Odd Power/Battery Behaviour

SEMIJim

Senior Member
Aug 20, 2011
359
23
My VTAB has generally performed more-or-less tolerably. Sure, it's had its annoyances--some of which sometimes have gotten me this >< close to just flinging the %#@!$#!! thing into the woods out back in hopes a honey badger would carry it off, and at times I wished I'd taken the thing back to Costco when I still could, but it's been mostly "okay."

Last night, however, it really wigged out. I'd been trying to get the icons in one of my app categories to flippin' stay ordered in the order I wanted, instead of resetting to some random order the tablet wanted after a power-cycle. Finally I just gave up and decided to live with the idiosyncrasy. Next thing I know: BAM! Out of battery! Say what?!?! It'd only been off the charger for... 15 minutes or so?

I'd put it on the charger and it would get to a full charge, as per the top indicator turning green, in a matter of minutes. Disconnect, turn it back on, and watch the battery level drop like a rock. Within mere seconds: Out of battery. Plug it back in, repeat cycle. While on the charger: The on-screen battery/charge icon in the lower-right corner would appear and disappear. Going to the tablet's info page, while charging, the charge level would wander all over creation, frequently going above 100%. (Saw it briefly hit 169% at one point, then fall back to some other, more sane, number.)

Finally I just documented all this, turned it off and left it off the charger for fear it'd catch fire if I left it hooked up. Figured I'd call Vizio this morning, to inquire of repair charges.

Briefly turned it on this morning, before heading for work. For the brief amount of time it was on (long enough for it to boot, me to enter a password, the launcher to load, then I watched it for a half-minute or so), it appeared to be behaving normally. Battery level wasn't dropping like a rock like it was last night.

Anybody ever see anything like this before? Symptoms suggested to me possibly a dead cell in the battery pack, but dead rechargable battery cells don't usually come back from the dead without fairly aggressive intervention--and even then: Only if you're very lucky.

Jim
 
There is a chance it is a bad battery but there is probably a better chance that the battery statistics got messed up. More than likely it was never full on battery when it said it was, so you took it off the charger and then it seemed to drain very quickly. Then charging again led to a battery fuller than 100% which makes me suspect bad stats even more.

Generally the best way to fix this is to clear the battery stats. Not sure if the Vizio can do this through settings or through an app since I think you may need root access. I would start looking by looking for a software reset though.

If you can't find that I would leave it off the charger until it loses all of its charge and then turns off. At that point I would let it charge for a good 8+ hours to make sure it gets a full charge. Check it out and see if it seems to be reporting accurately after a full discharge/charge cycle.

If it still seems out of wack then a factory restore is probably in order.

JP
 
Thanks for the follow-up, JP. Looks like leaving it powered-down overnight, off the charger, fixed it. It's been up for an hour and a half and I still have 99% battery. I'm going to keep it off the charger until I run it down.

Jim
 
I may have spoken too soon. Used the tablet for about 2-1/2 hours last night. Battery meter never moved off "full," and battery info on the tablet's info page stayed stuck at 99%. Installed a battery info app (don't recall the name atm) and it said the same thing: 99% all evening.

Jim
 
Update:

After just plain running out of battery when it got "stuck" at 99%, it charged and worked normally, until...

It ran down a bit more quickly than I would have expected night-before-last, then, yesterday, went back to the earlier-described behaviour. (Dies quickly. Charges-up quickly.) Now it's in "infinite 99% charge" mode again.

*sigh*... I guess it's time for a new tablet :(

Jim

Sent from my VTAB1008 using Tapatalk 2
 
Last edited:
Update

Looks like it may finally really be fixed! Did the volume-buttons-plus-power-button factory reset and set it up to run WiFi Analyzer all night long with "keep screen on." Next morning it was dead. Repeatedly attempted powering it back up until the lights would do no more light briefly, then put it on the charger.

Now it's behaving normally :)

Jim

Sent from my VTAB1008 using Tapatalk 2
 
Good job. Did you get your tablet CPR certificate afterwards ;)
 
Back
Top