How to fix a phone that won’t charge or charge Slow

Phone not charging or charging very slow has been a problem for many of us at some point – it often very frustrating when your smartphone at the end of a long day is on the brink of dying and you connect your phone to power source just to discover that the phone is not charging. That can be frustrating enough, but trying to diagnose the issue can be even more so.

There are a few problems that could be the cause why your phone is not charging – your device could be refusing to charge completely, or it could simply be charging really slowly; sometimes so slowly that it’s actually using power faster than it’s gaining it. If you’re experiencing any of these problems, we’ve come up with a few ways to diagnose your battery woes and to help you fix the problem.

Download Ampere

Ampere is a really great tool for checking if your phone is charging and how much it’s charging. It essentially identifies how much current is being drawn in from your device when it charges. Because of this, not only is the app great for seeing if your phone is charging at all, but also for seeing which charging method is the best.
If the number in the app shows up green, the device is charging, but if it’s an orange minus number, then your device is using power. Try using the app after you’ve completed each of the steps below and see what changes occur.

Try a different power source

It’s completely possible that your phone or charger isn’t actually the problem at all, but rather the power outlet you’re trying to charge from. If you’re trying to charge from the wall, try another socket or try charging straight from your computer. If you’re charging from a USB port on your computer, switch to another port or try using a wall adapter. If your device starts charging when you change power sources, you’ve found the problem and you may need to look into replacing it.

Check the charging cable

There are two components you should check before you start trying to fix USB sockets of your device– the charging adapter and the charging cable. The charging cable is by far the most common cause of charging problem, which makes sense – they endure a lot of unwrapping and rewrapping, flexing, and people trying to plug them in at weird angles. All of these things can easily damage the cable which renders your device not charging.
Try changing the USB cable to see if the problem will be fixed, Chances are you have a few charging cables lying around, so try switching out the cable for another to see if that helps.

Check the wall adapter

The other component to check before you start tampering with the phone try changing the charging adapter. This is only possible if you’re using an adapter where the cable can be detached from the cable. It’s certainly possible that the USB port on the adapter could have broken or the adapter has been burned.

Just like the cable, the easiest way to check if the adapter is at fault is to simply try charging with a new adapter. However, if you don’t have access to another adapter you can also try plugging into your computer. If it charges with the same phone and cable, chances are the adapter is at fault.

Turn your phone off

If your phone is on while you are experiencing the phone not charging or charge very slow, try charging the phone while it off to see if there will be a significant improvement. If the phone start charging while it is off or the charging become faster then you should consider the two option given above (cable and Adapter). But if the phone only charges while it is on and not charging when the on then, this is a hardware problem which will require a technician to fix.

Check the USB socket

Once the cable and adapter have been ruled out as issues, it’s time to move on to the more technical stuff. Often the issue may be a small metal connector in the USB port, which may be slightly bent in a way that means it doesn’t make proper contact with the charging cable.

To fix this, switch your phone off, and remove the battery if you can. Then take a pin or something similar in size and straighten the small tab inside the USB port on your phone. Make sure you’re not too rough with this process – you could end up doing more damage than good. Then, put your battery back in, power on your device, and try charging again.

Another possible issue could be something inside the USB port, like pocket lint. Getting a can of compressed air and blasting whatever is in the USB port out of there should fix the issue if that is indeed the issue.

You may also try brushing the USB port with petrol or sprite liquid, it is possible that the USB is some how rust.

Replace the battery

If you’ve have been using the battery for a very long time now and you have been experiencing some drop in duration the in the battery that is you got to a point where your battery is dying, it might be time to think of buying a new phone. If that’s not an option, then replacing the battery may help.

Sometimes faulty batteries are easy to diagnose as they’ll leak battery fluid or start to bulge a little. Of course, most of the today’s phones don’t have removable batteries, so unless you have one of the few models that do you’ll probably have to actually take the phone to a repair shop to see if they can look into the whole battery replacement situation for you.

Update or roll back your OS

Changes to the software running on your device can have a bigger effect on the battery life than you might think. While newer versions of Android are generally optimized to save on battery life, phones that are a little older sometimes can’t deal with the new software and how it handles battery life.

If you find that the charging issue started around the same time as a software update, you may need to roll back to an older version of Android — although keep in mind that installing the latest operating system always keeps your device more secure. There are plenty of guides out there to help you roll back on your version of Android, and you may need some technical know-how. I have experienced this problem with Infinix hot 2 while I upgraded it to Android 6.0.

Alternatively, if you’re running an older version of Android, it’s worth upgrading to see if that helps with the charging issues.
I hope this tutorial will help you diagnoses your charging problem, please let us Know in the comment how it goes with you or if you have other sugestion on fix phone not charging.