Signal Strength vs Battery Life - Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Hey all
I get pretty bad signal on my SGS. I live in NZ and am with 2Degrees and my average signal strength at home is -90dBm to -101 dBm. While at work it ranges from -97 to -113dBm. I know this is quite a bad signal and it pretty much never gets any better. I have tried several modems including XXJPY, XXJQ1, BUJP5, ZSJPE and they all appear to be very similar.
I think this affects my battery life as I have never had more than ~24hrs battery life even with 3g disabled for most of the day. I currently use JuiceDefender set to enable data for 1min every 15mins and only get ~12 hours out of my battery (with 2 hours of screen usage). When I check my battery usage stats screen usage is always above 90%
Is this typical or am I doing something wrong?
If you want to know my config I'm running Doc's XWJS8 2.2.1 with Speedmod K13E kernel. Auto brightness, 3g on, Wifi turns off when not connected (juicedefender does this), and I have facebook/twitter updating hourly.

Bump
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App

Try UGJL2, worked well for me in Melbourne Australia,. I am now trying XXJVO.

I thought UGL2 was 850mhz

lokhor said:
Hey all
I get pretty bad signal on my SGS. I live in NZ and am with 2Degrees and my average signal strength at home is -90dBm to -101 dBm. While at work it ranges from -97 to -113dBm. I know this is quite a bad signal and it pretty much never gets any better. I have tried several modems including XXJPY, XXJQ1, BUJP5, ZSJPE and they all appear to be very similar.
I think this affects my battery life as I have never had more than ~24hrs battery life even with 3g disabled for most of the day. I currently use JuiceDefender set to enable data for 1min every 15mins and only get ~12 hours out of my battery (with 2 hours of screen usage). When I check my battery usage stats screen usage is always above 90%
Is this typical or am I doing something wrong?
If you want to know my config I'm running Doc's XWJS8 2.2.1 with Speedmod K13E kernel. Auto brightness, 3g on, Wifi turns off when not connected (juicedefender does this), and I have facebook/twitter updating hourly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not sure about signal strength - although I know at my home office it is bad - 2 bars (will read it and update this post) - but I get similar battery performance - even screen power use percentage. I am not running Juicedefender btw and wifi is running. At least you added or are aware that 3G operation and signal strength affects modem power , wish more persons did.
Oh I am running on 850MHz most of the time and yes JL2 is 850 capable.

Related

[Q] Why does my Battery get sucked so much?

