Database Users

HTC not charging, battery dead?

Helloes guys and goils.
I have a HTC wiz, and for a good few weeks now I have had problems with it.
First off, It would NOT charge through the Wall Socket OR USB, I let it run down over XMas and it's not been the same again.
It just will not charge or come on.
When I plug it into USB it looks as if it is charging, with the Orange light and The power bar turns to the socket looking thing, but when I leave it to charge it just goes off and doesnt come back on.
When I plug it into the wall socket the HTC does not respond.
I have been asking my mate in work to put it in his and charge it via HIS wall charger, which has worked a few times, but I seem to be getting a very awful run out of my battery.
I am thinking it is the phone and NOT the battery as i first thought, I dunno, im scared of throwing up £30 notes on a new battery only to find it is the phone.
What do you guys think I should do?
I heard somewhere that it is a SOFTWARE based charge and not a hardware based charge, what does that mean?
DO u think a flash would help it? I cant see it myself.
Or is my HTC just goosed?

Well
I can speak from experience when I tell you my wizard nuked 2 batteries...
how I dont know.
Hopefully one of the gurus can shed some light on your situation

(¯`·._.·[LaZaRuS]·._.·´¯) said:
. . .
I am thinking it is the phone and NOT the battery as i first thought, I dunno, im scared of throwing up £30 notes on a new battery only to find it is the phone. . .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you do replace the battery, look on eBay - I got a new 1250 mA battery (there are also 1100 mA versions, don't get that) for $13.99US including shipping - works great!

Make sure its nothing simple... Try the USB cable plugged directly into the computer without using a USB hub (if you are) and different USB ports on the back of the computer. Also try different outlets for the AC adapter. If still nothing else I'd even ask for help from your local cell phone store (put on a sad face) and see if they'll lend you a power cord and or swap out batteries to see if they can reproduce the problem on a different Wizard, battery, etc.

There has been many posts on this subject with several different fixes.. i would suggest searching and reading and you can find your answers

My case
Hi,
I had somewhat similar problem with mine. My porblem was that I bought the Wizard with a Motorola charger. It had the same mini usb plug and when I plugged it to charge, the led on the wizard was orange and the Wizard indicated its charging, but the moment I unlugg it, the battery indicator was coming back to its previous state. My solution is to use the PC USB to charge it, on a couple of occasions I had the battery completely drained and had to "jump start it" by connecting the wires from the usb directly to the + and - of the battery. Even used once my good old AA Ni-MH charger to jump start the battery and it worked.
So perhaps you are not getting power from the cable, why not try with different charger or charging from another USB source (PC).
Hope this helps

Just happened to me tonight. Thought that my Wizard was toast as well.
I merely took the battery out for 10 minutes, put battery back in, and plugged device into original wall charger. All is well now.
-Jeff

Wizard looks like is recharging, but in real it doesn't!

Hi guys,
my beloved qtek 9100 is having some weird behavior since last week: i let my battery drain to 9% and then recharged. The phone would not recharge it, showing a red led. After lurking and learning about this problem on those devices I made a "starter" with three 1.5v batteries and gave the battery the necessary tension to start recharge cycle.
I thought that would be the solution but no: the phone kept stopping recharging at 25% or, the next time, at 75% with no apparent reason. Then, i tried many solutions like directly charging the battery with a cut usb cable, with the stock charger, with powered on phone, powered off phone, etc. No clue.
What leaves me shocked is that the battery, even when at 75%, drops suddenly to 0% after enabling the radio module thus killing the device...
An important note: same behavior with two different batteries...
I'm going nuts...

Problem still unsolved. Today i left the device recharge at 100% (took about 3 hours), detached it and tried a rom downgrade. Obviously it died at 50% of rom upgrade procedure. Sweet...now it's almost bricked, bootloader screen and recovery procedure to be done
What could it be, an hardware failure?

Hi there, same problem here: I have the phone with two batteries, on half a year old, one brand new. The batteries DO charge on another phone, but after a regular charge is gone, my phone never gecharges the batteries. It might be the charger circuit? If not HW, is there any chnce to do some SW stuff?
Unfortunately this thing s just a brock now ...
Bye
mr.groovie

mr.groovie said:
Hi there, same problem here:[CUT]
mr.groovie
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's good to find someone with my very same problem...although i've got no solution, still!
Is there someone out there who knows how much would cost a fix and if it's an hw issue or not? Would it be possible to fix it via DIY?
Thanks in advance

Someone suggested me to test the current output on the main contacts to see if the device is actually supplying power to the battery.
So i plugged the wall-charger on the device, took a multimeter, checked the output: the device is supplying 3.5-3-7 volts. So, i suppose it is correctly charging. Why, then, after a turn-off / turn-on the charge level drops after showing as completed?
Could it be a sw problem, then?

