S3 Battery Drain Thread - 1) False Cell Standby report 2) Standby Drain

[HookEmHorns*UT*]

Thank god for this thread. The Samsung apps were my culprit (fingers crossed). I also did a sim swap. Sim swap has helped my signal issues also. The Samsung apps are a major battery drain. Disabling them has helped a whole lot. Thanks to everyone and all of your advise!
God i love this Android community!

 

[Jabanero]

OK, so how would I define "minimal": my guess would be 2-4 minutes of screen time per hour. Fair enough? Moderate use would be 10-12 minutes per hour (that's something I did on day one when I was getting myself familiar with the phone - and which also produced 24 hours of standby!).

Thanks for the clarification, I have a baseline to compare to now.

My suggestion - try killing sync altogether for one day. See if it helps. Then remove Chrome and check it out too. One of these things did it for me. I was getting drained in 10 hours with no use... Then, start re-enabling things to find the real cause (re-sync one account at a time!)

I use Chrome because I like it better than the stock browser but it's not compelling enough to keep if it drains the battery; which leads to the question of how can the browser drain the battery any more than the stock version. Does Chrome operate in the background ? (couldn't see that with GSam).


Thanks again for the help and advice by the way.

 

[caffeinepills]

I had about a 70% battery drain overnight as well. However, I have sync disabled, mobile(4G) disabled, wifi enabled, auto rotate disabled, no mail accounts, only account I have is gmail, but doesn't sync, and I have no Samsung Accounts.

It's also weird because Maps app shows there, but I was asleep and the app wasn't even open? According to the settings, it's only suppose to update when plugged in? (Note I plugged in the charger prior to this, then sometime in the night the cable got unplugged, so it might of updated when it was charged.)

I am more concerned about the Android System. It seems to be a rare occurrence for the drain to happen so significantly, but I generally leave my phone charging overnight, so I can't be certain; I will try to leave my phone unplugged overnight more often to get more info. Anyone know what battery drain issues stem from Android System?

Maybe I should disable Samsung background processes anyways? Any suggestions?

EDIT: Uploaded pictures.

 

[yogi799]

OK, so I was a bit off, but still pretty darn good. I got full 20 hours on that charge. The usage was rather small, but that is my typical so nearly full day does it for me no problem. Mind you bluetooth was disabled, gps too.

I will do some more testing and go back to using Chrome (I too like it better, although I have noticed some advantages of the stock browser), and re-enable bluetooth, but 20hrs vs barely 10 is a night and day difference (hmmm.. literally!) and very much an expected charge duration so all is cool, I believe.

 

[yogi799]

News on my end... As promised, I am testing some more to get to the bottom of this... And I have some new developments.

After a successful 20-hour-on-a-charge day yesterday, I have turned off wifi (everything else the same as yesterday) and left the fully charged phone overnight (with LTE for data instead of wifi). I wake up 7 hours later to realize a 80% discharge! (20% left!). An hour later, 8 hours since full charge, 10% of battery left.

So because I've left everything else unchanged, it seems to point to the fact that WIFI uses MUCH less juice that LTE!

Unfortunately, this adds a degree of randomness to the phones life per charge as you may not always be in a wifi range. I happen to be, most of the time, hence 20h+ per charge is attainable. Maybe this is precisely why there's been no real statements or attempts to address this by Samsung or Google. Each person has a different set of circumstances when it comes to available data. LTE is sure a drain though. Especially at night when you really don't need data!

 

[yogi799]

Not wanting to monopolize the thread, but I hope my findings are useful to you guys.

I spent most of today around my house (wifi zone) and damn.... This is my 26th hour on one charge with Wifi, Sync, Bluetooth, Chrome, you name it - ALL ON!!! I still have 15% left, so I presume 1-2 more hours. So in Wifi zone: my charge now holds 27-28 hours with minimal use (about 2-4 minutes per hour on avg).

Remember, I came from 10 hours on a charge with no use at all with Wifi OFF just 4 days ago.

Impressive!

 

[Jabanero]

Not wanting to monopolize the thread, but I hope my findings are useful to you guys.

I spent most of today around my house (wifi zone) and damn.... This is my 26th hour on one charge with Wifi, Sync, Bluetooth, Chrome, you name it - ALL ON!!! I still have 15% left, so I presume 1-2 more hours. So in Wifi zone: my charge now holds 27-28 hours with minimal use (about 2-4 minutes per hour on avg).