Hi there. Ive had my Nexus One for nearly a month. I barely use it but ive noticed that the battery goes down EXTREMELY fast. Looking at it right now, it says it has been unplugged for 13 hours, 11minutes, 54 seconds with 28% of battery left. Earlier today I was at 4 hours something with 48% left.
It says Cell Standby is using 35%, Phone Idle using 33%. Thats 68% of my battery and all my phone really does it sit on the desk next to me.
Why is it like this? Also, how can i make it last longer?
Thanks for all the help
Sounds like you are in a spotty coverage area. That explains why the Cell Standby is using so much battery trying to hang on to the 3G connection.
How many bars do you have? and which N1 model is it? TMO or AT&T?
Also do you use wifi?
Hi there Thanks for the reply . I actually turned my 3G off, and now just running on a 2G conection. I thought maybe it was trying to connect to 3G heaps and that was chomping through my battery. With my 2g connection right now I have full connection. Im pretty sure with 3G I was the same, maybe 1 or 2 less.
I do use Wifi, however I turned that off. Also, I live in New Zealand not America so I dont have AT&T - Not sure what TMO is.
He's referring to the version of the Nexus that you have. AT&T or T-mobile, and is a reference to the frequencies that are used, not the actual company,
Ahh ok Thanks. 900/2100 UMTS
I think you are confused about those numbers, those numbers are the amount of battery each item takes up. So Your cell standby takes up 38% of each instant your battery is running. It did not take 38% of your battery. Wifi is significatly better on battery then 2g or 3g, i would advise always use wifi when you can.
Are you using exchange push? 2.2 has a bug that if you are not rooted on a new rom can create this rapid battery drain on exchange.
I recommend getting os monitor and seeing what is taking up the load.
Sent from my Nexus One using Tapatalk
This sounds really similar to what was happening to me the first week with my N1. Cell Stand by was my biggest battery killer. A few posts above has it correct.
Ironically, by turning off wifi in an attempt to save battery I caused my phone to use the cell antenna which uses more power, and takes longer to complete each task. I now leave wifi on whenever I am near my routers, and even most of the time when I am not.
Turning off live wallpapers and disabling auto updates on social networking apps can also be a big help.
Run a few 24 hour tests changing some of those factors, but generally, think about wifi as a battery saver and you should get a bit better results. Your not using exchange right?
Yep. Wifi should be a priority over network connection. Make sure you also change the wifi sleep policy to "never" (settings > wireless & networks > wifi settings > hit menu button > advanced > wifi sleep policy > never).
Also I would double check the APN settings to make sure you are using the best/latest settings for your carrier. (settings > wireless & networks > mobile networks > access point names) Make sure the one selected matches the recommended settings for your carrier (you need to call your carrier or google the settings).
Other than that, maybe a reboot would help? pull and reinsert battery?
Hope that helps.
Ok Thanks for all the replies. I dont have any push notifications set to automatically update and I dont use any social networking apps. Ill turn Wi-Fi on now and even though I set it to "never" sleep - it still does when I lock the screen...but thats another problem .
Im not using any exchange push, not even sure what that is.
Cheers
Yes keep WiFi on will save you an enormous amount of battery, no question. The difference is huge for me. And your WiFi sleep policy should be set to never. If you have the bug where this setting does not work, then that stinks and you could install the new driver that fixes it. But for now you would need to be rooted until the fix is official.
I have now enabled Wi-Fi and put 3G back on. However my battery is still draining fast. It now says my Wi-Fi is using up 30+% of my battery. Im losing about 8-10% of battery every hour - Im pretty sure that isnt normal?
The other place to check is: settings->applications->running services.
See if there is something in there that you don't think should be running. Your display should be using the most battery, so it sounds like something is running automatically.
melwan said:
Yep. Wifi should be a priority over network connection. Make sure you also change the wifi sleep policy to "never" (settings > wireless & networks > wifi settings > hit menu button > advanced > wifi sleep policy > never).
Also I would double check the APN settings to make sure you are using the best/latest settings for your carrier. (settings > wireless & networks > mobile networks > access point names) Make sure the one selected matches the recommended settings for your carrier (you need to call your carrier or google the settings).
