Charger can't keep up

[sisblub]

I had my phone plugged in and charging while talking on the phone and surfing the web on 4G and it was still discharging battery and couldn't maintain the charge, never mind charge the battery! Is this typical? And is there a charger that will be able to keep up with such use and charge the phone at the same time?

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

 

[Paul627g]

Yes in this situation it is normal. Your multi tasking the device to do voice and surf the web at the same time which requires 4g, no charger will keep up with that type of power draw. Same situation would be observed if your charging in your car and using GPS.. GPS draw is usually to much to keep up with the portable charger output.

 

[dsuppa]

Yes in this situation it is normal. Your multi tasking the device to do voice and surf the web at the same time which requires 4g, no charger will keep up with that type of power draw. Same situation would be observed if your charging in your car and using GPS.. GPS draw is usually to much to keep up with the portable charger output.

Yeah this happened to me the other day using GPS in my car, completely unnacepptable and makes using the phones awesoe GPS feature impossible for more than 30 minute drive. And even then; when you arrive you need to find a wall socket ASAP....

 

[greydarrah]

Yes in this situation it is normal. Your multi tasking the device to do voice and surf the web at the same time which requires 4g, no charger will keep up with that type of power draw. Same situation would be observed if your charging in your car and using GPS.. GPS draw is usually to much to keep up with the portable charger output.

Yeah this happened to me the other day using GPS in my car, completely unnacepptable and makes using the phones awesoe GPS feature impossible for more than 30 minute drive. And even then; when you arrive you need to find a wall socket ASAP....

I have the high speed charger from Motorola (amazon for about $15), and it increases battery charge while using gps in the car.

 

[Paul627g]

I have the high speed charger from Motorola (amazon for about $15), and it increases battery charge while using gps in the car.

Awesome, is this something new?

Sent from my Nexus S 4G using Tapatalk

 

[ShinyTop]

I had this with my Incredible. Buy a car charger that charges at 1 Amp instead of .500 and it will charge while in use.

 

[beerhound]

Awesome, is this something new?

Sent from my Nexus S 4G using Tapatalk

The most important thing with comparing chargers is knowing how much current they can supply. The stock A/C charger puts out 1000 mA. I have a "Griffin" branded car charger I bought at Walmart for $12 that puts out that much to each of it's two ports and it has no problems keeping up either. If you have to use gps on battery or if your charger can't handle the load, DIM the screen. I took an hour long trip last week with Navigation on the whole time using just the battery, no charger. I manually dimmed the screen and just listened to the turn by turn voice and I had 85% battery life when I got there.

This is a cut and paste from a post I made a couple of weeks ago:

"Last night I did a test just to see if I could come up with something that would overwhelm the charger. I live in a 3G only area, so normally I set my network to CDMA only. Last night, I switched it to CDMA/LTE knowing that it would put a heavy load on the phone searching for a signal. Then I put songbird in shuffle play to get some music going, turned on Wifi tethering and started a d/l with my laptop AND started GPS nav to use that radio and keep the screen on full time. I started with my battery at 75% and on the AC charger it climbed 1% every 3~4 minutes. I didn't think to test it on USB.

The stock charger can supply up to 1000 mA. A USB port only supplies a max of 500 and that might be shared with other USB devices. I read that some people that update phones every time something new comes out try to keep everything as pristine as possible so they can sell the phone on eBay to finance their upgrades. Some of these people go so far as to not unpack the stock chargers. I wonder if they are trying to use older, lower powered chargers and running into problems?

If people are using the stock charger or one with at least 1000 ma of current and having problems keeping the phone charged, something is definitely NOT working the way it is supposed to."

The test above doesn't account for making a call while on 4G and having both 4G & 3G radios active at once. It did have the 4G radio on and searching for a signal while the 3G was in use and WiFi was in use with and active tether connection. I should also say that when I said a USB port only supplies 500 mA, I meant a port on your PC. A powered hub or our chargers can supply much more than that. The charger for my tablet puts out 2000 mA, but I've never needed to use that for my phone.

I guess it is all a YMMV situation.
__________________

 

[greydarrah]

Awesome, is this something new?

Sent from my Nexus S 4G using Tapatalk

This is the one I use. GPS on long trips with full brightness and it keeps it fully charged.

Amazon.com: Motorola Vehicle Power Adapter micro-USB Rapid Rate Charger: Cell Phones & Accessories

 

[sisblub]

My car actually has a USB port so I just use that. I'm guessing there's no good way to figure out how many mA that puts out right? Also, is the mA dependent on the type of USB to microusb cable I use? Or is that determined by the USB port itself?

