Galaxy S4 won't charge

[vasekvi]

Wall charger doesn't even charge at all, surprisingly enough. It's so peculiar that it charges through the computer, but not the wall.

And this is the charger and cable that came with the phone?

Interestingly enough using the widget to monitor charge rates I noticed that an older Samsung cable only allows half the charge rate depending on the charger. I'm only getting 1amp through the stock 2amp charger and 500mA with a 1amp charger. And the cable looks identical to the charger that came with the phone and all other standard Samsung micro usb cables. In tongue trash it goes.

Sent from my AT&T Samsung Galaxy S4 using Tapatalk II

 

[Elena Baucom]

I have been experiencing the same problems today. It finally accepted the car charger. I will probably take the phone back now a second time. My family members have the note II and they have had no problems. So thinking about getting that.

 

[esprit15d]

This has been happening to me on and off for about two weeks. I've had the phone for a month yesterday. Super annoying. I don't care how great a phone is if it won't keep a charge, it might as well be a bar of soap. I'm doing to download the widget and do the some of the other suggestions mentioned. Hope this works.

 

[IslandGuy]

The problem is not the phone but the charger. I downloaded the Galaxy Charging app and it showed the charger that came with the phone to be charging at less than 1900mA. Funny thing it was all over the place, sometimes 680mA and at best 1320mA. I took the charger back to Sprint and they changed it for me. The charging app was critical to getting the charger replaced because the store tech simply tried the charger on his phone and said it is charging. I had to show him the output of the faulty charger and what a good charger pushes. Also go to a corporate store of your carrier because one of the franchise stores dismissed me by saying I had to take up the issue with Samsung. The corporate store changed it without a question.

 

[packpackpack]

I had my phone replaced yesterday after 8 days of it working fine. Same issue. Stopped charging, once in a while I would notice a 'USB connected" message, a 'USB disconnected message', etc...I tried SEVERAL chargers and all yielded the same results. This is not a charger issue. It's a charging port issue.

 

[socalsx]

Crazy! same has happened to my galaxy S4. Started doing it randomly, now it refuses to charge from anything.. went through newegg so now I have to send in the phone before they send me a new one

 

[mwsiuda]

I'm having the same problem, the phone won't charge at all, even when connected to a PC or laptop. This is not a charger issue, something is seriously wrong with these phones. It charged the first day after I let the battery complete drain but it charged ever so slowly and now will not charge at all. Also, when connected to a PC or laptop, the usb connection keeps connecting/disconnecting on its own. I'm constantly hearing the windows 7 connect/disconnect sound. This isn't funny at all. Getting the phone replaced as I will give it a second chance but if it happens again, bye bye S4.

 

[mwsiuda]

Ok so it does charge when connected to a PC or laptop and when the phone is powered off but when connected to PC/laptop the usb connection still disconnects/connects on its own.

 

[mwsiuda]

Sadly its a well known issue, the problem is not the battery, its the charger, in many units they sent out cheap chargers that are good typically for most cell phones but for the s4 the power it uses is larger than the charger can handle by default, and this is an unintentional mistake that I will tell you how to fix very shortly.

1. the easiest fix is to get a charger self sufficient enough to maintain the charge. The ones that can do this is the 5 pin data and charging, usb chargers, just connect the usb chargers into the wall to usb charger that came with the phone. The 5 pin chargers are more capable then the 4 pin that came with your phone. To get these either look for a charger that is advertised for data transfer as well as charging at usb 2.0 to 3.0 speeds, or go with these 3 charging companies I have found that work, either the most expensive and most durable for 25 dollars at radioshack for ifrogz, or i-sound about 8 dollars at tj-maxx (oddly not at marshals). These 2 are the best I have found.

2. fix the freaking reason why the heck the phone is using so much power. These chargers are great because even if you find them actually less necessary after you fix step 2, you will find that they can totally charge the phone up 100% in about 1:20 hours. The phone was tested before it was sent to the reseller, but some of the resellers have bad firmwares and is causing google maps to run 100% of the time. Do a factory reset, sadly this means you will loose your apps and the problem usually is fixed. This should be done if you are seeing in your battery menu google maps always running at 10% or more of your battery and never closing. Even with the chargers I recommended that will be able to charge it with this bug. The phone will drain withing 10 hours on idle doing nothing to 0 and in 5 hours in hard usages. Refreshing to factory stock will fix this glitch. The phone should by 69 hours idle, and about 10 hours of hard gaming use. Its not the most efficient piece of hardware but its more efficient then what a large chunk of what people are getting out of it right now. I am sorry for your pain, I delt with it too just a couple days ago as well.

What do you mean by 5 pin chargers?

 

[Scott Atkins]

So yeah sorry gang. Same issue here.

Phone has been great, best phone I've ever had, until tonight, charge got down to about 7% so I decided to charge (usually charge way before this). Tonight nothing. No charge, until finally it went to 0%. I don't ever like putting other chargers into my phone so the ONLY thing that has worked so far, was plugging the usb directly into the laptop and bam, started charging. I'll keep you posted if it IS actually charging or not or if that red light is just on for no reason.

