Discussion: Bell 6800 Battery Refuses to Charge!

Bell 6800 Battery Refuses to Charge! On Sunday morning I woke up and reached for my phone, which I'd left (in sleep
mode) on my dresser during the night. I discovered that the phone was sitting
in a small puddle of water. I still can't understand how the water got there,
but the phone seemed to me working OK, so I dried it carefully and then put it
in my pocket.

However, later that morning, I wanted to make a note, and when I pulled out the
keyboard and started typing, the phone suddenly rebooted. I didn't do anything
to reset it; it just blanked out after I'd been typing for a few seconds.

But when the phone rebooted, it was definitely having issues. The screen
orientation didn't change when I closed the keyboard, and the whole thing was
very sluggish. Then suddenly the phone blanked out again and rebooted a second
time - only this time, it went to the bootloader screen (I use the OliPro
bootloader because I've been running custom ROMs).

By this time I was really worried. I opened the back and removed the battery
and I found some moisture in the battery compartment. I removed the battery
and battery cover and left the phone lying open (keyboard extended) for about
an hour, then put it all together again.

The phone powered up and went back to the bootloader. But after a couple of
soft resets, it booted into WM 6.1 and seemed to be working properly.


Here's where the story gets stupid: That afternoon, I was meeting with friends
and I started playing music through the phone's speaker. After about 45
minutes, I got a message saying the main battery was low. I ignored 2 or 3
warnings like that because I'd decided I wanted to recharge it anyway, so I
might as well run it till it dies. It died completely about 15 minutes later...

2. Bell 6800 Battery Refuses to Charge! ...So I tried plugging the phone into my 12V DC charger also. The result is the same
as putting the phone on the docking charger - it just flashes orange and very
little power seems to be reaching the battery. After charging for an hour or
so, there's usually enough juice to boot the phone, but never enough to get the
cell radio going, even if the phone remains connected to AC power. When it
conks out, you can reboot it two, maybe three more times. But after too many
reboots then it goes completely dead and won't even respond to the power button
until it's been left on the charger for several more hours.

At first glance, it looks like my battery is toasted. But this same battery
was lasting 2 or 3 days per charge just last week - which is extremely good for
a Mogul. So it's hard to imagine it being the only problem - especially a Li-
Poly battery. And something definitely seems wonky about the phone itself.

Anyone have any ideas?