Samsung Galaxy S3 charging issue

[BobiK011]

Hello guys,

As I can see a lot of you have same problem like me. My battery charged normaly till last week and half when I recevied softwere update and from that update I have problems charging my battery. I put it on charging when I go to sleep (about 12 p.m) and in the morning (about 7 a.m.) it is only charged 50%. I will try other chargers to see if it is because of charger but I suspect it is because of softwere update. Anyone else have same problem AFTER update?

Also I have done factory reset and it did not helped. On battery info it says 1d 9h 51min and I just unpluged from charger and it for sure charged even a little in past 12hours so it got to be softwere problem, am I right? Would rooting help?

 

[gaurav_sachdeva]

Hi try to charge in car. Mine one doesn't charge on the AC charger but it charges perfectly in car

 

[Tatiana91]

I called Samsung US they refused to repair it because according to the model GT-I9300, it was sent from UK. The US customer service said that they just dont have the same details as the UK and that I had to contact Samsung UK. So I called them and they said that they do not accept products for repair if they are sent outside UK. They suggested that if I have any friends in UK I should send them the phone then they should send it to samsung and then samsung will send it back to my friends and then they would send it back to US. Of course i would have to pay all the shipping services. I figured that twould almost be the cost of a new phone. So I just bought an external charger and a spare battery. the phone is working but both batteries run out very quickly. thats what makes me think that the problem is with the phone and not only with the port.

 

[Andy Jones4]

Well thank God , some one talking sense at last! I am having the very same problem and after having the phone back only this week because of a faulty camera tonight all of a sudden , nothing , no charging at all. When i took it into the store to be fair the assistant did clean out the port and a lot of small debris did fall out. However all the issues seen on this thread i have had so now i have to return yet again and hope to get some satisfaction but i did detect that i am going to find the same resisitence to repair.

 

[mr Fax]

The problem is with the chager provided. Just don't use a a USB charger. I had the same issue and solved it by not using USB chargers!

 

[BobiK011]

You are right. I bought charger that dont use USB and now it charge perfectly.

 

[Renaud Malherbe]

I confirm!

Had the same issue about 3 weeks ago. Phone was charging very VERY slowly and would discharge VERY quickly (it was losing about 10% of battery life per hour while the phone was idle). I was really annoyed and tried everything.

Then I figured I would give it a try with a regular USB charger (meaning full electrical wire - not USB data cable as the one provided by Samsung). I bought one and it worked! The battery started charging fast again and I didn't have that battery bug any more.

I really don't know why this happens out of nowhere but I read it happens to a lot of S3 phones out-there.... this year!

Micro-USB slot works fine, battery works fine. It's really the data cable that suddenly would not work well. And it's not only the samsung cable. I tried a Sony one from my previous phone. Problems persisted.

It really makes me think of software issues. I'm on Android 4.1.2 and I tend to think a lot of people having the same problem are on the same OS version.

Hope this will help you all. I definitely know how annoying this can get.


Tip: Juice Defender app helps saving the battery. It really does wonders. I went from 1 day of battery life to 2 days easily (of course with 'normal' phone usage).

 

[ppiney1]

I had exactly the same problem. It stopped charging, then only charged when off (very slowly) and when on battery life is approx an hour. Thought it was because I dropped it. I sent it off to be fixed but a few weeks later I have the same problem. Mt friends daughter has just got a brand new one and already she is having trouble charging it and has to turn it off and when she is using it the battery life like mine drops very quickly.
I really want to find out if this is a common problem. I love the phone but this is so annoying.

 

[GSDer]

I sent it off to be fixed but a few weeks later I have the same problem.

- You don't say whether they actually found anything wrong or not
- You don't mention if it worked fine for a couple of weeks and then started having the problem again
If you've read through the previous posts and other threads about this topic, you'll see that there are a few common factors:
- bad charger
- bad cable
- micro-USB port starting to fail
The first two are easy to diagnose and correct; the latter one is typical of older phones (probably not your friend's daughter's problem), and can either be repaired or worked-around by going with a wireless charging solution.

Sent from my rooted, debloated, deodexed Sinclair ZX-80 running CM -0.001 using Tapatalk 2

 

[John Conn]

My old GS3 had the same issue (it's my wife's phone now), here's how I fixed it.
1. Power off the unit.
2. Plug in the charger.(if it starts charging go to step 3)
2.a If it doesn't start charging, unplug charger, remove the battery, plug the charger back in, then reinstall the battery.
3. It should be powered off and charging at this point. Simply turn the phone back on while it is charging.

