Replacement Battery in 2018!

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Eloquence

Senior Member
Sep 4, 2007
92
27
Baltimore
Gentlemen,

I have successfully swapped out my battery in my Nvidia Shield Tablet K1! I was so excited about doing it! I wanted to get some practice soldering, as this was my first time, so I tried it out while swapping this battery here. I don't think my job was great, just adequate. I'm going to document the process here so that you guys who want to try can benefit. :good:

Without further adieu....:cool:
Since I couldn't post what I wanted to here, I did the write up on Google Photos instead. Here's the link to the pictures and my instructions to go along with them.

Link to gallery of photos + FULL WRITE UP here - https://photos.app.goo.gl/4jlzvnHpoBXwffOn1 :highfive: :D

I'm a little disappointed that the cells don't hold advertised charge. Take a look at my picture here from AccuBattery with the "new" swapped battery installed. It's basically only 83% effective out of the box. :(

Please give me a thumbs :good: up here or send me any gratitude if you felt this post has helped you in anyway. I really like this community. :laugh:
Shoot me any questions you may have on my battery swap on this thread here.

Cheers!
-Elo
 
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jp.esteban

Senior Member
Apr 9, 2012
58
22
Pasig
Updates?

It's been a couple weeks since you posted this battery replacement, how has your tablet held up? Have you noticed if the battery charge levels have regularized, or is it still operating at a lower capacity than advertised? Also, any power quirks to note?
 
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Eloquence

Senior Member
Sep 4, 2007
92
27
Baltimore
It's been a couple weeks since you posted this battery replacement, how has your tablet held up? Have you noticed if the battery charge levels have regularized, or is it still operating at a lower capacity than advertised? Also, any power quirks to note?

Hey JP,

Thanks for the questions. I'd be more than happy to answer them. The tablet has held up great! No weird issues or problems since swapping out the battery. The levels have regularized, as it were, around 81% of stated capacity. That's around 4100mah, so it's still operating at a lower capacity than advertised, unfortunately. No power quirks to note. :good:

I would say, that to anyone who's going to undertake this, it's not worth it unless your battery is about 50-60% of stated value (5100mah). I had about 75% in my old battery and it wasn't worth it to gain only 6% or so. It's so sad that there is no OEM Nvidia Replacement Battery for your Shield Tablet. :(

THat's why I think so many people are selling this tablet now -- the battery is finally giving out after 2-3+ years... The best thing that you can do if you want this tablet to last another 2 years with awesome battery life is to buy another Shield Tablet as "NEW" as you can find it. You might luck out if you can get a used original Shield Tablet that has a B01 battery installed.

That's my two cents anyhow. Kinda sad unfortunately, but the swap is absolutely working well...shame it's just CRAP batteries to replace your nice OEM one with!
-Elo
 

Eloquence

Senior Member
Sep 4, 2007
92
27
Baltimore
The results speak for themselves ?? Unless your battery is completely shot, you're not getting the whole 5100mah. I'm getting about 80% after a month. Not getting any better! Considering selling this tablet for the Huawei Mediapad M5 ... So sad.
 

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ieronymous

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Apr 16, 2014
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0
Hello there

I tried and probably was successful swapping the battery (the good one) with another korean one <<[V071] 3.8V,3.7V 5000mAh [3565153] NTC; Polymer lithium ion / Li-ion battery for tablet pc,POWER BANK,cell phone;GPS>>. The oem one suddenly didn t charge at all.... after a lot of reading decided to order a cheap one to check if battery was the problem.
It shipped two days ago and went straight to an electronic guy i knew for soldering the new battery to the old controller. It came alive!!! Had some problems with the solder since the pads are electropods and need another method with a heating pistol or something. Never the less we solder it . What i ve noticed.....
1. I didn't measure the battery but it lasted the day with gaming.
2. After 20 mins of playing the tablet was way to hot than the previous battery to a point that i couldnt handle it...felt discomfort....the screen was warmer also.
3.Battery went to 10% and that s it.Since then i cant charge it anymore...stays at 10%

Do you think its a problem with the battery board and as many batteries i change ill have the same result?

Thnakyou in advance
 

naberius.com

New member
Jan 27, 2019
1
1
OG Shield Tablet

First: Thanks for the tutorial! The photography/documentation was very helpful and allowed me to do my own swap.

I decided to try the same surgery on my OG (pyro) Shield Tablet; The battery capacity had fallen to about 2000mah and it was starting to run a bit hot so... it was time.