USB voltage is 5v. If you are not getting 5v on the USB plug coming from that charger, then that is probably your problem. Have you tried using a USB cable to plug it into your PC to charge?

d0ug said:
USB voltage is 5v. If you are not getting 5v on the USB plug coming from that charger, then that is probably your problem. Have you tried using a USB cable to plug it into your PC to charge?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the hint
I suppose the problem is another...in fact those 4 volts are coming from the battery itself. Pluggin in or out the power plug doesn't make any difference.
I tried taking out the battery and there's no power coming through the main contacts of the phone. Is this the right way to check or should i use some different method?
Thanks again

Last question: is there someone who could show me where the recharge circuit should be on the mainboard? Have you got any information about the ease of a diy repair and about the price / availability of the spare part?
Thanks in advance

spidernik84 said:
Last question: is there someone who could show me where the recharge circuit should be on the mainboard? Have you got any information about the ease of a diy repair and about the price / availability of the spare part?
Thanks in advance
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you using the wall charger or with the PC. Cus you will get more power input from the Wall. As so i dont know the reg key off hand but if you change one thing you can make it so your phone does not charge off the PC. Maybe you have found a new one!

funman said:
Are you using the wall charger or with the PC. Cus you will get more power input from the Wall. As so i dont know the reg key off hand but if you change one thing you can make it so your phone does not charge off the PC. Maybe you have found a new one!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
With both the wall charger and the pc usb plug. Checked the registry key and no way, it's ok.
It's really incredible, the total charge cycle takes a couple of hours, like if it were charging regularly, but after unplugging it goes down. It is like if the "carge counter" or similar records the charging, with the battery actually not receiving power.

did you solve your problem yet?

toanhung said:
did you solve your problem yet?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hell...no!

I need someone with a wing to test something for me, please.

I've got a wing with charging issues. I was wondering if someone with a wing could test something for me.
Will the wing run if it's plugged into the wall charger, and then has the battery removed?
Will the wing stay running in standby, plugged in, and has the battery removed, replaced, then is brought out of standby?
My wing recognizes when it's plugged in but instead of saying "charging" in power it just says A/C Only and continues to drain the battery. Also the red (Orange?) charging led does not light up. It's odd, and I would like some help with the above questions to try and ascertain what may be the problem.
Thanks!

Wall charger and then battery removed- Yes
Standby, plugin, battery removed/replaced, out of standby- yes
Its possible that your wall charger is not supplying enough power to the device to get it have a positive charge deficit on the battery drain. This might happen if the circuit is already full of other things or if you are plugging it into a power strip or surge protector.

Thank you very much for your time. I tried it in two outlets with nothing else in them and no dice. The charger is rated at 5v 1000ma so it shouldn't have trouble. Is the OEM charger made by delta?
It charges my other phones with a miniusb connector fine though, and I've tried two chargers on my wing. I think it's either the battery or something wrong with the phone.
One last thing, with the phone off and no battery in, will it start up when plugged in?
Thanks!

when i say that the wall is not supplying enough power, i'm saying that the cannot physically supply the kind of power that the wing needs to get charging. Its not really a matter of the charging unit or anything.
try (believe me this is a definitive test) going into a completely empty house and plugging your device in. If it doesnt charge, its probably hardware related.
By the way, it WILL start when plugged in. At least normally, i do believe.

PockyBum522 said:
Thank you very much for your time. I tried it in two outlets with nothing else in them and no dice. The charger is rated at 5v 1000ma so it shouldn't have trouble. Is the OEM charger made by delta?
It charges my other phones with a miniusb connector fine though, and I've tried two chargers on my wing. I think it's either the battery or something wrong with the phone.
One last thing, with the phone off and no battery in, will it start up when plugged in?
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are any of the chargers you tried specifially made to charge the wing? I used to have a razr and figured that car charger would work since it has the same miniusb but it does not charge my phone.
Just a thought.

