How to handle battery usage in 3g/wifi to remain always online - LG Optimus 2x

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...

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 in the last few days

Anyone notice a change in their battery life in the past few days? My girlfriend and I both are going through our batteries in just over half a day with no use. It's like the phone isn't sleeping. Looking at battery use Display is using all of the battery. I'm running CM7.0.3 and she's on stock. Looking at mine right now the phone has been on battery for 1 hour 34 minutes, and Display is taking 57% of the battery and I'm down to 84% battery.
Yes! I've had my N1 since January 2010. I stayed stock until recently when I installed CM 7.1 RC1 shortly after it was released. Battery life had always been great, both stock and under CM7, especially with SS4N1. Then, a few days ago it just fell off a cliff. I now get only about 7-8 hours, even with little to no usage. Before I'd barely lose anything if the phone wasn't being used (a percent every couple hours).
Now the Nexus One Battery Calibrator application shows a drain of ~200 mA or more constantly.
I've been tearing my hair out for the last few days, uninstalling apps right and left, trying in vain to figure out what's causing this. I even considered a full wipe and reinstall of CM 7, thinking that some system setting somewhere had gotten horked.
I've always had WiFi set to never sleep, since I'm usually either at work or home. I've also had preferred network type (*#*#4636#*#* -> Phone Info) set to "GSM auto (PRL)" for months.
I've not made any other changes I can think of that would've had such a drastic impact on power consumption. I didn't track all the app updates that happened around the time it started, so I suppose it could be one of those. But I've uninstalled just about everything and it's still happening.
I have the same issue! Just in the past week or so. I have about 50% battery then a hour or so later it's dead! I was going to get a new battery today but maybe it's a CM7 issue. I use the nightly as soon as they hit the mirror.
An update on this... There may be a big issue going on with T-Mobile or some recent update:
http://www.tmonews.com/2011/07/t-mobile-g2-users-suddenly-suffering-from-huge-battery-loss/
Looks like other users on different phones have the same issue!
Thanks for that article, Lost Dog. Makes me feel a bit better. At least I know I'm not just going nuts.
My phone still has increased battery drain even if I put it in airplane mode though. It helps, but it's still much faster than before. This makes me really puzzled as to what the cause could be. How could the cell network still be causing increased drain if the phone's completely disconnected from it? Some sort of configuration information it received that persists even after the cell radio is turned off? EDIT: I may be wrong on this one, see below.
Last night I tried a complete wipe (using Temasek's full format "Format-signed.zip" first), and re-installed CM7.1 RC1 completely fresh. I installed only the minimal Google applications and a couple crucial tools (my password safe app). However, I'm still getting the same quick battery drain today.
I hope we (or T-Moblie) can figure out how to fix this. It really cripples my phone as a useful tool to have such short life!
EDIT: I'm going to try a workaround I've seen mentioned in comments on the TMoNews and Phandroid articles about this: limiting the cellular connection to 2G/EDGE only. It seems to have made a significant difference so far. I may have been incorrect then about airplane mode not having an impact. I'd only been checking current drain with the N1 Battery Calibrator app, and never left it in airplane mode for long. Anyway, I'll post back later this afternoon with results.
Ok, so switching to 2G-only for the cellular connection seems to have made a HUGE difference. The drain rate seems to be back at around what I'd expect. Everything else I left exactly the same (WiFi on, GPS enabled, same applications, etc.)
So, I'm starting to suspect something may be up with T-Mobile's 3G/3G+ service in some areas that's preventing phones from idling properly.
Anyone else want to give it a try?
Interesting, I'll switch over to 2G only and see how that affects my phone.
I've gone as far as wiping everything and that didn't help so if it really is a t-mobile issue then that would shed some light on the situation.
I see the same trend when switching to 2G only. Very steep power usage with 3G then a dramatic decrease in the discharge slope in 2G.
T-Mobile has an issue. The trick will be getting someone there to listen.
Sent from my Nexus One using XDA App
Here is my screenshot. You can clearly see when I turned on 3G. Dramatic difference. Looking on the T-Mobile forum there are many people seeing the same issue but there's mostly finger pointing and speculation as to the cause.
nir0th said:
