Help Random reboots, then significant battery drop (within seconds)

kiwi703

Lurker
In the past two months or so (I've had the phone for seven) the phone just randomly turns off (maybe 1-2 times per week) and when i reboot it, the battery has dropped sharply (from anywhere between 10 and 70%) within the space of minutes being off. It's legitimate battery loss as well - It takes the same time to recharge the battery back to where it was. Other than when that happens the battery performs well and I get quite good battery life. This happened before and after I got ICS so that can be ruled out, and otherwise I think it makes more sense for the problem to be hardware related.

Usually the battery doesn't drop that significantly but today it dropped an insane amount, from about 85% to 20%. Any ideas what could be the problem/possible fix? I would post a screenshot but there are limitations on new users.
 

tim1989

Member
I have had a similar problem, except the phone didnt turn its self off. It happened yesterday, my internet wasnt loading properly, so I tried going into flight mode and back out, that did nothing. So I opted to switch off and back on again. After switching back on the battery had dropped from about 50% down to 13% with no good reason. Im running android 2.3.3
 

Hawker

Android Expert
This is not quite a legitimate battery drop, as if you leave the phone on standby for a period after a drop you will notice the battery level increases over time. It will eventually level out (but not usually at a point of when the drop happened) and start dropping again.

This is the one drawback of the GS2's "fuel chip". It has a great advantage that it never requires calibration, but you will occasionally, but not every time, notice a sharp drop in battery level directly after a power off.
 

kiwi703

Lurker
Thread starter
This is not quite a legitimate battery drop, as if you leave the phone on standby for a period after a drop you will notice the battery level increases over time. It will eventually level out (but not usually at a point of when the drop happened) and start dropping again.

Well that doesn't sound so bad then. But can you guess the cause of the phone randomly shutting off? I have a feeling that it could be triggered by motion, but i could easily be wrong. And also i don't understand how battery can just disappear like that. Granted it does level out a bit like you said, but battery life is still lost at the end of the day, and turning off the phone doesn't seem to create excess heat, so i can't see an explanation. Anyway cheers for the reply.
 

Hawker

Android Expert
Randomly shutting off is a different matter.
There is quite a common fault with regards to the battery not being tight enough in the compartment, causing the terminals to lose contact, and therefore power off.
A "fix" for this is to wedge a piece of paper in there so that it is a tighter fit.
 

Forbidden 403

Android Enthusiast
That's definitely a significant battery loss.
Did you try Hawker's "fix" regarding the battery.

Randomly rebooting phone is not a good thing. Sorry to be negative but I suspect that you perhaps have a short circuit on your board.
 

Miths000

Well-Known Member
My random reboots stopped completely after I removed the 16 GB SD card I had in it. Whether its presence caused a compromised connection for the battery or the card was faulty (I ran checks on it but no errors were found) I don't know. I haven't needed the extra space so I haven't gotten around to buying and trying a different card instead.
 

Kie

Android Expert
I sometimes get severe battery drops after rebooting, but it's getting less frequent. As Hawker said, it starts rising after that and eventually catches up with the number it's meant to be.

Random reboots due to the sd card point to an incompatible sd card. What brand is it? If it's not sandisk, try a sandisk one. If it's sandisk, there's something more serious wrong.
 
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