Fairphone 5 stuck at 3% and not charging

Help Fairphone 5
1

Hi there,

I am having a lot of issues with my fairphone 5 after the usb-c port was made pretty damp in the rain (no water actually got in but my pocket got soaked). I left it to dry until the message went away and plugged in the phone to charge it. when i went to charge it however the message that the port was obstructed would come up again and again and disapear when i removed what ever cable I used.

since the phone died I took it to a repair shop where they recommended replacing the usb-c port which I did myself. now the phone is still unresponsive even when I rest the battery or leave it charging. the only thing I can kind of get the phone to do is when I remove the battery, put it back in, and plug the phone in the screen shows 3% and a lightning symbol. but it never changes from 3%.

is it possible that its a software issue brought on by the moisture detector in the port? if so how can I clear the cache on a totally dead phone? if not, what other solutions can I attempt? I don’t know any other fairphone users IRL

Edit: I am able to get the phone to turn on at 3% which confirms my suspicion that the charger is being disabled by the failsafe. I have no idea which setting to navigate to reset this before the phone shuts down again :frowning:

2

Tried another cable/charger?

Try also to deactivate “battery optimization”. Testwise.

3

4 chargers tried :confused: I’m not sure how to access the settings without the phone dying from 3%. I think I will just need to track down a full battery

4

Did you fully disassemble the phone and leave the parts to dry for several hours?
Unfortunately sitting for a while in a soaked pocket I think will have allowed humidity to get in and around.

I expect you’ve seen the FP info on disassembly.

While you’re at it, clean all internal contacts with 90° alcohol or isopropanol applied with cotton buds, then leave to dry for several hours before reassembly.

3 Likes
5

I do have an update, after cleaning the phone with alcohol and leaving it aside for a couple weeks, I was able to factory reset it using the boot menu. I will try to leave it to charge overnight but so far, it boots to the welcome screen, if I plug it into the USB-A slot of my laptop it charges (1%) for about 5 seconds, and then stops charging. I wasn’t able to get it to charge from my portable battery, and I’m trying with a cube and a new charging cable now. its clear the battery is capable of getting charge but something (software?) is blocking it?

6

If I wanted to send it in for repairs I expect it would cost a few hundred euros, are there any options I can try before that?