Be careful what you use to charge your Indulge!

[tblock1984]

Hi guys,

Bear with me while I rant... I am in mourning.

I had been watching my battery life religiously since I got my Indulge, and it seems that it was more or less 1:1. If I charged it for 4 hours, I could use it for 4 hours before plugging it back in. Because of this, I invested in additional chargers. I have 5 in total for my wife and I to share (we both have Indulges): 2 Samsung Indulge, 1 Samsung Craft, 1 Samsung bluetooth charger, and 1 third party car charger.

Last Saturday, I was confused when I plugged in my phone (approx 46%) and it read 100%. My JuicePlotter was darn confused, too. The line graph showed a vertical spike. After that, I unplugged it and listened to some music. My daughter asked me a question, so I locked it and put it back in my pocket.

That was the last time I was able to play with my Indulge...
It froze (Again. Not a rare occurrence) so I pulled the battery out and rebooted. Only it wouldn't reboot. I was horrified. I tried everything under the sun to make it turn back on, no luck. I have never wanted to hear to the "Hello, hello, hello..." so badly.

Turns out the charger I was using was the Samsung Bluetooth charger. Same specs, output, form factor, etc. as the default Indulge charger, just one piece. A Metro employee told me it should be fine because it is Samsung, just no third party chargers.

Well, it fried the USB port, causing visible physical damage to the port. This caused to phone to act very odd, it was not stable at all. Sometimes it would not turn on, or turn off by itself. The USB would always connect and disconnect, even if there was no cable. Which is very odd considering this thread (http://androidforums.com/samsung-galaxy-indulge/299734-usb-cable-will-charge-but-not-connect-pc.html), and even more odd considering it would not recognize any cables, period.

Thanks for listening. I am pretty grumpy that I had to fall back to my Finesse while I am waiting for my replacement to come in. Wednesday, three long days without my smart phone. Metro has been surprisingly understanding and helpful. Almost as if they expected this sort of thing...

I never realized how much I loved this phone until it was gone.

 

[ickster]

Didn't you say in your other post that you were sleeping with the phone under your pillow.....

 

[smotpoker]

I have been having problems as well with charging. I can unplug my phone from the charger and it says that it is charging.

I purchased a car charger at the metro store and it continues to discharge the phone without usage and with the 4g off. I had the phone the first day it came out and it has been working fine until today.

I guess i am a conspiracy theory guy but i think it is smething that metro put on my phone with a reprogramming. All of my apps were messed up one morning and it has been not working right since.

I notice that there is more activity with data being sent when not using any applications that require data.

Again...just my conspiracy theory. I am a big time noob with this stuff.

 

[ickster]

Joke another smoint?

sry....

 

[ickster]

Before you take offense, notice my avatar is from a Pink Floyd album.....wink wink

But seriously, i don't think the usb charger is at fault. It's a standard. By definition they are all the same. There is a slight difference in output but it's in range I think. I think it's awesome they finally made it standard. Now they should stop including a charger with everything. I have like six now LOL.

 

[tblock1984]

@ickster: Thank you for responding! I was afraid I was talking to myself

Truth be told, I had no idea what the issue was. I was grasping at straws, trying to explain the odd behavior. I even posited it might be my car charger, but that was not the case. According to a Metro employee, the issue is the USB port was burnt out. He said the USB pins had been oxidized when the port blew, and the blue oxidation that resulted from that was a tell-tale sign. The Bluetooth charger has the same oxidation, and the plastic around the pins looks melted.

There was three phases to my issue, caused by continuous use of the Samsung Bluetooth charger:

1. Default USB cable will provide power, but the PC connection is flaky at best. ALL connections, power or data, will be finicky, constantly disconnecting/reconnecting at a whim, or when you touch the cable.
2. Bizarre battery activity while charging, going from half charge to 100% instantaneously, then dying five minutes after being unplugged.
3. Total failure of USB port, difficulty to turn the device on, and unstable OS when it does turn on.

The odd behavior in my first thread was the early signs of exposure to the suspect charger, and complete failure shortly followed, with the tell-tale signs of a burnt USB port manifesting. It is my completely my fault for not recognizing the signs earlier...

Also, there is a tiny PCB within the PC end of the USB cable. That is not standard. Just saying. We already know that a Optimus cable will not connect to a PC with an Indulge.

@smotpoker: MetroPCS monitors your IronMan 2 usage from the SD card, and I have heard MyExtras also accesses the network without your knowledge. A very reliable source says the engineers for the network hate the fact that you cannot turn 4G off. It is not bad design, my friends... It is always on for a reason, supposedly...

With JuiceDefender, I set up rules for disabling 4G and wifi at night. Something always overrode that and connected anyway. And when my phone died on Sat, when I took it in on Sun it was at 30%. Why did it use 15% when the phone WAS NOT ON? How's that for a conspiracy theory?

OK, that last part could easily be due to #2 above, but I still found it odd...

Cheers!

 

[MetroPOS]

Ok I've been using the same third party eBay car charger I've owned since I had my Samsung Code..and it works fine and haven't had any problems with my Indulge's usb port. I also bought a second usb cable which is also third party eBay that I keep at my computer at work...and again...I have no problems. So go figure I guess

 

[tblock1984]

Hurm... If I were to wager a guess, I would say I had a defective phone that had an adverse reaction to another Samsung charger. My warning still stands, though. This was a horrible ordeal with a new phone, and if it was past 30 days, I would have had to pay $80 and deal with that scurvy insurance plan.

 

[wagonis]

If I had to guess I would say you had a faulty USB port to begin with that had a loose connection within the port and when you inserted the charger cable into the port it crossed connecting points and fried it, sort of like crossing wires.

 

[tblock1984]

If I had to guess I would say you had a faulty USB port to begin with that had a loose connection within the port and when you inserted the charger cable into the port it crossed connecting points and fried it, sort of like crossing wires.

Very plausible. Hopefully I will get my new one today.

 

[trillgemini]

Omg! I've been using a Moterola charger. And I'm pretty sure it was for a bluettooth. So this has really freaked me out! I love my Indulge even though it has given me problems since I got it! Sorry you went through that with your phone! I hope you have your new one by now! And thanks for the info!

 

[redhook]

Using a different USB cable was not the problem, USB is a standard.

 

[karadotcollett]

I use a 2 dollar charger in my car from some island near china and it works just fine.

 

[geekgirl]

I have found that if my battery gets down to 0% the wall charger that came with it will NOT charge it; I have to use the USB cable to get it to at least 5%, and then the wall charger will charge it. Is this common?