Battery LED flickering

[DCBAKER]

All,

I put my UX on the charger last night and noticed that the LED flickered from orange to green, but more often was green. The unit was at about 70% charge. The battery icon on the status bar indicated that the unit was charging, but the battery LED continued to flicker. When the unit is off the orange light flickers on and off, but more often off. When the light is flickering I can hear a clicking sound on that side of the unit. On my drive home this afternoon I used a non-Sony in car charger which I've used quite often with no negative effect. I left it off the charger overnight as I wanted to be able to keep an eye on it.

This morning I took the UX to work to put it on my other charger so I could watch more closely what it was doing and to see if the problem was the charger. It was doing the same thing. I decided to see if I could run the battery down so turned on WiFi and Pocket Tunes and ran it down to about 20% when it shut off WiFi and told me I needed to recharge. I decided this was taking too long so I pulled the battery and after several minutes reconnected it. Still got a flickering LED.

Right now when the UX is off the cradle it shows about a 50% charge. When on the cradle charge will go up and down between 70 and about 85%. I'm going to leave it on the cradle unused today to see if it will eventually charge back up to 100%.

Has anyone else run into this? I've read several threads where the flickering LED is mentioned, but haven't seen that anyone has found a solution to the problem or figured out what causes it. Any ideas? Dead battery? (although it's seemed to hold a charge pretty well) Fried charging circuit? Anything?

EDIT:
Also I just installed Agendus 10 before this started happening. Seems unlikely, but could that be the culprit?

Thanks in advance.

[DCBAKER]

I noticed that there have been several viewings of my original post, but have not received a reply yet. I'm assuming that means others may have run into a similar experience, but have not found any solutions. So in the interest of adding to the UX50 knowledge base I'll provide an update on the continuing saga of the flickering LED.

I pulled the battery again last night. No luck. I did a hard reset without restoring backup, placed the UX on the charger. Still no luck. Restored my backup and set as many power saving options as possible (reduced brightness to 50%, turned off system sounds, only using built in alarms rather than mp3's through Palmary clock, using built in launcher rather than Zlauncher, keeping UX in Shutdown mode when not using etc.). Left UX on charger all night where orange LED continued to flicker off and on all night.

This morning took UX off charger and battery indicator said battery was at 93% (It was at about 17% when I put it on the charger last night). Battery seems to maintain the charge. My theory is that the battery is only being charged while the orange light is on. I base that on the fact that it took all night to charge to 93% and the light was still flickering orange this morning. The period of time the light is on is not constant and the total amount of time it is on is probably not enough time to get a full charge to the battery. What's puzzling is that regardless of whether the light is on or not the battery icon on the status bar indicates Power as "External" Status as "Full" and Remaining as "100%". I've not really looked at the battery status much in the past, but if it's being charged should Power say "External" or should it say something else like "Charging"?

My solution for now is to leave the UX on the charger whenever I can as the battery still seems to be sporadically charging and keep it in Shutdown mode when not in use. I've ordered a new battery and am hoping that may solve the problem, but I'm not optimistic.

If anyone has run into a similar problem, I'd appreciate hearing any solutions you attempted whether sucessful or not. I don't want my UX to be dying as I had hoped to keep it forever. :o

Thanks

[m0nkeyb0y]

From my personal experience of the flickering LED syndrome (FLEDS!) the problem was generally caused by the contacts on the cradle not making quite enough contact with the base of the UX. A firm, downward push ensured that the Clie sat in it's cradle correctly and the flickering stopped.

The only exception to this rule was when I was using a mains -> 5v transformer with a USB lead to my modified cradle. I believe it was AMoon who pointed out that the length of the USB lead played a large part in causing the unit to flicker; the longer the lead, the more likely the system was to flicker. As a result I have ceased using the wall charger at all and do all my charging via USB ports now.

That gives you two other options to check I suppose....

[willgoss]

Strange Problem!!!
It would seem.....
...Problem is UX50 - Back to Sony or open it??
...First, Are the contacts clean???
...Probably loose internal wire, heat related
...Possibly Battery/Connection?

[DCBAKER]

Thanks to mOnkeybOy and willgloss for your replies.

I've fiddled with the contact points between charger and the outside of the UX and I've opened the UX and looked at the back side of the charging contacts. Nothing looks amiss outside or inside.

I've tested charging on two different cradles - the standard Sony cradle and an aftermarket one with USB charging option. Regardless of power supply - USB or wall charger - the flickering continues. I think something loose in the charging circuit makes sense and I may look at that this evening. I inspected it last night, but I'm hesitant to do more than that for fear of damaging it worse.

Would someone do me a favor? Put your UX on the cradle to charge and then tap on the battery icon on the status bar? What does it say ther for Power, Status and Remain?

What mystifies about this problem is that when the LED fklickers , battery status says Power: External, Status: Full, and Remain: 100%. when LED is green. When LED is orange it says Power: External, Status: External Supply, and Remain: _____%. Do these conditions sound familiar to anyone? Like maybe someone with an EB40?