Turns out i was wrong
if you take out the battery while plugged in, the phone will turn off.
Therefore i assume i was wrong about everything else too.
But seriously, i have no idea why it wouldnt charge. Call'em up and you might get a free replacement. I did (not for this issue though)

Oh! That makes me feel a little better. I've got what I think is an oem charger (If anyone else has a oem one, see if it's made by delta, if not then the guy who sold this to me may have given me the wrong charger) but I don't understand why it wouldn't charge off my computer back when it was at 70% either.
I've got a new battery coming in, so if that doesn't fix it I'll call em up.

PockyBum522 said:
Oh! That makes me feel a little better. I've got what I think is an oem charger (If anyone else has a oem one, see if it's made by delta, if not then the guy who sold this to me may have given me the wrong charger) but I don't understand why it wouldn't charge off my computer back when it was at 70% either.
I've got a new battery coming in, so if that doesn't fix it I'll call em up.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try to charge the phone while it's off. If the orange light goes on, then it should be charging.

Charging

Hi all,
My TD1 would charge from any mini-usb charger (such as the one I have with my TomTom). I put the TD2 on charge from one of these last night. The front light went orange, and the battery status changed to charging. However, I wake up this morning (7 hours later) and the light is still orange. I disconnect and look at the battery info and it says the last charge was yesterday.
Is the TD2 fussy about which charger you use? I really hope HTC are not pulling an Apple and locking their devices to only their accessories!
R

rakh1 said:
Hi all,
My TD1 would charge from any mini-usb charger (such as the one I have with my TomTom). I put the TD2 on charge from one of these last night. The front light went orange, and the battery status changed to charging. However, I wake up this morning (7 hours later) and the light is still orange. I disconnect and look at the battery info and it says the last charge was yesterday.
Is the TD2 fussy about which charger you use? I really hope HTC are not pulling an Apple and locking their devices to only their accessories!
R
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think I remember reading something about an option for not charging the battery when connected on PC USB (presumably for saving laptop batteries ;-) ) in the manual.
So I guess that the TD2 has a way to detect if it is plugged into a charger or a laptop, and maybe it can do that only with HTC charger, believing your charger is in fact a laptop. I would have guessed they use the activesync status to differentiate between PC and charger, but maybe not ;-)
So what could maybe solve your problem is to select "charging battery if plugged to a computer", I think it is in the touchflow 3D options somewhere... I would play with those options to check if it improve things...

Settings - All Settings - Batter - (Battery Tab). "When device is turned on, do not chagre the battery when connected to the PC.".
For me this is unticked - and when it was plugged in the battery reported as 'charging'.
Strange!
R

rakh1 said:
Settings - All Settings - Batter - (Battery Tab). "When device is turned on, do not chagre the battery when connected to the PC.".
For me this is unticked - and when it was plugged in the battery reported as 'charging'.
Strange!
R
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Does it work with the standard HTC charger?
And plugging to a PC?
If yes, your other charger may be a little light in specs (amperage too small, or voltage slightly below USB specs) and the TD2 may be picky regarding this...
I would also inspect the microusb plug of the charger to check for dirt/corrosion/deformation, and also the battery within the device: I already had intermittent problems like that caused by imperfect connections: the device was in a charging state, but no actual charging did occur. Replugging carefully after blowing on the plugs solved the problem....

From past experiences, all my HTC phones charges up with any USB cables or chargers, even my HD. So may your battery is not working some how... best thing to do is try charging it with your original charger or connect your device to your computer, it should charge up. If not, then take it back to your dealer man! I don't want to say it but maybe you have a lemon...

Hi all,
It charges well from the supplied wall charger. It also appears to be charging well from the computer. So, this leaves me to suspect the other (non HTC) charger.
Thanks for your help....
R

OK - this just getds weirder and weirder...
Yesterday, plugged into PC all day whilst I was working. After a while green light so fully charged. Went out for an hour or two and when I came back I put it on a different wall charger for a test (my old TD1 one) and after 30 mins or so green light - so fully charged again.
So, I thought - this is great, it proves the other wall charger has a problem. Before bed a few hours later I took the TD1 charger and put it in the bedroom. Plugged the TD2 into it overnight. Woke up this morning, and orange light???!!!
Put it into the computer this morning and after 15 mins - green light???
CONFUSED!!!
Could it be some function whereby it won't charge a bettery that has been charged full in the past x hours or so??? Is anyone else seeing anything like this????
R

I think you have might have a duffed battery. I think you should really check it out.

I use a Motorola universal mini-usb charger i mine car and I haven't noticed any different behavior than using the supplied HTC charger or HTC usb cable in my laptop..

