Slow battery charging time

[ws1985]

My S3 is charging really very slowly. i plugged it into the wall socket with the Samsung provided wall charger and it took me more than 7 hours to get the phone fully charged. I think this is ridiculous. I have Galaxy Note as well which is having a 2500mah battery and it is taking much faster to fully charge it. Any idea where went wrong?

 

[paintdrinkingpete]

Thanks for all the responses. After reading I realized the charger was probably the culprit. I was at work and had my gs3 plugged into my bosses charger he uses for his work phone. I was not aware that chargers vary from phone to phone/brand to brand. (Good to know)

Once I got home the charge time improved to what must be normal for this phone.

But thus brings up another question. I typically keep a charger at work car and home. Would the only smart option be to buy chargers from vzw?

I'd hate to buy a couple off eBay only tohave them suck like my bosses charger.

Thanks folks

I *think* the charger that came with the phone runs at 1 Amp (don't have it here in front of me to check). Generic chargers can provide power at varying ranges from 500 mA up to 2 A (2000 mA; generally for tablets).

You should be able to check the output of the charger -- it will be printed on it somewhere in that fine print.

At work, I use an old BlackBerry charger that is only 850 mA, but it just the job done...just a bit slower than the one that came with the phone that I keep at home. Most car chargers are 500 mA.

It may not cause any damage, but I generally do not use chargers that have higher amp output than the one that came with my device.

Also, some chargers are just cheap pieces of @#$% that simply don't work, regardless what what's printed on them.

 

[tarantula111]

My charger slowed tremendously in the past couple of weeks - this is the charger i got with my phone. Last night it was at 14 percent and seven hours later it went up to 40 percent! However, when i plugged it to my Blackberry charger into my laptop's USB slot, it went up from 40 to 100 in an hour. Something fishy?

 

[worwig]

If the charger is at least 800ma. then that is about as much as you need. The max charge rate is about 800 ma. The battery is 2100ma. So figure (roughly) 2.5 hour for a full charge.
BUT, if the phone thinks it is plugged into a PC USB port, it pulls about 300ma. Figure more like 7 hours to fully charge. If the connector is starting to fail, if it is the wrong type of cable, or the wrong type of charger, it will charge at the slower PC USB rate. If you need a fast charge, then it needs to be a charger / cable combo with the correct wiring. Install 'battery monitor widget'. It will identify the charger type (AC versus PC USB) and track the current to let you know if a cable is failing, or the after market charger is a low rate charger. There is no point in a charger much over 800ma because the phone can't use it. But the charger and cable MUST identify it as the higher rate.
If the phone is pulling a lot of power also, like the screen on or heavy data usage, then less power will get to the battery. I have also seen at least one cable that had such small wire in it that it couldn't supply the current, but that is rare.
BTW, I use a low rate charger for overnight charging anyway just to keep the phone cooler. I only use a high rate charger during the day when I need a quick charge.

 

[lbkiml]

Mine usually takes 2 hours from a wall charge, takes forever when its hooked up to my PC with a USB cable.

 

[GEnd Gonzales]

can anyone help me. this fast few days i experience some problem about charging on my galaxy s3. formerly the charging time is about 4 to 6hrs. but this fast few days it takes to long about 14 hrs. today 24 hrs. grrr... hope u can give me some advice to fix this problem. my s3 is brandnew about 1 month and made in vietnam. tnx

 

[qadriaamir]

Exacty same problem with my 2 week old S3. Its taking ages to charge completely and that too using the charger. Made a big mistake I bought this. S3 SUCKS. To all those who want to buy s3. DONT EVER DO THIS MISTAKE. SAMSUNG GALAXY S3 SUCKS. Its complete waste of money.

 

[D850]

Come on! from dead to full charge it takes the S3 about 2.5hours to charge with the 1amp samsung Wall charger. If you charge via a computers USB port it will take forever to charge because USB ports DON'T PROVIDE ENOUGH POWER! You may also have a defective battery or phone or even the charger I suggest you get a replacement and stop trashing a awesome phone I have had mine since August and from dead to full charge it has always taken about 2.5hours to charge with the 1amp wall charger. 2.5 hours is normal charge time. And if you are using your phone while it is charging that will also increase charging time the same goes for any mobile device.

 

[Kelly Kearns]

I have had a problem with the cord, not the plug, that came with my phone being slow. I got my old Galaxy S cord and put it on my new plug and it charges normal now.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Android Central Forums

 

[Deftlyhandled]

I had the same thing with a brand new S3. I have used a PC USB port, netbook USB port, random USB charger (1A), a Samsung note charger (2A), Samsung Galaxy S3 charger (1A) and a Jackson USB charger, all with the same random USB cable.
Then I used the cable from the box, and it charges quickly. The other one was noticeably thinner, and I guess it somehow restricted the amperage.