Remember, I came from 10 hours on a charge with no use at all with Wifi OFF just 4 days ago.

Impressive!

WTF... I haven't cracked 12 hours total with my phone yet.. given I use it more than a few minutes every hour but still. wow.

 

[yogi799]

I went on to use the phone to find out the battery drain has returned.... 10 hours to discharge (with wifi on this time). So now even I say WTF.... There must be something else that runs in the background and drains it. Crap... On to more troubleshooting...

Update: Back to normal (ie. 8 hours = about 15% drain). Now need to start turning things on to figure out what was causing the drain. Apparently it was not due to Wifi vs LTE (or at least not to that alone).

My suspects now are: Talkatone, Rogers visual voicemail or Skype. It will take several days to find out for sure, though.


.

 

[Jabanero]

I've disabled all non-essential tools, including sVoice, Rogers VV, and a host of others. I left it on overnight with GPS & WiFi off only had minimal battery usage.

It's unfortunate that once I turn it on the battery drains at a ridiculous rate. Whats the point of having a phone that has all these gesture related features, voice activation and homescreen widgets if I can't use them.. silly.

 

[fdbryant3]

It must be an expectations thing. I'm looking at my phone which has been discharging for 6hr and it is a 70% with light useage and actually a poor service area and I'm thinking it is doing excellent. Of course I came from a phone that would be dead by now.

What I really don't get, what is the big deal about keeping a charging wire by the night stand and other places you commonly rest your phone. Is it really that big a deal to plug it in at night and start the day with a full charge? Especially if the alternative is disabling features you want to use?

 

[yogi799]

http://androidforums.com/samsung-galaxy-s3/635889-how-i-solved-my-standby-battery-drain-problem.html

 

[Jabanero]

What I really don't get, what is the big deal about keeping a charging wire by the night stand and other places you commonly rest your phone. Is it really that big a deal to plug it in at night and start the day with a full charge? Especially if the alternative is disabling features you want to use?

This actually opens up a new line of questioning..

Q: Does not letting the battery discharge completely affect performance ? My belief is that if i constantly have it on and off the charger then you won't get good battery life on the days there isn't one around.

 

[fdbryant3]

This actually opens up a new line of questioning..

Q: Does not letting the battery discharge completely affect performance ? My belief is that if i constantly have it on and off the charger then you won't get good battery life on the days there isn't one around.

Short answer is no - litium-ion batteries do not suffer from the memory effect that occured in older battery technology. LI batteries actually do better going on off the charger rather than fully discharging constantly. That said every now and then you should do a full discharge/recharge cycle in order to recalibrate the battery.

 

[Jeepmaster]

Don't know if others is have the same issue, but my stock video player constantly runs in the background even if I haven't touched it on a fresh reboot and manually end the process. I've uninstall it using Titanium Backup since and use MX Player now, so much better as a player with many options. No more video player running in the background wasting battery...it was using 97% of the CPU at times according to watchdog.

 

[fragnemesis]

Well, another thanks to John P. I guess I had the same problem -- serious battery drain without using the phone at all, disabled those Samsung services and the problem went away.

The trouble with battery drain diagnostics is that there's actually a lot of different stuff that could be responsible. So in some sense, it may be a better idea to draft a recommended set of diagnostic steps to help solve this wider array of battery drain problems.

For instance, in our case the Samsung apps were responsible, but other apps could just as easily be the culprit for other users.

The ideal battery use for our purposes is clearly reflected with BetterBatteryStats, and seeing how much CPU time is spent in Deep Sleep. If you left you phone idle for several hours, but hardly any of it was spent in deep sleep, that's the reason for battery drain. Before I killed the Samsung services, my deep sleep time was miniscule. Afterward, it was nearly the whole time since my phone was last unplugged.

 

[DNAGIRL]

I found this thread because my new phone is draining overnight. I got to bed with 100% charge and it is less that 50% overnight. I've turned off 4G, syncing, wifi, bluetooth, wireless, motion. I've turned on powersaving options and my screen is so dark I can barely read it outdoors. So everything that makes the Galaxy cool is use is disabled. After reading this thread, I did some research and downloaded some apps. I found my phone is always awake, that Android system is using 60%+ of the battery, and it's mainly suspend_backoff causing it.