If I can't solve this one myself, I'll be looking for a "new" unit (perhaps a TH55...). I bought this one used so sending it back to Sony would probably be too expensive.

Thanks again for the suggestions. I guess I'm off to look for a loose connection... Wish me luck...

[glassman]

Here's mine...

On Charging Cradle
Battery Information
Power: External
Status: External Supply
Remain: ---%


Off Cradle
Battery Information
Power: Internal
Status: Discharging
Remain: 100%


With EB40
Battery Information
Power: External
Status: External Supply
Remain: ---%
External 100%

[DCBAKER]

Here's mine...

On Charging Cradle
Battery Information
Power: External
Status: External Supply
Remain: ---%


Off Cradle
Battery Information
Power: Internal
Status: Discharging
Remain: 100%


With EB40
Battery Information
Power: External
Status: External Supply
Remain: ---%
External 100%
Thanks!

So yours doesn't say "Full" next to Status in any of those scenarios. Weird... When the UX is on the EB40 does the LED on the UX turn orange or stay green? Or does it depend on the charge levels of the UX and the EB40?

Thanks again.

[glassman]

...When the UX is on the EB40 does the LED on the UX turn orange or stay green? ...

It depends...green if off the charging cradle, orange if charging on the cradle (with the EB40 attached in both instances).

[DCBAKER]

It depends...green if off the charging cradle, orange if charging on the cradle (with the EB40 attached in both instances).
OK. Thanks again for the info. I may wait on opening the UX up again until the new battery gets here. It will eventually charge the battery if i leave it on the charger long enough, but it doesn't seem to want to charge it up all the way to 100%. We'll see what happens. Thanks to mOnkeybOy also for giving me a diagnosis. Now I know what FLEDS is :confused:

[ahhl]

i believe it something to do with the current source from the wall charger. for example if i am charging from wall socket to my mini usb port, it will flicker and shown not charging when ux is turn-on, but it stays charge (orange led) when i turn-off ux. only happen with my wall charger but not with usb-mini usb port charging.

[DCBAKER]

Quick up date: the weather turned cooler here overnight. I noticed that the LED came on very little (maybe not at all) over night even though the battery was not at 100%. This AM I put the UX on the charger in the sun and the LED was on quite a bit more so there must be something loose which expansion of the materials in the UX due to the heat causes to reconnect. It still flickers though and I fear waht I'm witnessing is Slow Clie Death Syndrome... Bummer

[DCBAKER]

The LED is still flickering and battery still charges, but slowly. LED will stay on orange for several minutes, but eventually go back to flickering. As long as the UX is on the cradle it's fine as it continues to be powered externally regardless of battery condition. It will even run fine w/o the battery installed if the UX is on the cradle. I checked this one of the times I had the battery out. I've opened it a few times and poked around to see if I could make something connect that was loose. Still no luck as I really don't know what I'm looking for.

Two questions:

1) Anyone have a suggestion of where I should be looking for loose wires/circuitry?
2) Is there any circuitry internal to the battery which could be loose?

Thanks

[j0nblayz]

hey i had the same problem with my old nx73v. Its actually the charger it self. The cable that connects to your cradle, wiggle that around, its not making a clean connection. On mine, i had to bend the cable right by the connection to get it to start charging. good luck

[DCBAKER]

hey i had the same problem with my old nx73v. Its actually the charger it self. The cable that connects to your cradle, wiggle that around, its not making a clean connection. On mine, i had to bend the cable right by the connection to get it to start charging. good luck
I wish it was this simple... I've confrimed that both the cradles I'm charging with are functioning correctly. Everything is tight and connected. I'm pretty sure it's internal to the UX. But thanks for responding.

[DCBAKER]

My new battery finally came yesterday. I took the UX apart and plugged in the new battery. I got the "beep" indicating that the battery had at least a small charge on it. Closed the UX back up and put it on the charger and... it wouldn't charge and no flickering LED.

So I took it apart again and put the original battery back in again. Put it back on the charger and... still no charging and no flickering. Oh well... The battery had a chrge from previously (about 90%) so I took it off the charger and played around with it some as I haven't used it in a while.

Later in the evening I put the UX back on the charger and... the orange LED came on strong and steady with no flickering. Checked the display which indicated it was charging. ZLauncher's charge meter showed that it was climbing steadily. I left it on the charger overnight and it charged steadily until it reached 100%. It's on the charger right now and has been charging without incident for about the last hour. Every time since last night that I put it on the charger it charges just fine. So I guess it has healed itself.

The problem now is that while waiting for the new battery, I won a Tungsten T3 off E-bay. I'm pretty sure I want a little bit simpler device with bigger memory and faster processor. I've never really used the UX to it's fullest. Not sure what to do with my now perfectly functioning UX, but most likely I will E-bay it. If anyone here is interested, feel free to make me an offer. It's in excellent condition. I will probably put it up on E-bay in the next week or so when the T3 gets here.

[m0nkeyb0y]

Oh the irony of it all!