Phone won't hold a charge

[haylzxxx]

I've been having some battery life problems (moreso than usual) with my Skyrocket within the past few weeks. It has been slower to charge than usual, sometimes will actually deplete the battery while on the charger, and is also dying much faster when not plugged in.

For example, I was charging it today at work - went from 0% to 71% within a couple hours, unplugged it and went to class, and it was back to 5% battery within 4 hours. It died that quickly from mild to moderate use - some texting, a few tweets, and then idle for an hour or so for an in-class meeting where it was completely untouched. It died the fastest when it was left idle. I can't remember exact numbers, but it was around 49% when I left it and 27% when I came back to it after the meeting. All of this on a brand new OEM battery that is two days old. It is dying faster on the new battery than the old one!

And when I first plugged it in at work, it had 2% battery, but dipped to 0% initially. I ended up shutting it completely off to get it to start charging faster. Also, as an fyi, the two chargers I use are off-brand mini USB chargers that are compatible with my phone. Not OEM chargers. One says it is 0.6A, the other does not have any information on it.

Any tips on this will be much appreciated. This phone has always been bad about sucking up battery life, but this is absolutely ridiculous!

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! Where did you get this new battery? It could be a dud, or it could be counterfeit. If the battery was really cheap on eBay, perhaps directly from China, then I'd be more suspicious of it being counterfeit (or perhaps a used battery dressed up to look like it's new).

If you can, return it for an exchange.

 

[haylzxxx]

I bought the battery on eBay. It cost me about 10 bucks, but it was shipped from somewhere in the US.

Do you really think it's just a battery problem? I'm having the same problems as I was with the old battery, so wouldn't that mean it could be a problem within the phone?

 

[B. Diddy]

Oh, you didn't specify in your original post that you had the same problem with the old battery--you only remarked that the new battery is dying faster than the old one. Still, if you got a dud battery, it may still behave like a depleted battery. If you are able to test out another new battery, it would help narrow down the problem to either the battery you bought or your phone itself.

 

[haylzxxx]

I tried another new battery - nothing changed.

Also, something weird happened with my phone last night. I had unplugged the charger from the wall, but still had it connected to the phone. I went off and left it sitting on the table, still connected but not plugged in to a power source. When I came back a bit later, the battery display on the phone said it was 5% higher than when I unplugged it! It increased from 39 to 44%. Not sure if this is relevant, just thought it was very strange.

 

[B. Diddy]

Ok, so we've eliminated the battery as the problem. Sounds like a problem with the phone. Try wiping the system cache partition, which erases temporary system data that can sometimes mess things up. No important personal data will be lost:

1. Power off the device.
   
2. NOTE: If unable to power off, remove and reinsert the battery.
   
3. Hold down the Volume Up + Volume Down keys AND the Power Key until the First Samsung Splash Screen comes up and quickly let go of the keys.
   
4. This will bring you to the Android recovery menu.
   
5. Use the Volume Up + Volume Down keys to move up and down the menu, and use the Home key to select the menu options.
   
6. Select wipe cache partition and tap OK

If this doesn't work, it might be time to try a factory data reset.

By the way, it's not that weird for the battery to keep charging a little after unplugging the charger from the wall outlet, because I think the charger has a capacitor that stores charge, such that when it's unplugged, the capacitor will still discharge (and therefore pump more power into the device) until it is empty. But it is a little unusual that it went up by 5%.

 

[kathykane]

Hi there

 

[naning]

Hi, before i go and buy a new battery for my Samsung Galaxy S4 phone i thought i should try to seek for a little advice on how to diy it. The past couple of days i noticed that the charging was taking so long and for several hours it only reaches to 70%. But today it completely drained the battery on standby and when i charged it back it only take up 5%. the green light stays on the bottom of the battery indication and the red light on is on permanently on charge. I don't understand what happened please help...

Naning

 

[Ing Brown]

Hi, before i go and buy a new battery for my Samsung Galaxy S4 phone i thought i should try to seek for a little advice on how to diy it. The past couple of days i noticed that the charging was taking so long and for several hours it only reaches to 70%. But today it completely drained the battery on standby and when i charged it back it only take up 5%. the green light stays on the bottom of the battery indication and the red light on is on permanently on charge. I don't understand what happened please help...

Naning

I am having sort of the same problem. The only way it charges complete lyrics to 100% is if my phone is turned off. The minute I turn it back on it starts dropping. I have tried several charges and outlets with the same outcome. I finally contacted my carrier and since this is a new phone not even a year old they sent a replacement
But this one is doing the same thing.HELP !