Help Help! RAZR MAXX HD battery life is terrible

[Roadhammer72]

I got this phone almost brand new about a month ago and at first the battery life was good, 13-15 hours and I'm a heavy user, browsing, tapatalk, Facebook, etc....now I can drain my battery life from 100% to 15% in a matter of about four to six hours, what's going on? Anything I can do to fix it?

 

[Xelios]

Rogue app? Sometimes in a new update for an app, or a certain app can be murdering your battery. Happened to me with the GroupMe app.

Download an app called CPU Spy and let it run for a few hours. It should help narrow down if your phone is sleeping or not.

 

[Roadhammer72]

I'll try that, I've got it on the car charger right now and its draining faster than it can charge! Like 1-2% every 15-20 minutez

 

[Roadhammer72]

Ok here's what I've got, what does this mean?

 

[Xelios]

Well, it's showing that the processor is being used pretty heavily, it's not hitting deep sleep all too much. Is there any app that you've only started using recently? Something is keeping the phone from sleeping. Basically whatever it is, it's constantly using your processor and draining your battery. You can see it where the maximum frequency of 1512MHz is used 10% of the time, and the 910MHz frequency is locked in at 17% of the time.

Check your data usage as well, maybe you have an app thats constantly syncing in the background and burning through data.

Give the phone a reboot and then check back on CPU Spy, the data can be a little off because it accounts for all processor states used since last boot, so the usages can be a little off.

 

[Mulajin]

You may want to go to Settings>Battery, under the graph will be a list of what is using the battery the most, check those applications for more information.

The highest ones are generally Screen, Android System, phone idle, and Android OS. Depending on your usage.

 

[Roadhammer72]

 

[Roadhammer72]

 

[Mulajin]

Unfortunately that Battery page Screenshot isn't of much use right now, as it is over such a short period of time on/off a charger. Try to get that same screen after a few hours of your normal (heavy) usage with it having not bee plugged in during that period. That will give a much better look at what is actually causing your drainage.

Right now it looks like you have your screen set to never sleep, and that can definitely be a HUGE drain on the battery, but such a short period can cause very skewed appearances, so that may not be the case.

 

[Roadhammer72]

Will do, I'll take it off the charger right now

 

[Roadhammer72]

Just changed the display settings to sleep after 30 seconds

 

[Roadhammer72]

Three hours, from 90% to 12%

 

[jhawkkw]

That is one mean wake lock. I noticed that it started to nose dive where your signal charter completely vanished. Were you in a total dead zone or put on airplane mode?

 

[Roadhammer72]

Neither as far as I know, service is kinda spotty in northern Montana but from the time I unplugged it to the time I plugged back in I may have totally lost service one time

 

[jhawkkw]

You might not like this suggestion, but I would recommend performing a factory reset. Something is keeping the device from going into deep sleep, and that's the quickest way to debug/fix the issue.

 

[Roadhammer72]

I should be able to recover all my contacts and everything through backup assistant I imagine, I'll try that and report back

 

[Roadhammer72]

Do I want "factory data reset" or "external reset"

 

[jhawkkw]

Do I want "factory data reset" or "external reset"

Factory

 

[Roadhammer72]

So what the devil does the "external reset" do? Haha

 

[jhawkkw]

So what the devil does the "external reset" do? Haha

I'm not sure, but maybe it formats the external sd card?

 

[Roadhammer72]

I'm not worried about it, I'll do the factory reset when I'm not 600 miles away from home! Lol

 

[jhawkkw]

I'm not worried about it, I'll do the factory reset when I'm not 600 miles away from home! Lol

Lol, understandable.

 

[Mulajin]

That is one mean wake lock. I noticed that it started to nose dive where your signal charter completely vanished. Were you in a total dead zone or put on airplane mode?

I really don't think that's the case. (Speaking specifically about the wake-lock)

On the point about the instant drop in battery life towards the end of the graph, that looks to be ~5% drop in ~5 minutes, and that gap indicates the phone having been turned off. Looks like that is just an error in the reading of the battery level. (A quirk if you will) or perhaps the phone is taking one HECK of a lot of power to boot.

This guy is a heavy user, if you look at the awake compared to screen on, it looks about right, not a huge difference.

What you may want to check is sync settings. For e-mail, facebook, twitter, and other accounts/apps of that nature. Set those sync settings to closer to an hour instead of 5-15 minutes. This will keep the phone in "deep sleep" more consistently when the phone is not in active use.

 

[pegs520]

Three hours, from 90% to 12%

WOW. The battery was draining even when you were charging! That's either a seriously rogue app, or a crappy battery.

Easiest thing to do is factory reset.

Something more difficult is to get an app like battery battery stats and you might be able to see what's causing the battery drain.

Or, you could uninstall each app one by one. That'd take a while, though.

 

[Roadhammer72]

I'm glad there are people out there who know more about this than me haha