I used a combination of your notes and a YouTube video found at...
(can't post external links on new accounts, but the video is called "How To - Nvidia Shield Tablet Battery Swap")

Notes

I used a new-old-stock Padphone battery, Asus branded, labelled 5100mah @ 3.75v

The white "whatever module" found on the positive lead on the K1 is found on the negative side on the OG. Still need to keep it, but keep it on the negative side.

Snipping the battery leads (rather than prying them off) from the original battery<->control board gives you more/longer material to work with (such that you don't need extra wires). Effectively this gives the controller board longish "tabs" of its own to bridge the connection.

The metal lead sandwich is a little trickier (than wires) in terms of soldering jobs; definitely not my best work. Liquid flux helped a lot here.

Capacity is still working itself out (going to need a few full discharges) but it looks like it's going to come in around the 3800-4000mah mark; Not bad for a battery that has probably been sitting on a shelf for years.

That's about it. Everything else went fine.

Agreed on difficulty in prying off tabs - Getting the leads/tabs pried off the new battery's control board is a brutal task. I wonder if, with the longer tabs (created by stealing them from the old battery), one could just snip-off the new battery's board... and still have enough material to make the bridge (just over top of the welded-on tab remnants). Didn't think of that at the time... No reason for it not to work.

Anyway, thanks again for the guide!
 
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Mar 21, 2019
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No offense but man your soldering is awful! :p

Your photos were exactly what I needed to find a battery though! Here's a link to it on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01DM29PTY/ref=ppx_od_dt_b_asin_title_s00

I just cut the tabs off the old battery to make it easier to work with the control board. The tabs are spot welded to small metal plates that are then soldered to the PCB. You can very carefully rip the left over tabs off then you can easily desolder the left over metal tabs leaving just the clean PCB to solder the new battery tabs to. The correct tool is a heat gun (Rework Station), but I don't have one so I managed with a soldering iron. (I managed to change the charging port with the same soldering iron, that was a *****)

The 'Unknown white thing" is a Thermal cutoff. If it gets too hot it opens, disconnecting the battery from the device. I posted a link to a replacement as a comment to the photo on google.

Note: The device did not turn on until I plugged the charger in. Apparently the control board needs the input to switch on the battery.

Thank you. We've had our K1 for several years now and to replace it with one as powerful isn't cheap. The whole family uses it for playing games and watching videos.
 
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Alden Andrade

Member
Apr 30, 2014
25
2
Pilerne, Goa
It's great to see that people are successfully doing this. Main thing is keeping that board in good condition, else all is lost, the tablet will not boot up. It's also sad to see that no tablet out there except maybe the iPads can walk toe to toe with the shield tablet performance wise. But I'm looking for a replacement and would love to know if I'm wrong...
 
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Rsm61

New member
Apr 12, 2019
1
1
I've got a shield tablet I bought about 4 years ago, and it's still going strong. But for you guys looking for a good replacement, I bought a Huawei M5, and it's the best tablet I've ever had. Much faster and more powerful than my K1. The last time I saw a brand new K1 for sale, the price was $500 U.S. Theyre nice, but... But I do have three old nexus tablets that need new batteries, so this info goes a long way in helping for those as well. Thanks
 
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Eloquence

Senior Member
Sep 4, 2007
92
27
Baltimore
There are a couple options

It's great to see that people are successfully doing this. Main thing is keeping that board in good condition, else all is lost, the tablet will not boot up. It's also sad to see that no tablet out there except maybe the iPads can walk toe to toe with the shield tablet performance wise. But I'm looking for a replacement and would love to know if I'm wrong...

Great to see some people still getting benefit from this tutorial! A lot has changed for me and "tablet" Android gaming over the past year. Basically my journey went like this - Nvidia Tablet K1 => Huawei Mediapad M5 => Honor Note 10 => Huawei Mate 20X.

Now I love the 8" form-factor, but couldn't find the power to play all games that I wanted for several years to come. I could have gone with the Xiaomi Mi4, but it was a little slower (in RAW processing power) than even the Mediapad M5. I like the Kirin set of chipsets, even if their GPUs aren't as great as NVidia's or Snapdragon's, but they have great optimization for their hardware.

Also the Mate 20X is a little more portable while still having a "somewhat" big screen compared to the tablets. If I was really hardcore about gaming on a tablet, there's little reason *NOT* to go to Apple, as they JUST refreshed the iPad Mini, but I love Android too much to ever consider doing that ;)

Anyhow, I'll wrap up this long post saying the main reasons I switched, even though the Shield Tablet K1 was one of the best Tablets I have ever owned -- It came down to battery life. I couldn't get more than 2.5 hours of screen on time for most games, whether they were through GRID, native Android, or emulation. My Huawei Mate 20X gets about 9 hours of screen on time while gaming, and that's on a BAD day (most time I get like 10 hours or so). So, a massive 5000 mAH battery with a 7" inch screen is a win for me, while the processor is super fast, and the screen is good. Plus, being able to play certain games on the Play Store (like Final Fantasy XV Pocket Edition) that I couldn't on the Shield Tablet K1, was awesome. That's why I left the Shield Tablet behind. :crying:

Enjoy those Tabs while you can! Shame that Samsung discontinue the Galaxy Tab S series 8.4 inch devices... would've bought that instead last year. :cool:
-Elo
 

drarbo1

Member
Feb 4, 2019
18
3
I changed mine out as well. Found a comparable sized 6000mah battery, 3.8v, on AliExpress. It still says it's a 5100mah on cpu-z as I reused the old battery's circuit board, which I assume tells the device what it is. Not sure if I see a great increase but it is up and working. No heat issues, other than gaming which it always got warm gaming something like Half Life or Oddworld.
 
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bigcletus

Senior Member
Feb 13, 2008
336
34
I changed mine out as well. Found a comparable sized 6000mah battery, 3.8v, on AliExpress. It still says it's a 5100mah on cpu-z as I reused the old battery's circuit board, which I assume tells the device what it is. Not sure if I see a great increase but it is up and working. No heat issues, other than gaming which it always got warm gaming something like Half Life or Oddworld.

How as your battery life been since the replacement compared to stock? I think my original battery is starting to fade, it gets relatively hot and loses charge fast now on the original battery. Do you have a link to the one you installed? Thanks.
 

drarbo1

Member
Feb 4, 2019
18
3
How as your battery life been since the replacement compared to stock? I think my original battery is starting to fade, it gets relatively hot and loses charge fast now on the original battery. Do you have a link to the one you installed? Thanks.

I bought this one, https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32807442206.html?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.78584c4dqP3CHO. I really can't say I was super impressed but it's not dying fast, which I believe it was. I took it and my son's, he almost never used his but just about as old, we have the original models with the stylus, anyway I put them side by side with the same 24 hour rain YouTube video and they lasted about exactly the same. I can't remember how many hours of that YouTube play they lasted, maybe around 5-6 hours straight. It's been a while since I did that experiment.

---------- Post added at 03:42 AM ---------- Previous post was at 02:53 AM ----------

There are two connections from the original battery to the battery logic board. I pried them off and just soldered the two leads from the AliExpress batt and used some tape to keep it in place. Plenty room for this new batt. I did not dissect the new batt to remove the board it comes with. The tablet does get warm gaming more intensive games, but not unlike it did prior to the batt swap. Pretty much the back gets warm but I'm not sure that's the batt or the processor. I did see some heat sync paste back there but no real metal for it to dissipate to. Doesn't get any warmer than my LTE model I haven't changed the batt on.

---------- Post added at 03:48 AM ---------- Previous post was at 03:42 AM ----------

And when I swapped the batt I had to plug the power cord in to get it to come on. Then I unplugged it to completely drain the batt. I read somewhere to do that the first time then recharge, leaving it for a good day. I still go in my settings and select no more than one background process and a custom power setting with 1 to 4 cores, 1 when there's little demand, and I think I limit my fps to 30, without looking. I'm writing from the very tablet now.
 

Snah001

Senior Member
Jun 3, 2006
2,146
1,694
Netherlands
I bought this one, https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32807442206.html?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.78584c4dqP3CHO. I really can't say I was super impressed but it's not dying fast, which I believe it was. I took it and my son's, he almost never used his but just about as old, we have the original models with the stylus, anyway I put them side by side with the same 24 hour rain YouTube video and they lasted about exactly the same. I can't remember how many hours of that YouTube play they lasted, maybe around 5-6 hours straight. It's been a while since I did that experiment.

---------- Post added at 03:42 AM ---------- Previous post was at 02:53 AM ----------

There are two connections from the original battery to the battery logic board. I pried them off and just soldered the two leads from the AliExpress batt and used some tape to keep it in place. Plenty room for this new batt. I did not dissect the new batt to remove the board it comes with. The tablet does get warm gaming more intensive games, but not unlike it did prior to the batt swap. Pretty much the back gets warm but I'm not sure that's the batt or the processor. I did see some heat sync paste back there but no real metal for it to dissipate to. Doesn't get any warmer than my LTE model I haven't changed the batt on.

---------- Post added at 03:48 AM ---------- Previous post was at 03:42 AM ----------

And when I swapped the batt I had to plug the power cord in to get it to come on. Then I unplugged it to completely drain the batt. I read somewhere to do that the first time then recharge, leaving it for a good day. I still go in my settings and select no more than one background process and a custom power setting with 1 to 4 cores, 1 when there's little demand, and I think I limit my fps to 30, without looking. I'm writing from the very tablet now.

