BlackBerry® Bold™

[steeper]

My Bold 9900 has stopped charging its battery.

The odd part is that the phone works perfectly while plugged in. If I unplug it, it rapidly dies and attempts to restart, being unable to do so due to having no charge.

I've always used the wall charger that came with it, and that no longer works.

I have reinstalled the OS twice (once without restoring personal data from backup, once with). Didn't fix it.

I have tried other usb cords and chargers. Didn't fix it.

My brother has the same phone so I tried his fully charged battery. My phone worked fine, however, it ran down the battery quite quickly (10 minutes of playing a video on YouTube killed half the battery). I put my phone's battery into his phone and it charged normally and without problem. His phone worked great and didn't wear out the battery abnormally quickly while using my battery. So, the battery itself isn't the issue.

I've also had an odd issue where YouTube will only be able to stream 1 minute 20 seconds, exactly, of any video before it gets an error. Is it connected? Probably not, but who knows.

My phone is just out of the one year warranty coverage Rogers gives so I'm trying to fix it myself. It seems to me that the issue must be with the phone's motherboard. Unfortunately, I've been unable to find a place to buy one. Anybody know of a source?

If there's a solution to my problem which doesn't involve me taking apart my phone, or paying someone a lot of money to do it for me, I'd love to hear it.

[jhrain]

---

Steeper,

It's been my experience if you get to a Rogers manager, and explain that you began trouble shooting this issue prior to the end of your warranty, you might get them to agree to sending you a refurbed model. Or, ask them to transfer you to RIM and explain this to them and ask for their help and understanding.

If that doesn't work, I'm not sure how popular Craigslist is in Canada, but I found a few used 9900's in my region for $100 US.  That's a lot of money, but perhaps it's an option.  It would be for me.  Good luck.  Please post a follow up on what the outcome was.

[steeper]

I'm afraid I'm not that close to the warranty: the peril of being an early adopter is that they've quit supporting the first run of their product by the time it craps out.

I feel like it's a huge risk to take, to trust that a used, broken phone posted online didn't also have some (non-apparent) damage to the motherboard. I'd way rather be able to buy a new one which hasn't been dropped in the water.

[Xandrex]

boot your device in safemode and see if the battery drains more slowly.

KB17877 How to start a BlackBerry smartphone in Safe Mode