A few months ago, I noticed that the screen on my Galaxy Note 4 had come unglued along one edge. Yesterday, I finally got curious about it and popped the back off, to discover that the battery had puffed up to perhaps double its proper thickness. Then I opened my old Note 2 and found that its battery had also puffed up, but not as much.

Has anyone else experienced this? Or even heard of it?

In the absence of other evidence, I'm afraid my conclusion must be that this was caused by excessive heat from being plugged in and crunching most of the time.

Some time soon, I'm going to have to stop crunching with the Note 4, and then get a new battery and have the case glued back together. I opened the Boinc prefs and turned down the maximum battery temp from 40C to 35, but unless batteries are a lot cheaper than I expect, I don't want to risk it happening again.

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David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

I haven't had that issue with my Galaxy S4 after ~2.5 years. However replacement batteries are pretty cheap these days.

A new battery directly from Samsung for the Note 4 is $25, or as low as $15 on Amazon.

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Thanks, guys. I guess I should have Googled the issue.

I did discover after I posted just how surprisingly cheap batteries are. I could even get a double capacity for $35.

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David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

Hmmm.....

I used to have a car charger from some device or other that could not keep up with crunching and also keeping the display on for the GPS app. Last October, the connector on that charger failed and I bought a new one, the cheapo they sell at the checkout desk at Micro Center. It is able to keep up with demand; I figured it had better internal electronics. However... I can't make a positive cause-effect relationship, but I'm sure it was after I got that new charger that the screen popped off.

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David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

Hmmm.....

I used to have a car charger from some device or other that could not keep up with crunching and also keeping the display on for the GPS app. Last October, the connector on that charger failed and I bought a new one, the cheapo they sell at the checkout desk at Micro Center. It is able to keep up with demand; I figured it had better internal electronics. However... I can't make a positive cause-effect relationship, but I'm sure it was after I got that new charger that the screen popped off.

Devices that support the USB charging specification can request more than 500mA from a compatible charger. If the charger doesn't respond to the request then the device will only draw 500mA.

Fast charging does cause more wear on a battery than slow charging. That is just the nature of batteries. Leaving a device constantly plugged in will also cause more wear from mirco charge cycles.

When I eventually replace my S4 with a new phone I'll probably see if I can leave it plugged in running without the battery. So that I won't have to worry about any of those issues.

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Hmmm.....

I used to have a car charger from some device or other that could not keep up with crunching and also keeping the display on for the GPS app. Last October, the connector on that charger failed and I bought a new one, the cheapo they sell at the checkout desk at Micro Center. It is able to keep up with demand; I figured it had better internal electronics. However... I can't make a positive cause-effect relationship, but I'm sure it was after I got that new charger that the screen popped off.

Devices that support the USB charging specification can request more than 500mA from a compatible charger. If the charger doesn't respond to the request then the device will only draw 500mA.

Fast charging does cause more wear on a battery than slow charging. That is just the nature of batteries. Leaving a device constantly plugged in will also cause more wear from mirco charge cycles.

Both reasons why I will probably stop crunching with it.

When I eventually replace my S4 with a new phone I'll probably see if I can leave it plugged in running without the battery. So that I won't have to worry about any of those issues.

Probably not.

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David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

I also have a Note 4, although I don't crunch with it. What i did read over the last year, is the lithium batteries don't mind being charged and discharged, but become stressed plugged in all the time. This doesn't seem to happen with laptop batteries, but I have destroyed several camera and two way radio batteries just leaving them plugged in for a week. On the other hand, I have a DeWalt screw gun, and both of it's power packs can be plugged in for years without damage. The articles I have read, focus on phone batteries, and the firmware inside them. The firmware is supposed to limit over charging, but may not always work. From my destruction of the camera and radio batteries, I would say that the articles I have read were correct. Now, I charge the batteries, and then let them sit until needed, and I have had no further problems. I have replaced my wireless home phone batteries numerous times, as I expect to get about 6 months out of them.

For my Note 4, I keep 4 batteries ready to go at all times. When I think one is getting stressed, I throw it away, and use another.

Steve

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Warning, addicted to SETI crunching!
Crunching as a member of GPU Users Group.
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I also have a Note 4, although I don't crunch with it. What i did read over the last year, is the lithium batteries don't mind being charged and discharged, but become stressed plugged in all the time. This doesn't seem to happen with laptop batteries, but I have destroyed several camera and two way radio batteries just leaving them plugged in for a week. On the other hand, I have a DeWalt screw gun, and both of it's power packs can be plugged in for years without damage. The articles I have read, focus on phone batteries, and the firmware inside them. The firmware is supposed to limit over charging, but may not always work. From my destruction of the camera and radio batteries, I would say that the articles I have read were correct. Now, I charge the batteries, and then let them sit until needed, and I have had no further problems. I have replaced my wireless home phone batteries numerous times, as I expect to get about 6 months out of them.

For my Note 4, I keep 4 batteries ready to go at all times. When I think one is getting stressed, I throw it away, and use another.

Steve

My preferred method to run BOINC on my phone is:
Set the min battery level in BOINC to 30%.
Let tasks run until the battery gets low enough that BOINC stops.
Set the min battery level in BOINC to 100%.
Connect to a standard 500mA charge port.
When the battery is charged. Set the min battery level in BOINC to 30%.

I will leave my phone connected overnight to a fast charge port so it is fully charged when I get up. Sometimes over the weekend it may stay plugged in if I'm not going out.

When I first got the S4 I did some testing running while connected to a standard USB port. I would get more run time, but I wasn't sure if this was causing extra stress to the battery. So I stopped doing that.

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