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My Samsung Droid Charge battery suddenly won't hold a charge more than 3-4 hours.

I bought my Samsung Droid Charge about 18 months ago. The battery has always lasted about a day on a charge until a few weeks ago. Now it will only hold a charge for 3-4 hours if it's not in use. If I use it, the battery drains even quicker. I assumed I needed a new battery so I bought one. I charged it overnight and the next day it did the same thing - dead in 3-4 hours. I went to the local Verizon store and they suggested that I do a "hard reset" which they helped me with. Before they did the reset, my phone said that the updates were current, but after the reset, I noticed that all of the icons, etc. had changed. The sales associate suggested that an error may have occurred during the update and the update was only partially installed. My phone worked perfectly the next day, so I put the old battery back in and returned the new battery. It continued to work perfectly for three days and then the battery drain started all over again. I use three different chargers, so the problem is not with the charger. I went back to the Verizon store and this time they suggested replacing my phone with a refurbished one. The refurbished one did the same thing, so I took it back and they replaced it with another rrefurbished one. The second refurbished phone won't hold a charge either. So I went back to the Verizon store for the fifth time. This time the sales associate called Technical Support. Their suggestion was to set the phone option to " always allow roaming" and said that otherwise, the phone would always be looking for a Verizon network and therefore draining the battery. Sounded good, but that didn't work either. So far, we've eliminated the battery, the chargers, and the phone as being the problem. It must be the software? But what?

Comments

jco23

could be any number of issues like a rogue app that is constantly using resources or hitting your data connection; low cell signal, weak 4G signal, charging cord, etc.

most of the time, battery drain is linked to mobile data. check to see if you have consistent drainage when on mobile data (4G) compared to wifi. if so, then check your 4G connection via network info app. if drainage is consistent, then check your synced accounts/services to see if there is anything you don't need to be syncing.

also, after doing a hard reset, slowly add your apps back (5 or so per day) to see if you can pinpoint which app is causing the issue.

finally, before any of this, make sure you have the latest firmware and kernel (GB 2.3.6 and FP5). if not, then there is your problem. hope this helps.

c_nelson

My battery life was just fine, had to get a replacement unit because the middle of the touch screen would not respond, now the replacement unit with the same old battery will drain down after 4 hours. (only had this unit for 4 days) I have not loaded but a few apps....

jstankiewiz

Unfortunately, I am somewhat of an expert on this issue. The problem is with the Charge design. I'm very sure Verizon & Samsung know all about this defect in the hardware The issue is with a hardware switch that gets stuck and drains the battery. It seems to be connected with the camera part. I have exchanged my phone like 5 times, hoping for a better outcome... same problem each time. Finally, when it was out of warranty, the only solution left was to do the hard reset thing, thereby losing all your programs, etc. You will notice after the complete reset that everything works fine for awhile, until you do something that triggers that switch, which I have tracked down to the camera. If you don't use the camera, no problems. One big clue, for me anyway, was when the problem is starting, I lose access to my SD memory card apps.

I HAVE managed to recover my phone just a few days ago without the hard reset, as JCO23 mentioned above. Remove your memory card, restart your phone. When the phone is fully booted, insert your memory card, and it will "mount" just like during startup. Then go to your apps and delete a few at a time. btw, it might crash during this process, in which case you need to start again. keep removing apps a few at a time until the only apps left are the ones stored on the phone itself, not your memory card. You will notice it is now stable, at some point.

I'm also sure by now, you've gotten the usual Verizon response to buy a new phone. I can't wait... I am tired of resetting my phone and losing my apps all the time.

jco23

usual response from VZW is to get a replacement Charge (or pay the full retail price for another phone).

also, in my experience, I have never had to remove the memory card when doing a hard reset (i've done them multiple times). but keep in mind that deleting apps from the process mentioned above assumes that the apps are stored on your SDCard and not the phone's memory.

this is the first I've heard of the hardware issue with the camera - but I'm not surprised.

ShawneeLand

My battery draining issue has been solved. I removed all of my apps, except for my email, and the battery continued to drain. I have three e-mail accounts: two pop3 accounts and one corporate Exchange Server account. I removed the Exchange Server email account first and my battery drainage suddenly stopped. When I added the email account back, the battery started draining again - so I removed it again. I haven't determined why my corporate e-mail account is suddenly causing the battery to drain, so until I do, I'll do without it. Any ideas why an Exchange Server e-mail account would suddenly start causing my battery to drain? Two other people at work have iPhones and their batteries are not being drained by the corporate email account.

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