Samsung Galaxy s3 won't charge anymore. Please help!

November 10, 2014 8:05 PM

I got my samsung galaxy s3 15 months ago. My phone has been acting up lately - been very slow to charge and even after being fully charged goes down within 10 minutes. Now my phone say that it is charging but only reports 0%. I've had it plugged in for several hours with no change. I then turned off my phone and then removed the battery and put it back in again. Currently can't get to a Verizon wireless store and traveling. Was wondering any means to self diagnose the problem until I get to a real store next week. ANY ADVICE WOULD be HELPFUL. Thanks in advance!
posted by proficiency101 to Technology (12 answers total)

Try charging "turned off". Try a different usb cable. An ipod cable seems to charge more reliably. Different charging hub, on the computer.

Makes me crazy sometimes. I'd given up, then it seems better. Remove any unneeded apps. Poke at settings. Download a charge monitor app.

Basically poke at it with a sharp software stick. ;-)
posted by sammyo at 8:22 PM on November 10, 2014 [2 favorites]

Buy a new battery. Troubleshoot when you are done traveling.
posted by srboisvert at 8:31 PM on November 10, 2014 [2 favorites]

Sounds like a bad battery. This is pretty much how every device I've had acted when the battery was toast.
posted by azpenguin at 8:44 PM on November 10, 2014

Any mobile store should be able to give you a replacement battery - it usually doesn't have to be a Verizon store. Even a Big Box Store might have cell phone batteries. When this happened to me, the random mobile phone store even let me try a new battery before buying, to see if that fixed the problem.

One thing to check - look at your battery - does it seem to be bulging in any way? It should be perfectly flat.
posted by muddgirl at 8:49 PM on November 10, 2014

First try the cable.

Well, I'd inspect the battery for bulges too, but cables go bad, as do chargers..often because of the cable.

Also, does your cable feel loose where it's plugged in? Is there any play in the cable-head when it's plugged in? Could be an internal break, but of course that won't be something you can fix, as far as I know.

Try charging it in a powered-off state.
posted by Sunburnt at 9:19 PM on November 10, 2014 [1 favorite]

If there ends up being a problem with the actual charging circuitry within the phone, you can get two batteries, an external charger, and just swap the batteries instead of charging the phone. I did this for a while with a phone that had a broken USB port.
posted by zixyer at 10:23 PM on November 10, 2014 [1 favorite]

If you can boot into Recovery mode, there is sometimes an option to 'Reset battery statistics'. There's debate about whether this actually does anything useful, but in your case I can't see it doing any harm. See here for how to get into recovery mode.
Usual disclaimers here, be careful, you could brick your phone, etc.
posted by quinndexter at 12:15 AM on November 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

My S3 was declared dead with a USB connector that had broken off the motherboard. If it feels loose when inserting the cable, that is the likely cause. Zixyer's solution would work, if you can put up with the more-or-less daily hassle of changing the battery. I wish I had known/thought of it.
posted by GeeEmm at 12:22 AM on November 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

This happens to me periodically, and has been going on through multiple batteries and phones.

WHEN it happens, that particular battery seems associated with the problem. That doesn't mean it isn't a software/firmware issue, but at least swapping batteries "fixes" it... until it reappears on battery 2.

If enough time passes, battery 1 might be usable again. Or, it might accept a quarter-charge or half-charge.

Sorry i can't offer more insight, but it really plagued me over and over again. Carrying an extra battery seemed the only solution (although charging with the phone off was more likely to work than phone-on).
posted by IAmBroom at 9:43 AM on November 11, 2014

This just happened to my partner who has this model phone. She is borrowing a different battery and it now works fine.
posted by latkes at 2:29 PM on November 11, 2014

third-or-whatever-ing that you just need a new battery. they're easy to swap on that phone since the back pops off, and cheap. that's a very popular phone, so many CELLPHONES AND MORE! type shops should carry them. You shouldn't even have to wait to get one from some amazon seller or whatever.

you don't need to go to a verizon store, just any old cell phone shop that sells chargers and stuff should have it.
posted by emptythought at 3:28 PM on November 11, 2014

Inside the usb port on the phone there's a little tab that sometimes gets bent when you try to insert the usb cable upside down. Find something to lever it gently back into position and this might solve your problem.
posted by guy72277 at 12:20 AM on November 12, 2014