What the hell are you people doing to your ports?
I was happy when usb c came out because it looked like it had to be a significant improvement over micro usb, in terms of longevity and reliability.
It’s looking like it’s only a slight improvement though, which sucks.
I have yet to have a USB c port be ripped out of a device, I have had this happen to two USB micro b devices (ultra cheap). (USB c cords die relatively frequently though)
Remember when the little chip that held the pins in the middle would get obliterated?
That’s the beauty of the Fairphone https://shop.fairphone.com/shop/fairphone-4-usb-c-port-25
As long as the parts are available.
Haven’t needed them myself, but I’ve heard stories where they couldn’t get a replacement part because it was sold out for a long time. Which kind of defeats the purpose.
Still, it is such a robust phone.
Now if only the hardware wasn’t subpar and the OS unusable…
How is the OS unusable when you can always install a custom rom?
Fairphone even encourages it.
For me it works perfectly fine. I don’t need a super computer in my pocket
And had an audio jack
If there is a problem with capacitance then this won’t help, but if it might just be dirty then power it down and clean the charging port with a can of 99.99% compressed alcohol electronics cleaner, then use a can of air duster, repeat a couple of times. Afterwards, press the case firmly to ensure it’s still held together. Leave to dry completely before trying again.
If you want a sketchy but simple solution you can use the back of a sewing needle to poke the stuff out of the port. Be careful tho, you can very easily break the port.
Toothpick. Wood only. Never do this with metal.
I found wooden kebab skewers were better. Longer and stronger, can be shaved to the best point needed for each task.
Toothpick too thick, either sharpen it or use some plastic from somewhere.
Toothpicks would probably be too thick.
Never thought of this, will do this in the future tho. Thanks!
This is the way
Wireless chargers
Say what you want about Apple, but MagSafe is amazing.
You mean Apple’s copy of the open source standard Qi charging?
My phone started doing the thing, where, if I let it discharge to 18% before setting it up to charge, it doesn’t charge unless I turn it off and on again.
No, Restart does not work.
Every time I’ve had that happen, it’s been the cable going bad, not the port.
The cable is designed to break before the port.
Or the port is just full of pocket lint
i literally just finished a usb-c charging port repair on a relative’s phone.
The plastic “tongue” inside the port was gone, and the metal pins normally embedded in it were standing in empty air.
You can break it if you really want to :)
I’ve had that for 2 years. It’s no big.
Im still rocking my galaxy s10+ and it’s had this issue for about 2 years. Otherwise its great. I’m gunna keep hangin on. ✊🏼
s10 here reporting for duty.
Rip.
Good luck buying a new one with all of * gestures at everything * this going on.
I just started buying cheap xiaomi phones. Mine cost 120€ and it can do everything I want it to do.
Caused by gunk in the charge port. It naturally accrues over time. Local repair stores will have the specialized tools to fix it.
Toothpicks are not exactly specialised tools
I use a sewing machine needle, works great, just don’t go crazy and break shit.
Something nonconductive seems the safest choice, so you can’t accidentally short anything.
Plastic dental flosser with a pick. Cut the tip flat. Easier to reach the edges and less likely to damage the port.
I’ve done a little bit of okay cleaning with a toothpick, then much better cleaning from the repair shop.
Toothpicks work great. They are wood or plastic so they won’t conduct electricity.
Me too, alcohol and toothpick
I wouldn’t recommend using that toothpick while drunk, my dude.
Lol
Can confirm rubbing alcohol can improve your experience with failing phone charge port. I got to the point with one where it wouldn’t charge unless I applied a minuscule amount of alcohol around the metal prong in the phone with a shaved down toothpick before plugging it in. This tip is mentioned exclusively for those trying to extend the life of an end-stage phone and I take no responsibility for any fires or harm to the phone.
That said, there were never any problems when I did it and it extended the phone’s life maybe 8 months, and after a few months it didn’t even need the alcohol. Maybe it improves conductivity or used the charger head to over time clean the phone port. This was a micro-USB charger because I like using 8 year old, $60 phones.
Can confirm. Clean these out all the time. about 75%-80% of the time this is the cause of this exact issue.
This is why I try to use my wireless charger when I don’t need fast charging, reduces the strain on my charging cable and the USB C port
increases strain on your battery tho
I have exclusively charged my phones wirelessly for about a decade. My batteries typically end up healthier than my wife’s over a long period of time.
other factors like usage time, intensity of use, and charging habits also have effects on the lifespan, so it’s hard to compare one person’s experience to a single other persons and draw a conclusion that’s anything other than anecdotal without some very specific controls.
what i do know for certain is that the heat generation from wireless charging has been long studied, and so has the effect of those heats on li ion batteries.
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsenergylett.9b00663
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1002007118307536
So sorry about your wife’s battery
How, from the heat?
yes! heat is kinda the worst thing you can do to a battery. I’m not a chemist, but I believe the chemical reaction that charges/discharges a lithium ion begins to breaks down when performed in a heated environment, and I can confirm that consistent exposure to heat is how you get the really puffy spicy pillow batteries.
How is it worse on the battery than wired chargers? I’m guessing heat?
yep! it’s just less efficient than wired charging and whatever is lost in the process is turned into heat, which is particularly poor for your battery. batteries are consumables anyways and it seems like most people get it replaced at least once in a phones lifespan, so it doesn’t really matter if you’re ok with that. from my experience fixing phones over the years I can definitely confirm that using wireless charging consistently, particularly if you’re doing anything intensive at the same time, will lower the lifespan of your battery significantly.
Wireless charging generators a lot of heat. I’m sure I’m wrong, but I thought it had to do with the energy loss from the wireless powershare causing extra heating.