I put it on the supplied charger for 12 hours and it did not charge at all despite the orange light being on. As I am within 7 days I've asked DeviceWire to refund or replace...
R

Way to go, you should get a new one!

check the connection!
rakh1 said:
I put it on the supplied charger for 12 hours and it did not charge at all despite the orange light being on. As I am within 7 days I've asked DeviceWire to refund or replace...
R
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
First of all, yes you are.. IF the device is faulty!
from experience, I know that some cables dont charge the device.. First of all make sure there isnt some dust or stuff in the connection. secondly, try resetting the device.. If the orange light is on, then it only means some of the pins in the EXTusb connection have been shorted, my reccomendation, check the pins on the miniUSB connector on the phone, and make sure you didn't bend some.

Hey all,
No bent pins.
No dust or dirt in the socket/plug.
Tried 3 (HTC) wall chargers - all the same behaviour.
Tried resetting the device.
No luck
R

I especially used my USB-Charger this night to charge the device.
It is a Hama USB Charger (Prod# 00014095, you can find it with this on google).
It has an output of 800 mA, while the original hast 1000 mA.
But it charged up to 100% and was "green" this morning.
So it seems to work and is really Small in size
Regards Thorsten

Well, this has been a problem for me from the start and all I have used are HTC chargers. I've not had anything like this sort of issue with the previous HTC phones I've owned (and there have been a few - check sig). What confused me was that it does appear to accept charge from the USB port of a computer - which is just odd??!?!??
Anyway, I think this is unacceptable from a new product so I've asked for a refund/replacement. Awaiting a reply from Devicewire.
R

Whats weird,
My TyTn has some probs in this department.
From time to time, setting it on USB power, will not even lit the charge-light.
And it will not charge.
I have to reset it and then it works.
Dont know what that is.

DeviceWire sent me an RMA. In the meantime I hard reset the device again after confirming that the wall charger would not go above 89% charge - 9 out of 10 bars (I installed a prog to give me a % reading).
After hard reset the battery went from 89% to 100%. I am now running it down again - before I give it one last chance overnight. If I wake up tomorrow and it is still orange and at 9 of 10 bars then off it goes...
R

Fingers are crossed for you mate! Hope it goes well.

This just gets stranger - after *this* hard reset it now appears to be working as expected - woke up this morning to a green light for the first time!!
So, was this just a software thing - solved by a couple of hard resets - or might there still be a problem lurking underneath???
Problem now is that if I send it back to DW they'll confirm it is working as expected. If I wait and do not send it I run out of the 'return within 7 days for a refund' and will have to reply on HTC aftercare (horror!!).
What to do!!!???
R

I'd still return it but in your RMA notice stipulate that you suspect the problem "seems" fixed but say it might come back again and on that note are still returning it for a replacement/refund.

how to charge htc 8125 with no original usb cable and(or) without orig. wall charger

hi there.
shortly-i have this phone with no orig. usb cable and with no wall charger. it was friend of mine phone actualy. given to me with dead battery (i am not sure but i have trouwn it away long time ago)
first I did was to wait until friends of mine from china had sent to me 2 batteries compitable with the phone. what i discovered is that a normal ordinar usb cable cant charge the phone's battery it only can connect to the pc.
second what i did is this: i found my old charger from a very old panasonic cell phone and had a try to make the charging process with the simply contacting corresponding pinouts of the battery to the +&- of this same charger (somehow i dissasembled the plug of that charger and it became more "comfortable" to get in touch to the pinouts of the specific cingular's battery)
that unordinar way i did discovered that i can charge these batteries even not sure how much appropriate that other brand wall charger is. It seems its pretty much the same as a power characteristics.
Meanwhile (as i dont use this phone) i had some free time to search the net and to have better idea about that strange unordinar power charging matter with that model of a phone. The situation is that i cant find a place nearby me to buy a cheap usb and wall charger and become using this nice device finaly.
And also i dont want to buy these cable things before clearly understand why this happens ..
I did try also to charge this phone with a HTC brand wall charger but no sucsess again cause it seems this wall charger is for other htc phone (even same mini usb plug and same characteristics)
What i need is to have answers by someone very informed about that matter and let me know what exactly is the specific power charging matter (need explanations i mean) with this phone. If sharing some good ideas about how to remake others usb cable or wall charger for geting it work along for me in such a case , i will appreciate this very much
thanks

charge
hi ! please forgive me for my bad english! in this case you can charge your phone in 1 way! you need to procure a motorola or any charger with same socket but attention the charger must have 6 volts and no less than 500 mAh(milli amps)! you cut the wires and one wire put on the + of the battery you will see the signs on the battery an one wire at the - no matter which one. and you need stay with the wires 3 - 4 minutes on the battery ! then you put the battery on the phone it will start and then you cand fully charge it with the usb cable ! good luckk ! i hope my inf will help you!