Anyone notice a change in their battery life in the past few days? My girlfriend and I both are going through our batteries in just over half a day with no use. It's like the phone isn't sleeping. Looking at battery use Display is using all of the battery. I'm running CM7.0.3 and she's on stock. Looking at mine right now the phone has been on battery for 1 hour 34 minutes, and Display is taking 57% of the battery and I'm down to 84% battery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I also got the same rapid battery drain since last Wednesday. At that time, I thought there may be a hardware/battery issue for my nexus one. To test this, I switched my rom from CM7 back to GB stock. After a few updates for the GB stock and used it for a day, same battery drain happened. So, I changed to use another backup battery yesterday. It did not help also. I thought it may be a real hardware issue.
Then, I found this thread and research a bit in the web. I found out it could be either caused by tmobile or google map updates. I first uninstall google map and reinstall the new version right from the market again. I also switch off 3G as well. No rapid battery drain for the entire day. The battery runs normally. When I came back home today, I turned on 3G, let it for a couple of hours, checked a couple of emails and received a 20min phone call. Everything seems to work fine. No noticeable rapid battery drain was observed. My conclusion so far is: this is caused by google map 5.8 update.
Try to uninstall it and reinstall the google map from the market to see if it helps.
Good luck.
ricky9237 said:
I also got the same rapid battery drain since last Wednesday. At that time, I thought there may be a hardware/battery issue for my nexus one. To test this, I switched my rom from CM7 back to GB stock. After a few updates for the GB stock and used it for a day, same battery drain happened. So, I changed to use another backup battery yesterday. It did not help also. I thought it may be a real hardware issue.
Then, I found this thread and research a bit in the web. I found out it could be either caused by tmobile or google map updates. I first uninstall google map and reinstall the new version right from the market again. I also switch off 3G as well. No rapid battery drain for the entire day. The battery runs normally. When I came back home today, I turned on 3G, let it for a couple of hours, checked a couple of emails and received a 20min phone call. Everything seems to work fine. No noticeable rapid battery drain was observed. My conclusion so far is: this is caused by google map 5.8 update.
Try to uninstall it and reinstall the google map from the market to see if it helps.
Good luck.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, I'm willing to give it a try, but I'm skeptical. If it were the Maps 5.8 application that was preventing the phone from idling correctly, or transmitting tons of data, wouldn't we expect it to happen regardless of whether the phone was using the 2G or 3G radio connection? Sure, there might be a slight difference in the drain rate, but we'd still expect to see it in both cases. And yet the accelerated drain is alleviated completely by using only 2G. I have the Maps 5.8 application and can fix the problem by using 2G only. That indicates to me it's not an issue with the application.
I'll try uninstalling Maps tomorrow (I'm using CyanogenMod, so it's possible to remove it completely). Then I'll put the phone back on 3G and report back on what happens.
I've been experiencing similar battery issues the past week or so too. It looks like turning on 2G only seems to fix it, but what I don't get is why I'm still getting horrible battery life?
I have tasker auto turn off my 3G all together whenever my screen is turned off, and yet I leave my phone on my desk untouched all day and I end up at 40% when I get off work.
Wouldn't turning off 3G via Tasker be the same (or close to it) as turning on 2G only in the settings?
Hope t-mobile gets this worked out pretty soon!!
Glad I saw this thread. My wife and I both have N1s and have each been noticing unusually fast battery drain just in the last 3-4 days.
Last night I charged both phones to the same percentage, turned off 3G on hers and let them both sleep for a while. The phones are configured pretty similarly (stock, latest Maps installed, similar push settings etc). After about an hour and a half, my phone had lost 11% of its charge and hers had only lost 2%. That's enough of a delta for me to point to the 3G usage as the culprit. I guess I will be leaving my phone on 2G when I'm not using it if I am going to be away from a charger for a while.
It's NOT the Google Maps update.
Well, I did my experiment yesterday to rule out the Google Maps 5.8 update as the cause of this issue.
I'm running CyanogenMod so it's possible for me to uninstall Google Maps completely, not just the updates. I did so on Saturday night. Still set to 2G only, I removed my phone from the charger Sunday morning. A few hours later I enabled 3G. Later that afternoon I turned 3G off again.
