Battery calibration is off on ZTE phone

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gardenman

gardenman

Splendid
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Jun 16, 2016
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Hi, my battery charge indicator is out of sync on my phone. The phone is a ZTE ZMax Z958. Android ver: 6.0.1. It's basically seeing about half of the battery. This problem surfaced a few months back and I think it was after an Android update.

battery.png

If I charge the phone to the red line the battery drops rather fast.

If I charge the phone to the blue line the battery indicator stays at 100% for the first hour or more of usage. Then drops faster than it should once it hits 99%.

The indicator never goes over "100%", such as "145%" so it's difficult to tell how much charge I really have.

I tried the [Battery Calibration app by NéMa] and it didn't work. It might work on the opposite principle of the problem that I have (like if the indicator only goes to 80% on a full charge).

Any ideas on how to fix this? Or can you recommend a good (free) battery calibration app that might help?
 
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gardenman

gardenman

Splendid
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Jun 16, 2016
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No, I haven't considered that for such a problem. I'm assuming I would lose all installed apps, app data, address book, pics and vids, texts, and the settings that I've set up.

I just looked and there is a backup program and it has the option to backup contacts, SMS, system settings and other items, but not all of it.

The problem I'm having just isn't worth that. I'll keep that in mind but I'd probably just rather keep using the phone with the incorrect battery indicator before I would spend the time on that.

But I do appreciate the answer. :)
 
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Colif

Colif

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Jun 12, 2015
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if you have a Google Account, all your downloaded apps and account details will be reinstalled as soon as you login and sync with their servers. That is what happens with my S7 anyway, got a brand new one a few weeks back and as soon as I connected to account it downloaded 190 odd apps
 
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gardenman

gardenman

Splendid
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Jun 16, 2016
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So I figured I would give the whole reset thing a try, but I first decided to backup everything that I could just in case. I took webcam video/pictures of the screens and this is one of them I came upon:
image.jpg

I guess the backup to Google servers is turned off. I'll likely leave that backup turned off. The texts/pics/videos are the most important to me. I could lose everything else and be OK. I already had the pics/videos backed up. I used the internal backup to backup the texts. I only have 9 custom apps that I've installed. The internal backup also allowed me to back those up. I took pics of my FireFox bookmarks and ColorNote notes and attempted to backup the notes by copying them to my PC.

Right now I'm doing a full charge, I guess up to about 150% (or the max) by leaving it plugged in an hour after it gets to 100%. After that I'll try the reset (which is also on the above screen).

It will probably take a few days to do the reset / restore / fully test it and see how the battery charge is doing.
 
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gardenman

gardenman

Splendid
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Jun 16, 2016
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I decided to test the battery once again before I did the reset because I wanted to know exactly how long it would stay at 100%. I charged it for a full hour after it got to 100%. I used it for a solid 2 hours, then another 20 mins or so after that and it never dropped below 100%.

image.jpg
I gave up trying to get to 99%. I recharged it again for about another hour. This time I got a notice that the battery was full and I should unplug it. I haven't seen that in a while (if ever).

With the full charge I reset the phone. I spent the next 2 hours restoring everything and during those hours I noticed the battery indicator dropping! I think it's fixed, at least it's dropping now! Thanks Colif!

image.jpg
There were side-effects to doing a reset. In my camera, all videos show up first in the list now, then the pictures. It's not mixed back and forth between pic/video in the order it was taken. I seen someone else having a similiar problem a few days ago on here. Texting looks good. The "Downloads" folder was not restored, I'm glad I manually made a backup of it first. It had pictures in it that were sent to me through texting. I'm not sure if I lost anything, if I did it probably wasn't that important.

Bonus: it fixed the Skype and Malwarebytes icons. You can see Skype in the screen shots.
 
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