no
no it doesnt work that way.
what i need is the simple answer : what is so special into the pinouts of htc cingular 8125 wall charger?
thats what i need only. Then I might figure out how to proceed
Thanks anyway

I don't know if anyone else has had trouble doing what I have done, but I've got the Cingular 8125 (HTC Wizard 100), which is also known as the HTC 8125.
1. I bought a car charger at a convenience store for $6 that had the mini-USB plug. It worked like a charm. Never any problem there.
2. I also bought a standard USB to mini-USB cable from the local computer store, because I had lost mine, and it also worked fine for both synchronization and for charging.
3. I bought a second wall charger, buying a standard mini-USB wall charger sold pretty much everywhere cellular phone chargers are sold. It's a common charging port, and this generic worked for me as well.
I'd be interested to hear if anyone has had problems with these types of devices not properly charging the unit.
Even my USB cable for my portable USB hard drive will power my unit.
EDIT: About your problem with it not charging. I had that problem about a year ago, when my battery got extremely old. It wouldn't charge even with the original charger. I just needed a new battery. The batteries get old and stop taking a charge after a certain amount of use. How long this takes depends on how heavily the batteries are used. They, like car batteries, do not last forever.

I had this problem when I had my wiz too. The battery died and drained, and my phone refused to charge it. I took it to an AT&T service center, and they had no clue what the problem was, and they wanted to issue me a replacement (it was a G4, I had a G3, I wasn't about to fiddle with that at the time.) So I asked to borrow a demo device they had there to fix it. I charged my battery on their demo device no problem, got it up to 3%, and finished charging it through my USB cable in the car socket.
It appears to be a sort of one-in-every-few-or-so type condition, but I got hit with it.

seems like noone can tell me if something special inside the mini-USB plug.
i realy cant charge. Very nice device, but i cant make it charging up whit cables.
guys, from up there, say that nothing special about the charging cables, but i trust what i see not what i read.

Perhaps there is a problem with your USB port on the device? USB charging has standards, and all devices that need power from a USB port have the same power pin configuration. Otherwise, they can't call it a USB connection. It would have to be called a proprietary connection, and they would have to change the plug size/dimensions and pins.
If there isn't a problem with your battery (which is the most likely source of your problem), then it may be a loose connection on your USB connector. This happens with a number of devices.
If a sync cable connects to the PC but will not charge the battery, then you definitely have an unusual pin detachment of some sort, or a bad battery.

thanks again..
for pity i was writing a lot to make my recent post and finaly it desapeared cause my session was left.. its funny in some case, but now i just dont want to repeat all what was intended to be posted
i give only the link where you might see why i was assuming that this is a kind of a special matter here with that htc 8125 charging
//pinouts.ru/CellularPhones-A-N/razrv3_charger_pinout.shtml
so, any more help will be appreciated a lot
thanks