Other than that, maybe a reboot would help? pull and reinsert battery?
Hope that helps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i have a similar problem with my battery i see that your on fido network like me whats the apn setting your using?
@adambenjamin: Thanks had a look. Everything that is running I want running, nothing that shouldnt be there.
@d.brown: Whats a fido network? I live in New Zealand, your flag is showing Canada - so we arent on the same network?
@everyone: So just a little update/recap. Basically my battery gets drained quite fast. Basically all my phone does is sit on the table next to me. I might send 5 or less texts a day, thats it - That will be all I do with my phone. I DONT have any push updates, no social networking. I have my brightness down to the lowest it can go.
I am on 3G, have set Wi-Fi to "never" sleep (However it does anyway).
Right now my phone has been unplugged from being charged for 8hours 24 minutes with only 45% of the battery left - I have sent two texts today and thats the ONLY time I have used my phone. My display is using 31%, Cell Standby 27% and phone idle 24% = 82%
Something I have changed recently is going from one network to another. The network I was one of the two biggest in my country (Which means it has alot of towers). I changed to another network which has been going for just over a year (Less towers). Could my battery be running down faster than normal because its harder to find a signal than before?
Also, my signal strength is -107dBm 4 asu (Absoloutley no idea what that means, but might be valuable to somebody out there who can help)
Thanks for all the help
Switch to GSM Auto (PRL) instead of WCDMA Auto. this helped battery life immensely for me. i can get to around 20 hours of moderate use usually
edit: to do this, you'll have to make a shortcut to the "phone info" activity using anycut or bettercut or another shortcut app.
once in "Phone Info", there's a drop down where you can select gsm auto (prl)
Dunno if it was mentioned, get OSMonitor (free from market) and see if Email.apk is stuck at full cpu load. It's been a problem since 2.1, it does that sometimes. If it's at more than 10%, kill it and re-launch it.
Hmm well strangley my Battery seems to be alot better now. Been on for 1day, 15hours, 23minutes and its on 73% remaining. Before it would last like 15 at most and be out. All I did was Turn W-Fi back on. Thanks everybody for there help
Been having the same issues as you, it's kinda getting annoying now.
I'm pretty much the same as you. I'll send a couple of texts a day or so, then put the phone to sleep and leave it for a couple of hours etc. No continuous usage.
From say, 8am till 9pm, I'm left with under 20% left, after EXTREMELY light usage. Sending a couple of texts and turning the screen on to check the time a few times shouldn't even be considered usage at all!
I'm just a bit envious of others who claim 2-3 days with light net browsing, a few texts etc. Thats more than me, yet they use less power.
On top of that, I'm running CM6 which includes an undervolted kernel a.k.a less power usage....ummm?
I've tried everything!
1) I've underclocked to max 384mhz when the screen is off (960 max when screen is on)
2) Wifi is usually left on
3) Data is usually turned off
4) No rogue apps detected
^
At the end of each day I check "Spare Parts" in my battery history to try and find an app that is using an abnormal amount of battery...Everythings fine.
5) Under "running services" all there is are my widget services (none data-related. eg Set Cpu widget, battery widget, Fancy Widget)
6) The screen is on auto brightness
7) Sync is off
8) GSM Auto is set instead of WCDMA preferred.
Everything!
I'm pretty much limiting the use of the phone just to make it through the day on standby.
And please, don't accuse me of someone complaining about their 12 hours, 32 minutes of "light usage" (6 hours web browsing, sync turned on, 4 hours of Angry Birds,constant calling/emailing)
I used to be able to leave my phone overnight for 8-9 hours and only have the battery go down 5-6 percent. Now its triple or more. And frustrating.
I really can't think of anything else.
From my experience, when I was running CM6 RC1, I was getting about 2 day's battery life with pershoots (pre-720p) 2.35 uv oc kernal. After upgrading to RC2, I no longer got good battery life, and I tried everything I know of with little luck.
I decided to try a new ROM and kernel. Now I am using Geo's frf91 stock deodexed blackbar v6.1 with the Stock kernel. This is now my favorite ROM/kernel combination. Try that one out and see how you run at stock levels, then maybe flash a new kernel if you want. Pershot, and Wildmonk are the local favorites, but I found them to leave me with sporadic overheating/ touch screen or reboot to X screen glitches. I would try a few days away from CM, to at least isolate some variables.
What version of CM6 are you running?

