Help Do you experience this Power Bug?

[Village Guy]

Anyone else suffering with their Desire battery running out even though it is plugged into their PC USB port or cradle charger? Prior to the last major firmware upgrade my phone would quite happily rest in it desk stand for several days at a time and stay topped up through the USB power. Since the upgrade my phone will occasionally go flat and reboot even though the green charge light is on, due to the battery running flat. I have even replaced my PC connection to the desk cradle with the original charger, alas not better.

I managed to capture an interesting screen snap today, note that the Desire say the battery is full yet the battery bar is red

 

[SiHa]

I see that the phone has been up for 493 hrs (and awake for 467). I suspect that might be part of the problem, along with the fact that the phone is left charging for extended periods (days at a time). Also, you say the phone reboots when the battery gets low? I've not seen this, in my experience the phone just shuts down. The 493hr uptime suggests that the phone isn't acutally properly rebooting as well.

These phones continually monitor the battery state, and also what voltage levels equate to 'fully charged' and 'empty'. It is known that this can drift over time: [HOW TO] Calibrate Desire Battery - xda-developers.

It may be that the latest firmware that you upgraded to handles things slightly worse than the old one. Also your ratio of 'Up-Time' to 'Awake' seems very low, that could bedown to a rogue app, but could just as likely be if the phone doesn't sleep when in a cradle. Whatever, it looks to be like the battery calibration on your phone is waaaay out of whack, probably due to the constant charging.

I would be tempted to do a battery-pull to completely shut it down, wait 30s, then power it up and do a battery calibration as descibed above. Maybe a factory reset if that doesn't work.
If this sorts it, then maybe every other week or so you should the phone run down to ~20% or so, then turn the phone off overnight and charge it.

 

[Village Guy]

Thanks for you input.

The screen shot is before I pull the phone from the cradle, after that point the phone does a reset and showing a flat battery, so flat in fact that the phone will not switch on until it has had a minute or so of cradle power.

As you stated the battery status should be continuously monitored and status updated accordingly. Clearly this function is not working as intended otherwise the screen would be displaying the word Empty and not Full no matter how many hours the phone has been on charge. The fact that the battery graph is in contention with battery status is a good sign IMHO of something amiss.

Since the last firmware update I also notice that the phone does not charge every time the phone is returned to the cradle (which it did before) The phone battery now needs to have depleted more than before to start the charge process. BTW When I actually do use the phone it keeps its charge very well.

 

[SiHa]

The fact that the battery graph is in contention with battery status is a good sign IMHO of something amiss.

I agree, that's why I was suggesting the battery calibration.

When I actually do use the phone it keeps its charge very well.

That's good at least.