My phone displays 'unable to charge' or no battery icon?

I plugged my phone up and all of a sudden got the message "Unable to charge" on it. I changed chargers (i had an extra one), i changed batteries (i had an extra one), and i swapped every combination imaginable.
My solution....
My Razr's plug has an opening to plug the phone that resembles a person's navel, and it got dirt and dust bunnies in it while it was in and out of my pockets. I was able to take an old tooth brush (or your new one if your really desperate), and got a can of office duster that you use to clean keyboards. Turn the can of office duster upside down for a second while you are spraying it and liquid will come out as you are spraying the connector. Immediately after that, use your toothbrush to work it inside the dirty connector to free it from anything that will keep it from making good contact. Then, hold the can of office duster upright and it will only spray air... and blow the connector free of anything that you loosened with the brush. Repeat this process if after all this it still doesn't work... because you have a REALLY REALLY dirty connector if it doesn't work after the first try.

I HAD THE SAME PROBLEM WITH THE "UNABLE TO CHARGE." THE PROBLEM WITH MINE WAS THE FOUR PRONGS THAT THE BATTERY CONNECTS TO IN THE PHONE. ONE OF MY PRONGS WERE STUCK IN THE DOWN POSITION AS IF THE BATTERY WERE THERE. ALL I DID WAS USE A KNIFE AND POPPED IT BACK IN THE OUT POSITION. THEN I TRYED TO CHARGE MY PHONE AND IT WORKED PERFECTLY.

Based on the information here, I took my battery out. All four contacts were level, but I carefully replaced the battery and tried charging again. It worked. I don't remember dropping it but who knows? I think the battery wasn't making proper contact because it is working fine now. Or at least, it seems to be.

I kept getting the "unable to charge" message on my RAZR. I was using a blackberry charger which looks the same and I was able to use previously (I thought). I found my RAZR charger and it worked fine.

My wife spilled some water on her Pebl and she shut it off for the night. She dried it pretty good but it had a protective case over it and she thought that it didnt get water into the inside of the phone but it did. The next morning the phone wouldnt work. We left the battery out all day and yes, the "wet" dot had turned red. We thought all was lost, but that evening after it had dried we replaced the sim card and battery and turned it on and it worked fine....except it needed to be charged and when she went to plug it in we got the "unable to charge" msg and the phone shut off. Well, since I had bought the phone second off of Ebay I knew there was nothing that Cingular would do, I took the screws out of the back and took the phone apart. There is another one of those dots back there as well....and it wasnt tripped. I did notice a little bit of white stuff around were the battery prongs touch the main circuit board, I gently used the small screw driver I used to take out the screws and cleaned that stuff off. I also gently scraped those prongs and the metal they touch on the circuit board. Thought it was a long shot but I put the phone back together and plugged it in and bygod, its charging. Guess we will see how long this fixes the problem. Hope this helps you out some.

Had the same problems, my phone said unable to charge and invalid battery and I took a baby wipe and cleaned the pronges in the phone and the battey and then took a tiny screw driver from a class repair kit and popped the prongs in the phone up in even position and the phone started charging, I havent checked it yet to see if there is anymore problems going on because I have it on the charger now but hopfully it will work ok..

Check where the battery contacts to the phone..
i just fixed my problem!! Quick and Easy

I just came here with the same problem.However, when I plugged in the charger after removing the battery, it did nothing. So I tried to gently clean the battery terminals, and put it back in the phone. It started charging right away. I used a tiny bit of optical glass wash to clean the terminals, and a very soft cloth. Hope this works for you!

11/8/08

I just finished reading all of the 'unable to charge" complaints. Following the most successful entries, I took out a windex cleaning cloth and cleaned both the charger and the phones plug in ports and prongs.

INSTANT SUCCESS! As soon as I wiped it, I plugged in the charger and it took right off.

My phone is a motoola

I personally found, after having tried cleaning the contacts for the connection from battery to the phone, making sure that the contacts were making contact, blowing out the back of the phone, and all else, that the solution was as simple as using the actual Motorola charger. Doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but I found the charger, plugged it in, and I got 'battery charging'. Thanks everyone!!

I had this problem after my phone had gotten wet. I had polished all of the contact points with a straight pin, but still was "unable to charge". After reading about using glass cleaner above, I decided to try the tape head cleaner and swabs I use for cleaning my camcorder. Instant success!

I tried cleaning the contacts, but that didn't do it for me. What finally worked was to plug the phone into the charger repeatedly, and unplug it again upon getting the "Unable to Charge" message and THEN turn the phone on (not connected to charger), get to the "Low Battery" message, and plug in the charger. That got it to act normal and charge up.

But here's the thing: I had an idea this method would work, but I couldn't get the phone to go on -- the battery was so low that it only the keypad would illuminate for a second, then shut down.

