Any truth to this - T-Mobile Samsung Galaxy S II SGH-T989

Imagine your cell battery is very low. To activate, press the keys *3370#. Your cell phone will restart with this reserve and the instrument will show a 50% increase in battery. This reserve will get charged when you charge your cell phone next time.
i just got an email from afriend with some random cell phone tricks ,anybody can confirm this works

i call it bogus
never hear of this before

AllGamer said:
i call it bogus
never hear of this before
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Click to collapse
me either the first ive ever heard

it would be cool if it was true
google tells the truth http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/business/a/cellphone_tips.htm
it's one of those urban legends myths

that basically the same thing i just got in my email....funny

I'm amazed people still think this is an awesome feature. This was never a 'reserve' type situation. It just purposely miscalculates the battery percentage to avoid deepcycling the battery. Inputting the code would show it's actual percentage until the phone was power cycled. This was only on MAYBE one or two phones, and they're very old.

If you place your Nokia phone (sorry, only Nokia) on your car's dash, and type 0000, it acts as a radar detector too!

Related

Note 3 powering off by itself

Hello, I would like to start off by saying I'm new here AND in Android culture. I was an iPhone user, but decided to swith to something different. Since I live in Europe (in Lithuania, to be exact) I figured that it wouldn't mean anything here if I bough a blacklisted T-mobile Note 3 4G LTE phone. Now to the main point - I got the phone yesterday and noticed something suspicious. Firstly, it came with aftermarket charger and usb cable (not usb 3.0, just a simple micro-usb to usb 2.0). My first problem is that when I am charging Note while it's on, it almost doesn't charge at all. Only when I turn off the phone I can expect the phone to charge to 80-90 percent in 8 HOURS! That's insane! Needless to say, I WILL be getting original samsung charger... Now other complaint is that the area around camera gets hot even when changing settings. Not really sure what causes that, so I did 4 factory resets yesterday.... Today it gets warm, but nothing suspicous. Disabled KNOX and other crappy programs. Not sure if it's the chargers fault, but battery life sucks. Phone drains the battery like crazy, the percentage drops about 1 in minute or so. When I use the power saving, reduce the brightness, use airplane mode, it's better, but even If i charge it and use my phone at the same time, the battery percentage still keeps going down
Now, the biggest wtf moment is when the phone is not plugged to charge, if i press the sleep button, the display turns black and after a few second the phone shuts itself off. No sounds, no vibration or notifications, it just silently goes to sleep. I can only turn it on again. I could even successfuly unlock the phone to use with a sim card, the phone is also making fun of me! Not really sure what's happening with my note that i bought off ebay and spent quite the amount of money, but I am starting to get into depression...
Please, if anyone has ANY idea what the hell is happening (apart the stupid charger), i would really appreciate any answers. And sorry for the long post and my english, as it is not my native language!
Pa2k3l1s said:
Hello, I would like to start off by saying I'm new here AND in Android culture. I was an iPhone user, but decided to swith to something different. Since I live in Europe (in Lithuania, to be exact) I figured that it wouldn't mean anything here if I bough a blacklisted T-mobile Note 3 4G LTE phone. Now to the main point - I got the phone yesterday and noticed something suspicious. Firstly, it came with aftermarket charger and usb cable (not usb 3.0, just a simple micro-usb to usb 2.0). My first problem is that when I am charging Note while it's on, it almost doesn't charge at all. Only when I turn off the phone I can expect the phone to charge to 80-90 percent in 8 HOURS! That's insane! Needless to say, I WILL be getting original samsung charger... Now other complaint is that the area around camera gets hot even when changing settings. Not really sure what causes that, so I did 4 factory resets yesterday.... Today it gets warm, but nothing suspicous. Disabled KNOX and other crappy programs. Not sure if it's the chargers fault, but battery life sucks. Phone drains the battery like crazy, the percentage drops about 1 in minute or so. When I use the power saving, reduce the brightness, use airplane mode, it's better, but even If i charge it and use my phone at the same time, the battery percentage still keeps going down
Now, the biggest wtf moment is when the phone is not plugged to charge, if i press the sleep button, the display turns black and after a few second the phone shuts itself off. No sounds, no vibration or notifications, it just silently goes to sleep. I can only turn it on again. I could even successfuly unlock the phone to use with a sim card, the phone is also making fun of me! Not really sure what's happening with my note that i bought off ebay and spent quite the amount of money, but I am starting to get into depression...
Please, if anyone has ANY idea what the hell is happening (apart the stupid charger), i would really appreciate any answers. And sorry for the long post and my english, as it is not my native language!
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Click to collapse