I think it is a software (charge log file) problem.
I hope this has helped someone.

 

[Roman Drahtmueller]

I'll replace the USB port as soon as it arrives. It is a hassle and also risky, but worth a try on my SGS3 that won't charge in ways described earlier in the thread.


The list of possible causes:
1) weak/partially broken cable
2) weak/partially broken plug
3) broken charger, or charger too weak
4) broken USB port
5) electronic problem on the board (current negotiation with USB peer device)
6) software or firmware problem for energy management (possible combination with 5))

However, none of the explanations really fit to full satisfaction, mostly because of the gradual degradation of the phone's ability to accept a power source.
A weak contact remains weak even if you exchange the power source (charger vs. USB port, different current capabilities of power source), and a broken USB port should be somewhat receptive to the angle and pressure with which you plug in the cable. So - if the cause for the failure is really physical/electronic, then it seems logical that there is more than one cause (in light of the inconclusive effects as observed). Considering combinations of the causes above, 5) and 6) appear to be on board all or most of the time.
One more: Samsung Galaxy S3 GT-I9300 Charging Problem Repair solution - mirrorfy says that there are two capacitors (are they capacitors?) to exchange. I'd say that this is an even tougher repair project than the USB port exchange; soldering at distances that small can very easily cause overheat damages on neighboring parts.

John, you have mentioned the "charge log file" on the phone. If a history-keeping logic keeps track of charging/discharging cycles, it runs full earlier with more cycles per time (such as for Ingress players... ), and may become susceptible to failures with more data. eg, it could fail due to a timeout of an asynchronous operation/interaction between CPU/GPU power management and charging management, causing something like a deadlock, in a more true sense than usual. Example: If the phone starts up from a complete power loss, the CPUs are initialized and run at high speed until they are shut off or slowed down. In a power saving mode, the phone's performance is decreased for the benefit of longer battery life. If there is a condition at which the phone needs to evaluate a mass of data before it can make a decision, that operation may take considerably longer if this happens with reduced performance, thus leading to a temporal conflict between electronics and logics. In addition to that, the drain of energy from making decisions about accepting power sources (determined by negotiation on the USB port) may lead to a loop from a 0-powered startup and a shutdown to 0-power due to insufficient energy. Which is what I observe.
Again, to make this clear: This is about ideas and is "informed speculative", in lack of anything better.

John: Where can I find more information about the charge log file? Where would I find it?

About Samsung:
I understand that Samsung is hesitant to admitting that there is a problem in an entire family of phone products: It is expensive to handle as a company, and it causes bad press. The damage is certainly substantial.
However, since we definitely SEE a systematic failure with the phone ("systematic" as in design and construction), Samsung could actually benefit from the community's contributions and offer solutions and information, no matter how difficult, expensive or ugly it is. At least this is a possible and most likely effective measure against a legal battle that Samsung is unlikely to win. In Germany, there is a legal obligation for a 2 year warranty.

Thanks,
Roman.

 

[Sasquatch2k7]

Same exact issue here. Troubleshot the same ways as the them is. It seems like the only fix I get is when I treat it like an old NES Cartridge and blow/wiggle it into place then I get a slow charge. Went to a phone place to have thme try and fix it and they said it was a lint in the female piece problem. They cleaned it out and still using the Old NES Cartridge tricks but it at least charges a little faster....

 

[Mark Young2]

There may well be multiple problems here with similar symptoms, but I've found that my problem (slow charging, sometimes stopping charging part way through, charging so slowly it still loses battery when screen is on e.g. during nav etc.) was solved NOT by switching to a charger without a usb connection to a data cable, but simply by swapping to a DIFFERENT USB CABLE.
BTW, my problem seems to fit with people who say you can charge the phone if it is switched off. I didn't need to go that far, but it would charge very slowly, or even lose charge, if the screen was on, e.g. for navigation. It was as if it was not receiving enough juice to recharge the battery at the same time as doing ANYTHING else. and this would also explain why it was so slow even when the phone was off.
My guess is some cables let more juice through than others. it's not about length either; the USB cable that seems to have solved it for me is twice the length of the old prob;ematic one. Maybe I damaged the old cable (as I don't recall getting this problem before, and I've probably used it to charge from time to time), or maybe NOT ALL USB CABLES ARE EQUAL!
I hate it when people make claims like this on hi fi forums, claiming some USB cables carry data better than others, but for power rather than delivering 0s and 1s it might make sense...
I will experiment to see whether the diferent cable fixes my car charging problems too (where my phone won't charge off a USB converter from the cigarette lighter. At least not consistently). Anyone else who has spare cables kicking around, let us know whether my theory has anything to it...

