Wireless chargers
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.
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. ✊🏼
Every time I’ve had that happen, it’s been the cable going bad, not the port.
Or the port is just full of pocket lint
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.
So sorry about your wife’s battery
How, from the heat?
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.
Caused by gunk in the charge port. It naturally accrues over time. Local repair stores will have the specialized tools to fix it.
Toothpicks work great. They are wood or plastic so they won’t conduct electricity.
Can confirm. Clean these out all the time. about 75%-80% of the time this is the cause of this exact issue.
Toothpicks are not exactly specialised tools
I’ve done a little bit of okay cleaning with a toothpick, then much better cleaning from the repair shop.
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.
Me too, alcohol and toothpick
Same, but with my laptop. 😔
go give business to your local repair shop.
or gimme a fiver and a toothpick
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.
even if it were broken, this would be such an easy fix if phone companies wouldn’t make it impossible to repair their phones. its freaking infuriating.
Look into magnetic charging adapters. I’m just putting them on my wife’s devices out of the box now.
Yes, started using them a few years ago. It’s a game changer.
Possibility 1 the port is full of crap, clean the port with a thin stiff piece of plastic.
Possibility 2 the port is broken, treat your equipment better.
Possibility 3 the cable is bad, replace the cable and treat your equipment better.
Charging ports wear out if used often, which is why I usually charge wirelessly and keep a lint cap on my port.
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!
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.
it is frankly impressive how much debris a port can hold!
I had that exact same experience a few months ago.
If it makes you feel better, my phone just did the thing where it installed an update and now everything is running noticably worse.
Enforced obsoletion. Android is really good about those updates.
