Charging & battery life

[Guest lsuhe]

Since the 1.36 update the battery life has been reasonable on my SPV, about the same as most peoples. I bought the SPv in Jan 03.

Yesterday morning the phone crashed, nothing would turn the screen on. Annoying but so what, lets take the battery off, and put it back on and turn the phone on again. Only it got as far as redrawing the background and the battery symbol at the top had an exclamation mark next to it, and it just refused to boot any further. I should point out that virtually every night the phone sits in the cradle (switched on) and charging for the day at work.

I tried 10 times, an each time it got to drawing the background and crashed. I thought it could be the battery and so swapped batteries with a guy at work and my phone booted no problems, but his then had the same problem as mine.

Fine I thought we swapped back, I left my phone off for the rest of the day and when I got home I put the phone on to charge and looked in SP task manager and the battery was on 2% to start.

I was surfing the internet etc (reading modaco!) just letting the phone charge and it slowly crep up to about 10-15% I then looked at the phone about 10 minutes later and it was at 95%

I was bemused and thought uhh? The phone quite clearly thought that it was charged, so I took it off the cradle ( it was doing that thin where it drops to 95% battery, and then tops it up again as per normal)

I took it off the cradle at about 6:30pm when it was supposedly at 100% charge. During the evening I left the phone in good coverage (3 bars) and did about 20 minute of calls. By 10:30pm the phone battery was dead.

I had been getting 48 hours life from this beast including making about 60 minutes or more of calls a day.

so I left it to charge overnight and took it off the cradle this morning at 8:15am. by 12:20 it was at 12%. I monitored the progress of the battery life and it steadily dropped over time. I then turned the phone off for my lunch break and at 12:50 turned it back on and plugged in the charger.

To my amazement it was "fully charged" by 13:20 or so and about every5 minutes was getting 15% more charge than last time I looked. So the silly (not smart) phone thought it was fully charged, and so I unplugged it and left it running. I should point out that I hadn't changed any applications or got any new processes running, or changed any settings etc. and by this evening it was dead again. When I get change I'll put up the spreadsheet of the graph of the battery life.

I don't know if this is a knackered battery, or if it is just the phone not charging the battery properly. Normally it takes 3 hours or so to charge the battery up properly not 30-40 minutes.

Does anyone have a similar experience or know if its the phone, battery or both that is at fault. also when doing this stupidly fast charging the battery didn't even get warm like it normally does.

Please help, and what advice do you have for me?

Thanks to all

Chris

[Guest beavis82]

I've had exactly the same problem this week. The phone crashed, I had to take the battery off it to reboot it. Since then the battery life has been crap (only a few hours usage) and it's 'full' again after only about 40 minutes of charging.

I'm sorry to say though - I have no idea why this is happening or how to fix it. I assume that when I took the battery off the phone to reboot it, I might have nackered the battery. I dont know anyone with the same phone so I cant experiment to figure out what's going on, but if you know someone with the same phone maybe try putting your battery on their phone and charging it to see what happens. Maybe also try putting their battery on your phone and charging it?

Let me know if you find something out!

[Guest Monolithix [MVP]]

I had similar problems with the battery dieing within a few hours. However this was with my Compal. Only way i could find to fix it was a hard reset....

[Guest drblow]

My e100 battery was replaced last week coz it was dying after only a few hours. The replacement has been better, but still only gets me about 12 hours. have tried hard reset with no marked improvements. O say all they can do is replace battery or handset. Any advice? Posted from my SmartPhone!

[Guest rolywalter]

Well this hasn't happened to me yet, but I was just wondering: are you covered by Orange Care in order to get your battery replacement? Or is this valid under the warranty? What kind of service do you get if you don't have O Care? I'm wondering whether I need to take it or not. Many thanks,

Roly

p.s. Presumably there will come a time (soon) when the stop selling E100's and only the new model. and if the old battery is incompatible with the new model... and they haven't got any spares... new phone?!!! 8)

[Guest drblow]

Roly -

I think my batteries have been replaced under warrenty, so Orange care shouldn't come into it. I have Orange care - but I haven't needed to use it yet - all my handset problems have been covered under warrenty I guess! I have it to cover me againsta actually losing or damaging the phone & for that I guess you could say it's worth it in the same way any insurance is 'worth it'. Is it 'worth it' for me to pay 40 per month on life insurance when I know perfectly well that I am going to live a full, rich, long & happy life!!?? :)

I think you would be dreaming about getting a new phone if they don't stock 'em any more. I would expect there would be enough batteries kicking around for them to avoid that issue! You never know tho! :wink:

[Guest beavis82]

My phone seems to have sorted itself out...

The battery ran completely dead during the night and the phone switched off. I gave it a full charge the next day without switching the phone on, then when charged (which took a couple of hours) I switched the phone on. It took about 10 minutes to boot, and even then it wouldn't connect to the network. I switched it off then back on again - same problem. Tried it one more time, and eventually, after about 10 minutes of waiting, it connected to the network. Since then the battery life has been the best I can ever remember it being.

I don't think I've let the battery run completely dead before, but I guess that when it ran itself out during the night, that cured the battery problem?

Si

[Guest lsuhe]

Well I didn't want to say anything until it turned up, but I have a new battery from hayes, it took about 1.5 weeks but I got it. total costs about 30p to photocopy proof of purchase of the phone.

I just sent them the battery back and they quried why I didn't send the phone as well, so I told them that I had laready conducted my own tests and determined that it was the battery at fault and not the phone. so they sent me a new one. Great. I was without my lovely SPV for too long, I felt lost! well not that bad, I got lent a motorola 2801 for the time which was best described as functional!

Cheers to all

Chris

[Guest clv101]

I'm having exactly the same problem as the 1st poster. It started middle of last week. I'll try running the battery completely flat and charging whilst switched off, see if that helps.

[Guest nellyboy]

Same thing has happened to me. Called O and had a replacement phone sent and problem still exists on new handset!!!! Been on the phone to them again and their diagnostic tool has come up with faulty handset again... I'm not convinced it's the handset, everything logically to me points to the battery, but they have to go to tech support to get them to overide the system to allow a replacement battery to be sent. Now have to wait three days before they get a decision back from Tech Support.

Interestingly, they offered me a Sony P800 as a replacement but not an E100, girl in CS said that this was the closest match to the orginal SPV !!!! Wonderful :shock: