Swollen Battery - Faulty Battery or Charger? - Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Hey guys,
I had been using a UMI Zero as my daily for about 6 months. Apparently the Zero has been known to have the swollen battery issue, however i had no problems with it.
That was until an unrelated issue brought that phone to its death. So i ordered a new UMI Zero since i love the phone. But just 4 weeks in to my new phone, my battery is swelling.
Now, here is the problem. With the first phone, my charger was outputting 5.85 volts (exactly as the specs says it should) THEN just before the second phone arrived i had to charge a Galaxy S5 with the charger from my first phone. That didnt work (didnt charge) and my charger got hotter than usual (Red flag no. 1). I have been using the charger and cable from the first phone, on the second phone. Shouldnt be a problem since they are identical in every way. Now i have noticed, that my charger is outputting 6.00 volts with the second phone (Red flag no. 2). Also my battery life is now pretty bad - at around 40%, it just loses the will to live and drops to 0% in minutes (Red flag no. 3)
So, my question is:
Is it more likely that attempting to charge the S5 damaged the charger which has in turn damaged my new battery?
OR
Could it just be that i got one of the faulty batteries that the UMI Zero is known for?
Obviously the battery needs to be replaced but my concern is that it will just happen again if i dont replace the charger too
Extra info:
I no longer have the first phone in order to rule out the charger
I have not noticed a change in the amperage supplied
Have reflashed ROM's multiple times and performed full charge/discharge cycles to calibrate it, no worky
Opinions?
Thanks guys

To be honest it could be both. The prob with some of these off brand oem is that they tend to use sub par components. So just to be safe use the charger that came with the second phone.

zelendel said:
To be honest it could be both. The prob with some of these off brand oem is that they tend to use sub par components. So just to be safe use the charger that came with the second phone.
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+1 for ^^^
Also having the battery over heat will also tend to make it bloat up faster. So it is best not to heavily use your device while charging. The Umi zero is pretty popular, so I bet you can find a replacement battery and a tutorial for how to replace it online. This should be cheaper than a new device. You will want to do something because the stuff inside the battery is toxic and it will leak all over the place if it bursts. If there is still gas inside it can even catch fire...neither are particularly fun to deal with

Thanks for the help guys. Ive ordered the battery and the charger so hopefully that will sort it
Thanks again!

Related

[Q] Battery

Hi ya
I've been looking at the external battery chargers and additional batteries on eBay and as they aren't official batteries wondered what your experiences (if any) you had with them.
Or what else do you use to keep your phone going through the day when you cant charge it?
Cheers
* bump*
Sent from my rooted X10i using the XDA app
I bought one of the external chargers from ebay that came with an unofficial battery about 5 months ago. The charger itself is fantastic. I found the battery was a little too small for the phone though and didn't always connect properly so the phone would just switch off sometimes. Solved this by putting a strip of electrical tape on the end which filled the gap and keeps it connected.
I was also lucky enough (in a way) to have had to get a replacement phone because I had a problem with the USB port on the phone. When I sent the original one back I kept the battery so I have two official ones. I keep one fully charged and with me all the time.
The other problem I've found with the unofficial battery I got was that it seems to lose charge from 15% straight to 0% and just switches off. So personally I would recommend getting a charger and a second official battery.
Thanks for the tip on the battery, mine has to go back for a broken usb..
Ditto on the ebay batteries, too small, random shutdowns especially when watching video although the wall charger did come in handy with the broken usb. I would also suggest a oem battery.