Fingers crossed we didn't wait this long for another (Droid Bionic) type of phone, which ended up being a complete flop.

 

[njboys808]

Try removing the battery and leaving it out for at least 5 minutes. Then put the battery back in and charge it for at least I hour uninterrupted. That worked for me.

 

[socalsx]

Try removing the battery and leaving it out for at least 5 minutes. Then put the battery back in and charge it for at least I hour uninterrupted. That worked for me.

I will try this, but I took the phone into verizon today and they tried a new battery: no go.. also that worked at one point but it kept getting worse to the point of no charge whatsoever

..except it will charge when the phone is off and keep vibrating. it slowly charges. whats the deal?

UPDATE: out of desperation to use my phone, i tried connecting to my PC again.. Now the phone is charging while on, but does not show charging notification. Still not sure if its hardware or software

 

[mwsiuda]

I just got a replacement and I let the battery drain completely before charging. I'm using a laptop usb 3.0 port to charge. I heard that it should take only 1.5 hours to fully charge a completely dead battery so I'll have to see if that's the case with my phone.

UPDATE: It's been almost 1 hour and only up to 13% charge. Looks like I will be returning this phone again for good this time. Samsung needs to fix whatever is wrong. It's a shame because other than the charging problems, this is a great phone.

 

[mwsiuda]

Quick question, if I have the phone plugged into a PC/laptop/wall charger and then I take out the battery, should the phone still be on or should it power off? Man, I never had any power issues with iPhone. Also, on my PC/laptop it shows that the power source for the phone is battery even though the phone is plugged into a usb port. Sighhh

 

[vasekvi]

Quick question, if I have the phone plugged into a PC/laptop/wall charger and then I take out the battery, should the phone still be on or should it power off? Man, I never had any power issues with iPhone. Also, on my PC/laptop it shows that the power source for the phone is battery even though the phone is plugged into a usb port. Sighhh

You want to power off your phone before pulling the battery.

What is the charge rate when plugged into your pc?

Sent from my AT&T Samsung Galaxy S4 using Tapatalk II

 

[karliita]

Re: Galaxy S4

i have a question i just bought my galaxy for how long im supose to charge it ?

 

[vasekvi]

Re: Galaxy S4

i have a question i just bought my galaxy for how long im supose to charge it ?

For best battery health, charge it till its full and then let the battery discharge till its completely dead. Dont this for two cycles. After that, keep the battery topped off whenever convenient. The less you let the battery discharge, the more charge cycles you will get out of it.

Sent from my AT&T Samsung Galaxy S4 using Tapatalk II

 

[vasekvi]

Just to throw this into the mix, my phone went critically low on battery, it was at 4%. So i plugged it in using the charger that came with the phone and I noticed it was only charging at 300mA. I left it for a couple mins. No change. Then i unplugged the wall plug and tried a different outlet. 1900mA. Then I plugged it back in the same wall outlet I first used. 1900mA.

So it would seem that if I just left it charging at the 300mA I was first getting, it would never charge. But it would show that it was charging. Guess it's always good to double check the charge rates just to make sure the phone is actually charging at the correct rate.

Sent from my AT&T Samsung Galaxy S4 using Tapatalk II

 

[IslandGuy]

Just to throw this into the mix, my phone went critically low on battery, it was at 4%. So i plugged it in using the charger that came with the phone and I noticed it was only charging at 300mA. I left it for a couple mins. No change. Then i unplugged the wall plug and tried a different outlet. 1900mA. Then I plugged it back in the same wall outlet I first used. 1900mA.

So it would seem that if I just left it charging at the 300mA I was first getting, it would never charge. But it would show that it was charging. Guess it's always good to double check the charge rates just to make sure the phone is actually charging at the correct rate.

Sent from my AT&T Samsung Galaxy S4 using Tapatalk II

That what is the message I have been trying to get across but I keep seeing others blaming the phone but not measuring the charging rate. The key to diagnosing the problem is eliminating possible causes. When I measured my charging rate it was always somewhere around 500mA which is too low to charge the phone. When I used my mother in law's charger it was up to 1900mA so I knew it was my charger that was the problem.

 

[vasekvi]

That what is the message I have been trying to get across but I keep seeing others blaming the phone but not measuring the charging rate. The key to diagnosing the problem is eliminating possible causes. When I measured my charging rate it was always somewhere around 500mA which is too low to charge the phone. When I used my mother in law's charger it was up to 1900mA so I knew it was my charger that was the problem.

Well the thing is that it was the very same charger I was using. It's good to monitor charging rate to be able to see what you're getting.

But it seems that something strange could be happening to our phones when the battery gets really low. It took me unplugging the charger from the wall and plugging it back in for it to properly charge.

Sent from my AT&T Samsung Galaxy S4 using Tapatalk II