Could be a counterfeit - Check the serial with Samsung and make sure it has all the crazy samsung sensor, the counterfeits usually don't
Make sure the power button isn't sticking, I had an iphone 4s that did the same thing and it was due to power button hardware problem.
For the charger just get a cheap one off ebay with the right power ratings(find them for your country on samsung.com) and I find Toshiba sells replacement USB3 cables for their hard drives really cheap - That can save you 30$
Blacklisted IMEI phones are a gamble, if you can prove it's a counterfeit then ebay should refund you but it might also be a phone some bad man/woman/other stole and might have been abused. If it's the latter then that's a shame that he ended up stealing from two people...
BableMan said:
Could be a counterfeit - Check the serial with Samsung and make sure it has all the crazy samsung sensor, the counterfeits usually don't
Make sure the power button isn't sticking, I had an iphone 4s that did the same thing and it was due to power button hardware problem.
For the charger just get a cheap one off ebay with the right power ratings(find them for your country on samsung.com) and I find Toshiba sells replacement USB3 cables for their hard drives really cheap - That can save you 30$
Blacklisted IMEI phones are a gamble, if you can prove it's a counterfeit then ebay should refund you but it might also be a phone some bad man/woman/other stole and might have been abused. If it's the latter then that's a shame that he ended up stealing from two people...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for your answer
Well, the power button isn't sticking, I can clearly feel and heal it click when I am pressing it. The IMEI under the battery matches the IMEI in android system settings. I checked my IMEI on swappa and it says that phone was reported stolen (yay..). On imei.info site it says a different model (n9005 instead of n900t), but whatever.
Thank you for the info about toshiba usb 3.0 cables, might as well buy one right away
To be honest, I feel like it's a faulty item (even though seller assured my that the phone is working like new and that he replaced the battery). The battery life, as I said, is terrible, it doesn't hold a charge, the vibration motor seems very cheap (it's too strong, it sounds very strange), speaker seems to be not-ok too (distorted sound not even on full volume), screen-capture with palm doesn't even seem to work properly, I can't choose various music eq's (it says that this eq is not supported with speaker), I can't get my sim to work with this phone. Well, according to the ebay ad, phone should be working properly without any problems. The fact that the battery or charging mechanism sucks determined that was a lie...
Now I'm wondering if this info would be enough for paypal to refund me, because the phone is almost unsable (with self shutting of while it's not charging) and sad battery life...
Sorry for double post, but I noticed something very strange...
Well, turns out, that when the airplane mode is off, the phone gets very hot around the camera and battery is draining like mad. BUT, when I turn on the airplane mode, note cools off, battery still keeps draining, but it seems that not as much... Anyways, is it possible that the cellular module or something like that could be a cause of all my problems? (and to keep in mind that I haven't been able to use any sim with it, as it keeps saying "searching")
Sim won't work unless it's unlocked.
My suggestions are to:
1. Stock restore and then root the device.
2. Just sign in to phone using WiFi and download chain fires region lock away. Roughly $3 US.
3. Then try out Sim card, see if you can get signal.
If you can get that far, it will tell us what other kind of problems the phone is having on its own. Sounds to me at the moment it is trying very hard to find the signal and causing battery drain issues. The random shut downs could be due to the phone over heading and shutting down as a fail safe.
This thread has the stock restore in all languages: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2615393
Sent from my SM-N900T using Tapatalk
noobtoob said:
Sim won't work unless it's unlocked.
My suggestions are to:
1. Stock restore and then root the device.
2. Just sign in to phone using WiFi and download chain fires region lock away. Roughly $3 US.
3. Then try out Sim card, see if you can get signal.
If you can get that far, it will tell us what other kind of problems the phone is having on its own. Sounds to me at the moment it is trying very hard to find the signal and causing battery drain issues. The random shut downs could be due to the phone over heading and shutting down as a fail safe.
This thread has the stock restore in all languages: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2615393
Sent from my SM-N900T using Tapatalk
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Click to collapse
I did everything exactly as mentioned in the thread that you've posted the link to. First of all, booting logo changed, then my phone became unlocked (when I inserted the SIM, it didn't ask for unlock code). However, even with apn settings, it still says "searching" and gets quite hot in the upper-left side of the phone (when screen is facing towards me). I was really hoping this would help, but it didn't do much, as it seems... Anyways, I appreciate your good deed trying to help me I'm really desperate to make this phone work with my phone, but can't seem to manage to do that, which is very sad...