battery life question

There is a lot of conflicting info about Wifi vs 3g.
Which is better to use in term of saving battery?
Does Signal strength of either affect battery life?
IF using wifi, should you have it to always on ( when in wifi zone of course) or should you have it set to sleep when screens off?
I've done testing on that and I've noticed that when using the phone in long intervals, its better to disable connections but when using the phone in frequent bursts it's better to just leave it on. But this is when you are in wifi range the entire time.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App
I typically have my wifi (and 3g) disable itself when the screen goes off. It seems to restore very quickly. I use Juice Defender (in market) to manage this, which I believe does a pretty good job improving battery life.
wbcollins said:
I typically have my wifi (and 3g) disable itself when the screen goes off. It seems to restore very quickly. I use Juice Defender (in market) to manage this, which I believe does a pretty good job improving battery life.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Completely agree, some people say juice defender drains your battery, but don't believe them haha
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App
with the whole jD controversy. I'm assuming it has to do with how often the phone is coming out of sleep. If your using your phone every 5 or ten minuets a day then JD probably is going to use more battery then not having it vs lets say you let your phone sleep for half an hour or hours at a time...
Turning a car on and off ( im assuming) takes more gas then letting it run for a few minuets ( correct me if im wrong, but its just an analogy ;] ) but leaving your car run for a hour because your going to use it ina bit isnt effective at all.
Agreed that turning off networking when not needed (Wifi or 3g) will help battery life.
Signal strength of 3G and Wifi will impact battery life, as both protocols will adjust the power when the signal strength is high - low. Your phone will also crank up the power when the signal for basic voice service is weak to keep you connected.
I think over the course of a day at work, juice defender pays off. You can use it in lots of different ways, though the interface is a little clumsy. It also helps me, with help from juice plotter, to determine if my data connections are indeed staying off when I want them to or consuming more energy than they should. When my phone is in my pocket, I don't want it doing much.
can anyone get into more detail about the question at hand?
as in what is better then what .
2 wifi bars better then 2 3g bars?
which uses LESS power ?
IMO, i would say wifi uses less power since the signal doesn't need to travel far to get to your access point vs a 3G signal that needs to go a mile to get to the cell tower. But I'm not an electrical engineer so take it for what it's worth. I leave wifi enabled and use JuiceDefender to turn it on and off as needed. I'm more concerned about data usage since for me wifi is unlimited and 3G is not.
most ISPs limit Bandwidth to 250GB a month. so its not unlimited... so try to stay under that ;]
My experience, turn off wifi is better for bettery life. The battery level almost constant when the wifi is off. The level drop about 2-4% Per hours if wifi is on.
Sent from my cappy.
If you leave wifi on when you're not connected, it drains a lot of battery.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using Tapatalk

[LOG] Battery drainage on O2X

Since everybody has some problems with battery drainage i thought it would be usefull if everybody posts his or her battery stats after some time so we can compare them so we can find and solve "problems".
Add in your reply:
-Which rom are you using ?
-How is your battery doing over the night ?
-Is the battery inaccurate like it doesn't go higher then 98%, drops from 100 to 50 after some time or after reboot,... ?
-Which kernel ?
-2G/3G on or off ?
-CPU adjustments ?
-Programs freezed ?
- etc.
My stats:
-MDC Fear 5.3
-Drops 5% over 8 hours but when using it goes 20% over 1 hour
Which i didn't had with stock rom so i guess Fear 5.3 is the problem
-Doesn't go higher then 98% and after a reboot earlier it jumped from 100 to 42
-Kernel: 2.6.32.27-g9f26g51-dirty (Eternity kernel)
-2G and 3G diabled
-CPU adjustments 1ghz standard. When in sleep : 216mhz
-Programs freezed: Don't know because bloat freezer says it needs to be updated but i already have the latest version
-Go weather widget, netqin antivirus
Tracking battery status with Battery monitor widget
-TK-Rom v0.6
- I loose 5 to 10% per hour without doing anything !
- Sometime even if i have the "battery fully charged" popup, when I unplug, the battery indicator shows 98% ...
-2.6.32.27-g9f26g51-dirty
-2G/3G on
-1000MHz max and 300MHz min (foced when screen off)
- No freezed program
- Only one widget : Genie Widget
2 Push mail (hotmail exchange + gmail) + 1imap (checked each hour)
If I install Juice defender (free), my battery last 2 days.
Without Juice Defender, the phone turn off after 10h on (with only some SMS sent and 10min on XDA) ...
- Which rom are you using ?
Factory ROM, updated to V10b.
Baseband: 1035.21_20110405
Kernel: 2.6.32.9
Build: FRG83G
- How is your battery doing over the night?
11pm to 6am standby: Dropped from 100% to 95%.
- Is the battery inaccurate like it doesn't go higher then 98%, drops from 100 to 50 after some time or after reboot,... ?
Charges to 100%. Seems to hang on to (stay at) 100% a bit longer.
- 2G/3G on or off?
3G always on. Disable wifi when out of home.
- CPU adjustments?
None.
- Programs freezed?
None.
- Locks up when I use the car charger.
- Battery manufacture date: 16 Mar 11.
- Haven't pushed the performance much, but have watched an hour wmv file over HDMI, played Asphalt game and occasional continuous conversations lasting 2 hours. The phone behaved perfectly.
ppsun said:
- Which rom are you using ?
Factory ROM, updated to V10b.
Baseband: 1035.21_20110405
Kernel: 2.6.32.9
Build: FRG83G
- How is your battery doing over the night?
11pm to 6am standby: Dropped from 100% to 95%.
- Is the battery inaccurate like it doesn't go higher then 98%, drops from 100 to 50 after some time or after reboot,... ?
Charges to 100%. Seems to hang on to 100% a bit longer.
- 2G/3G on or off?
3G always on. Disable wifi when out of home.
- CPU adjustments?
None.
- Programs freezed?
None.
- Locks up when I use the car charger.
- Battery manufacture date: 16 Mar 11.
- Haven't pushed the performance much, but have watched an hour wmv file over HDMI, played Asphalt game and occasional continuous conversations lasting 2 hours. The phone behaved perfectly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Allright so we can already see that the stock rom's don't have much of draining or am i wrong ?
because my stock also had less then 5% loss at the night
but your 3G is ALWAYS ON !!!!! :s
you mean that you can always use 3G without doing anything else to your settings after disabling wifi ? because the 3G icon is always noticeable on the status bar even when it's disabled
kefjeuh93 said:
but your 3G is ALWAYS ON !!!!! :s
you mean that you can always use 3G without doing anything else to your settings after disabling wifi ? because the 3G icon is always noticeable on the status bar even when it's disabled
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes. When at home both 3G and wifi are enabled.
GSM coverage is not great in some parts of the house where my router wifi is strong; while some rooms far from the wifi router gets decent GSM coverage. So, I just let the phone choose whichever way it wants to connect when at home.
When I leave home, I manually disable wifi with a widget to save wifi scanning for router whenever the phone comes out of sleep. 3G works everywhere else, so I just leave it on 24/7. 3G power usage is negligible when there is no data traffic even when it is enabled, it's basically GSM on standby power.
ppsun said:
Yes. When at home both 3G and wifi are enabled.
GSM coverage is not great in some parts of the house where my router wifi is strong; while some rooms far from the wifi router gets decent GSM coverage. So, I just let the phone choose whichever way it wants to connect when at home.
When I leave home, I manually disable wifi with a widget to save wifi scanning for router whenever the phone comes out of sleep. 3G works everywhere else, so I just leave it on 24/7. 3G power usage is negligible when there is no data traffic even when it is enabled, it's basically GSM on standby power.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Okay but i haven't got 3g coverage in my area yet so
but i have got edge is it using more then 3G? i know the speed is a max of 200kbps but is it using more or less then 3G?
kefjeuh93 said:
Okay but i haven't got 3g coverage in my area yet so
but i have got edge is it using more then 3G? i know the speed is a max of 200kbps but is it using more or less then 3G?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think EDGE is like a fast GPRS connection, right? I had used GPRS (aka 2G) quite some time ago, and IIRC, GPRS is billed by data connection duration rather than by data traffic. If it's also the case for EDGE, you MUST NOT leave is enabled 24/7, or else you will get a gigantic phone bill at the end of the month!
But regarding EDGE's power usage, I am afraid I am not entirely sure if it behaves like a 3G connection. Best is you test it out while monitoring battery drain, or google around for the info.
-Which rom are you using ?
Standard V10B
-How is your battery doing over the night ?
Around 5% loss, during around 8 hours of stand-by. But I usually charge it over night.
-Is the battery inaccurate like it doesn't go higher then 98%, drops from 100 to 50 after some time or after reboot,... ?
Not that I've seen.
-Which kernel ?
2.6.32.9
-2G/3G on or off ?
Always on.
-CPU adjustments ?
None.
-Programs freezed ?
Yes.
Analog clock
App Advisor
Double clock (Dubbel klok in Dutch)
Clockweather widget
LG Home (using LauncherPro)
News and weather
SNS
Startscreen tips
Yahoo! NEWS
SIM-toolkit
Back-up (came with the new V10B update, but I never back-up so don't use it)
Voice Search
- etc.
It's rooted and I've frozen programs with Antek App Manager.
My background is mainly black (with some grids) and it's full off apps, and a battery widget.
And I've also turned down the LED button brightness down to 0.3 mA using HiddenMenu.
Currently my battery has lasted 22 hours and 16 minutes, with 44% remaining. Have used it all day as my MP3 player and I've been on the Android Market to update and download some stuff.
Pretty good so far
ppsun said:
I think EDGE is like a fast GPRS connection, right? I had used GPRS (aka 2G) quite some time ago, and IIRC, GPRS is billed by data connection duration rather than by data traffic. If it's also the case for EDGE, you MUST NOT leave is enabled 24/7, or else you will get a gigantic phone bill at the end of the month!
But regarding EDGE's power usage, I am afraid I am not entirely sure if it behaves like a 3G connection. Best is you test it out while monitoring battery drain, or google around for the info.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know all that and i have got 2GB every month so no worries
but i will test the power over night
Mafs
How did you do this?
Mafs said:
And I've also turned down the LED button brightness down to 0.3 mA using HiddenMenu.
Pretty good so far
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've had a good look through the hiddenmenu settings but can't see the section to change the LED brightness and I'm stubborn so don't want to do it with an app?
EDIT:
Found it, Device Test >>> Touch LED Brightness then scroll all the way to the bottom on the screen
Diskbox
Hello guys !! how i do for improve my battery lasted
Sent from my LG-P990 using XDA App
How long does your battery last, with what sort of usage?
15 - 20 hours , and my usage is high
etsero17 said:
15 - 20 hours , and my usage is high
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
but hey..thats quite good for high usage
etsero17 said:
15 - 20 hours , and my usage is high
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's bull**** screenshot?
Sent from my LG-P990 using XDA App
I'm gonna try the old style Nexus One's method of battery calibration. Hopefully it works, though I am not confident.
1. Plug-in charger standby, do not turn on charger yet.
2. Drain battery till it auto shutdown.
3. When it auto shutdown, immediately turn on charger.
4. Let the phone charge for 4-5 hrs.
5. After 4-5 hrs, power up phone.
The above was the Battery Calibration for Nexus One before N1 has its own Battery Drivers build-into kernel and a proper Battery Calibration Application (found in Market).
As I said, I'm not confident but will try this method. Will report here if success or failure
temasek said:
4. Let the phone charge for 4-5 hrs.
5. After 4-5 hrs, power up phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Probably a good idea to have a small fan blowing to avoid the phone shutting down from the heat from a long recharge. Might also have to go through a few cycles to reach the battery's full potential, probably don't need the empty-to-full cycle. Please let us know what you find out.
ppsun said:
Probably a good idea to have a small fan blowing to avoid the phone shutting down from the heat from a long recharge. Might also have to go through a few cycles to reach the battery's full potential, probably don't need the empty-to-full cycle. Please let us know what you find out.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've accumulated tiny experience over at Nexus One Battery Calibration and I know a small thing or two about how "some" batteries work.
The thing about Nexus One battery is it has in-build EEPROM so its the almost perfect battery to perform calibration. As for O2X, its still infant stage so no one look into it yet. But the theory "should" be similiar.
I'm doubtful but hopeful
Edit 1 - heavy usage with screen on for 4.5 hrs. 12 hrs use. Manage to drain battery till 0% and it auto shutdown as I expected. Now performing off charging for at least 4 hrs. I was surprised to see before it auto shutdown where at 0% the voltage was 3362mV. Pretty impressive I would say. Now I'm optimistic ...... will report soon.
Edit - failed while auto shutdown I plugin assuming it was charging. 4.5 hrs later I power up and it is at 1%. Fail!
I plugin and start charging. Monitored the charging process and found for the first time the phone was cool while charging even cool till 100%.
I'm now using this new charge and seems good. Its cool, no longer hot.
Now i have got CM7
And must say that battery is holding out much better at sleep
4 hours and not even 1% down
So i would advise to switch to CM if you are trying some new roms !!
Have you guys tried the app BatteryCalibration from market?
I had the same prob as many of you, and this solved it for me.
Sent from my LG Optimus 2x using Tapatalk

