Help Galaxy S3 battery depeleted too quickly

[MikeSD]

I have noticed that my Galaxy S3 phone will go from 90% charge to ZERO (and shut off), between the time I go to bed and wake up in the morning.

First, I use it mostly as a phone and TM device. Occasional browsing to check email and bank account. But I rarely, if ever use it to watch movies, or listen to music... at least so far.


Most of them time, my phone will go a couple of days without needing charging. But I have noticed a few times that when I go to bed with a high charge (80% or better), it can be fully depleted by morning and powers off.


I leave the phone locked but on, when I go to bed. I leave Wi-Fi on, generally but bluetooth and GPS are off. The phone is locked by pressing the side button. There are no apps running in the foreground. There may be tasks running in the task manager but I would expect those to suspend, when I lock the phone. None of the apps in the task manager are music or video apps that wouldn't be expected to suspend.


Since this is only an occasional thing, I'm not sure what might be depleating the battery so quickly.


Any ideas what might be running my phone down. It should be able to go throughout the night without running down, especially since I'm not watching movies or listening to music.

 

[mrhomiec]

check your signal quality. poor signal quality will drain the battery like no other. sometimes even worse than constantly using the phone with great signal.

 

[valorian]

I have to ask. Why are you not leaving it on the charger overnight?

 

[Deleted User]

I've experimented with leaving mine unplugged over night (9 hrs) and it drops anywhere between 10% and 15%.

I disable nothing and it's on Wifi

 

[MikeSD]

I have to ask. Why are you not leaving it on the charger overnight?

Because I don't. But my wife and I share a double charger. My charger is not plugged in where I sleep. I need the phone for it's alarm. I keep my phone with me, when my charger is in another area.

It's kind of irrelevant to my question though. I'm looking for possible problems with an application that might deplete the battery quicker than expected. When I'm out and about and away from a charger, I don't want to find myself all of a sudden without the phone.

Someone suggested signal quality. The signal quality in my house is horrible. And that's the only place my phone ever dies like this. Would signal quality have an effect, if the phone is not actively being used, or does it impact battery only during a call? I wonder if that could be the cause. I think I'll have to do some tests, to see if I can isolate this to an application or signal quality.

Tests:

1) With Wi-Fi and no apps running, cell off
2) With Wi-Fi and typical apps, cell off
3) With Wi-Fi and typical apps, cell on
4) Same with no wi-fi

One of these should give me the answer.

 

[valorian]

Someone suggested signal quality. The signal quality in my house is horrible. And that's the only place my phone ever dies like this. Would signal quality have an effect, if the phone is not actively being used, or does it impact battery only during a call?

Yes, poor signal quality can drain a battery fast even if you are not on a call.

What happens when you have poor signal is the PA (Power Amplifier) inside the phone has to ramp up to hold onto it's signal. You may also notice the phone gets a little warm when you have poor signal. The PA gets a little warm when it ramps up and the battery too will warm up when it gets drained faster than normal.

 

[MikeSD]

I have verified it's not any application. But it appears to be more or less arbitrary if it's going to die.

Last night, I opened the task manager, and killed all applications. I cleared memory and turned the LCD off with a click of the side button. The phone was fully charged. This was about 9pm. This morning at 5, the battery was completely exhausted and the phone powered off.

That seems very unacceptable. The only thing this could be is,

1) a bad phone or battery OR
2) the signal quality

I replaced the battery and will try to repeat this but dying in the middle of the night, from a full charge seems unacceptable.

 

[CYF899]

I turn off wifi and sync at night and lose less than 10% battery.

 

[MikeSD]

I turn off wifi and sync at night and lose less than 10% battery.

I suppose there are always good ways to minimize battery drain. But this seems unusual.

I have owned iPhones from day 1, up to a few weeks ago. I have never had an iPhone (of any of the 3 models I owned) die overnight from battery drain, even when wi-fi was connected 100% of the time at home.

Like I say, this is very unacceptable, in my view, if this is normal behavior. I definitely need to get to the bottome of this specific issue because I love the phone.

 

[tchen811]

most likely it's the signal issue as you said you have horrible signal at your house. 8 hours of horrible signal will drain your battery.

one way to test is to turn off mobile data and just use wifi before you go to sleep. This should tell you if your cell signal is to blame.

 

[T.M.M.L]

Greetings MikeSD,

If you've replaced the battery, vetted all apps and it's still draining like that, I would guess it to be a signal issue as well.

At my house, the 3G is horrible, the 4G is great. I found that if I left my phone connected to Wi-Fi, the battery drain was negligible.

If your are in a 4G weak or non existent area, you can download a app called phone info, that will allow you shut off the 4G radio, thus saving you some battery life.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/...neInfo&feature=nav_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwyLDNd

Hope this helps.