Overheating when used as navigation?

I realize this is a worse case scenario, but i used my phone as navigation for the first time today and after maybe 20 minutes of having it on my dash, charging, listeing to bluetooth music while navigating it quit charging and the red notification light started blinking. I had power saver on with the screen at its lowest Automatic Brightness set. I know this is a stress test for it, but lots of other phones I've had didnt have a problem like this. I dont use it as navigation too often, but it cant not charge if i do use it that way.
Anyone elses do this too?
stevessvt said:
I realize this is a worse case scenario, but i used my phone as navigation for the first time today and after maybe 20 minutes of having it on my dash, charging, listeing to bluetooth music while navigating it quit charging and the red notification light started blinking. I had power saver on with the screen at its lowest Automatic Brightness set. I know this is a stress test for it, but lots of other phones I've had didnt have a problem like this. I dont use it as navigation too often, but it cant not charge if i do use it that way.
Anyone elses do this too?
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Click to collapse
Mine starts to get pretty hot with the basics....browsing..youtube...charging while not using. It's not happening all the time but it gets frustrating. This is my second m8 ( I returned my first for heat issues) so it's happened on both non-rooted m8s.
I went back to the tmobile i bought it from, they hooked it up to a laptop and ran a few tests on it and declared it fine. They said to call corporate tmobile tomorrow (since they took the holiday off today) and tell them whats going on and they can put it in my notes to have the store replace my phone tomorrow.
Anyone else's phone do this? I ask because corporate gave the store the OK to exchange my phone, and if this is a problem with all M8's, theres no point to exchange it.
I am debating on getting a different phone all together. I flashed a few Roms.... Still having the heat issue.
Sent from my HTC One_M8 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
So I was able to trade my phone for a new one at the store,...I'm now past the 14 day trial, so I hope this one is OK.
Are you guys sure it gets that hot? This is the same thing with the M7 and people were saying the same thing. It's thermal conductivity which you guys are feeling. Keep in mind just because your other phones don't feel as hot doesn't mean it's not the same temperature. Here's a video about what happens and how people confuse themselves. The M7 and M8 are different and the M8 should conduct more heat due to it being more metal.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqDbMEdLiCs
Although yes, it's hot to the touch, I'm talking about the battery getting so hot it quits charging , the Orange led blinks, and the battery starts going backwards even though it's plugged in to the car charger.
That's why I was making sure if it isn't merely it feels hot, and not actually being hot.
Are you using a 1.5 amp or something higher? I notice when I use large amp charger it'll get hotter than usual, but it does charge quicker.
It's a Verizon generic car charger, 1 amp. I'll be using the replacement phone tomorrow afternoon for navigation, I'll report back if it's any better with it.
I Just found a 2.4 amp Rocmetfish charger that gets good write ups at best buy. Wonder if that would help.....2.4a is a lot more than 1a.

Overheating when used as navigation?