I think the screenshot speaks for itself. Again, this is without Google Maps installed at all.
I asked around this weekend, and my friend's wife (also here in Portland, OR) is experiencing the same issue on her G1 on T-Mobile. Reading online I've heard about the problem affecting the MyTouch 3G, the G2, and many here with the Nexus One. The common elements seem to be: T-Mobile 3G service, particular models of phones, and some particular geographic areas.
Bottom line (IMHO): T-Mobile has a problem with the configuration of their 3G service in some areas, and it's preventing many phones from being able to idle/sleep properly, resulting in huge battery drain.
Here's mine, I posted this several days ago in the TMONEWS thread.
keenerb said:
Here's mine, I posted this several days ago in the TMONEWS thread.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's interesting. Even locking the phone to 2G/EDGE didn't have an impact? (not a Nexus One there it appears, what model?)
How did you go about disabling the 3G connection? I'm not sure if there are multiple ways to do it, but I used:
Settings -> Wireless Networks -> Mobile Networks -> Use only 2G networks
Really strange that even pulling the SIM didn't seem to make a difference. Or maybe that's not the same as turning off the cell radio entirely? Perhaps the issue is lower-level, like the radio constantly polling the tower or something even in the absence of being able to successfully register on the network for active use.
Does enabling airplane mode fix the drain issue for you?
Deliamber said:
That's interesting. Even locking the phone to 2G/EDGE didn't have an impact? (not a Nexus One there it appears, what model?)
How did you go about disabling the 3G connection? I'm not sure if there are multiple ways to do it, but I used:
Settings -> Wireless Networks -> Mobile Networks -> Use only 2G networks
Really strange that even pulling the SIM didn't seem to make a difference. Or maybe that's not the same as turning off the cell radio entirely? Perhaps the issue is lower-level, like the radio constantly polling the tower or something even in the absence of being able to successfully register on the network for active use.
Does enabling airplane mode fix the drain issue for you?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is a G2.
2G has been much better than 3g, but still probably only 3/4 of my former battery life, optimistically. I checked "Use 2g networks only", same as everyone else. The graph above is a little misleading, since I really saw better battery life, that initial flat and quick drop actually averages out to "decent", rather than "horrific.
At the "Pulled SIM and SD card" mark I re-enabled 3g, so the drain afterwards is still 3g related.
Pulling the SIM doesn't disconnect it from the radio tower, you can still make emergency calls/etc. so it has to maintain a connection I suppose.
Twice I hard-reset the phone, pulled out SD and SIM, and still had huge huge battery drain. Powertutor said IDLE draw was 1437mw on average, no SIM, no WIFI, just sitting there on my desk.
In Airplane mode it'll last for days...
Wannagotopopeyes said:
I've been experiencing similar battery issues the past week or so too. It looks like turning on 2G only seems to fix it, but what I don't get is why I'm still getting horrible battery life?
I have tasker auto turn off my 3G all together whenever my screen is turned off, and yet I leave my phone on my desk untouched all day and I end up at 40% when I get off work.
Wouldn't turning off 3G via Tasker be the same (or close to it) as turning on 2G only in the settings?
Hope t-mobile gets this worked out pretty soon!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not familiar with Tasker. However, maybe it's just disabling cellular data use, not actually disabling the 3G radio? From what we've seen it appears the problem is very low-level, perhaps something to do with basic communication/negotiation between the cell radio in the phone and the towers, as there's no indication of particular application activity or significant data transmission that the Android OS is aware of.
In the T-Mobile support thread there are reports that T-Mobile is now acknowledging there's an issue with changes to their HSPA+ network in some areas.
I've had 3G off all day and my battery life is back to normal. I'm at 87% after at least 6 hours on battery. Yesterday I was down to less than 50% by this time. Luckily, I am able to be on Wifi at work so I don't have to deal with EDGE speeds, which make the Baby Jesus cry.
deliamber, you probably noticed this already but I'm also in the Portland market. It's gotta be a network issue.
I'm having the same issue on my N1 (I'm around the Portland area myself)
I did everything as well, 2g is the only thing that saves me..
Can't wait for a fix!