One thing I noticed is that my email is constantly synced no matter what. I first turned it to manual, then in case that was faulty tried every 12 hours, yet it was still pushing. I turned off sync all together, but that isn't really feasible when I use this for a work phone and have other accounts I need to sync.

I doubt it's realated but this morning, when I turned off mobile data trying to save battery, I got two texts from verizon with VZWNMN:1. I don't have any custom ROM, so I'm not sure what this was about.

 

[yogi799]

You must not have learnt anything from reading the thread then. You MUST NOT shut wifi off if you want to have any chances of longer battery life. Just re-read the last couple pages (you can also leave full email sync on and shut off battery savings - which is a complete BS in itself).

 

[laphoot]

I think not all the GS3 have this issue.
I had a GS3 which i pre-ordered back in July and it did really have good battery life. Unfortunately there is a problem with the GPS receiver that i could not have a GPS lock and i need to replace it.
The battery drain problem starts with my replacement device. It is terrible. Not only it's sucking juice while using, but also while sleeping. This is very unusual. I'm actually using much less apps than my previous one.

I'm starting to think some batch of GS3 have problem with the hardware or something that's draining the battery. My previous GS3 lasts 2-3hr to dip down from 100%-99%. This is totally something. and believe me i did not compromise any single thing with that to squeeze the juice (4G LTE, always on GPS, all the sync on, auto brightness, face detection etc) . and it still worked perfect.

Now, my view to the GS3 is totally different. The GS3 i used to know was never like that.
How could samsung produces these phone? may b they're using different hardware parts. I don't get it.

I do believe to the ones who're saying they could get more than 1day with full charge as i have had that kind of galaxy s 3. I hope someone could compare these ph side by side under same location and conditions.

 

[Sheens]

Good morning everyone!

So glad I found this thread. My troubles have been scarce, but last night was too much. I unplugged my phone at full charge at 4AM. When I got up again at 7,my battery was at 43 percent! No running apps, no auto brightness, no outside syncing besides Gmail and one or two others.

I find if I re-start the phone it helps, but I am spoiled by technology and don't feel I should have to!

I also noticed that sometimes while I am charging the phone, it seems to lag around 50-60 percent. Again, if I re-start the phone, it starts charging again without any issue.

In will try to get in touch with Samsung as well and see when they plan on a roll out of firmware for North America.

Thank you for all of this information everyone!

Sheena

 

[xerph]

Wow! you guys are talking about 1 day and 2 days. that is awesome by my standards!

i lose 12% of batt in 1 hour. i only have my wifi on, and on 3G network. one full batt lasts for about 8hrs for me.

I've tried 3 different batts and they are all the same. So at least it is consistent that way.

 

[SaurabhHanda]

Hey John,

I just joined this forum to say thanks for you well documented process that you followed in this thread. After getting my phone very recently I was getting really ticked at the standby battery drain and I ran a lot of my own tests before I found this thread. Based on ally testing I can confirm the following:

For me the Samsung Apps were most definitely the culprit and this weekend I decided to barely use my phone at all just to see how much I could get out of it. From the attached screenshot you can see that in the last 48 hours with minimal use I only used up 83% of my battery.

For those wondering for me minimal use meant no phone calls (used my wife's phone), a few text messages, reading a few emails (For email syncing I have exchange, gmail and another account on aqua mail all syncing and all these were on the whole time) and I always keep GPS and Blue Tooth off unless I need them which I didn't use this weekend. Oh and power saving is Off. Also additional information, my phone is not rooted and the ONLY thing I disabled through APPS for this test is the "Samsung Account" app

Also to answer another post earlier I can also confirm in my tests that when I said turn WiFi off in sleep mode, LTE used CONSIDERABLY more power than WiFi, meaning I went from 1% to 2% an hour in standby to 15% per hour.

 

[dreii]

Hello, everyone

The way I see it, there is nothing wrong with the indicator. With network mode set to "GSM/WCDMA" and multiple apps performing updates and refreshing in the background, there is a continuous switching between no activity, 3g and H+, which obviously drains battery around 6% per hour.

In settings: under "Wireless and network", there is "Data usage". There you can set mobile data limit and get a list of apps using it. Clicking on any of them, gives detailed information and at the bottom of the page the option to "Restrict background data", which disables "background data on mobile data network only. Wi-Fi will be used if available.".