SOLVED: HTC Wizard (Cingular 8125) Dead Battery Wont Charge
Dozzen said:
hi ! please forgive me for my bad english! in this case you can charge your phone in 1 way! you need to procure a motorola or any charger with same socket but attention the charger must have 6 volts and no less than 500 mAh(milli amps)! you cut the wires and one wire put on the + of the battery you will see the signs on the battery an one wire at the - no matter which one. and you need stay with the wires 3 - 4 minutes on the battery ! then you put the battery on the phone it will start and then you cand fully charge it with the usb cable ! good luckk ! i hope my inf will help you!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi - Too bad for the OP that asked questions but did not listen to this brilliant post.
I have confirmed that a variation of this method works perfectly! I have an old Cingular 8125 that I have been trying to charge for over a year using various USB chargers and NONE would charge the device.
The reason that this may happen is that the original charger has an output of 1 full amp which is much higher than most chargers. The voltage is the same but you need a charger that can handle such a strong current draw.
Nearly all USB chargers can only handle around 250milliamps - 500milliamps which is about half the power needed to breathe life into a fully discharged battery.
The best solution is to NEVER let the battery fully discharge.
Here are the details of what I did:
1. Find the best match charger of 5-6 DC Volts and ability to put out as close to one amp (1000mA) as possible. I chose an old Sanyo SCP-07ADT that is rated at DC 5.4V at 800mA. The plug can be any type, no need to be USB.
2. Cut the connector off the end of the cable and strip the outer black part up about an inch and then strip the positive and negative (red / black respectively) wires up about a millimeter, just enough to have bare metal ends to touch to a small area.
3. Take your battery out of the phone, look at the back of battery for the + and - marks which correlate to one of the metal connection points on your battery, this is where you will "touch" or "attach" the bare ends of the wires.
4. Plug the charger in making sure not to short your bare leads. Before you do this double check that the OUTPUT of your charger is indeed DC voltage so that you don't hurt yourself. You do not want AC output and it can be dangerous.
Then touch the bare end of the red wire to positive of battery, and black wire to negative terminal of your battery. I held them with my fingers while surfing the web for about five or ten minutes. I had no idea if anything was happening or not but it "felt" like the battery might have gotten just a bit warmer.
5. Unplug the home-made bare wire charger and put battery in your phone. Quickly attach a USB charger or just plug into a USB cable of your computer. I pushed it in and nothing happened at first but finally I heard the standard "bleep" when you plug a USB device in. I knew that I made progress because it never beeped before it took about 30 seconds and several "bleeps" of connecting/disconnecting from USB but eventually the charge light stayed on!
It's been about 30 minutes and I'm up to about 50% charge and been using the phone heavily while charging.
So, in summary... never let your battery discharge below 5% or you can only charge it with an OEM cable rated at 1amp (rare). IF you let it discharge to "dead" then charge for 5-10 minutes with the "wire" method and then charge normally!
Thanks to Dozzen for the original idea!!

Wizard that won't charge
When my Wizard/HTC 8125 goes dead my cure for the battery is to use a 9 volt charger with the wires stripped back also. But, my method is a bit different. I place a standard Christmas Tree light bulb (the newer small ones)in series with the charger wires. Observe the correct polarity. The battery is labeled + and - so that part is easy. By using the small light bulb you are doing 2 things. 1.You can see the slight glow from the bulb and know that proper connection is made. 2. You are limiting the charging current to the battery.
If you get really creative like I did you can solder a couple of small nails or in my case a set of red and black probes to the setup and the points on these nails/probes make for much easier connections. Note.... This method may take a few minutes longer but, is much easier on the battery.
In my experience once the battery is below a certain level NO charger that I plug in will work. I just purchased a used 8125 from eBay and brought it back to life most successfully with this method.

hy there my htc wizard battery whos dead so i charched with a cable with + and - the phone starts but when i try to connect to a usb or a adaptor it doesnt charge anymore it show me the charge icon on the baterry but it doesnt charge the usb works fine it's sync to my pc but it doesnt charge anymore... what sould i do?

So it seems no one touched on what really matters here.
A design flaw, in my opinion. The HTC Wizard cannot recharge via USB unless there is enough power to turn on. The reason is because it requires the OS to charge.
So, what many people already posted are very creative ways to charge your 8125. The easiest and cheapest way, in my opinion, is to use AA batteries.
1) Take two AA batteries and tape together so they are in series. Imagine it like this... [- AA battery #1 +][- AA battery #2 +]
2) Use two wires and tape one to each side of the AA's (one on the + side and another on the other battery's - side since the - of the first battery is connected to the + of the second).
--w-i-r-e--[- AA battery #1 +][- AA battery #2 +]--w-i-r-e--
3) Connect the positive (+) wire to the positive (+) side of the phone. By this I mean the 6 metal pieces that stick out to contact the phone battery. I did it by wrapping the wire around the top most one (or second top most, it's been over a year since I've done this.).
4) Connect the negative (-) wire to the negative (-) side of the phone. Again, bottom most or second bottom most (see #3).
5) Insert phone battery while the wires are still in and connected to the two AAs.
6) Let the power flow for 30 seconds or so and then try turning your phone on. This part is the important part because you cannot use a USB to mini-USB connected to your computer to charge the phone unless the operating system can function. Meaning, it needs to be turned on first.
7) Once the phone is on, plug in the mini-USB part and connect it to a computer. I'd recommend getting at least 5% battery before disconnecting the AAs, seeing as you need to be able to start up your phone long enough for the OS to boot. Once the OS boots, you can fully charge it through a normal USB to mini-USB connection on any computer.

old post but just wanted to say thanks. Used the wire to battery method and got phone turned on after 2 mins of holding wires to battery.