Galaxy A 9.7 dies when cable pulled

[Sammy1024]

I have a Galaxy A 9.7. I replaced the battery. It fully charges, and boots up, but when I pull the charging cable the tablet dies. When the system is up I can look at it and it shows the system is fine, the battery is fine and shows 100% charged. It also recognizes that the charging cable is plugged in. Everything seems good, but as I said, pull the cable and it goes black. I replaced the original battery about 2 - 3 years ago. That battery worked well until about two weeks ago when it started to die quickly.

 

[Dannydet]

Yep time for a new battery

 

[ocnbrze]

Yep....I agree time for a new one

 

[puppykickr]

The device came out in 2015.
It is safe to say that batteries for it were produced for as long as the device was, maybe a bit longer.

What that means for you is that any 'new' battery you get now has been in a warehouse for a long time.

These batteries age (and not well) with time, whether or not they get used- they degrade.

The normal lifespan for them is 2-4 years.

Any battery you get now will have aged and will most likely not be as satisfactory as the last one.

 

[Sammy1024]

Okay, so puppykickr, you feel the problem is that the new battery I've put in has aged badly sitting around all this time. I can go with that but what I find strange is that when I go into settings and look at the battery, the tablet sees it as fine and 100% charged. If there was something wrong with it, I would think the system would detect something and show an issue. I guess I'll have to open it up again and put back one of the two old batteries, (I actually still have the original Samsung battery that the tablet came with.... if you are wondering why, well, that's the same question my wife asked), and see if it persists with dying every time I pull the cable. If not, then it would seem that you are right, and I received a bad "new" battery. I will let you know. Thanks

 

[puppykickr]

No, unfortunately what the device shows as 100% charged is only a vague voltage measurement.

What matters is the capacity, which is measured in milliamphours.

This is what degrades over time, the capacity.

You can have a full voltage charge and yet only have a few hundred milliamps of capacity (even less).

These batteries are rated for 1,500 (rare nowadays) and above, the norm being well above double that.

Even the cheapest modern devices have 3,000 mAh batteries.

There is a way to continue using the device, but it is not pretty or particularlly simple.
It involves removing the end of a USB cable, putting the cable through a hole in the back cover, and attaching the wires (+ to + and - to -) directly to the contacts of the device, then the old battery is put back in to both hold the wires tight and because a battery must be present anyway.

This is quite a pain, but it might work.
This would be like a last ditch effort to get needed data/media off of the device before it goes to digital heaven (or hell, I guess).

 

[puppykickr]

Okay, so puppykickr, you feel the problem is that the new battery I've put in has aged badly sitting around all this time. I can go with that but what I find strange is that when I go into settings and look at the battery, the tablet sees it as fine and 100% charged. If there was something wrong with it, I would think the system would detect something and show an issue. I guess I'll have to open it up again and put back one of the two old batteries, (I actually still have the original Samsung battery that the tablet came with.... if you are wondering why, well, that's the same question my wife asked), and see if it persists with dying every time I pull the cable. If not, then it would seem that you are right, and I received a bad "new" battery. I will let you know. Thanks

That is a decent test, but remember that any previous battery is just that much older now than it was when it was replaced.

If you chooae to replace it, what I have done and always had excellent results was to (and it is excellent that you have the original battery, and now you have a legitimate reason to tell your wife, lol) take the model number of the original battery and place it in the search bar of your browser.

Nothing else- just the model number alone- and be sure it is exact.

Enter like you are doing a search (you actually are).

Ignore any info from e-bay, or used batteries- stick with Amazon or Samsung, or the like.

Also ignore any info about what devices the battery fits or is for- if the model number matches exactly it is the same battery.

Try to find a source where the battery is still being produced, ie. not discontinued.
(This may not be possible, but it is worth a shot.)

I have replaced the batteries in three phones this way, one was 'not replaceable' (I called BS on that) and all are working fine now.

I wound up spending about $20 per battery after tax, shipping, etc.

Good luck!

 

[Sammy1024]

I opened the tablet again and booted it up. I then removed the battery connection and the tablet stayed up. I looked at the battery info in settings and it still showed good and 100% charged. You said that is just a vague voltage measurement, I guess it's just in reference to whatever it saw previously since the battery was no longer connected.

I decided to just re-connect the battery again. I did this because I noticed when I took the connector off it seemed as if it may have been "up" a tiny bit on one side. I put the connector back on and pressed on it really hard to make sure it was completely flat. I pulled the cord and the tablet stayed up. I put the power cable back in and put it in a "charging" mode and the battery now reflected only 58% charged. I charged it to 100%, ran it down to zero and charged it again. My wife, (this is her old tablet, she also has a newer one but uses the old one for a couple of things and when her newer tablet is recharging), and my grandson have been using it over the weekend and all is good.

Bottom line is that I apparently did not get the battery connector pressed down all the way the first time. So dumb user error caused by my eye site getting older and poorer that I didn't see the first time that the connection was up a little bit on the one side.

I thank you very much for all your info and help. It was greatly appreciated.