I ordered this battery 2x a week ago because I have 2 original Shields and waiting for delivery now.
Will report here after I swapped the original battery for this one.
 

drarbo1

Member
Feb 4, 2019
18
3
Yeah, I saw someone on eBay selling that very battery for over $30. Probably buys them like I did and sells them for more on eBay.

---------- Post added at 02:24 AM ---------- Previous post was at 02:20 AM ----------

I'd say that the most important item in that tablet, if it is inoperable, would be that battery logic or protection board. It has 4 wires which I might know what three of them are for but not the fourth. I think a green wire. And because I reused that battery board, it will still show up to the tablet as a 5100mah battery, no matter the size you connect to it.
 

Snah001

Senior Member
Jun 3, 2006
2,146
1,694
Netherlands
I replaced the battery (the one that was posted above from Aliexpress) of one of my Shield Tablets and it fits nice.
Only precaution you must take when removing the back is that there is a flatcable connection between tablet and back for the stylus recognition.
When it breaks no big issue just the stylus is not activated anymore when you remove its from the storageplace.

Also it is a delicate job to remove the small circuitboard on top of the battery because it is very tight packed with sealtape.
Don't desolder the 4 wires going to that board and just remove the board very carefully from the top of the battery.by cutting the 2 connections to the battery itself.
On the circuitboard it is written B+ for the red wire from the new battery and B- for the black wire.
Ré-attach the new wires from the new battery to the 2 terminals and wrap them preferably with shrinksleeves.
You can then store the circuitboard next to the new battery and cover it with duct tape or something like that.
Then press the back gently back to the tablet and done.
I paid USD 22,50 for 2 batteries including shipment.
 
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visage01

New member
May 3, 2020
1
0
I replaced the battery (the one that was posted above from Aliexpress) of one of my Shield Tablets and it fits nice.
Only precaution you must take when removing the back is that there is a flatcable connection between tablet and back for the stylus recognition.
When it breaks no big issue just the stylus is not activated anymore when you remove its from the storageplace.

Also it is a delicate job to remove the small circuitboard on top of the battery because it is very tight packed with sealtape.
Don't desolder the 4 wires going to that board and just remove the board very carefully from the top of the battery.by cutting the 2 connections to the battery itself.
On the circuitboard it is written B+ for the red wire from the new battery and B- for the black wire.
Ré-attach the new wires from the new battery to the 2 terminals and wrap them preferably with shrinksleeves.
You can then store the circuitboard next to the new battery and cover it with duct tape or something like that.
Then press the back gently back to the tablet and done.
I paid USD 22,50 for 2 batteries including shipment.

I want to replace the battery but I have problems with opening my tablet. How do I fix it?
Sorry, the answer was earlier given in this forum...
 
Last edited:

droidan10

New member
Jun 4, 2020
2
1
[/COLOR]I'd say that the most important item in that tablet, if it is inoperable, would be that battery logic or protection board. It has 4 wires which I might know what three of them are for but not the fourth. I think a green wire. And because I reused that battery board, it will still show up to the tablet as a 5100mah battery, no matter the size you connect to it.

I was wondering what those 2 other smaller wires are too. Must be for data only based on the small gauge.

What will the small grey wire be that you have an idea about?

I'm looking into getting rid of the battery altogether to run my K1 off USB power only. Battery had always been the K1's weakness. From the original battery getting recalled, to the crappy battery life even on my updated ST8 model battery, to running hot all the time, and now my ST8 battery is bloated too and looks pretty shady. I'm not sure I want to replace the battery anymore and looking for solutions to go plug in USB power only.
 
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    Gentlemen,

    I have successfully swapped out my battery in my Nvidia Shield Tablet K1! I was so excited about doing it! I wanted to get some practice soldering, as this was my first time, so I tried it out while swapping this battery here. I don't think my job was great, just adequate. I'm going to document the process here so that you guys who want to try can benefit. :good:

    Without further adieu....:cool:
    Since I couldn't post what I wanted to here, I did the write up on Google Photos instead. Here's the link to the pictures and my instructions to go along with them.

    Link to gallery of photos + FULL WRITE UP here - https://photos.app.goo.gl/4jlzvnHpoBXwffOn1 :highfive: :D

    I'm a little disappointed that the cells don't hold advertised charge. Take a look at my picture here from AccuBattery with the "new" swapped battery installed. It's basically only 83% effective out of the box. :(

    Please give me a thumbs :good: up here or send me any gratitude if you felt this post has helped you in anyway. I really like this community. :laugh:
    Shoot me any questions you may have on my battery swap on this thread here.