Huge thanks to people in this thread. USB-C stopped charging reliably on my phone a few months back, tried clearing the port with compressed air but no joy, so I started using wireless charging. Spent 5mins today picking out a surprising amount of lint with a narrow toothpick and it works like new!
it is frankly impressive how much debris a port can hold!
I did the same thing! I thought I was boned, turned out I just had a pocket lint problem. It really was amazing how much shit I pulled out of there. Charges just fine now.
I had that exact same experience a few months ago.
go give business to your local repair shop.
or gimme a fiver and a toothpick
Time to clean the lint out of the charging port
The charging port is the bellybutton of the device
Years ago when fixing phones most of the charging problems was just that. Most of the ear speaker issues were from makeup getting caked up in the mesh screen. And most of the motherboard issues came from people dropping them in the toilet/lake/ocean.
I have a friend who dropped his phone into a porta potty at a festival and then fished it out. Apparently he was drunk enough that he forgot about doing it and woke up in the morning wondering why his phone stank.
There is no point to this story
A teenage boy is getting ready to take his girlfriend to the prom. First he goes to rent a tux, but there’s a long tux line at the shop and it takes forever.
Next, he has to get some flowers, so he heads over to the florist and there’s a huge flower line there. He waits forever but eventually gets the flowers.
Then he heads out to rent a limo. Unfortunately, there’s a large limo line at the rental office, but he’s patient and gets the job done.
Finally, the day of the prom comes. The two are dancing happily and his girlfriend is having a great time. When the song is over, she asks him to get her some punch, so he heads over to the punch table and there’s no punchline.
On the old iPhones if you got lucky you could cut the power on it, pull the logic board out, and we’d stick it in an old jewelry vibrator filled with 99% rubbing alcohol. Hit it with a heat gun right away to disperse any liquid. Once dry id hook it up to a cheap screen and battery I knew was good before sticking it back in the phone, if that came on. Then work your way backwards replacing anything that needed to be replaced out of the other parts, or hook up to a docking cable to a computer to back up to iTunes, so they could get their data. Slowly apple forced everyone into iCloud backups, so the need dropped more and more for such though.
It’s always this unless you can think of a time you specifically damaged the port. And you’ll be surprised how much shit comes out with the tip of a plastic toothpick; how it was somehow actually managing to still charge in the first place lol.
I honestly enjoy it when this happens. It’s so satisfying getting to pull obscenely large wads of lint out of the port
Also a decent idea to snag a magnetic charging adapter to avoid this in the future
Got one that plugs into my phone and a few of the other end for cords around my house and car, totally worth the 15 bucks I spent
My dad had Parkinson’s at the end of his life (and a general lack of coordination his whole life). Those magnetic charging adapters were a lifesaver for him. He just needed to get the cord close enough to the charging port on his phone and it would snap together. No coordination required.
It was also nice when he would forget to disconnect the cord. As soon as he walked away, the cable would pop off. No more broken cables from being yanked out of the phone or the wall.
I have these for all my chargeable things. Bought like 4 packs with multiple port types, so I have tons of extra cables in case some die. They are great for game controllers, phones, tablets, rechargeable keyboards, and all sorts of other shit. All you need is multiple ends, and you can use the same cables for everything. It’s glorious if you have a mix of port types.
what if cleaning doesn’t solve it?
Get a wireless charger if your phone supports it. It will likely be slower, but still work.
it doesn’t
what type of phone? I can gladly give detailed instructions on how to replace it if you want!
it’s my laptop actually, but I’ll just ask my local computer guy it’s okay
You’d be surprised how caked a charge port can be, you know you’ve cleaned it correctly when the plug goes in all the way and doesn’t stick out a bit.
When it still doesn’t connect correctly and/or you feel play in de cable/chargeport, it might just need replacing.
Then repeat step 1.
Note: cleaning didn’t work for my kids phone, took it to the store, they cleaned it out and it works since 1 year now.
How do you clean the port?
Take a toothpicks and carefully break it in two halves. Ideally you are left with something about half as wide as the original pick. You want thin and sturdy pieces to get into the port. Now carefully scrape the lint and dirt out of the port. The dirt tends to compact on the bottom, so you have to scrape a bit to get it all out. I would recommend to do it in direct sunlight to better see the interior of the port. Torchlights usually are either to bright on the spot or to dim.
Works like a charm.
sharp pair of tweezers or a needle or a toothpicks should be able to help. tons of instructions on how to do it in this thread, but I will add my 2 cents as a phone tech and say that if it’s a lightening port, you want to keep your tool as vertically in the middle of the port as possible while scraping horizontally. for USBC, keep your tool as close to the walls as possible while avoiding the center “tab”. this is so you don’t scrape the contacts. if you do that, you will need a port replacement (usually 80-100$ on most devices). once you scrape as much as you can out. you can use an old toothbrush or whatever works to brush the port clean with some isopropyl to clean any dirt on the contacts, which will come off easily now that it’s not being supported but the other debris you cleaned out with the tool.
Why not use plastic or tooth pick and start with alcohol?
whatever works best! it’s just kinda hard to find something plastic that skinny and sharp, and I use tweezers as it’s the most efficient (but also the most prone to damage if you make mistakes I guess).
starting with the brush/isopropyl is not a bad idea for cleaning the contacts (and should be the first thing tried if a device isn’t charging) but it usually doesn’t actually get stuff out of the port. if a port is only charging at a specific angle, it’s cause there’s debris stuck in there. in my experience it’s usually very hard to get with a brush as it’s been compacted and cemented over however long you’ve had the device.
That’s great, thanks for explaining.
