[SpaceBat]

I suspect it may be a bad battery, but I feel other opinions would be beneficial.


I've had the phone about a week (given to me by a friend) and at first it seemed to charge like it should.
I would depower the device, get a blinking greenish/yellow light as it and when it was fully charged it stayed green.


Now the past few days, it refuses to charge.

More often than not, it is a solid grey/white screen with a battery icon and a blue lightning bolt over top.
It will not boot to the OS even when plugged in, there is no blinking green light.
Sometimes there is a solid red light. But it goes away after about thirty seconds (when plugging it in, putting the battery back in, etc.)

On the rare occasion that I do pull the battery and the OS does show up, it says "Low Battery" with an empty battery icon and a little plug next to that.
When I unplug it, it says "Low Battery. Powering handheld down" or something to that effect. Even when it is powered down and the green light does blink, after six plus hours, there is still no charge.

I am using an iGo (Input 100-240 Volt/Output 4.2-6 volt) wall charger.


I am at a complete loss of what to do now, besides head to my Verizon store and ask them to check the battery.

I would really appreciate any help.
Thank you!

[unclefester]

Did the phone sustain any water damage? I would try uploading the OS via desktop manager if it was no water damage

[SpaceBat]

No water damage and as far as I can tell (taking the battery out and looking at the motherboard and whatever nooks I could see using a flash light) no damage except for a few small scratches on the screen.

The phone, texts, browser, applications and all, worked like a charm up until it lost it's charge.

I do not have a USB cable for the device (just the phone and a charger), otherwise I would try your suggestion.

I apologize, I should have mentioned that in the original post.

[mindspit]

I had the same problem with one I left in a draw for a while.

A new battery sorted the problem.

I have read advice that if you are leaving your BB idle for a period of months to take the battery out.

[SpaceBat]

I am getting the feeling that this is exactly what happened.

My friend gave me the phone (after it sat around for who knows how long. Months and months, possibly up to a year) because it was "Too much phone for her".

A dead battery is more and more sounding like the culprit.

[mindspit]

It's my understanding that it is a common problem with 8300's left idle for months with the battery in.

[SpaceBat]

Thank you for the help folks.

If a new battery doesn't solve the problem - I will bring it to Verizon on my day off on Thursday - I will provide some more information (depending on what they tell me) so maybe some other people can get some assistance.

[Trimix]

Wirelessly posted (L'neuf trois)

Let us know how it turns out in case others are having similar issues.

[SpaceBat]

I bought a new battery today, but it is still not charging properly.
I tried a battery pull a few times. Sometimes the battery showed "Low Battery (less than 10%) sometimes more than 50 (it is at 55%) right now.
Let me explain:

I put the battery in around 5pm. Let it charge for an hour. No improvement. Not even a percent.
At 6 I did another pull. When I put the battery in, it said it was at about 30%
So I let it charge until about 11. No improvement.
So I removed and replaced the battery yet again, and it is now telling me 55%.
I am going to let it charge all night.

Point being, it didn't just "plug in and charge" like it is supposed to do.
I always turn the device off to charge.

I failed to mention this the first time:

OS is 4.5.0.77
Platform 3.2.0.51






My usual "charging" method is as follows, if anybody wants to pick at it.

Device is on.
Plug charger in. So i see the little plug icon next to the battery.
Turn the device off.
Greenish light slowly blinks, supposedly telling me it's charging.



I will be going back to Verizon tomorrow if the battery does not improve and either ask them to give me the latest decent OS (I hear 5 should be avoided and stick with 4.5.0.312) or buy a USB cable and see if I can charge it from my laptop.

[SpaceBat]

I just wanted to update everybody.

I charged it all night and the phone was pretty much dead by morning.

I went back to Verizon today and told them the new battery made no difference.
I put the old battery back in and asked them to charge it with a real Verizon wall charger.
And it seems to be working!




So the lesson is, do not use "iGo" chargers for your Blackberry. They are cheap, they will suck the battery dry along with never actually charging it.



So if your phone is not charging from the wall (some USB/computer cables do not charge either, they are just for data transfer, so beware!), it is more than likely the charger or charging method and NOT the phone or battery.
The white screen with the battery and lightning bolt is OK and nothing to be worried about.
This is what you SHOULD see if the battery is too low for the operating system to boot.


I hope this helps a few people out there.

[velocitygirl]

I'm looking for help on a similar query.

I have a Blackberry 8310 that I inherited that worked well for 8 months until it stopped responding to normal charging methods (to the plug, to the USB). I brought it to the Vodafone store and they determined it's a fault with the handheld itself - it just wasn't reading any inputs. I managed charging it for several months by merely using another Blackberry as a vessel to charge my battery and then switching the battery over.

I upgraded to the 9700 but now cannot transfer information from the 8310 to 9700 b/c the USB cord won't read my old device. Any thoughts on how to rectify? Am I going to have ot suck it up and just add info manually? I'm more annoyed at my calendar data being lost.

Thanks for any suggestions.

[madmachinist]

You could connect to BBDM(Blackberry Desktop Manager) via bluetooth if your computers bluetooth adapter uses windows built in drivers, also you could use the google synch app to wirelessly synch your device with your gmail account (if you have one).