BlackBerry Forums Support Community

@meroo · 05-19-2009, 02:47 PM

My 8320 had been running fine for months (OS 4.5.0.81), and now it has the low battery sign and says 'Battery drained. Shutting down handheld'.

The status menu it says 0% battery and when I unplug it turns off straight away. When it is in the charger but off, it flashes the green light.

I have tried pulling the battery several times. I've tried a different brand new battery which does not change outcome. I have left it plugged it into my wall, desk, car and usb charger and and it turns on but in the status menu it still says it is on 0% battery and when I unplug it turns off straight away.

I've tried everything I can think of including reset to factory, wiping OS with jl_cmder and re-intalling 4.5...can't be battery because device will remain on for hours with error 507 (no OS installed). Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

JSanders · 05-19-2009, 02:50 PM

Wow, you waited long enough for your first post here! So, welcome, sorta.

How long have you let it charge? The greenish-yellow light indicates you are still under about 15 % charge, and a battery at 0% can take 2-3 hours for the initial charge to get even back to 15-20%.

@meroo · 05-19-2009, 03:10 PM

I've left it changing over night in each method (wall, dock, car, usb). As mentioned, with no OS installed, it will remain on without being plugged in for hours.

JSanders · 05-19-2009, 03:46 PM

There is an onboard battery meter on the BlackBerry, I guess it sounds like it's screwed up, and thinks it has a 0% percent battery.

Have you tried a different battery in the device?

@meroo · 05-19-2009, 03:49 PM

yes, i've tried a brand new battery. i have also tried the old battery in another curve and it works fine in that phone.

matt2005feb · 10-12-2009, 10:16 PM

have anyone finally found a solution to this?

stevedubin · 12-31-2009, 09:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by @meroo

My 8320 had been running fine for months (OS 4.5.0.81), and now it has the low battery sign and says 'Battery drained. Shutting down handheld'.

The status menu it says 0% battery and when I unplug it turns off straight away. When it is in the charger but off, it flashes the green light.

I have tried pulling the battery several times. I've tried a different brand new battery which does not change outcome. I have left it plugged it into my wall, desk, car and usb charger and and it turns on but in the status menu it still says it is on 0% battery and when I unplug it turns off straight away.

I've tried everything I can think of including reset to factory, wiping OS with jl_cmder and re-intalling 4.5...can't be battery because device will remain on for hours with error 507 (no OS installed). Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Good to see my search of the posts worked. It appears you have an identical problem as me. I'm on same OS, and have also troubleshot using all types of BB-specific chargers. And I too have just wiped the BB and reinstalled the OS (I initially had the 507 problem, and DM wouldn't recognize the BB to complete the reinstall. But I disconnected from the USB and hit the power button. It took a tremendously long boot-up time, but the phone came back on. Problem is, same issue with the battery showing no juice).

I've done almost exactly everything you have to try to fix this. In terms of testing the battery, I took the BB out of my Curve 8320 (where it read 0%) and put it into my wife's Curve 8320 (where it read 90%). Thought it was OS conflict, so I did the JL_Cmder and reinstall as mentioned above - yet still no change in battery meter status. (Pulled my 2GB media card before reinstalling the OS - yep, I read the threads!)

One thing for me that was a little different. After a series of pulling the battery and rebooting and still showing 0%, I left it attached to the computer USB cable so I could go have a good cry. But when I came back an hour or so later it showed 100% charged. I thought "great" and went to bed .... but when I woke up in the morning and looked at the BB it was down to 15% and hadn't been touched. No apps running besides the core (mail, phone, browser). No wi-fi either.

So - all cried out and still having to go to work and needing the phone, I put wife's battery into my BB. The meter showed 100%. Again, I thought "awesome, it's fixed". But by 3 hours later the meter showed 15% after virtually no use. I pulled the battery and installed into the other BB, where it showed in actuality it really had 90% charge still on it.

There were no programs I installed recently to impact the way I use this BB. There was no change in usage circumstances, no extra phone calls, etc. I never used a non-BB charger to impact voltage, etc.

My best guess is that the phone randomly got a glitch with the battery meter, then was working sporadically showing battery life, then turned to showing a fast drain, until now where the battery meter has proven completely unresponsive to anything and always shows 0% - regardless of the actual charge on the battery being inserted.

With 2 perfectly fine batteries working well when put into an identical model BB, I see no need to buy a new battery. Is it typical for hardware to shut itself down based on battery meter reading as opposed to actual battery power driving this function? Since re-installing my OS didn't work, should I look for a previous version of the OS instead? If so, would appreciate any direction on where to locate older versions.

