Battery issues moving to Maxx?

[Brostrom4]

I have had my Razr since January, and when i first started out with it my battery sucked (2-4 hours). It got incrementally better and for the most part stayed decent (6-11 hours depending on use. But now after a lil while, my battery sucked ALL last week and this week getting only about 2-4 hours and then ending up at about 20% or so. I have no clue why.

I consider my self a pretty experienced user. I dont root, but I have had a Incredible and Thunderbolt before this. I called Moto today and spoke with a rep after emailing him. He went on with asking me a bunch of crap and telling me that it's best to charge overnight blah blah blah, restart your phone daily etc. I told him I've already done that and do it frequently. So he said I can send it in if i call again, and they will repair it taking 5-7 business days and then send it back. If they deem it has a bad battery or something he said that we can maybe start discussing a replacement. I want to send it in and hopefully they find something so I can request a Maxx.

Has anyone had experience with this? switching from a Razr to a Maxx? Do they do it often?

Thanks,

Garrett

 

[FoxKat]

Since this post relates specifically to battery issues I'm moving it to the smartphone battery discussion forum, but there will be a permanent link left here as well. This should get you more response and more relevant answers to your questions.

Sent from my DROID RAZR MAXX using Xparent ICS Tapatalk 2 with Google voice to text translation. Please excuse any minor spelling, punctuation, capitalization or grammatical errors.

 

[FoxKat]

I am going to suggest you follow the instructions below exactly as listed, and once you start, don't quit till you've completed the process (over 2 days). The problem you are experiencing may be due to the metering system getting out of sync with the actual battery capacity, and so it's possibly lying to you about the actual remaining power. We have a thread somewhere in here of a guy whose phone was playing music for 8 hours while the entire time the phone was showing 5% remaining. We know, of course that the phone had MUCH more than 5% of power in order to play for 8 hours straight.

At the next opportunity you have where you can be without your phone for at least 3 hours...

1) Power the phone off (press and hold the Power button, then select Power off from the menu).
2) Plug your phone into the stock Motorola charger block that came with the phone, and using the stock Motorola cable.
3) Your phone will power up on its own, first to the Red (M) logo, and then eventually will change to a large animated battery icon indicating a relative battery level and percentage.
4) Allow your phone to charge uninterrupted for at least 3 hours, or until it reachs 100%. To check at any time, briefly tap either volume control button. The display will come on in a few seconds, display the battery level, and then shut off in about 10 seconds.
5) Once the phone reaches 100%, disconnect the phone from the charger and proceed to power it up. Use the phone normally throughout the day, but watch the battery levels as they near 15% (NOT 20%).
6) Once the battery level reaches 15%, and the phone beeps and displays the Low battery level warning, power the phone off as soon as possible. Whatever you do, don't let it drain to 0% and power off on its own.
7) Repeat steps 1 through 5.

From here forward, perform that same routine about ever 2-3 months (2 months if you are a heavy user). This will re-train the meter to the actual capacity of the battery. The battery's capacity naturally diminishes over time, and in order for the meter to accurately represent the remaining capacity of the battery, the meter needs to know exactly what the true capacity is. By following the meter training above, it sets 2 "flags" for the 100% Full charge level and for the 15% Low battery level. Also, charging with the power on allows the phone's power draw (called a parasitic load) to "confuse" the meter while charging and can cause the meter to misread the charge level, thereby turning off charging before the battery has actually reached maximum targeted capacity.

Finally, it's very unlikely that there is anything wrong with the battery, and I'll also go out on a limb and say it's probably not the phone either. Statistically, over 90% of phones which are returned for "bad battery" test out as fully operable batteries, and its attributed to poor charging processes instead. In other words, if you were to return your phone, and were instead to receive a Certified Like New Replacement (CLNR), you would have as high as a 9 out of 10 chance that the phone you get is one that was returned by someone else for the very same reason, only to be proven there's nothing wrong with the battery, and then someone else will likely get your old phone for the same reason.

Report back to us in a couple days and let's see if the battery isn't lasting longer for you then.

Good luck!~ :biggrin:

 

[Brostrom4]

Thanks for your help. I could see that happening, but why would it happen for the first two weeks, and then now? I always try to keep it charged as much as I can and I am a moderate to heavy user too. I did that process when I first got it. If I request a Maxx instead of a CLNR, would they do that or no?

 

[FoxKat]

Unless you are in the first 14 days of your purchase, you will get a CLNR phone, whether it's the same phone or a different model such as the MAXX. As for why it happens (meter getting out of sync with the battery), there are many posts describing the process both in this forum and others here on DroidForums.net, but the short version goes like this...

When charging the phone with the power on, the phone uses power and at varying rates throughout the charging process, for things such as the processor, memory refresh, short bursts of communication for email and social networking, pings to the towers for cellular communications, and more. Since the meter determines the State of Charge (SoC) by reading two things, the voltages and the current draw, any changes to those levels that are caused by the phone pulling power at varying rates will give the meter incorrect data which causes it to conclude the charging process is either further along than it is, or that it's no near complete when it may be. If it shuts off charging too soon, it will not have 100% capacity charge, but the meter will set the flag to 100% anyway, so even if it's charged only 85%, the meter will show 100%. If it shuts off too late, it will actually stress the battery and reduce its usable lifespan if this is done repeatedly over a long period of time.

If it shut off too soon, then as you use it, it will decrease much faster than it should and will appear to you as though you are using power faster than normal. Truth is, you are probably not using power any faster, but it appears so since it's drawing from a smaller volume of power but still thinks it started at 100%. Think of it this way, 100% of a 16 ounce soda is 16 ounces, right? What happens if someone dumps out 4 ounces (25%), and hands the 16 ounce soda to you with only 12 ounces...you'd say it's no longer 100%, but instead 75%, right? But what if they give you a 12 ounce soda that's full...well, it's 100%, isn't it? But if you were to drink the 10 ounce soda you'd finish it far sooner than the 16 ounce soda.

The other possibility is that when you used the phone you rarely if ever allowed the power to reach or go below 15%. Since the Low battery flag is set at 15%, if the battery level never reaches 15%, the meter isn't being "reminded" where the battery is reaching it's low level, and so it begins to stray away from that indication and the error begins to compound with each new cycle of charge that never reaches 15%. Eventually, there may be far more than 20% of power left at when the meter reaches 20%, and could actually be 30%, 35%, even more remaining when the meter is telling you it has only 20% remaining. So you're stopping your use sooner and sooner, charging less and less, and eventually you are working within a range that could be as small as 40% of the full capacity (80% to 40%), and yet the meter starts at 100% and you put it back on charge at 20%. You're not using 80% of the capacity, you're using 80% of what the meter "thinks" is the capacity.

You're probably laughing right now, because I said that this was the "short version", but ask anyone who knows me and they'll tell you that this is the "cliff notes" of why. :icon_ rofl:

Good luck! :biggrin:

 

[Brostrom4]

Yeah I guess I'll call back the guy at Moto and tell him I'll hold off of sending it in and try this first. I'll report back when I do it a few/several times! Thanks for your insight. You are ridiculous with your knowledge haha. But I like that! Thanks