[Q] Battery Question

Hey guys,
I've had my GNote since March 2012 and recently I've had some problems with it. Starting about a week ago, the phone would shut down randomly at any battery percentage and boot back up with NO power (it would say 0 or 1% battery then die again). I've tried switching ROMs (from JellyBean Sandwich to SkeletonKey), but nothing seems to be helping, which makes me think it's a problem with the battery itself. If this happens, I can take the battery out for a couple minutes then put it back in and it will work, but then it will happen all over again. This leads me to believe that it's a problem with maybe the battery heating up? I would appreciate any help with this, thanks!
Sounds like you might want to try a new battery. These batteries don't have a long usage life. 1.5yrs seems to be a common fail point. They are pretty cheap to buy on eBay.
Does your battery get hot quickly?
Does your battery appear to be a little fatter or thicker than normal?
440bro said:
Sounds like you might want to try a new battery. These batteries don't have a long usage life. 1.5yrs seems to be a common fail point. They are pretty cheap to buy on eBay.
Does your battery get hot quickly?
Does your battery appear to be a little fatter or thicker than normal?
Click to expand...
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That's kind of what I was thinking. I was going to hold off and tough it out because I'm upgrading to Moto X next week, but I think I'm going to keep this device to use as a music player since it has the SD Card slot.
Definitely gets pretty hot when using, but it kind of always has. Maybe a little quicker now.
Not sure about the battery. Can't be a good judge of it, but maybe it's a little swollen?
Check out my thread on ravpower 2750.....read people's comments and how they like it.... Then buy one
2$HAYNE
You're On The Right Path
OBatRFan said:
Hey guys,
I've had my GNote since March 2012 and recently I've had some problems with it. Starting about a week ago, the phone would shut down randomly at any battery percentage and boot back up with NO power (it would say 0 or 1% battery then die again). I've tried switching ROMs (from JellyBean Sandwich to SkeletonKey), but nothing seems to be helping, which makes me think it's a problem with the battery itself. If this happens, I can take the battery out for a couple minutes then put it back in and it will work, but then it will happen all over again. This leads me to believe that it's a problem with maybe the battery heating up? I would appreciate any help with this, thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My batteries (the OEM from purchase & an aftermarket) both started to fail at approximately 18 months. The aftermarket had the same symptoms you describe; the OEM just wasn't providing as long a life as I liked. First I tried an oversize extended life battery, but I didn't like the size and the cheap plastic humpback. I then bought two Anker 2700mAh batteries & a charger on eBay for about $30. All is now well again, with great performance and battery life. I selected the Anker batteries because they fit in the Note without the bulk of the extended back that larger batteries require.
One point about the Anker batteries I discovered; they do not work with the Samsung OEM charger due to polarity, you must have the universal type charger such as comes with the Anker batteries in order to charge outboard of the Note. Onboard charging with the OEM USB data/charging cable is not a problem.
Good luck.
zancro said:
My batteries (the OEM from purchase & an aftermarket) both started to fail at approximately 18 months. The aftermarket had the same symptoms you describe; the OEM just wasn't providing as long a life as I liked. First I tried an oversize extended life battery, but I didn't like the size and the cheap plastic humpback. I then bought two Anker 2700mAh batteries & a charger on eBay for about $30. All is now well again, with great performance and battery life. I selected the Anker batteries because they fit in the Note without the bulk of the extended back that larger batteries require.
One point about the Anker batteries I discovered; they do not work with the Samsung OEM charger due to polarity, you must have the universal type charger such as comes with the Anker batteries in order to charge outboard of the Note. Onboard charging with the OEM USB data/charging cable is not a problem.
Good luck.
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Click to collapse
Thank you, I actually did just go ahead and purchase a new battery, but it was the 2750mAh Ravpower that Shayne mentioned. Just popped it in last night and it definitely seems like my rebooting problems are gone. Fully charged it and it will receive the true test of battery life today at work.

Battery issues.

Ok, I know my phone has battery-releated issues though im trying to figure what is the source and replacing it immediately.
I'll list couple of my chekcs around it:
Having it on charging barely gives the charger the "current heat" its supposed to have with it charging, therefore - resulting in a slow paced charging.
Disconnecting it from the charging port drops the battery down to 10-50% in some times, 60-80% the other times, but there are times that it's going down just to 99% or even keeping it at 100% like it should be.
Ive checked with the charging current app and I've seen it around 200-300, and after disconnecting and reconnecting it couple of times went to around 700-800, probably the reason for the slow charge.
Now my main problem is actually the 2nd one, I dont mind if my charging speed is slow, but I want it to deliver. are those battery drops related to the charging current? my main suspictions are the trickle charge cycle, that if the charger gets 200-300 mah charge, and it calls for a trickle charge, the amounts for it arent enough to keep the phone up even at minimal use, and report a fake 100%.
I havn't tried a different cable yet since I dont own any (same for charger) but if I will get any new cable, is there any rule I should follow to know the quality of it? like slimmer/fatter ones as an example?
And how do I know its not the battery that reached its cycle cap?
Thanks in regard for anyone who contributes to this post.
Ron
Search and read, same question asked a thousand times. Replace charger, lead and battery -done.
I have already searched for it for couple of threads. I have seen that it's a procedural solution but the main thing I'm trying to eliminate from the checklist is a bad charging port and board. Since my cousin already had that problem and he sold his phone it gave me that sort of red light and I haven't come across of a way of diagnosing it "without a cost" for the parts, I'd buy the pays only if there's no possible solution to diagnose it because those parts are quite expensive here unfortunately :/
how about battery calibration?
try that, and maybe your problem because u playing with tweaks or kernel maybe?
also try, install new custom roms. and format your system data
maybe it'll works
poemsme said:
how about battery calibration?
No that is only done by the battery read faqs and guides please .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think its battery issue, cant say for sure, but it also dies up on around 30% now (changed to 4.3)
I own the phone since april this year, and a friend of mine told me she had similar issues and after replacing the battery, it worked out flawlessly.
Also note that my phone is plugged in the charger for a lot of time and I barely plug it off (might be an issue as well)
Okay so I've switched the cable and the app shows flawless 1amp charge.
question regarding it:
if the phone is charging flawlessly like this. Could it eliminate my flickering screen and phone hang issue? (Due to "bad charging quality" if that lesser cable? )

[Q] Battery doesn't charge with working cable and port

Hello there people!
Basically this is my first post on here because it's actually the first time that I couldn't find a thread covering the same/similar problem that I'm experiencing...
Here's my issue:
I've got two batteries for my SGS 2, the standard 1650mAh battery and an extended 2000mAh battery (Official Samsung Extended Battery Kit), which I bought about half a year ago, when the stock one started giving me battery life of only few hours.
Yesterday, when my battery died I plugged it into my PC and booted the phone back up immediately without letting it charge even a little bit because I was in a hurry... Since I started using it right away the battery drained faster than it could charge and died within seconds with the screen flickering.
I knew I wasn't really being nice to the battery so I finally let it turned off to charge...
This was when I noticed that it wouldn't charge at all (no charging indicator), though it did seconds before when it was on.
So I tested different USB cables and sockets --> Not charging.
I replaced the battery with the old one that I haven't used in months --> Charging!
These results prove that the charger itself and the USB port of the phone do work and indicate that the issue is with the extended battery.
Now my question is: Can a battery just break so suddenly and if yes, is it fixable and how? I knew a battery can get weaker with age and become useless this way and that the most common reason for a battery to not charge at all are broken components (usb cable or port) but I never knew batteries could suddenly stop working.
Keep in mind the 'broken' battery is relatively new (5 months) in comparison to the old one which was in duty for 2+ years.
Another thought: Maybe it's a problem with the phone, 'not recognizing' the battery after it had its sudden death?
I hope my description was somewhat clear and thank you guys in advance for your help and suggestions!
P.S. Don't know if it's of any help here but I'm running a cm 10.2 nightly (Android 4.3.1)
Of course batteries can die like that after a few mths. Manufacturing process isn't always perfect, some of questionable quality will always get through QC. Fix a battery - You're kidding, right ?
I doubt you can get a replacement, most guarantees on phone batteries are 90 days in my experience, but you can certainly go back to the seller & try.
Sladkoff said:
Now my question is: Can a battery just break so suddenly and if yes, is it fixable and how?
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Click to collapse
May be charging board is the issue?
Sent using VIVELROM_OMNI
hi guys,
this is my first posting too.
I am using Samsung Galaxy SII I9100G version
I have use odin to flash the stock rom JB 4.1.2
I use the blazing kernel safe mode
past few months the phone is working fine, it will go overheated (when charging sometimes not charging) if i use other version of blazing kernel.
this two days, something strange happen to my phone. it keep on overheating both charging and non charging. i have no idea what goes wrong as i did not flash anything nor change the rom. to charge my phone it takes longer as its burning!
without charging it also burning.
i do not know what to do now, any senior member can lend a hand?

[Q] Rezound refuses to charge

Hello guys... I'm having a major problem with my battery not taking a charge or just being stubborn.
I used multiple chargers and the phone refuses to charge. It discharges even though it says it's charging and it mounts via USB with no issues and data transfer is faster than ever. I have the OEM stock and the Laza extended battery but the Laza takes much too long and the stock battery won't come back at all because the charger kills it...
This started when I left my extended battery on the charger overnight and it was at maybe 30%. I woke up and it was dead; it wasn't responding to anything unless I pulled the battery and it gave me the blinking orange LED. Any ideas?
*phone was dropped once but a WHILE ago
did nothing special and it was charging great 3 days ago
charging while powered down actually kills the battery FASTER
I'd appreciate any help.
Have the same issue. I believe my USB port is coming loose from the board and needs repair or replacement. I tried physically bending bits of the port with the battery removed to mixed success short-term, but now I have trouble just getting data to connect over the cable. Could try to work around the issue by buying a couple of wall chargers for just the battery pack, then circulate between two or three batteries through the day. Used Battery Monitor Widget app to see my device can eat 500 to 1,000 mA an hour, so I got two 500 mAh chargers and spare batteries to keep pace with max drain rate.
Okay, thanks for the recommendation! My Droid MAXX has arrived but my battery is actually doing pretty well right now. It decided to charge overnight but still no luck with the stock. But I still want to use this phone to test ROMs, and it's difficult to do so with the discharged battery. Anyways thanks a lot, I will look into this. Or maybe I could buy another Rezound for cheap or a Thunderbolt (if it works).

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