White Light of Death. Battery Problem or USB port?

[DinkaDanka]

Hello!

I just ordered a Droid Razr xt912 from ebay, sold as-is for parts, and I need some help please.
First when I tried to turn on the phone, nothing happened, then I plugged the charger in and a white LED showed up, but I was unable to turn the phone on, and it didn't charge, the charger was still cold.
Then I took the back off, ripped an USB cable, and hotwired the battery. I let it charge for 3-4 hours, took the cables away, and voilá phone operates normally.

BUT I still can't charge it through USB port.
When its turned off, and I plug in the wall charger, the phone turns on, but says discharging, however its plugged in.
When its turned on, and locked with blank screen, and I plug in the wall charger, the phone shows lockscreen and says "charging" but its not getting any charge...

Another strange thing that when I connect it to PC with USB, nothing happens, phone just doesnt recognize the connection, neither the PC.

I have a factory cable also, and that cable works with on USB port, so its maybe not damaged.

If anyone is smarter than me please help me, I'm clueless !!!

 

[FoxKat]

When you say "factory cable" do you mean the cable supplied with the phone from the factory, or the "Factory Programming Cable" designed to supply power to a phone even if there is no battery, and for programming purposes specifically?

The phone was obviously deep-discharged as the WLOD showed, and as your hack to charge the battery directly also proved. However, I would NEVER allow the battery to remain "hotwired" for 3-4 hours. You run the risk of overcharging the battery and causing it to overheat, possibly rupture and potentially to start a fire or worse. I recommended time for such bypass of the charging protection circuitry is limited to 30 minutes at a time, test and if no response, another 30 minutes...only 3 times and if it still fails to respond then give up on the battery. If it hasn't responded in those attempts, internal shunts could be formed and potentially self-short internally risking a catastrophe.

The only cables you can be sure will work properly with that phone are the Motorola Stock charging/data cable as Motorola didn't follow the typical pathways on the USB port. A standard MicroUSB to USB-A cable may either charge, or allow data transfer, or both, or neither...depending on how it's manufactured.

 

[DinkaDanka]

Thank you very much for the fast reply, I appreciate it.

First of all, I have a "Factory Programming Cable". And I use genuine Motorola cables and chargers.
Second, when I use the hotwire method to charge the battery, after it reaches 100%, the charging just stops. I know that because the charger became cold, and when charging its hot. It can't be overcharged I think, it stops charging when reaches maximum, and I turn on the phone and I see 100%.

But the USB connection problem with the PC is still here. When the phone is ON, and I connect it to the USB to transfer data for example, nothing happens, no message at the notification bar tell me that the device is connected, and nothing at the PC also. But when I plug in the USB cord, the lockscreen shows at saying its charging, but its not...

Can you explain that? Maybe the USB port is corrupted somehow and not leading the charge to the battery, and the data to the motherboard? BUT it works with "Factory Programming Cable", which also uses the same USB port... confused...

thanks for your efforts!

 

[Lyubov]

got the "white light" when the USB charging port was partly broken. so if your able to charge it useing the ripped USB cable to the battery I would guess its the port.

 

[DinkaDanka]

Hi, thanks for your answer, my guess is also the port fault. How did you manage to fix the port? Or just took the phone to a service ?