I checked "Restrict background data" for all listed apps except messaging and my weather widget, since they apparently don't transfer any data in the background, but I still receive multimedia messages. Now the signal status shows "H" with no activity (upload, download) while wi-fi is off.

I tested my theory last night: in 8 hours, battery power dropped only 4%.
As far as I'm concerned, I do not need Internet, e-mail, facebook or any other app performing updates, while I am not using them.
This solution definitely is not for everyone, but I suspect it could help the masses
The only thing to watch for is to turn wi-fi off before going to sleep.

I hope this helps at all

 

[bsivakanth]

I agree with you friend. I checked in the battery usage and noticed that my phone was awake the whole night and drained nearly 20% battery. then I restarted the device. some times it goes to. sleep mode. some times stay awake and make me to restart.




[QUOTE

=DemBones;4862243]I have had the same issue with battery drain in standby (I'm a US user). I'm assuming it is not the false standby issue as the phone promptly cut off when the battery reached 1%. I've used BetterBatteryLife and couldn't really pinpoint anything other than something was keeping the phone awake even when I wasn't using it.

I have tweaked everything, but the only thing that seems to solve the issue is installing JuiceDefender. This has dramatically improved my battery life. I'd rather not have to use it, but I really haven't noticed any impairment in the phone's performance because of this app. One thing I did learn from JuiceDefender was that my phone was attempting to autosync every 4-7 minutes. Interestingly, turning auto-sync off didn't really seem to solve the battery drain issue the way having JD running did.

I love the S3, so glad I traded in my iPhone 4. However (and this may be an Android issue, not just a Samsung issue), there is something not right with the battery management. Again, I'm guessing there is some process that is preventing the phone from going into deep sleep or is constantly waking it up. Hopefully they will release a firmware update soon to apply a permanent fix. In the meantime, I highly recommend JuiceDefender (free in the Play store). My battery drain has dropped from near 10% an hour to 2% (auto-sync off, GPS and Wifi on).[/QUOTE]

 

[bsivakanth]

Hey John,

I just joined this forum to say thanks for you well documented process that you followed in this thread. After getting my phone very recently I was getting really ticked at the standby battery drain and I ran a lot of my own tests before I found this thread. Based on ally testing I can confirm the following:

For me the Samsung Apps were most definitely the culprit and this weekend I decided to barely use my phone at all just to see how much I could get out of it. From the attached screenshot you can see that in the last 48 hours with minimal use I only used up 83% of my battery.

For those wondering for me minimal use meant no phone calls (used my wife's phone), a few text messages, reading a few emails (For email syncing I have exchange, gmail and another account on aqua mail all syncing and all these were on the whole time) and I always keep GPS and Blue Tooth off unless I need them which I didn't use this weekend. Oh and power saving is Off. Also additional information, my phone is not rooted and the ONLY thing I disabled through APPS for this test is the "Samsung Account" app

Also to answer another post earlier I can also confirm in my tests that when I said turn WiFi off in sleep mode, LTE used CONSIDERABLY more power than WiFi, meaning I went from 1% to 2% an hour in standby to 15% per hour.

did you noticed that your phone stayed awake?

 

[pinu12345]

hey john,
i am from connecticut-usa at&t user.
i was having the same issue as the title of this thread said.
in my house i and my two brothers have baught total of 3 galaxy s3.
out of those three mine happend to be showing these problems, and not the other two phone.
i really want to thank you and also congratulate you on cracking the root of the problem. that was really hard work.
yr post #170 worked great for me.
but some times i still fear that i am going to have same issue with the phone again. so i was kind of thinking to get a replacement device also, as costco let u exchange it for the new one withing 90 days here.
what u think about it?
i had used yr advice to disable all those samsung apps/processes, it has been 5 days and i dont think i had issue.
everynight i listen to this 30 min song before i go to bed, which is stored on my phone. in my last 5 nights i played that song on my s3 and rest four night i didnt. but on that night when i played the phone went from 50 % at night to dead bettry when i wakeup in the morning. but i am 100% sure i did ended that process in the task manager.
any idea what can be issue.
i plan to check tonight and play that on S3 and test it.
once again thanks for all yr help
-Pinesh