Help Motorola droid won't charge

[MrEsro]

I cannot get my Motorola Droid to charge. Here's what you should know:

• • I am using a different charger than what came with it (because it's longer)
  • I do not know where the original charger is
  • The phone is dead
  • The indicator light does not come on when I firmly plug the charger into the wall and the other end into the phone
  • I have tried several different outlets
  • The power works in my house currently
  • I have hardly damaged it (i.e., by dropping it)
  • I am fully aware of "switcher" outlets and etcetera
  • PLEASE HELP
  • I NEED MY PHONE!

 

[Shadowtech]

Get a new charger? It's possible the one you have doesn't output enough power to activate charging on the phone, or it could just be a bad unit.

 

[MrEsro]

Alright I'll search for the original one to see if it works, but I doubt I'll find it. I'm sure I'll just have to get another.

 

[Apeman]

Try to get an original from your local Verizon store (Should be $20) and let it charge overnight.

Sometimes the phone has a battery read error, making it think the battery is fully dead. Take the battery out for a few minutes, place it back in, and charge overnight. If you notice that it comes on, immediatly turn off the screen and let it continue charging.

Always use a wall outlet, because computers do not give enough power to charge it.

 

[FrayAdjacent]

what happened to your original charger? And how do you mean the new one is 'longer'? Did you get a longer cable? You can use a longer USB cable with the OEM charger, yanno?

I'd vote for bum charger. Try the one the phone came with, or plug it into your computer and see if the phone will charge.

 

[visualvalhalla]

The Droid needs at least 0.7Ampere and 5.1V from the charger to charge correctly. If you use a regular USB charger (usually 0.5Ampere and 5.0V), the battery sensor / charging software on the phone may barf. I personally had this problem while trying to charge the phone with a USB port on a plane's infortainment system. The battery indicator turned black with a question mark on it.

 

[FrayAdjacent]

And so we don't get confused...

0.7 Amperes is 700mA, or 700 milliamps.

 

[Digitalfix]

I built a better one hard wired into my car without the silly cigarette lighter plug.

Build A USB Car Charger

 

[riffdex]

Charge...
Droid DOESNT

 

[Wiggles]

My friend had that same exact problem. He had to get a new droid nothing else worked

 

[meekrab]

If the charger you are using supplies the proper voltage, your phone should turn on while plugged in without the battery. Take your battery out and try. Might help diagnose the problem

 

[hustler616]

I had this same problem with my Droid after about 2 months of having it. It didnt matter what charger I used it would not charge. I have 3 chargers I use and never use the original one, I personally think my Blackberry charger works the best. I took it back and they gave me a brand new one, I would not accept a refurbed one. I was not happy about the situation and the Verizon rep knew it the second I walked in.

 

[Crazy_J]

I had this same problem with my Droid after about 2 months of having it. It didnt matter what charger I used it would not charge. I have 3 chargers I use and never use the original one, I personally think my Blackberry charger works the best. I took it back and they gave me a brand new one, I would not accept a refurbed one. I was not happy about the situation and the Verizon rep knew it the second I walked in.

I am having the same issue. However I do use the charger my phone came with and my old blackberry car charger. Past couple weeks I have been having issues getting my phone to charge unless I plugged it into the phone just right. Now I can't get it to charge at all. This seems to be a manufacture defect. I treat my Droid like gold, had it for months not a scratch ding or any damage. I just unrooted and plan to take it back. I have insurance so I might have to pay $50 for a new one but that's OK by me...

 

[Dark Jedi]

I notice that the droid usb plug has prong springs on the top and bottom of the plug that goes into the droid. I havent seen any aftermarket with the spring tabs on top and bottom. just the top. I had a charger that did this of not charging my droid. I could push on top the connector down and it would charge but if i pulled up on the plug it would stop.

 

[johnlgalt]

I built a better one hard wired into my car without the silly cigarette lighter plug.

Build A USB Car Charger

 

[D13-R37]

I am also having problems. ..

I decide to finally install an aux cable into my car that went from the two Red/white RCA cables on the back of my car deck, to a 3.5mm jack. So I can use my droid in my car, and my brother can use his Ipod touch when he use my car. Anybody can plug in their multimedia device.

anyway during the install i had removed my car dock from my windshield, i have it just under the rear-view mirror for Google maps...

i finally get everything installed and put the Car dock back up and plug my phone into the newly hard wired 3.5mm aux cable and my car charger and I grin and sit back and jam out to Pandora...

2minutes later my car dock tragically falls from the windshield and dropping my droid and all to my center console, bouncing off my Stick shift. . .

I almost cried... I bucked up and put the car dock back up on the windshield and it happened one more time .... so i used an alcohol wipe, put up the car dock and made sure it was secure and left it over night to set without putting the phone weight on it.