 

[worwig]

I had the same thing with a brand new S3. I have used a PC USB port, netbook USB port, random USB charger (1A), a Samsung note charger (2A), Samsung Galaxy S3 charger (1A) and a Jackson USB charger, all with the same random USB cable.
Then I used the cable from the box, and it charges quickly. The other one was noticeably thinner, and I guess it somehow restricted the amperage.

I've seen that before out of a no name cable. I measured it and found that I was only getting about 4.5 volts at the phone.
Oddly, I bought a bag of cheap cables from Amazon, at like $1.25 each, and those are all heavy wires.

 

[Gregory Barriffe]

In my case the charger was the problem. On the male end that goes into the phone there should be 5 of those gold pins on the inside of it and in mine one was missing (broke apparently idk how).. The phone would take forever to charge (up to 6 hrs to charge it fully) and if i use it while it is plugged it i would either lose charge or stay at the same percentage battery life. Bought a new charger and the problem is gone.

 

[Wilson Go]

Me too ... my S3 LTE charge as slow. And while plug into wall charger... and I am using g it. The battery recovery seem slower than the battery consume. Help! I am so mad about it. Thinking if I am to buy a new charger or put my phone to the shop... sinception it is less than a year.
This happened even I had tried hard to deactivate some application and cleared it.

 

[scott32746]

The only time it is slow is when I do not use the charger that came with it

Verizon. S3 JB

 

[keninnc]

Same problem just developed with my Note. Overnight the battery is suddenly charging at a trickle compared to the rate during the first several months. I put in a new battery and it charged at the old fast rate for a day and then suddenly it also started charging too slow to keep up with any data usage. Change charger and cords. ..same result. Obviously, problem with the phone hardware or software that ruined two perfectly good batteries in a row. I read through dozens of completely useless answers but I know what you're talking about. I'm sure Samsung knows the problem's cause but will they admit it? Had same thing happen with my first smartphone, evo, a few years back about a year into my contract. Sprint's "diagnoses" had me buying battery, charger and downloading new software all of which had zero effect. Only thing that fixed it was replacing the phone. So I have no idea what the problem was except that it was probably in the phone hardware...a component like a resistor gone bad maybe? If a regulator goes bad on a car the battery sometimes gets too much juice and it burns out. Similar thing maybe..a resistor or something gone faulty?

 

[SpiralBorg]

If you want to charge faster, you can buy an rapid-charger such as the Blackberry Premium Charger which is excellent, and charges twice as fast as the stock S3 Charger.
The S3 Charger is 700mah, while the Premium-Charger is 1.8mah.

 

[D850]

If you want to charge faster, you can buy an rapid-charger such as the Blackberry Premium Charger which is excellent, and charges twice as fast as the stock S3 Charger.
The S3 Charger is 700mah, while the Premium-Charger is 1.8mah.

Don't use the blackberry charger. The highest amp charger sold from samsung for this phone is 1amp at 5volts. Any higher amp or volt and you risk damaging your phone or shortening your battery life and battery damage. I use the samsung 1amp at 5v charger that is made for this phone and from dead to a full charge takes about 2.5 hours if you have the phone on while charging not using the phone while charging. At the risk of stating the obvious a blackberry charger is for blackberry's only and is not made to charge the Galaxy S3.

 

[SpiralBorg]

What's this Samsung Charger called?
The stock charger is only 750m.

Sent from my MZ604 using Android Central Forums

 

[SpiralBorg]

Don't use the blackberry charger. The highest amp charger sold from samsung for this phone is 1amp at 5volts. Any higher amp or volt and you risk damaging your phone or shortening your battery life and battery damage. I use the samsung 1amp at 5v charger that is made for this phone and from dead to a full charge takes about 2.5 hours if you have the phone on while charging not using the phone while charging. At the risk of stating the obvious a blackberry charger is for blackberry's only and is not made to charge the Galaxy S3.

There was also an video from Crackberry or Android Central saying that this was completely safe.
You can also buy on AndroidCentrals shop!

Sent from my MZ604 using Android Central Forums

 

[worwig]

Don't use the blackberry charger. The highest amp charger sold from samsung for this phone is 1amp at 5volts. Any higher amp or volt and you risk damaging your phone or shortening your battery life and battery damage.

This is 50% BS.

Use whatever amperage charger you can get. The electronics in the phone regulate the current. It is safe to charge from a 1 amp charger or a 10 amp charger, the phone will NEVER pull more then 0.8 to 0.9 amps. If the charger is 0.2 amps, that is OK too, but it will be a slow charge.

As for the voltage, that half is correct. Always use 5 volts.
I actually made an adjustable charger for when I use my phone as a GPS on my motorcycle. On a previous phone, I used close to 5.5 volts to charge it. It charged quicker, but the phone of course got warmer. The phone electronics protected the battery though, and all was well. For the S3, I didn't need that faster charge time, so it put it back down to 5 volts. No reason to run the phone hot. I haven't tried an over voltage charge with the S3 to charge quicker. It likely would work without much heat, but I don't need a quicker charge on it.