Battery Draining While Charging
Most of us have experienced this problem at one point or another. You are out and about with your PDA plugged into the cigarette lighter / power adapter in the car. You turn off your PDA before exiting the vehicle then when you return to the vehicle you press the power button on your device only to find that the battery is dead. When you plug your PDA into a power outlet at home, this issue is usually resolved. Why does this happen? What can be done about it?
why is my battery going down while charging
Batteries provide the best service when they are charged and discharged at about 50% of their total capacity. If you constantly keep your battery fully charged, it will degrade faster than if you keep it half-drained (and thus cooler). This is why we recommend that batteries be drained to 40% before recharging them for webOS…
Charging at high rates (like the wall charger/cable) will make your battery last longer. If you are using an USB cable for charging, it is because your PC doesn’t supply enough current to charge quickly. You might as well turn off your device. It’s not going to matter if …
BatteryDrainingWhileCharging – Oh no, my battery is draining while plugged into the USB port on my computer! Help?
It’s probably not your computer. It may be how you are charging the device. I have never seen a phone which can charge faster than 500mA from USB, so if it seems to be taking too long, then something else is wrong.
First, you should always plug your device into AC power when at home. If you want to charge it over USB, make sure that your computer can supply 500mA. You can check this in Power Options (I think) under the USB submenu. I think Windows defaults to 100mA for USB, which will take about 10 hours instead of 4.
Once you are plugged into AC power, check the battery level in the LX Menu -> settings -> about this phone -> status -> battery level. If it is 100% full, then there’s nothing to worry about.
If your computer can’t supply 500mA, or if your batteries are low (you should plug them into AC power if they are very low), or if your computer is asleep (wake it before you unplug), then the device will drain power. If it doesn’t seem to be charging very quickly, something’s probably wrong with your phone.
BatteryDrainingWhileCharging – My battery drains while it’s plugged in at home. What should I do?
First, check that you are charging from AC power. You can also see this in Power Options under the USB submenu. If your PC is supplying 1A of power, it’s a good idea to charge at a slower rate anyway.
About Batteries
The root of the problem lies in a problem deep within Windows Mobile 2003 or WM5 devices themselves. It has to do with the way power management for USB ports works. When the device is plugged into either a USB power adapter or a powered USB hub, it charges at full speed (500mA). However when you plug the device into a PC’s non-powered (ie: no additional juice from USB ports) or under-powered (less than 500mA) port, the device does not get charged nearly as fast, and in fact will drain a little bit of power from the battery while it is plugged in. This power drain has been reported to be anywhere from 20mA to 80mA when charging with a PC.
Conclusion
Most of us have experienced this problem at one point or another. You are out and about with your PDA plugged into the cigarette lighter / power adapter in the car. You turn off your PDA before exiting the vehicle then when you return to the vehicle you press the power button on your device only to find that the battery is dead.