The Moral of the story is, my droid will now not charge unless the micro plug in is at an angle where it is pressing upward toward the motorola droid's screen. Basically, away from the battery, pushing the connection together. I proceeded to using my multi-tool's needle nose and pulled the tabs on the car charger upward on the micro usb connection. these were spoken of earlier.

i also took another tool and bent the inner connection for the micro usb on the droid downward. These two quick fixes i discovered worked for a short period of time, but still i have to lay my droid down flat to get a clean charge it will not charge in the car dock unless the cable is pulled forward (toward the front of the car) at an angle, to temporarily correct the bent inner micro-usb connection. Soon i wont be able to at all I'm guessing. Most probably the small amount of people experiencing this problem, is probably due to us or someone dropping the phone while charged in, causing the charger apparatus to be damaged internally on the droid...or accidentally bending that internal connection the droid has for charging thru the micro-usb port.

i think i will need to backup my phone and save up 50$ for a new one . . . =(

 

[peh803]

Did you find a fix? I'm having the same issue!

 

[kmarker]

I had the same problem before and I found a fix for mine. I was rooted and had a custom theme and rom and for some reason it said that my charger was not connected and kept turning off but I was able to boot into recovery. If you are rooted, and can boot it into recovery, you can try flashing a backup rom that you saved and it should work from there, or if the battery is completely dead, try using a friends battery to boot into recovery and flash an older rom which should then let you charge your phone with your original battery.

 

[peh803]

I had the same problem before and I found a fix for mine. I was rooted and had a custom theme and rom and for some reason it said that my charger was not connected and kept turning off but I was able to boot into recovery. If you are rooted, and can boot it into recovery, you can try flashing a backup rom that you saved and it should work from there, or if the battery is completely dead, try using a friends battery to boot into recovery and flash an older rom which should then let you charge your phone with your original battery.

That totally solved my issue dude, thanks a million! I'm running Pete's BB v0.4 with Blue Energy custom theme.. had a custom kernel LV 125-1000MHz, too... not sure what of these items triggered it, but thankfully, I had a backup that wasn't too old that I could restore back to. Now I'm charging successfully again. Whew! Good reminder to make backups regularly!

Thanks so much for the input.

Regards,
Phil

 

[kmarker]

No problem, always good to help a fellow droid user haha, just glad to hear that it worked for you also

 

[muab]

I had something similar going on. I had the standard charger and tried charging from wall outlets and the computer. Most of the time it would not show any response to charging but about every 10th time of plugging in it would begin to charge then show either the black battery symbol with a question mark in it, and/or the battery indicator would be red with a line through it. About every 50th attempt at charging would result in it charging to 60 to 80 percent and then it would show the red battery icon with a line through it.
Verizon sent me a new battery and that made no difference.
Received a new Droid last week and all is golden again.

 

[aroxxx]

get battery charger, not cable connection to phone isolate battery in own specific charger, problem should stop, flash droids have issues when batter dips below 10 ( i.e. not charging ). had same problem on my droid1 rooted/flashed to metro, so yeah, got charger and extra battery for 25bux, +1 battery powa!

 

[Brndn_4]

My coworker's Droid 2 just stopped charging via USB cable recently and I thought his issues were along the lines of those mentioned here. So commences the testing...

I currently use a docking station for my Droid (original) and he uses just a cable, both hooked up to our computers' front USB ports. I first put his phone on my station and it charged (in sync mode). Then I tried using his cable with my PC and it worked. After that, I took the station over to his computer and it wouldn't work (in sync mode). I had him switch the station to charge mode and it still wouldn't work until he unplugged the USB cable, which in return basically put the station on charge via outlet (since there's two cables to hook up for both modes). I then tried using his cable on his USB ports in the back of his computer and, like with the front, it wouldn't charge. So I'm thinking it has something to do with the USB power output on our computers and will run it by the uber geeky IT guy in a little bit.

It's all just odd though because yesterday, after he let his phone completely die, nothing would work at all; not my station or his cable in any way. Also what's strange is how my Droid won't charge when the station is set to charge mode, but only in sync mode (with both cables hooked up). So that's why I'm thinking it has something to do with the computers. I'm not sure if this helps anyone here, but I thought I'd share my experience as well just in case someone could gain something from it.

 

[nicsto7]

I have had many issues with chargers that just quit working out of no where. 9 times out 10, it was because I was using a generic charger which wasn't strong enough and it would fry the charger (look at the little gold colored prongs on the end of the charger that you plug into your phone, if they are no longer gold, and are black your charger has been fried and is dead.... if this is the case STOP using that charger because it will fry your phone as well, more than once I have had my phone fried as well. You can tell if your phone is fried if you look at the hole on the phone you plug the charger into, if the inside of there is all black as well and not silver or gold, sorry.

 

[crackaonrice]

Does anybody know what the threshold charging current is for the Droid? I have a battery charger that outputs 5V, 400mA...but when I plug it into my Droid, the screen lights up but the phone does not indicate "charging"

Is there something in the phone where it needs to see like 500mA or some-current in order to go into charging mode?