What's new

iPhone 4 not charging to 100%

Status
Not open for further replies.

lennie paz

New Member
Joined
May 17, 2011
Messages
86
Reaction score
1
I was having problems with my iPhone 4 not charging to 100%. I took it to the Apple Store and they gave me a replacement. For the first couple days, the new phone charged to 100% overnight, but the following days, it would only charge to 93-97%. I have tried other chargers from family members who have the iPhone, a restore, and have let the battery drain until it shuts off. Nothing has helped so I was wondering if this is a common problem? I am on OS 5.0.1 by the way.
 
Hi, have you tried a hard reset?

(Hold down power/home buttons simultaneously until the phone shuts off and reboots).

You should not leave the phone to charge overnight, once it gets to 100 it only should be plugged in for another half hour max.

Also, maks sure you don't charge it with an ipad charger, only iphone one.

Try charging it through usb on the pc, it is a much more stable charge. And don't let it drop below 20 percent (and once a month you should do a total drain cycle).

Might be a bug but try the above and see what happens.
 
Hi, have you tried a hard reset?

(Hold down power/home buttons simultaneously until the phone shuts off and reboots).

You should not leave the phone to charge overnight, once it gets to 100 it only should be plugged in for another half hour max.

Also, maks sure you don't charge it with an ipad charger, only iphone one.

Try charging it through usb on the pc, it is a much more stable charge. And don't let it drop below 20 percent (and once a month you should do a total drain cycle).

Might be a bug but try the above and see what happens.

I have never heard that you shouldn't leave the phone on the charger overnight. Is that your opinion, or is that what Apple says? My 2 children and wife all have the iPhone and leave it charging overnight and never have a problem with it not charging to 100%. I have tried a hard reset multiple times by the way.
 
Back out of retirement because of more bad battery information being spread....


iPhone uses a multistage charging system. You can leave an iPhone on a charger for a year and it won't do anything adverse to the battery or the electronics. The reason for that is simple. When the iPhone hits 100% charge, it goes into "top of mode". This can be proven with a very simple device that measures current draw (Amazon.com: P3 International P4400 Kill A Watt Electricity Usage Monitor: Home Improvement). In fact you can go so far as to watch the current draw between each stage with this device.

In case you don't know what the stages are, here is a rough outline.

Stage 1 is full current draw. This stage usually fills the first 85% of the battery. It only watches out for the battery temp to make sure it doesn't overheat.

Stage 2 is partial current draw. The amount is dictated by the vendor. Usually occurs between 85% to 100%. This slower charging helps avoid overheating of the battery as well as plating of the anode.

Stage 3 is a very low current draw. This stage is optional to vendors. Usually occurs between 95% to 100%. This charge rate is to gradually bring the phone to 100% full charge and make sure as little or no plating occurs on the anode.

Stage 4 is a top of charge at the lowest current possible. This stage is done periodically. Basically the device reports that the voltage level has dropped below 4.2 volts and needs a quick top off.

Since Stage 4 is "On Demand" charging, that is why it impossible to damage the battery while leaving the phone on the charger overnight.



Now to address "USB charging" being better than wall outlet charging. That is so beyond incredibly bad information it isn't even funny. USB 1 thru 2.x can only provide 1/2 watt of charging current (USB 3 isn't in wide adoption so I will skip it for now). Which means it takes over twice as long to charge and iPhone. And it is electrically NOT possible for the USB to be more stable than a wall charger. That is because the USB port can have a VARIABLE amount of power on it due to the other devices plugged in at the time. Hence why most USB hubs have their own power supplies.



Now back to retirement :)
 
Back out of retirement because of more bad battery information being spread....


iPhone uses a multistage charging system. You can leave an iPhone on a charger for a year and it won't do anything adverse to the battery or the electronics. The reason for that is simple. When the iPhone hits 100% charge, it goes into "top of mode". This can be proven with a very simple device that measures current draw (Amazon.com: P3 International P4400 Kill A Watt Electricity Usage Monitor: Home Improvement). In fact you can go so far as to watch the current draw between each stage with this device.

In case you don't know what the stages are, here is a rough outline.

Stage 1 is full current draw. This stage usually fills the first 85% of the battery. It only watches out for the battery temp to make sure it doesn't overheat.

Stage 2 is partial current draw. The amount is dictated by the vendor. Usually occurs between 85% to 100%. This slower charging helps avoid overheating of the battery as well as plating of the anode.

Stage 3 is a very low current draw. This stage is optional to vendors. Usually occurs between 95% to 100%. This charge rate is to gradually bring the phone to 100% full charge and make sure as little or no plating occurs on the anode.

Stage 4 is a top of charge at the lowest current possible. This stage is done periodically. Basically the device reports that the voltage level has dropped below 4.2 volts and needs a quick top off.

Since Stage 4 is "On Demand" charging, that is why it impossible to damage the battery while leaving the phone on the charger overnight.



Now to address "USB charging" being better than wall outlet charging. That is so beyond incredibly bad information it isn't even funny. USB 1 thru 2.x can only provide 1/2 watt of charging current (USB 3 isn't in wide adoption so I will skip it for now). Which means it takes over twice as long to charge and iPhone. And it is electrically NOT possible for the USB to be more stable than a wall charger. That is because the USB port can have a VARIABLE amount of power on it due to the other devices plugged in at the time. Hence why most USB hubs have their own power supplies.



Now back to retirement :)

You should come back out more often. Only one to make sense!

+1 on your response.


iHolophyte
 
Back out of retirement because of more bad battery information being spread....


iPhone uses a multistage charging system. You can leave an iPhone on a charger for a year and it won't do anything adverse to the battery or the electronics. The reason for that is simple. When the iPhone hits 100% charge, it goes into "top of mode". This can be proven with a very simple device that measures current draw (Amazon.com: P3 International P4400 Kill A Watt Electricity Usage Monitor: Home Improvement). In fact you can go so far as to watch the current draw between each stage with this device.

In case you don't know what the stages are, here is a rough outline.

Stage 1 is full current draw. This stage usually fills the first 85% of the battery. It only watches out for the battery temp to make sure it doesn't overheat.

Stage 2 is partial current draw. The amount is dictated by the vendor. Usually occurs between 85% to 100%. This slower charging helps avoid overheating of the battery as well as plating of the anode.

Stage 3 is a very low current draw. This stage is optional to vendors. Usually occurs between 95% to 100%. This charge rate is to gradually bring the phone to 100% full charge and make sure as little or no plating occurs on the anode.

Stage 4 is a top of charge at the lowest current possible. This stage is done periodically. Basically the device reports that the voltage level has dropped below 4.2 volts and needs a quick top off.

Since Stage 4 is "On Demand" charging, that is why it impossible to damage the battery while leaving the phone on the charger overnight.



Now to address "USB charging" being better than wall outlet charging. That is so beyond incredibly bad information it isn't even funny. USB 1 thru 2.x can only provide 1/2 watt of charging current (USB 3 isn't in wide adoption so I will skip it for now). Which means it takes over twice as long to charge and iPhone. And it is electrically NOT possible for the USB to be more stable than a wall charger. That is because the USB port can have a VARIABLE amount of power on it due to the other devices plugged in at the time. Hence why most USB hubs have their own power supplies.



Now back to retirement :)

I think I read all this before from you,that's why I questioned him. Can you come back out of retirement once more and suggest what the problem might be?
 
Well, bad information or good information, BatteryInfoLite and BatteryDetective from Cydia say otherwise as in terms of total cycles and what the battery capacity was after a year of charging in some iphone 4's (mine and 3 of my friends, plus two iphone 3gs').

I suppose each person has different things

And this is also from Apple

[h=3]Use iPhone Regularly[/h]For proper maintenance of a lithium-based battery, it’s important to keep the electrons in it moving occasionally. Be sure to go through at least one charge cycle per month (charging the battery to 100% and then completely running it down).

[h=3]Charge Cycles[/h]A properly maintained iPhone battery is designed to retain up to 80% of its original capacity at 400 full charge and discharge cycles. You may choose to replace your battery when it no longer holds sufficient charge to meet your needs.

Continually charging the battery when you don't need to, ie constantly keeping it topped-up is a bad idea with regard to battery longevity


And that's coming from Apple's official website.

And fyi, my iphone 4 battery after 316 full charge cycles was only down from 1420 to 1415 as opposed to my friends, whos batteries after roughly the same cycles were at 1160-1200 something :)

But I suppose its all subjective.
 
Couldn't say any better than skull one. iPhone can remain in charge for life without any issue. I have never tried the link provided by Skull One, but I can notice that the charger stop providing charge to the battery once it reaches top of charge, how? Because when it reach top of charge and display the top of charge icon within the battery and I do not unplug the phone from the charger, few hours later, I will notice that the battery is receiving charges again even though it's reading 100% I will then wait some mn to reach top of charge again.
+1 for skull one post.
 
Well, bad information or good information, BatteryInfoLite and BatteryDetective from Cydia say otherwise as in terms of total cycles and what the battery capacity was after a year of charging in some iphone 4's (mine and 3 of my friends, plus two iphone 3gs').

I suppose each person has different things

And this is also from Apple

Use iPhone Regularly

For proper maintenance of a lithium-based battery, it’s important to keep the electrons in it moving occasionally. Be sure to go through at least one charge cycle per month (charging the battery to 100% and then completely running it down).

Charge Cycles

A properly maintained iPhone battery is designed to retain up to 80% of its original capacity at 400 full charge and discharge cycles. You may choose to replace your battery when it no longer holds sufficient charge to meet your needs.

Continually charging the battery when you don't need to, ie constantly keeping it topped-up is a bad idea with regard to battery longevity


And that's coming from Apple's official website.

And fyi, my iphone 4 battery after 316 full charge cycles was only down from 1420 to 1415 as opposed to my friends, whos batteries after roughly the same cycles were at 1160-1200 something :)

But I suppose its all subjective.

Your general information is bad. And I really don't care what a computer program says about a chemical process that can have variances to the tune of 50%.

Your "voltage" reading has NOTHING to do with charge capacity. Please don't confuse the two in the future. As a side note, temperature has more effect on the life of a battery when all other things are equal. You might want to look up anode plating for lithium-ion batteries to understand why.

The industry standard is 300 charges for 80% potential. 400 and even 500 charges only occurs in one of the anode designs (there are three in common use) and Apple doesn't use that version because it costs more.

And next time you want to quote the Apple website, please DO NOT quote the forums. The have more posters without a clue than even here.
 
For the record. I basically plug mine in every night to a docking station regardless of what percentage the batteries on. Have done with every phone I've every had. My battery if not used all day is brilliant. If I use it all day come bedtime it's probably around 10%. I should imagine this is average for iPhones.

Good points from skull and good points from iMarilina. I reckon the only real answers would be from the poor guy who makes them. Until that day it all depends on what, how and where you use it.


iHolophyte
 
Continually charging the battery when you don't need to, ie constantly keeping it topped-up is a bad idea with regard to battery longevity


And that's coming from Apple's official website.

You joking. Where is the link to that advice coming from apple OW?
 
You may choose to replace your battery when it no longer holds sufficient charge to meet your needs.

:) comon, isn't there leading to apple website? That your "replace" thing?
Believe me if you can't believe yourself, you have never read such a thing on Apple OW
 
bab2010 said:
:) comon, isn't there leading to apple website? That your "replace" thing?
Believe me if you can't believe yourself, you have never read such a thing on Apple OW

Yeah well i didnt notice i just copied the quote from the website. Besides, i have no interest in "leading" you to the site. I am sure you can google it and find it :)
 
Skull One said:
Your general information is bad. And I really don't care what a computer program says about a chemical process that can have variances to the tune of 50%.

Your "voltage" reading has NOTHING to do with charge capacity. Please don't confuse the two in the future. As a side note, temperature has more effect on the life of a battery when all other things are equal. You might want to look up anode plating for lithium-ion batteries to understand why.

The industry standard is 300 charges for 80% potential. 400 and even 500 charges only occurs in one of the anode designs (there are three in common use) and Apple doesn't use that version because it costs more.

And next time you want to quote the Apple website, please DO NOT quote the forums. The have more posters without a clue than even here.

I dont understand why you are so aggressive and talking down like that but I will nicely ask that you stop.

I dont think anything gives you the right to talk to people like this. You want to state your opinion you can very well do so nicely.

Otherwise do not adress me please.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top