Power recommendations...

Ok Guys,
Kind of a weird question, but I'm using one of the ICS leak ROMS.
With general usage, 4G/wifi, I would get between 18 to 20 hours, which for me is perfectly fine. The more wifi, the more battery time. No issues at all.
Recently, our office moved where we have a dead zone. I do have full wifi access, however being in this area absolutely kills the battery. I lose 12% every hour. As a precaution, I have disabled the mobile data, and confirmed wifi is working. I have confirmed that I can make and receive calls, and send/recivee txt msgs. However, battery results are the same. Is there anything else I could try?
I'm guessing, being in a deadzone, the phone is putting in overtime trying to find a tower....
Anyone have any ideas?
Thanks in advance...
Interesting... On my Bionic with the .232 leak the option to change network types is grayed out. I was thinking if you set it to 4G or 3G only it would save some battery since the analog radio sure do suck down power (if it even tries to use that as an option).
Not sure what to do. Hopefully somebody can provide something useful.
Apps to change radio
Drunkula said:
Interesting... On my Bionic with the .232 leak the option to change network types is grayed out. I was thinking if you set it to 4G or 3G only it would save some battery since the analog radio sure do suck down power (if it even tries to use that as an option).
Not sure what to do. Hopefully somebody can provide something useful.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can definitely try out a couple of apps from the appstore to change your radio settings in one of the ICS leaks. The first is called "Phone Info" and the second is called "LTE OnOFF - HTC Thunderbolt". See if going with 3g (CDMA auto prl works well for me) only will help your cause.
You could turn the radio completely off, but then you obviously wouldn't get calls, texts, etc.
Ok Guys
Here are my findings...
Looking back, it seems during my move, I also upgraded from Eclipse 2.1 to Liquid ICS around that timeframe. So I back tracked and installed eclipse 2.1 and tested. Here are my findings:
on Liquid ICS 1.5mr:
In deadzone in my office, with wifi turned on, mobile data disabled, I get barely 1 hour per 10%
Everywhere else, 4g/wifi mixed. More wifi, the better, but I get roughly 2.5 hours per 10%
I re-flashed Eclipse, this is what I found
on Eclipse 2.1
In deadzone in my office, with wifi turned on, mobile data disabled, I get approx 2.5 hours per 10%
Everywhere else, 4g/wifi mixed. More wifi, the better, but I get roughly 2 hours per 10%
Overall, the ICS battery usage seems to be much better under normal conditions. In a deadzone, seems to eat away much more battery, even when mobile data is disabled. I'm geussing that its prob checking for a tower much more often then GB?
Any help would greatly be appreciated.....Thanks!
Hey Guys
Just wanted to update you on my findings....
Ok, after playign around, here is what i did. With WIFI turned on, I was getting barely half a bar in the radio signal. For a goof, with WIFI turned on, I went into phone info, and disabled the radio, and re-enabled it. within 2 sec, the radio came up and got half a bar again, but a few sec right after that, I got like 4 or 5 bars. After testing in this state, i get roughly 5 to 6% depletion per hour. WHich is MUCHHHH better.
I have a feeling that with WIFI turned on (mobile data seems to be disabled when in wifi mode), and u turn on the radio, that it connects to a different tower entirely. Because when I walk outside, and disconnect wifi, it goes to 4G, but then u can see it go from 4 to 5 bars, to 3 bars which is normal for me for that area.
Hope this helps someone....but it helped me a great deal.

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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Click to collapse
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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Click to collapse
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
Click to expand...
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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Click to collapse
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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Click to collapse
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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Click to collapse
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?
Click to expand...
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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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Click to collapse
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.

[Q] Is this normal battery drain?

My cell standby is really really high and I'm nowhere near the 6+ hours SoT that people seem to be getting here. I even followed the battery optimization guide and disable all the moto features on the phone. I also changed my preferred network type from "Global" to "LTE/CDMA" to supposedly save more power.
Is anyone else having odd drain? I attached a list of the apps I disabled as well.
Cell stand bye does seem high. Silly but I'm sure you have turned phone off and fully charged to see if it remedies?
All else fails factory reset, I know it's a pain.
Broadley1 said:
Cell stand bye does seem high. Silly but I'm sure you have turned phone off and fully charged to see if it remedies?
All else fails factory reset, I know it's a pain.
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Click to collapse
I charged it while it was on fully after draining it to 1% when I first bought it. I have not turned it off or charged while it was off. I'll do that later when it is around 5% after work.
How would the factory reset help? I would reinstall the same apps again anyway so if that is the problem I wouldn't know it.
I didnt mess with any network settings but cell standby is higher than screen on my battery stats. My battery life isn't bad by any means but not as good as some others are getting
I've seen this issue reported by 2-3 other users, it's either related to the cell coverage in your area or might even be a faulty radio. Cell standby is usually high on my list but still about 1/4 of the power draw of my screen (assuming my average SoT of 6 hours) and around -96dBm (3-4 bars) signal strength. Try checking your signal strength - if you don't have an app for it, do: Settings > Wireless and Networks > More > Mobile Networks > Network type and strength.
I have this issue. My signal sucks at home. Only 3 bars most of the time.
Sent from my XT1254
Same issue here ... Just switched to ART and I'm going to switch from global to LTE/CDMA to see if I can knock it down a bit. Reception at my work is terrible in some spots (hospital). At home its not so bad.
Sent from my XT1254

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