How to handle battery usage in 3g/wifi to remain always online

Hello,
I subscripted to a data plan with my carrier and I was wondering what is the best way to handle this situation to remain always online.
I have wifi and 3g on so when I'm home or in a place where wifi is available it connects to that network and disable mobile data and opposite when I go outside wifi coverage.
But I noticed two major problems
- I went out for 30 minutes, the phone switched to 3g and the battery went down 7% without turning the display on! I walked and the coverage is extremely good where I went plus I noticed that the wifi icon was still on so it wasn't really disabled
- When I came back the phone didn't go back to wifi connection and kept staying in 3g until I open wifi settings manually. This is a bug with cm7 I already reported!
Those things don't happen always but they do happen. Does 3g in "idle" consume so much battery power?? If yes The phone would die in 8h without even using it if I used it according to this rate it would die in 3h
My guess is that some of the phones may have some hardware issues, because the software is identical, but only a small part of them drain the battery when using 3G.
I have a similar issue: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1501047
edit: my Froyo drain was normal, 1% per hour, vs GB (stock, CM7, etc) which takes 5% per h. This would be an argument against a hardware defect...

Battery Drain On s3 i19305

Hi, need some help,
I got this phone a couple of days back, its an unlocked one. Battery on the phone seems to be draining faster than i expected it to. The first time i charged it, it took 3 hours in the afternoon. By night it was 20% this was after playing games and downloading through wifi, so it seemed ok. I then put it for charge overnight. The next day it still seemed to drained by 7pm only used whats app this day, so i had to put for charge again.
Once fully charged (2 hrs) I shut off wifi, bluetooth, nfc and others. Switched off smart stay options and the display is set to lowest brightness (not auto). The wallpapers is also black so it will not drain battery. Overnight without the phone being used (only thing i set was alarm) the charge went from 89% to 78%. During the day I also find the charge still dropping pretty rapidly. I have included the screen shot of the battery from the same day. Between the first pictures there is no difference in use and still drops by 3% in 20 mins or so.
Is this a problem with the battery or is that how it is?
(Stock, no changes to rom)
Not sure if this is your specific problem - but one thing I've found that kills this phone fast is bad 4G cell reception. By default the phone runs as LTE/GSM/WCDMA (Auto) in Settings->Mobile Networks . If you are in a location with patchy (or none at all) 4G Coverage, the phone wastes an inordinate amount of juice switching to high-power mode on the cell radio searching for the elusive 4G/LTE ... Just like a 3G phone will deplete its battery extremly fast in a location with no/poor 3G connectivity (inside the 'secure' datacentres I wander into occasionally that have cell blockers, I can deplete the battery in a phone in about 3 hours just due to it constantly switching to high-power 'cell search' mode as it has no details on any cells to 'hand off' to....)
The difference is palpable... inside my office, if I have the phone on the right side of my desk closest to some windows, it will receive 'patchy' 4G and I'll go through about 60% battery over about 8-10 hours with intermittent phone use (most of the battery goes to screen time as I'm a 'fiddler' whenever I leave my desk for a coffee/break/etc...) If I place it on the left side of my desk, where the reception is much worse, it'll fall back to 3G and I'll go through about 80% battery doing nothing different...
I'm now in the habit of switching the phone to WCDMA Only when I'm going to be working in the bowels of the building, as there aint no hope of 4G there...Doing this drastically improves battery life.. Likewise if I'm stuck at home over the weekend, I leave it on WCDMA, as where I live has very patchy 4G as well and I only get it if I walk outside and down the street...
Just a possible reason for the excessive drain... at least worth trying anyway... *shrug*
adr6ian said:
Not sure if this is your specific problem - but one thing I've found that kills this phone fast is bad 4G cell reception. By default the phone runs as LTE/GSM/WCDMA (Auto) in Settings->Mobile Networks . If you are in a location with patchy (or none at all) 4G Coverage, the phone wastes an inordinate amount of juice switching to high-power mode on the cell radio searching for the elusive 4G/LTE ... Just like a 3G phone will deplete its battery extremly fast in a location with no/poor 3G connectivity (inside the 'secure' datacentres I wander into occasionally that have cell blockers, I can deplete the battery in a phone in about 3 hours just due to it constantly switching to high-power 'cell search' mode as it has no details on any cells to 'hand off' to....)
The difference is palpable... inside my office, if I have the phone on the right side of my desk closest to some windows, it will receive 'patchy' 4G and I'll go through about 60% battery over about 8-10 hours with intermittent phone use (most of the battery goes to screen time as I'm a 'fiddler' whenever I leave my desk for a coffee/break/etc...) If I place it on the left side of my desk, where the reception is much worse, it'll fall back to 3G and I'll go through about 80% battery doing nothing different...
I'm now in the habit of switching the phone to WCDMA Only when I'm going to be working in the bowels of the building, as there aint no hope of 4G there...Doing this drastically improves battery life.. Likewise if I'm stuck at home over the weekend, I leave it on WCDMA, as where I live has very patchy 4G as well and I only get it if I walk outside and down the street...
Just a possible reason for the excessive drain... at least worth trying anyway... *shrug*
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Hi thanks for the reply. My phone does not show WCDMA in settings. It just has 2g/3g/4g/ auto OR 3g in network modes under mobile networks.
varun.k said:
Hi thanks for the reply. My phone does not show WCDMA in settings. It just has 2g/3g/4g/ auto OR 3g in network modes under mobile networks.
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I have used an app called "Radio Switcher" to activate "gsm auto (prl)", when i open the app it seems to go into "Device info". It seems to work but "Network mode" does not seem to change.
I have uploaded the screenshots
Seems as though the system is using more battery than the screen itself.
The system seems to really take up way too much battery power. Mine is at 4%.
What are your sync settings? Especially for things like Weather, stocks, news etc. If you set them to sync every hour or so, your phone will keep running on the 3G network which will end up draining your battery.
Also, switch off motion. It's a cool feature, but it's not necessary. Same with auto-rotate.
Finally, use WiFi instead of 3G where possible. That saves battery too.
If you're rooted, download noFrills CPU control and reduce your max clock frequency on days where you won't get a charge. Phone runs well enough on 800mhz, but has a tendency to keep going at 1.4Ghz for no reason.
Otherwise, get a higher capacity battery
Snowstormzzz said:
The system seems to really take up way too much battery power. Mine is at 4%.
What are your sync settings? Especially for things like Weather, stocks, news etc. If you set them to sync every hour or so, your phone will keep running on the 3G network which will end up draining your battery.
Also, switch off motion. It's a cool feature, but it's not necessary. Same with auto-rotate.
Finally, use WiFi instead of 3G where possible. That saves battery too.
If you're rooted, download noFrills CPU control and reduce your max clock frequency on days where you won't get a charge. Phone runs well enough on 800mhz, but has a tendency to keep going at 1.4Ghz for no reason.
Otherwise, get a higher capacity battery
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Click to collapse
My sync is off, plus i have disabled sync for everything individuality and disabled all unwanted apps. Data service is also off, only use wi-fi. under motion only smart call is on and auto rotate us off.
I have uploaded a screen shot off after ti disable all these apps.(went to bed with 35% and was 28% in the mornin, turned wifi off before)
Will upgrading (official) phone to android 4.1.2 help (current ver is 4.1.1)? Current base band version is i9305BVALI5 i got an update on kies to i9305BVALI3. I don't think this is update to 4.1.2 is it?
I have updated to 4.1.2, and applied only gsm setting in mobile network. All apps are still disabled as before. The system still seems to be suing most amount of battery, more than the screen. I do not know what is using the system.
I have stared having the same problem a couple of days ago. Though I have sync enabled 0-24 for 3 gmail accounts, motions are on, screen auto rotate is also on. I am using nova launcher, almost all Samsung apps are frozen and most of time I am on wifi.
Now, this drain has nothing to do with the stuff I just mentioned (Enabled sync, motions...). I have all that things enabled all the time, and yes MPU and GPU are OC to 1600 and 640 MHz. But I was always getting >= 24h with ~3,5 h of screen on time. As I already mentioned, problem started a couple of days ago. Only thing which comes to my mind is that I have played with freezing / defrosting apps and I probably installed a couple of apps too. Like Beautiful Widgets and that's my main candidate to blame for this at the moment.
Though I am still not sure... Better than battery stats didn't show anything what could help. Network location locator or similar is at the top of the list of partial wake locks. But the time it hold the lock (About 25 min.) can't be the reason for such a high drain.
I have switched to HD Widgets, what I was using before (With this app one can disable auto location.) removed Beautiful Widgets, and turned off'Use wireless networks' and GPS in location services hoping it will help... So we'll see...
For me it still shows that adroid system and cell standby time is using a lot battery.
I don't get why android system and OS is using so much battery, everything is disabled. Network is on only GSM setting and i have network all the time, why is that also high? Does someone else also have the same problem?
If possible, install Better Battery Stats, maybe it will help you to identify the problem... In my case it is not of much use at the moment.
Sent from my GT-I9305 using xda premium
Strange idea: download an anti-virus and let it run.
Might as well give it a shot now, especially since AV is free.
Snowstormzzz said:
Strange idea: download an anti-virus and let it run.
Might as well give it a shot now, especially since AV is free.
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I was using AVG, but i removed it thinking it could drain battery.
Sv: Battery Drain On s3 i19305
varun.k said:
I was using AVG, but i removed it thinking it could drain battery.
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I think he meant that it could be a virus that drains all the battery.
Sent from my GT-I9305 using xda app-developers app
sebbe312 said:
I think he meant that it could be a virus that drains all the battery.
Sent from my GT-I9305 using xda app-developers app
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I did an upgrade using odin to 4.1.2, the issue still remains though. The screen shots i posted is with the update.
So any virus should also be wiped out right?
varun.k said:
I did an upgrade using odin to 4.1.2, the issue still remains though. The screen shots i posted is with the update.
So any virus should also be wiped out right?
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Anyways i tried it, does not seem to work though.
!crazy said:
If possible, install Better Battery Stats, maybe it will help you to identify the problem... In my case it is not of much use at the moment.
Sent from my GT-I9305 using xda premium
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I have installed better battery stats, and it says that battery drain is 6% an hour at idle. I have attached the screen shots. I do not have root access to access some of its functions though.

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