 

[Hayley Morrison]

Hey,

I've recently had the same problem, my s3 would hold the charge fine
but actually charging it took forever! Sometimes all night just for 70%
I noticed the problem occurred after i used the usb cable for another device, (my kindle)
so i swapped it out for another usb cable which previously had only been used for
my blackberry and hey presto! It seems to be charging perfectly now.

My advice: try or buy a new usb cable and save yourself repairs and buying batteries
Hope this was helpful

 

[minju33]

I had my SG3 for about 8 months now with no problems (except for that sandisk micro sd card defect a couple months back).

This morning my phone kept flickering back and forth between charging and not charging and would turn off because it wouldn't charge enough to stay powered on. First I tried to play around with the cable and plugged it in and out of the charger and then I tried changing outlets to no avail. Then I tried plugging the USB cable into my laptop, which also did not work. I also tried taking out the battery and putting it back in and retried all of the above with no luck.

Then I remembered I had my old LG charger that I was using as a car charger. I tried using the LG USB cable with my original Samsung charger that came with my phone and it charged to 100% within 2 hours.

SO, I am assuming my problem was just the USB cable that came with my Samsung device.

After reading the above posts, I am really hoping that this problem is solved and does not continue after changing USB cables.. I will post again if charging problems persist.

Just to verify what others have noticed:
-I also bent my USB cable a little bit. I don't want to use the word 'bent' though bc it isn't completely bent. It was just constantly curved to one side because of the way the charger is situated. (which didn't seem to be a problem with my LG charger which is very similar design-wise. My LG USB cable definitely feels sturdier when compared to the Samsung USB cable.)
-It was mentioned only once and seemed to be ruled out right away, but I also use an otterbox

Now, since I am without a USB cable for my car charger (and my battery drains so quickly) I guess I should look into purchasing another LG USB cable? And maybe consider using a battery app.

 

[mmikedallas]

I have the same issue , i plug phone in at home all night then wake up unplug from power cord and battery says 100% charge than in minutes will drop from 100% to 71%, even had it drop to 41% and lower with in matter of minutes . This has been going on now for more than 3 months now, every day same thing happens. I have taken my phone to the corperate store at metro pcs where bought the phone they have givin me several new batterys and still i have the same problem. They even given me a new phone new battery, guess what, i sill have same problem!
not happy with this phone, should of bought a apple phone, considering i paid almost $700 for this junk!

 

[GSDer]

mmikedallas,
I can't think of any combination of circumstances in which the battery would drop from 100% to 41% within a matter of minutes. I've successfully killed the battery in a couple of hours when in a location where the phone is continually searching for a signal, but it's pretty easy to identify that circumstance and correct it.
Can you post a set of battery screenshots the next time you start with a fully charged battery and it drops drastically within an hour?

Sent from my rooted, debloated, deodexed Sinclair ZX-80 running CM -0.001 using Tapatalk 2

 

[bex5377]

hi, im having the same problem its diving me nuts maybe its the phone and not the charger or battery u worked it out yet bex

 

[GSDer]

im having the same problem

Which "same" problem? There are probably a dozen different problems listed in this thread - can you be specific?

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[Nitin Manohar]

Friends,

I'm too having extremely slow charging (using AC/wall adapter) issue with my brand new S3. Surprisingly, Samsung service center doesn't seem to find out the root cause.
They replaced USB cable and adapter as well but issue comes back.

I tried different USB cables, but didn't work. All USB cables work well when connected to USB port of my laptop. I can read 499 mili-amp and 999 mili-amp respectively when connected to USB2.0 and USB3.0 ports respectively. Interestingly, same app reports 999 mili-amp when connected to AC-adpater but charge % wouldn't move up or go up extremely slow, like 1% in 10 minutes.

I tried Note-2 adapter (2 amp) and that seemed to work. Not sure what's wrong with 1.5 amp adapter supplied by Samsung.
Any solutions/ideas...?