and this is most definatly due to over current from the charger than any reverse voltage condition. Its not that rare on poor chargers, and/or in countries where the electricity is not stable.

 

[kam187]

RE your own charger, PLEASE PLEASE don't try to make a Li-Ion charger unless you know what you're doing. If a Li-Ion battery explodes it will leak molten metal, and most likely burn your house down!!

If you really want to charge the battery externally, buy a charging dock of some sort that has a second battery slot. It seems the Galaxy uses the same batteries as the Omnia, so you might be able to find a cheap external charger for that.

You should actually have samsung waranty, and can send it back to them to have it repaired. Why do you think you have no waranty?