Samsung Intercept: Not holding a charge

**Pizzor2000** · 05-27-2011, 05:38 PM

My girlfriend's Samsung Intercept has been having trouble charging lately. It seems that sometimes it won't charge at all even though it's plugged into the wall. If we power the phone off and plug it in for a while, it looks like it gets a full charge, but within a few minutes, it goes down to a critical level again.

She's only had the phone for about six months. Is this a common issue with the Intercept to have trouble charging when it's still pretty new? Could it simply be that the battery needs to be replaced, or is it possibly something wrong with the phone's charging system?

Hopefully it's just the battery. I've already had to get one Virgin Mobile phone replaced in the last week!

**GTwannabe** · 05-27-2011, 09:17 PM

Try a different USB cable. The one that came with my phone is crap and would sometimes cause a red "battery error" warning and require removal of the battery to reset. It would also cause the phone to constantly cycle between 98% charged and discharging (causing constant "charged" alerts all night long). Other times it would randomly not charge at all.

I'm using an LG cable from a Rumor Touch now... no more charging issues. Battery reaches 100% and I only get one "charged" alert. It stays at 100% without the charging indicator until I unplug it.

**Pizzor2000** · 05-28-2011, 02:56 AM

I have tried several wall chargers, but they all seem to do the same thing. It does sometimes work when we turn the phone off and on again. I don't know if she's tried taking out the battery, but it's worth a shot.

**Geographer** · 05-28-2011, 08:43 AM

If not the charger, it sounds like the cell could be shot. Classic symptoms...takes a charge or appear to and then doesn't hold voltage under load. Know anybody local with the same phone? You could swap in their cell and see how your phone acts.

**ziddey** · 05-28-2011, 01:06 PM

I get battery temperature errors when I try to charge. The only way around is to pull out the battery and try it a few times. It'll switch between battery disconnected, battery overheating, and finally working. Think it's time for a warranty exchange soon.

Phone will die on me, I'll plug in the charger, and it'll say 60% charged. I only get around half a day or so of charge now. Tried wiping battery stats. Tried different firmware. Tried leaving it in recovery until the battery fully died, and recharging from there.

**Pizzor2000** · 05-31-2011, 02:15 PM

I did try charging the phone a few evenings ago with the power off, and I think the battery did stay on green through the night.

These problems charging do seem to be sporatic. It's been worse in the last week or so, but they have gone on before. In fact if I recall, she's had problems with this when she first got the phone. Go figure.

**primetechv2** · 05-31-2011, 02:18 PM

I've experienced random trouble charging the Intercept and even the Optimus on occasion, with no real logic behind why... trying again and again eventually yielded success. But, maybe a shot battery is in the mix? I mostly charge my Optimus' batteries with their own charger now...

**Pizzor2000** · 05-31-2011, 03:39 PM

Originally Posted by primetechv2

I mostly charge my Optimus' batteries with their own charger now...

She uses a different charger depending on where she is: be it the one that came with her Intercept, the one from my Rumor, which uses the same connection, the one from her previous phone (again, same connection), and a cheap Wal-Mart one she got when she misplaced one of the ones mentioned above.

Somehow, I think the one that came with her Intercept became the one that I keep at my place, so that was the one she was using when she charged it this weekend.