I have a T-Mobile M8, but didnt get much response, so I'm posting here in hopes of more answers. I realize this is a worse case scenario, but i used my phone as navigation for the first time today and after maybe 20 minutes of having it on my dash, charging, listeing to bluetooth music while navigating it quit charging and the red notification light started blinking. I had power saver on with the screen at its lowest Automatic Brightness set. I know this is a stress test for it, but lots of other phones I've had didnt have a problem like this. I dont use it as navigation too often, but it cant not charge if i do use it that way.
Anyone elses do this too?
stevessvt said:
I have a T-Mobile M8, but didnt get much response, so I'm posting here in hopes of more answers. I realize this is a worse case scenario, but i used my phone as navigation for the first time today and after maybe 20 minutes of having it on my dash, charging, listeing to bluetooth music while navigating it quit charging and the red notification light started blinking. I had power saver on with the screen at its lowest Automatic Brightness set. I know this is a stress test for it, but lots of other phones I've had didnt have a problem like this. I dont use it as navigation too often, but it cant not charge if i do use it that way.
Anyone elses do this too?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is probably going to sound like a dumb question but believe me I did it
It wasn't hear the heating vents was it?
grentuu said:
This is probably going to sound like a dumb question but believe me I did it
It wasn't hear the heating vents was it?
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Click to collapse
Ha,...no,..it was on top of the dash, and here in S. Florida it was pretty hot (90F). But, with that said, I had the windows up, AC on. My previous phones (I'm a phone-a-holic), the S4, G2, Xperia ZL, and Note 3 all worked fine in the same situation. If its a common occurrence for this particular phone in general I'll deal with it. But if its unique to mine I will exchange it. But I'd rather not have to restore another phone if the new one will act the same way.
Maybe I should mention the phone has a clear hard case on it, too.
Hot day, phone in direct sunlight, phone in case, Bluetooth, screen, data, CPU probably running at max, it's all going to contribute. Obviously the phone couldn't keep up with the power requirements. Do you use an official HTC car charger?
I have no problems with charging using Navigation with Co-pilot, it does get warm, but so has any other phone when using Nav apps. I wouldn't use Google navigation as that doesn't have offline maps and will tax the phone even more.
Thanks for responding,...I had it in power saver mode and auto brightness at its lowest setting. I'm not even sure there is an official HTC car charger,...is there? Maybe it's a by product of being a metal case, but my past phones, the G2 the note 3 and Sony xperia zl never had this problem. If this replacement (I was able to swap for a new one at TMo yesterday)phone does it too then I'll deal with, I just didn't know if it's the phone as a whole, or my particular unit.

Second D850, a couple of issues

My first G3 which I was very happy with died suddenly on me. AT&T replaced it.
My second one has some issues that my first one did not.
Connects but times out with weak wifi signals.
Double tap often does not work to wake up phone. Needs a second double tap in those instances.
Almost every incoming call the caller can not hear me until I say hello twice.
I have had one overheat episode. No open apps, put the phone in its pouch with screen off. Later in the day reached for the phone and it was very hot with nearly depleted battery.
Seems to have some lag which my first one did not.
I have done a factory reset but these problems persist.
Today, my phone was taken off the charger about 6 hours ago. I have been on calls and browsed the web. Phone still shows 100% battery life, while I should not complain about great battery life, based on previous usage there is no way this can be true.
Anyone else experience this?
I don't like to be a nuisance customer and want to find out what others are experiencing before I call AT&T tech. support again.
Try factoryresetting by means of the volumekeys and not the menu. Made a huge difference with mine....

