Why isn't my Samsung Galaxy S3 charging fully?

[Matthew Jenson]

Samsung Galaxy S3 not charging fully

Hello, my mom's Galaxy S3 stopped accepted charge from her original charger. She tried about 3 different chargers and same thing.. It's still charging, but it's taking forever to charge. It was at 70% this morning, plugged in since 8:00PM last night.
The battery is also dying really fast. It went from 100 to 2 in about 3 hours on idle.
She took it to a US Cellular booth at a mall and they said the battery is good.
Anyone know the cause of this, and how to fix it?

 

[Mooncatt]

Re: Samsung Galaxy S3 not charging fully

I doubt the battery is good, given the age of the phone. It may have passed whatever test they had, but it's about the only explanation. There might be an off chance there's an app running full throttle in the background, but then the phone would be warm.

Have you actually looked at the battery and noticed any swelling? If so, replace it.

 

[Matthew Jenson]

Re: Samsung Galaxy S3 not charging fully

I doubt the battery is good, given the age of the phone. It may have passed whatever test they had, but it's about the only explanation. There might be an off chance there's an app running full throttle in the background, but then the phone would be warm.

Have you actually looked at the battery and noticed any swelling? If so, replace it.

The phone is actually fairly new. She had an S4 mini and didn't like it so she went back to the S3. I actually have her old S3 and I have no problems with it, and that phone is like 3 years old. She's only had it for like 6-7 months. I checked the battery, and there's no swelling. I'm not sure what's wrong with it.

 

[Mooncatt]

Re: Samsung Galaxy S3 not charging fully

I didn't think the S3 was still in production. Since you also have one, try swapping batteries between the two. That will narrow down the problem.

 

[Rukbat]

Re: Samsung Galaxy S3 not charging fully

She took it to a US Cellular booth at a mall

That's probably a reseller, not a company-owned booth, so add the poor (about the poorest) customer service record of US Cellular to the "I can make money if I can sell phones" reason for the existence of most of these mall booths, and you get advice that's not quite as good as asking a mall security guard for his opinion.

and they said the battery is good.

I'll pay the "tech" who actually determined that $10,000 cash, no questions asked, for exclusive rights to the method he used to determine that. (I'll make it back in about 5 minutes, once I go into production.) You can't determine if a battery is good by measuring it. See Is My Battery Shot? And replacing the battery doesn't determine if the original battery was causing the problem.

I'm with Mooncat - the battery has reached the end of its life. (Discharging a battery down to the point that the phone tells you to charge it, every day for 6 months, can kill it. Remember, half of all batteries are in the bottom 50% of the acceptable quality range, and 1/10th of them are in the bottom 10% of that range.)

 

[Matthew Jenson]

Re: Samsung Galaxy S3 not charging fully

I didn't think the S3 was still in production. Since you also have one, try swapping batteries between the two. That will narrow down the problem.

I think it was at the time that she got it. But thanks. I'm not all that great with batteries so I'll try this out.

 

[Matthew Jenson]

Re: Samsung Galaxy S3 not charging fully

That's probably a reseller, not a company-owned booth, so add the poor (about the poorest) customer service record of US Cellular to the "I can make money if I can sell phones" reason for the existence of most of these mall booths, and you get advice that's not quite as good as asking a mall security guard for his opinion.

I'll pay the "tech" who actually determined that $10,000 cash, no questions asked, for exclusive rights to the method he used to determine that. (I'll make it back in about 5 minutes, once I go into production.) You can't determine if a battery is good by measuring it. See Is My Battery Shot? And replacing the battery doesn't determine if the original battery was causing the problem.

I'm with Mooncat - the battery has reached the end of its life. (Discharging a battery down to the point that the phone tells you to charge it, every day for 6 months, can kill it. Remember, half of all batteries are in the bottom 50% of the acceptable quality range, and 1/10th of them are in the bottom 10% of that range.)

Yeah we've had horrible service with US Cellular. But before we had Verizon. And that was just as bad. Thanks for the link. I'll try to get this figured out for her. It happened really sudden