Thanks for any help you can offer.

monkeypaw · 12-31-2009, 10:19 PM

4.5.0.81 is a pretty old OS. I know it's the last released Tmobile version, but going to another version may help. Other than that, maybe it's a hardware issue as the batteries seem to be showing ok in your wife's phone. Unless you can warranty exchange it, I'm not sure what you can do to fix that.

axelspike · 04-13-2010, 07:35 PM

Im having the same problem, my phone works fine and is detected correctly when I connect it to the pc and when I try and use it on battery power the phone starts booting and when the carrier image appears the phone just vibrates and turns off. I can turn the phone on but only when I have it connected to the wall charger or the usb cable to the computer.

And if I pull the battery and connect the charger and place the battery again, it shows a battery charging indicator and wont load the OS. If I disconnect the charger and leave it a few seconds it starts loading the OS, while the OS is loading I connect the charger again and the OS starts up correctly with no problems.

The problem is that as soon as I disconnect the charger the phone turns off and gives the "Low battery, turning off handheld" message and the phone turns off.

I'm really frustrated with this problem and I don't want to get rid of this phone because it's really useful and I don't have money for a new one.

Any ideas anyone please???

JSanders · 04-13-2010, 09:34 PM

alxel, what is the OS on the device at Options > About?

I also want you to do this: place a normal business card (or a folded piece of paper) on top of the battery and replace the battery, and see if the same behavior continues.

Clean the battery contacts as well, lightly, on both the battery the housing.

Good luck. Let us know.

axelspike · 04-13-2010, 11:36 PM

It was running OS 4.5.0.81 I just changed it to 4.5.0.182 just to see if the problem was software related but it appears to have no effect. I'll try the battery thing and post back. Does the paper or card go between the battery and phone or between battery and Back lid? tx

Another thing I checked the battery with a multimeter and it was giving out the correct voltage and I was using the phone just yesterday and the day before on battery power and it worked fine so I don't think the battery is dead.

axelspike · 04-14-2010, 07:57 AM

I think I know what you you were saying about the battery. I have to place the piece of paper on the upper part of the battery so it would be pushed down more toward the pins.

I already cleaned all the pins on the battery and the inside and outside of the phone. I'm trying to charge right now I'll post back later and tell you what happened.

By the way thanks for the help I don't really know much about fixing these phones.

JSanders · 04-14-2010, 09:13 AM

axel, yes, on TOP of the battery, next to the door.

You can try different thickness... a biz card may solve it. A single sheet of typing paper folder once might do the trick... hope it helps.

Now, if it does solve it, to keep a loose sheet of paper from floating around whenever you reboot, you can later try placing a piece of double sided sticky tape on the battery or door for the piece of loose paper to adhere.

axelspike · 04-14-2010, 06:05 PM

Alright so I tried the paper on the battery thing and It seems like it didn't work.

The OS on the BB loads properly and everything as long as the phone is connected to a power source.

This is kinda weird because I have read that other people have problems with the connector but I can sync with the computer so it's not that.

I tried using the multimeter to check the connections directly on the PCB but I don't get any readings so I don't know if this is normal or if the phone has some kind of failsafe just in case the battery is off the device.

axelspike · 04-14-2010, 09:06 PM

The battery still has 0% charge.

I don't know if this is how a defective battery acts?

I detect voltage on the battery using the + and - parts of the battery, but I don't know if the other two pins on the middle of the battery are supposed to be for.

Like this diagram:
+......-
| | | | |

haraop · 06-01-2010, 07:30 PM

i need help with this problem :S

belizabeth4 · 06-23-2010, 12:48 PM

I think I have the same problem that is being discussed here, but I have a different symptom. My 8330 running version 4.3.0.127 shows a drained battery within two hours of being fully charged, in fact the system shuts off the radio. However, in truth the battery has a great deal of charge left. I've been sitting here playing videos and MP3's for over 6 hours now and it's still going strong. How do I get the meter sync'd back to the real battery charge?

aiharkness · 06-23-2010, 01:28 PM

Wirelessly posted

Quote:

Originally Posted by belizabeth4

I think I have the same problem that is being discussed here, but I have a different symptom. My 8330 running version 4.3.0.127 shows a drained battery within two hours of being fully charged, in fact the system shuts off the radio. However, in truth the battery has a great deal of charge left. I've been sitting here playing videos and MP3's for over 6 hours now and it's still going strong. How do I get the meter sync'd back to the real battery charge?

I think your question is answered in the article http://www.blackberryfaq.com/index.p...m_Battery_Life.