    Cheers!
    -Elo
    2
    Updates?

    It's been a couple weeks since you posted this battery replacement, how has your tablet held up? Have you noticed if the battery charge levels have regularized, or is it still operating at a lower capacity than advertised? Also, any power quirks to note?
    2
    It's been a couple weeks since you posted this battery replacement, how has your tablet held up? Have you noticed if the battery charge levels have regularized, or is it still operating at a lower capacity than advertised? Also, any power quirks to note?

    Hey JP,

    Thanks for the questions. I'd be more than happy to answer them. The tablet has held up great! No weird issues or problems since swapping out the battery. The levels have regularized, as it were, around 81% of stated capacity. That's around 4100mah, so it's still operating at a lower capacity than advertised, unfortunately. No power quirks to note. :good:

    I would say, that to anyone who's going to undertake this, it's not worth it unless your battery is about 50-60% of stated value (5100mah). I had about 75% in my old battery and it wasn't worth it to gain only 6% or so. It's so sad that there is no OEM Nvidia Replacement Battery for your Shield Tablet. :(

    THat's why I think so many people are selling this tablet now -- the battery is finally giving out after 2-3+ years... The best thing that you can do if you want this tablet to last another 2 years with awesome battery life is to buy another Shield Tablet as "NEW" as you can find it. You might luck out if you can get a used original Shield Tablet that has a B01 battery installed.

    That's my two cents anyhow. Kinda sad unfortunately, but the swap is absolutely working well...shame it's just CRAP batteries to replace your nice OEM one with!
    -Elo
    2
    A quick update- removed the charging circuit and barely managed to solder wires to the battery contacts. As expected, the charging circuit was the issue. You can see from the pictures, it looks tiny and probably lacks a lot of chips. Now with the battery directly wired to the shield tablet charging circuit it supports peak performance and works as intended. Being 3.7v instead of 3.8 doesn't seem to matter, that is another thing I learnt from the temporary prestigio battery which was also 3.7v.

    A quick side note-I'm not proud of that shield charging circuit placement as it's close to the cpu and the battery temp sensor will report slightly higher temps that usual.

    Capacity is far from the promised 5400mah, at ~4000mah. I would have been happier if it was a bit more, like ~4500mah but I guess this will do. With moderate usage,-watching youtube, anime in browser, chatting, web browsing at ~60% brightness it lasted from 100% to shut down 4 hours and 15 mins, which I consider acceptable now. I'll keep monitoring it, maybe the capacity will improve with time, although tbh I doubt that.

    Maybe for someone else seriously looking for a battery replacement it's worth purchasing a BM51 battery from Mi Max 3, Nohon ones from aliexpress are apparently good quality. I would have probably done that but I didn't feel like risking again by soldering wires to the bare battery contacts(which I ended up doing anyway). My soldering iron is pretty crappy and that is also likely a part of the problem.
    Edit: I was thinking now, it is actually not well documented whether the BM51 battery will work in full capacity or not, looking at 4pda forum with translator for source feedback. That battery is intended with a 4.4V charge limit but the shield circuit will only charge it to 4.2V, so I wouldn't be surprised if in reality it isn't much better. Still worth the shot, I doubt that it would be worse than a dodgy generic battery.
    I appreciate your research on this because I have struggled with whether to replace the battery in these as well. What's working for me right now is using the official WIFI edition stock rom on both the K1 and the shield LTE. The battery life on both these has vastly improved by doing this and disabling all "unnecessary" notifications , Google background sync, high accuracy location and WIFI scanning. I agree that NVIDIA really made a poor choice with this battery and they are on the brink of becoming e-waste as a result. Luckily these are still very viable as there are work arounds and custom roms available . I have written NVIDIA several times now about possibly release one last android update for these as they eventually will become incompatible with Google Play API's/ Services.

    It's weird though, these are still some of the best gaming tablets ever made. The sound is incredible and I've been able to get all the major cloud gaming services to run on them. The Shield portable is also still a daily driver for me as a handheld.
    2
    I changed mine out as well. Found a comparable sized 6000mah battery, 3.8v, on AliExpress. It still says it's a 5100mah on cpu-z as I reused the old battery's circuit board, which I assume tells the device what it is. Not sure if I see a great increase but it is up and working. No heat issues, other than gaming which it always got warm gaming something like Half Life or Oddworld.

    How as your battery life been since the replacement compared to stock? I think my original battery is starting to fade, it gets relatively hot and loses charge fast now on the original battery. Do you have a link to the one you installed? Thanks.