Save Note 7 from exploding, untill replace

Save Note7 from potential exploding!
1. "Inportant" Disable fast charging under battery settings ( there is toggle to turn off)
2. Use OEM wall charger with OEM cable
3. Before charging phone close all active aplications and clear cashe
4. Before charging turn off wifi, bluetoth,nfc etc..
5.DO NOT CHARGE phone ubder pillow or in bad
Hope this tips help you guys and me
Perhaps we should also all be taking acupuncture and subscribing to new age homeopathy therapies? :silly:
If the battery wants to 'go bang' it will, no options will change that fact.
i'll just take my chances ?
Sent from my SM-N930F using Tapatalk
I think switching off fast charging would make a difference. Ad for the rest? Not sure.
radioraheem2 said:
I think switching off fast charging would make a difference. Ad for the rest? Not sure.
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Click to collapse
It doesn't, otherwise we would have been advised to turn it off by Samsung before the handset is replaced. Or a software update disabling the feature would have been pushed.
alltaken123 said:
It doesn't, otherwise we would have been advised to turn it off by Samsung before the handset is replaced. Or a software update disabling the feature would have been pushed.
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Click to collapse
Samsung didn't say a word what to do untill replace, but if you read about fast charging, there says " your device will charge quickly but may become hot"
It's got nothing to do with fast charging, it's a fault in the battery that will heat up and catch fire if you're fast charging or not....
http://www.samsung.com/uk/news/local/uk-statement-regarding-galaxy-note7
Sent from my SM-N930F using Tapatalk
Ardianow1 said:
Samsung didn't say a word what to do untill replace, but if you read about fast charging, there says " your device will charge quickly but may become hot"
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
See the post above mine
bottom line dont do anything that cause the phone to get too hot for long period of time.
Kansatsusha said:
bottom line dont do anything that cause the phone to get too hot for long period of time.
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Click to collapse
I think a lot of people are concluding that heat is the issue and will create the battery problem. I can't see any evidence that heat causes the battery fault to occur.
Well exploding battery will cause heat.... sooo XD... There probably many other component that cause it but anyone willing to force the note7"C4" to explode?
its a battery fault - the battery cells which are affecting the units are drawing too much power from the mains which in turn heats the battery past limit. i've had mine for about 4 days in the UK and three have told me "no recall or safety instructions have been given by company"
and samsung support have said "none of the problems has occured in the UK so you are fine to use and if it gets hot close all apps and place phone in cool place away from direct sunlight"
but samsung did say they were replacing phones. left details and call back will be in 7days
was on hold for 1 hour waiting for them to answer. might be quicker popping into a samsung store and asking about it.
but if people in UK need a piece of mind and wants to ring samsung the phone number to use is 0330 726 1000 *****THIS IS FOR UK RESIDENTS ONLY*****
remix754 said:
its a battery fault - the battery cells which are affecting the units are drawing too much power from the mains which in turn heats the battery past limit. i've had mine for about 4 days in the UK and three have told me "no recall or safety instructions have been given by company"
and samsung support have said "none of the problems has occured in the UK so you are fine to use and if it gets hot close all apps and place phone in cool place away from direct sunlight"
but samsung did say they were replacing phones. left details and call back will be in 7days
was on hold for 1 hour waiting for them to answer. might be quicker popping into a samsung store and asking about it.
but if people in UK need a piece of mind and wants to ring samsung the phone number to use is 0330 726 1000 *****THIS IS FOR UK RESIDENTS ONLY*****
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I got a phone call from O2 earlier offering me to return the phone for a full refund or a partial refund with a different handset.
the option they didn't advise was to hold onto the phone and they will replace them when they get the new stock, they said this has been the most popular option with the majority of people opting for it, but they also said should the phone show any signs of the problem (getting hot when charging or swelling) I can take the phone in at any time for a refund.
chances are 3 just doesn't have all the info yet, but the recall is every phone, Samsung is probably still communicating with suppliers so it is likely a case of the firms are still learning then they will have to work out how to pass on the information to those affected.
I would have to say it's fast charging...or generic adapters. Because I used the original cable with a generic adapter and after charging for some time, the phone was extremely hot. As in ive never felt any phone become that hot. This was maybe in the first few days I got the phone. I saw fast charging was on so I turned that off.
I stopped using that particular adapter as well (which works for all our other Samsung and apple phones and pads) ... And it never became hot again.
I use another non branded adapter with a non Samsung cable in the office to charge and it doesn't get hot there. Doesn't get hot with my non branded car charger as well.
So my guess is it's the fast charging option. Or just that particular adapter. But so far... Fast charging off... With different adapters and cables.. And it's working fine.. And cool
the problem is 100% in the battery, nothing else in the phone is at fault.
basically when they make a battery it is done with layers of material and a catalyst (acid or similar) inside the battery is compartmented, if 2 of these compartments manage to interact with each other due to a fault in the separator you get a runaway reaction, at best you get a bit swelling or a hot battery, worst case it goes critical and fails (goes pop)
if you have a phone with a faulty battery you can play it safe and turn off options such as fast charging, but the fact is if the battery is one of the few faulty batteries in the wild you are only delaying the inevitable.
the only way to protect the phone is to monitor it carefully while it is charging as if the battery is faulty no amount of changing settings will solve the problem as if that was the case they would have released emergency firmwares by now to minimise risk.
but even then when the phone gets warm it isn't always the battery, my battery normally sits around 30-35C (even while charging) but my phone sometimes feels warm but the problem is the CPU running some times at 50-60C making the phone feel warm and not the actual battery.

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