I think it was the plugging it in repeatedly that did the trick. Despite the "Unable to Charge" message, I suspect that a tiny bit of charge was getting through anyway. Once it was enough, it would power on long enough for me to connect the charger as usual.

HTH.

What you can try is this, with the battery removed plug in your home charger into the phone and turn it on once it has powered all the way up where you can make a phone call insert the battery in and that should take care of it. As far as that symbol you are talking about the only thing i can think of is it is in vibrate mode. Hope this helps

it is hardware problem it will be helping if you have multimeter an check its batery conector whether its second pin to gnd is gronded or not if it is grounded then there 5 pin chip contaning bridge of diode replace it

Hi Friends,
Having problem with Motorola RAZR V3? Main problem of Motorola RAZR V3 is hardware problem. Such as won't charge, black screen etc. For solution of these hardware problem just click here.

For any other problem of Motorola RAZR V3 like software problem or other just click here.

Hey man I had the same problem with my Razr 2 and this is how I fixed it. Open the back and take out the battery. You should see four little gold prongs where the battery sits in the phone. On mine the two middle ones were bent very very slightly out of alignment (probably from dropping the damn thing all the time). I just took a small flathead screwdriver and carefully aligned them with the other two. I put the battery back in and it worked fine. (Hahahah f**k you customer support.) Then again, thats what my problem was when I got the "unable to charge" message. Before you do this though you should push the battery into the prongs with the charger in. If it starts charging, then it's the prongs and you can just bend them back. Hope this helps!

i had the same promblem just now my phone is always breakin because RAZORS **** but i get a new one for free because it is under warrenty but i just blew air in the charger place and cleaned it with a Q tip with a lil windex on it and than took out my battery and put it back in and it started to work so i dont know

Hey guys just typed the same problem in google and found all these posts.. So I thought I'd try some stuff out myself. So I grabbed one of my air dusters I use when fixing computers and sprayed both the battery, the battery holder and the insert of the charger.. Bam now my phone is being charged. I'm not sure if this is a long term effect or something that you have to do daily but it works. Hope this helps.
MrNah

These Motorola phones are crapiest phones on the Earth!!!
Tried everything from here, nothing works for me. Home charger, car chargers, clean contacts - nothing works. The only thing that charges it, its USB cable connection form phone to my computer for data transfer.
Will never buy Motorola phone in my life. Never had so many problems with other phones.

I'm so glad I found this page. My RAZR V3m all of a sudden was not charging, and wasn't recognizing the charger was plugged in. This was a new phone even because my last one kept shutting itself off. (They claimed water damage, but that's BS!) Anyway, after trying it a dozen times, and popping the battery out and in, it started saying "unable to charge".

I had serious doubts after reading the stuff on this page, but I got some cotton swabs and some glass cleaner, cleaned all the contacts, and boom, it's charger as I type this! Thanks soooo freaking much!!!!

Thank you LPSS87 (Solution #2). Unable to charge one night. If I plugged in phone with it on, it would display Insert SIM, leading me to think it was a sim problem. Not! Checked the battery prongs and noticed one was down (all 4 need to be level with each other). Nudged it gently with a kitchen knife and it popped up. I now recall dropping the phone which probably caused it. Cleaned all the contacts with alcohol and a swab while i was at it.
THANK YOU FIXYA!! and LPSS87

Also, the symbol you mentioned means that your phone is on vibrate.

Surely there could be a rectifier bridge problem but hardware failure in cell phones is far and wide. I got hit with the Unable to Charge message last night. I first called Sprint store. They knew nothing. The repair facility is always too busy. After reading posts here...of which I had already tried with no positive result...I took some De-Oxit and sprayed it carefully into the socket where you plug your charger on the phone. That did it immediately. I have always been concerned about these contacts being that I charge the phone every night. Plugging it in and out over and over. I think it might have been the recent high humidity. They make the contacts gold plated because of the low voltage and resistance can cause a problem. So, keep all the contacts clean both on the battery and on the cell.

You guys are awesome - my phone said unable to charge and had a little exclamation point on the left side. I did as you guys suggested, I took the battery out of the phone and was amazed at the amount of dust under the cover and on the battery. I just cleaned it off with a moist q-tip and voila - it is chrging just fine. Many many many thanks

hey

great site

I am so "computer/gadget challanged" that it is truly pathetic.
Took out the battery, aligned the prongs, cell phne works

thanks a lot

Are all these phones Motorola's?
Have the moisture pads turned colors in these phones?
My Motorokr got a bit wet. I opened it, took battery out, cleaned all moisture out, left by fan to dry. Two days later I put the battery in and all that was displayed was "Will Not Charge" or something like that.
Just wondered.
bamakodaker

I had dropped my phone and the battery contacts inside the phone got snagged. Well, one of them anyways. I took a small screw driver (a tooth pick would have worked) and popped it out. It wasn't broken or anything just snagged and because the battery wasn't connected with all four contacts, it wouldn't show the battery status icon, and would always say unable to charge.