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

 

[yosteve]

View attachment 22388

I have these cheap items, I totally don't have the same experience, I can be on the phone, stream music to my car or be on the phone and my battery will still charge a percentage point a minute.

 

[dookie.]

The key is how the phone reports itself charging when connected.

USB by design limits the current that can be consumed by a device (so that everyone can be good neighbors when sharing a hub). However, not all USB chargers follow the spec.

With the phone connected to the charger, does it say "charging USB" or "charging AC" in status? If it says USB, you are getting 0.5A delivered to the phone, regardless of the max capacity of the charger.

I have a 1.5A USB car charger that I used with my DX that reported AC on the X, but USB on the GN. I bought another that is both direct wire and USB, and when connected direct it shows AC but when using the USB extension (to my dock), it still shows USB.

 

[sisblub]

The key is how the phone reports itself charging when connected.

USB by design limits the current that can be consumed by a device (so that everyone can be good neighbors when sharing a hub). However, not all USB chargers follow the spec.

With the phone connected to the charger, does it say "charging USB" or "charging AC" in status? If it says USB, you are getting 0.5A delivered to the phone, regardless of the max capacity of the charger.

I have a 1.5A USB car charger that I used with my DX that reported AC on the X, but USB on the GN. I bought another that is both direct wire and USB, and when connected direct it shows AC but when using the USB extension (to my dock), it still shows USB.

So if its showing that its connected as a media device and charging, does that mean I'm getting 0.5A charge? And what's direct wire and USB? Do you have a link to one so I can take a look at the chargers you are talking about? I'm not familiar with them, thanks!

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

 

[sisblub]

So I got an incase charger that doubles as AC charger and a car charger which supposedly has a 2.1 amp output and it still can't keep up with me watching a YouTube video on 4g. Am I supposed to be looking at another spec when buying chargers?

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

 

[sisblub]

So I got an incase charger that doubles as AC charger and a car charger which supposedly has a 2.1 amp output and it still can't keep up with me watching a YouTube video on 4g. Am I supposed to be looking at another spec when buying chargers?

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

And this is plugged into the outlet, not even being used as a car charger.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

 

[Lodingi]

I experienced the same issue when I had my Nexus. I just assumed it took a lot of juice to push the HD screen. See if Verizon will send you a new battery.

Sent from my iPhone 4s using Tapatalk

 

[jastop]

Having a charger that can supply the 2 amps is only half the battle. You need the phone to recognize that it is connected to a high output charger and not a USB port or low output charger. Most non-iPhones seem to do this by checking for a short on the data lines (two middle pins on a standard USB?) to indicate high output charging.

The high output charging indication can be set inside the charger, or by the data cable, or sometimes by a personal computer with some special hardware (like my asus Rampage Gene II motherboard for example) and code.

Apple does the high output charging indication a different way, by using a combination of resistors between power and data lines. This means that if you grab a random charger of the shelf at Best Buy, even though the charger says two amps in big letters, if it says iPhone compatible, it probably isn't going to charge your phone any quicker than a standard PC USB port.

To make this work get a high output car charger, buy a charging cable that shorts the data pins, and you'll be good to go. If you buy one of the Motorola or Samsung OEM high output car chargers, for a little more money, it should be the case that the data pins are shorted in the charger, so you probably can use any data cable.

 

[sisblub]

Having a charger that can supply the 2 amps is only half the battle. You need the phone to recognize that it is connected to a high output charger and not a USB port or low output charger. Most non-iPhones seem to do this by checking for a short on the data lines (two middle pins on a standard USB?) to indicate high output charging.

The high output charging indication can be set inside the charger, or by the data cable, or sometimes by a personal computer with some special hardware (like my asus Rampage Gene II motherboard for example) and code.

Apple does the high output charging indication a different way, by using a combination of resistors between power and data lines. This means that if you grab a random charger of the shelf at Best Buy, even though the charger says two amps in big letters, if it says iPhone compatible, it probably isn't going to charge your phone any quicker than a standard PC USB port.

To make this work get a high output car charger, buy a charging cable that shorts the data pins, and you'll be good to go. If you buy one of the Motorola or Samsung OEM high output car chargers, for a little more money, it should be the case that the data pins are shorted in the charger, so you probably can use any data cable.

so the best way for me to get around this would be to get a high output car charger into which I can plug in the USB data cable and it should charge appropriately faster? Sorry for all the questions, and thank you!

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk