Pine Phone Battery Issue

[vslash]

Hi,
we experienced a battery charge issue from a fresh new pinephone ; we asked the support team but it seems they cannot solve our trouble, they told us to ask the forum ; so ...

* Summary :
- Phone : "Community Edition Mobian w/ convergence package", RAM 3Go, delivery Feb/2021
- any battery cannot charge correctly (never reach 100%)
- the battery discharge very quickly (few hours without phone usage, OS up and running)
- the battery sensor reports random charge level, can go from 80% to 20% in a minute

* Investigations :
- tried 3 batteries (2 new Samsung, 1 from the Phone)
- tried 3 distrib (Linux Mobian, Manjaro Gnome and KDE, GloDroid)
- tried to boot on USB charger only as asked from support team#4, we got from Mobian :
   * USB Charger :
   - Charger : connected
   - Voltage : N/A
   - Current Limit : 3.0A
   * Battery:
   - Capacity 0%
   - Voltage : from 1.63V to 4.21V randomly
   - Status : Charging/Discharging randomly


We would appreciated any advises from the  community to identify the origin of this trouble. We think this is an hardware issue and would like to get your point of view ;
many thanks,

[wibble]

There have been reports elsewhere on the forum that the mobian kernel is stopping charging before 100%, possibly as a strategy to reduce battery capacity degradation in the long term. Other distros don't seem to be doing this. Did you see any difference in behaviour between distros?

Depending on whether the phone is suspending, and what power state the modem is going into, you could see long or short battery life. Assuming there's nothing faulty, a few hours suggests the modem is in a high power state, and the main cpu isn't suspending - and possibly that the display is kept on. The back of the phone being warm an inch or so below the camera would be indicative of the modem using a lot of power. If your phone is cool and the screen is off, but the battery life is still short, something odd is happening.

Random charge level reporting seems odd - I've not seen that, so it may indicate a fault. I'm not familiar enough with the battery management hardware to narrow it down though.

[vslash]

There have been reports elsewhere on the forum that the mobian kernel is stopping charging before 100%, possibly as a strategy to reduce battery capacity degradation in the long term. Other distros don't seem to be doing this. Did you see any difference in behaviour between distros?

Depending on whether the phone is suspending, and what power state the modem is going into, you could see long or short battery life. Assuming there's nothing faulty, a few hours suggests the modem is in a high power state, and the main cpu isn't suspending - and possibly that the display is kept on. The back of the phone being warm an inch or so below the camera would be indicative of the modem using a lot of power. If your phone is cool and the screen is off, but the battery life is still short, something odd is happening.

Random charge level reporting seems odd - I've not seen that, so it may indicate a fault. I'm not familiar enough with the battery management hardware to narrow it down though.

Thank you very much, this is a very nice guidance. I don't have the phone on hand right now (I'm not at home), and will try to see more deeply ASAP.
IIRC, I didn't see hi cpu usage on  'top', but since the modem is device related, I don't expect to see it there. I will investigate on interrupt request usage next time. Finally yes, the phone was hot (not too much, but like with a 100% cpu usage).  I didn't notice any difference in behavior btw distros, but I will put a more accurate eye next time.
Once again, many thanks for your tips, great. I will come back next week,

v/

[vslash]

Well, I'm coming back ;
I make 2 polls, when the phone was charging, and when it was discharging.
Polls records every 60 sec during 28800 sec (8 hours).
During the 2 polls, the phone was alone w/o any human activity (screen off)
The polls records : UnixTime, CPULoad, RAMUsed(KB), TotalIRQ, QuectelIRQ, PowerCapacity(%), and DPMS State (On/Off)
poll script was run as root, default prio...

* 1st poll "Charging" :
- PowerCapacity :

• starts at 14% and growth smoothly +2% every 60s.
  
• at ~90%, it growth 1% every 60s.
  
• at 99%, it growth slowly until 100% during 15mn.
  
• stay at 100% during 15mn., then decrease to 92% in 3h.
  
• increase at 100% during next hour
  
• re-decrease as above ...
  

 
- CPU Load :

• average is 0.10% (CPU state fetch and avg during 5sec.)
  
• max at 3.41%, min at 0.00
  

- RAM : increase +1M during the 8 hours
- IRQ : didn't notice any storm, 5K every 60s.
- IRQ Quectel : growth +20 every 60s. ; no storm.
- DPMS : screen stay off during the whole session


* 2cd poll "Discharging" :
- PowerCapacity :

• starts at 93%
  
• for obscure reasons, UnixTime reports +14000s. after 5mn. ; I don't know if it comes from a bad value, or if the time is the real one (so, it means the script run after waiting +14000s.) ; CPU Load is at 18% during the poll, and the screen goes 'On'. Power decrease immediately to 80%. I didn't notice any external event (SMS ...)
  
• same event appears 5mn. later ; CPU avg at 14%, power capa decrease to 32%
  
• same event appears 5mn. later ; CPU at 1.60%, power capa decrease to 4%
  
• power increase smoothly +1% every 3 or 5mn.
  
• when it reaches 100% (after some hours), it decrease to 92% then growth to 100%, and so on.
  

- IRQ :

• we find +7500 req. every 60s., but sometimes we have +30K ; these don't come from the Quectel Modem.
  

- IRQ_Quectel :

• I didn't notice anything
  

- DPMS : turn 'On' 5 times in 8h.


* Conclusions :
The battery/power capa is weird, it seems that some events put it down, but the capacity reported by the system seems to be wrong.  We cannot trust what is reported, but it is sure that when the phone is used (calling, sending msg), the power decrease abnormally and the phone goes Off.
Any other ideas ?

Thanks for your help,

Ps : can send .csv data if needed

Val.
Edit : some GNUPlot

[mmance]

I just got my pine phone a few weeks ago and today I can't turn it on because it won't accept a charge.  I have tried multiple charges and cables.  I am using postmarketOS and it starts to boot then loses power.

[themontyhouse]

I just got my pine phone a few weeks ago and today I can't turn it on because it won't accept a charge.  I have tried multiple charges and cables.  I am using postmarketOS and it starts to boot then loses power.

I received my phone 2 days ago and put arch on an SD card for it. I've been having problems charging mine too. I put the charger in and sometimes nothing but I'll flip it over and it will connect for a short time but stops charging again after a few minutes. I've just now got it to charge past 88%

[mteagles1942]

I am also having troubles with battery charging while the phone is powered on. It will only maintain the current percentage; it does not go up. Have to power the phone off with power plugged in to get it to charge. When this is done it will not charge past 90%. Mobian CE version. Also does this on Mobian OS. (currently running up-to-date Manjaro on sd card)

[Gribouille]

Hello,

With Mobian (https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?...0#pid91950), I found the following message after 'apt dist-upgrade' :

cryptsetup: ERROR: Couldn't resolve device UUID= xxxx-xxxx-..

I've wait some days to see if someone could help me. The phone was plugged on the USB-C directly from a power supply or from the USB-C dock bar.

I've tested a reboot : bad idea.  Now I'm unable to boot from eMMC (using Jumpdrive to flash the OS) or a SD-CARD.

I'm comeback from a specialized store for the batteries. The battery is not good even with two hours of a charge in a dedicated charger.

The charge is too dependent from the OS, if the OS don't manage well the charge, it's impossible to charge the battery even if the USB-C cable is connected to a power supply.

I've bought a dedicated charger for the battery and I have an old Samsung battery (bad size) to verify that it is not the PinePhone himself the problem.

At this moment, I'm unable to use my PinePhone because, it's not possible to start it without a not full charged battery can be used.

The store can't send me a new battery, because there is no compatible model.

The Pine's store doesn't have a battery because 'Out of stock'. And the shipping cost is $11.99 for a spare battery that cost $9.95.

How to be able to use my PinePhone in this situation ?

Thanks for your help.

[Zebulon Walton]

I bought a compatible battery from eBay for about $6 with free shipping and it works fine. You want a Samsung EB-BJ700BBC battery for a Galaxy J7.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/3000mAh-Battery...3865335933

[Gribouille]

I bought a compatible battery from eBay for about $6 with free shipping and it works fine. You want a Samsung EB-BJ700BBC battery for a Galaxy J7.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/3000mAh-Battery...3865335933

Thank you @Zebulon Walton 

This is a precious information !