Battery only charging very very slowly

Help Fairphone 3
1

Hi

For many weeks now my Fairphone 3+ battery will only charge very very slowly. It takes ages just to get a few percent of charge. The charger and cable work fine because they charge my work phone fully and very rapidly. It is definitely something to do with the phone.

Do I need a new battery or new USB port or is it something else and what can I do to find out what the problem is and how to solve it please?

Thanks!

2

Thats unfortunate. Try to calibrate the battery and try a other Wall outlet. I hope this can help and trying a other charger can always help. Also if it charge a other phone rapidly. Did the same charger worked in the past for the same Fairphone?

3

Hi Welcome to the forum.

  • You can do a battery test by dialling *#*#66#*#* then Service test > TestSingle > Battery status check.

  • I would advise against calibrating as described via the link in the previous post as you canā€™t charge it yet. For example The iFixIt site recommends

    • Charge it to 100%, and keep charging it for at least two more hours.
    • Use your device until it shuts off due to low battery.
    • Charge it uninterrupted to 100%.

  • Try and find another person with an FP3 to see it will work in their phone etc. maybe you can find a fairphoneangel near you to help

  • That the charger and cable work elsewhere is no a guarantee either will work with the FP3 even if they have done so in the past.

  • You may like to check the FP3 usb port for debris

  • It could be poor contacts between the modules, you may like to check that.

4

Hi TwerpTwerpism

I have the same problem. The battery of my FP3+ charges very slowly. To charge 20% it took 9 hours.
I plug the charger in the FP3+, the light for charging is ok, but no signal of charging in the battery-sign on the display.
I restarted my FP3+ several times.
I tryed to charge it at the shop where I bought it with a different charger/cable.
I tryed to charge it with a different battery (from someone who works in the shop).
I tryed to charge my battery in a different FP3+ (from the woman in the shop) and the battery was charged as it used to be.
I did the battery status check as recommended from amoun. when pluged it, the status was charging.

Hope the problem gets solved faster than the phone charges atm.

5

I would consider contacting support @ fairphone [dot] [com] with all the information. They may consider it a module failure and replace it under warranty.

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6

Iā€™ve got the same Problem now.

If it is on, it charges hardly at all. Less than 1% per hour, even in enegy-saving-mode and with everything turned off (wlan, blutooth, gps), in flight mode. Although I use a faiphone quick charger and a fairphone cable.
When connected to the charging cable, LED goes on, percentage of accu load is shown in display, but no recognisable increase.

Funny behavior if it is off: vibrates, shows fairphone logo, then showing black display. Then display turns off after a bit. Pressing on/off makes it repeat. Sometimes it repeats this by itself.

The phone is pretty new. It has not been exposed to humidity, it didnā€™t fall or was shocked, I didnā€™t change any software, I cleaned the usb-contacts.
I did a battery check as elsewhere described (like dialing ###*66ā€¦ or something like that), and it said everything was okā€¦

what is wrong? What is there to do to get back to normal loading?

7

Have you already done some cleaning of the battery and phone contacts or checked for proper contacting of the battery in its compartment?
FP2 had troubles of this kind in some cases.

Isnā€™t there a status graph of the ongoing charging/discharging also showing software components and their power consumption? Android 5+6 had this. Small gaps in the graph often were an indicator for contacting problems of the battery.

1 Like
8

Thank you Patrick1
I cleaned the USB socket with a dry toothbrush.
Havenā€™t opened the Phone yet, will do.
What Graph so you mean?
Did a battery Status Check, that looked ok.

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9

Hi FGA, I donā€™t like the sound of the behaviour when you charge with the phone off. I advise to contact Fairphone support either with the e-mail address given by amoun above or through https://support.fairphone.com

Make sure to back up your data as soon as you can, if not already done!

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10

Thanks OldRoutard,
Iā€™m also nervous about my Data/Apps/PW etcā€¦
Iā€™ll need to backup them in case I have to send the phone in.
I already contacted support@fairphone.com.
Do you know a smart possibility to backup the whole phone apart from Google? I donā€™t want them to have anything from me and invested some effort in not giving them stuff into their ā€œCloudā€.

11

So wondering what the status is now?

  • Can you still use the phone, I note you did the Battery status test. What voltage does the test show? and state of charge?
  • Have you dismantled and reassembled yet? You donā€™t loose data doing that.
  • Have you tried other cables etc.?
1 Like
12

Hi, I just created an account because I got that problem today. (Same behaviour as described by @FGA ) Are there any solutions yet?

13

Hi @Paz Welcome to the forum.

Letā€™s hope @FGA can update us.

14

I have the same problem. If you reset the phone while itā€™s charging (sometimes you need to reset it twice) that usually solves it, and it starts charging normally again.

15

Hi @Rook Welcome to the forum.

There are a number of related posts, one I made on receiving my FP3 in Oct 2020

When you say reset, what do you mean. Apparently the charging system has a learning AI so reseting may or may not be beneficial :slight_smile:

https://forum.fairphone.com/search?q=phone%20charging%20slowly

1 Like
16

Hi

so here is an update.

I contacted fairphone customers service, and they sent me a loooong to-do list, before the can take further steps.
The list includes the most simple things (update, restart, use other cable/charger, turn the plug around) and more sophisticated jobs (selftest the battery and send screenshots, remove battery and send a photo). The list is included below.

The good news is: the phone resumed quickcharging - mostly. Just like that. Without any changes made, using the same devices.

The bad news is: It still behaves funny.
For example: I plug it to an usb port at a laptop, and the display shows ā€œ65%ā€ in the corner up right, and ā€œdevice fully loadedā€ in the center below, at the same time. Within the next hour the load SINKS rapidly down to 50% (quicker than without the loading cable atached). I have screenshots of that display.

Since I manage to recharge the phone on a daily basis again, I have little motivation to send it in to fairphoneā€¦ so this is why there is so little to update here.

Here is the List from customers service @ fairphone:

1: Update to the latest softwareFirst of all, please, make sure that you are running the latest Fairphone OS.

  1. Go to Settings ā†’ About your phone ā†’ Build number

  2. Check if your Fairphone 3/Fairphone 3+ has the Fairphone OS v.0129 (Build number 8901.3.A.0129.20210805).

If the build number on your device is different, please, follow our support article to update.

17

Thanks for the update. I had the same list but it wasnā€™t resolved as my question was enquiring about how the AI worked, so after 6 months I gave up.

Itā€™s good to know you have some resolution.

It looks like your laptop is draining the phone ?? To be sure you can leave the cable in without connecting to the laptop.

That may indicate that a) the device i.e. laptop is fully loaded and b) explain why the phone battery drops to 50%

18

I think I received the same mail/list, but unfortunately my battery is constant at 1 % I canā€™t turn it onā€¦
I wrote this back yesterday. So now itā€™s just waiting for meā€¦

This is what I have now, but with 1 % all the timeā€¦

19

Hi Paz
I was wondering if you can find another Fairphone user near you or maybe a #fairphoneangel to help eliminate or maybe even charge the battery.

20

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