• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

Help battery charge indicator incorrect after water damge and restore

remrem

Newbie
Sep 7, 2010
30
2
Hello,
I posted this in the XDA forum a couple of weeks ago, but with no success in finding a solution, so I realized I should post it on your forum and any others that might have members with similar experience. I would really appreciate any replies. Thanks in advance:

I have searched and searched to find any threads or posts that describe this problem. I have found lots of similar ones, but none like this, so that is why I have started a new thread. If I missed this topic somewhere, I apologize for not having found it.

My wife and I both have Skyrockets (GSII - I727). Stock AT&T ROM (not rooted), but both unlocked. Mine got partially wet last week (toilet incident, would rather not elaborate, but I will answer the first question everyone asks - yes it was a "clean" toilet ) Anyway, I immediately liberally rinsed all ports with alcohol and warmed gently with a hair dryer. After drying I powered up, and everything worked, except the battery percentage display (with a variety of completely fresh and fully charged batteries), would only show in the 50 - 68% charge range, and the phone seemed to die at about the rate one would expect commensurate with those numbers. Put it in a bag of rice for 2 days. No better.

So, after reading here and watching several YouTube videos, I completely disassembled the phone. cleaned all ports, ribbon connectors, mother board, etc. with CRC electrical contact cleaner spray using the spray tube and a very gentle toothbrush. I paid special attention to the micro USB charging port, and all other contacts and circuits that seemed to be related to charging, though I am by no means an electrical engineer or technician, so a lot of it was guesswork. I made sure all was dry and new looking. All contacts intact, no visible corrosion or bridging, and reassembled the phone perfectly (pretty proud of myself for not breaking anything in the process!)

The phone still works great, except for the battery percentage display issue. I have tried everything I've read on this forum about recalibrating the battery meter - discharging fully and then charging up. With the phone on, with the phone off, every permutation I can think of. I tried clearing the cache and rebooting. Still, the maximum the display will read is 68% (that number has steadily decreased since I first posted this, and the battery is draining very quickly and the phone is getting hot), and the phone behaves and dies like it has a battery that is only that percentage, even though I know I am putting 100% charged batteries into it. I have verified this by putting the same batteries into my wife's identical phone and it displays 100%.

If my phone were lasting as long as it normally would with a fully charged battery, I wouldn't be so bothered by the display being inaccurate, but that is not the case. I've downloaded CPU SPY and some other apps to see if my phone is using an unusual amount of battery resources, but it is not. So, that's the story.

I am not afraid of factory reset and/or rooting the phone, and I have no warranties left so I don't care, it's just that from what I've read on the forums, people with somewhat similar issues have not benefitted from either approach, despite the fact they are then able to run apps or programs that are only available to rooted phones, so I would prefer not to go down those time consuming routes, if all I'm going to do is hit another dead end.

So, any suggestions or comments would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance. :)

Best regards,
Ron M.
 

BEST TECH IN 2023

We've been tracking upcoming products and ranking the best tech since 2007. Thanks for trusting our opinion: we get rewarded through affiliate links that earn us a commission and we invite you to learn more about us.

Smartphones