Quickly draining battery problem solved in one easy step

Notes_Norton · May 24, 2011

This might be old news to some, so please be tolerant if I'm beating a dead horse. I've been dealing with computers since the 80s but am still a newbie with "smart phones".

I bought an Optimus M a few months ago and have enjoyed it very much. I chose Metro PCS because it's a business line and I wanted the flat rate plan since telemarketers call me daily (and I don't want to pay for their ads).

I haven't added many apps: Calculator, DaTuner, Dolphin Browser Mini and File Expert is all I have on my phone now.

I downloaded the Gas Buddy app about a week ago, and all of a sudden my battery started draining very quickly. 6 hours of stand-by (locked) drained more than 50% of the battery. The little battery icon was half black/half green. This never happened before so I posted some things on this forum to try to fix it.

After a couple of days I uninstalled Gas Buddy and my battery continued to drain very quickly. So was it Gas Buddy or just a coincidence that it happened at the same time? I don't know.

A day or two later I remembered what the woman at the cell phone store told me to do whenever the phone acts weird. "Remove the battery, wait about 10 seconds and replace the battery. This will reboot the phone."

It worked!

I can now leave the phone on stand-by (locked) for 10 or so hours and only a little sliver of black shows on the battery icon.

Was it Gas Buddy or just a coincidence? I have no idea. Some day I might put Gas Buddy back on to find out, but right now I put a bookmark on my browser so I can find it in a hurry.

Notes ♫

cuttingedge110 · May 24, 2011

It could be a few different things. I'm not personally familiar with the gas buddy app but what causes the battery to drain is either processor usage or data transfer on any interface I.e. mobile data, gps or bluetooth. So in other words either it's an app locally on your phone or something talking to your phone. In my opinion one of the best apps you can get that's definitely worth paying for is called juice defender. It works wonders, even the free version. Another thing you can do is pull down the notification screen (can't think of a better name lol) on your phone by dragging down from the top of the screen and disable any unnecessary interfaces. If you think it's an app beating up your phone system download an app called OSMonitor which allows you to see running processes. One Word of caution though. Osmonitor is resource hungry if left running as a process and will drain your battery quickly. From there you should be able to narrow it down much better

cuttingedge110 · May 24, 2011

Let us know if and how well you were able get it situated or if you need some more help

jabbawest · May 24, 2011

One other thing you might consider.
If you open an app and then hit the Home Key, whether it's Gas Buddy or Dolphin Browser, you've left that application open and it will continue running in the background.
You either have to hit the menu key and see if the app has an option to exit or hit the back button until it closes.
Taught my wife that and her battery lasts all day now.

agent0064life · May 24, 2011

Notes_Norton said:
This might be old news to some, so please be tolerant if I'm beating a dead horse. I've been dealing with computers since the 80s but am still a newbie with "smart phones".

I bought an Optimus M a few months ago and have enjoyed it very much. I chose Metro PCS because it's a business line and I wanted the flat rate plan since telemarketers call me daily (and I don't want to pay for their ads). Norton Music, Band-in-a-Box improvement products (tools and toys) and much more

I haven't added many apps: Calculator, DaTuner, Dolphin Browser Mini and File Expert is all I have on my phone now.

I downloaded the Gas Buddy app about a week ago, and all of a sudden my battery started draining very quickly. 6 hours of stand-by (locked) drained more than 50% of the battery. The little battery icon was half black/half green. This never happened before so I posted some things on this forum to try to fix it.

After a couple of days I uninstalled Gas Buddy and my battery continued to drain very quickly. So was it Gas Buddy or just a coincidence that it happened at the same time? I don't know.

A day or two later I remembered what the woman at the cell phone store told me to do whenever the phone acts weird. "Remove the battery, wait about 10 seconds and replace the battery. This will reboot the phone."

It worked!

I can now leave the phone on stand-by (locked) for 10 or so hours and only a little sliver of black shows on the battery icon.

Was it Gas Buddy or just a coincidence? I have no idea. Some day I might put Gas Buddy back on to find out, but right now I put a bookmark on my browser so I can find it in a hurry.

Notes ♫

If you want to always be able to view your exact battery percentage left, search the market for "battery widget."

If you aren't familiar with putting widgets on your screens, touch and hold your finger on an available space on your home screen, touch widgets and search from there.

kev1900 · May 24, 2011

"Fast Reboot" app free from the market.
Place it on your home screen and hit it every once in a while to reboot all your apps.
It shows what it is rebooting.

Notes_Norton · May 25, 2011

jabbawest said:
One other thing you might consider.
If you open an app and then hit the Home Key, whether it's Gas Buddy or Dolphin Browser, you've left that application open and it will continue running in the background.
You either have to hit the menu key and see if the app has an option to exit or hit the back button until it closes.
Taught my wife that and her battery lasts all day now.

I couldn't find a close option in Gas Buddy. Perhaps I was looking in the wrong place.

I'll try to reinstall it in the future, but right now I'm using it in the web browser and that seems good enough.

And thanks all for the other app suggestions.

I had the phone on all day yesterday (after that reboot) and when I plugged it in at night and turned it on, it showed charging with 97% still in the battery. So rebooting solved the problem, but unless I reinstall Gas Buddy, I won't know if it was the culprit or not.

Notes ♫

cuttingedge110 · May 25, 2011

jabbawest said:
One other thing you might consider.
If you open an app and then hit the Home Key, whether it's Gas Buddy or Dolphin Browser, you've left that application open and it will continue running in the background.
You either have to hit the menu key and see if the app has an option to exit or hit the back button until it closes.
Taught my wife that and her battery lasts all day now.

Now this is and isn't true. What a lot of people don't realize is that an "app" by sense of what most people think of an app is typically made up many different sub-apps or components. Certain components like services actually can run in the background and can actively utilize system resources. However, because the android OS is more or less a linux distribution the operating itself is very good at handling background apps and completely closing or freeing up memory from apps that don't need it anymore. If an app is actively using resources unless it is a system app it appears on your bar at the top of your phone. Most people believe that task killer applications do them good, whereas, the truth is that it can actually cause issues because most times it prevents them from closing properly.
I can't for the life of me find it now but there is a great article with an awesome diagram on the web about how the android os handles apps. It actually puts them in a suspended state when not active (open on your screen), unless like said before, it is a service which has the right to run in the background and utilize system resources. If I find it I'll post it. Really interesting stuff

thunderkiss65 · May 25, 2011

Notes_Norton said:
This might be old news to some, so please be tolerant if I'm beating a dead horse. I've been dealing with computers since the 80s but am still a newbie with "smart phones".

I bought an Optimus M a few months ago and have enjoyed it very much. I chose Metro PCS because it's a business line and I wanted the flat rate plan since telemarketers call me daily (and I don't want to pay for their ads). Norton Music, Band-in-a-Box improvement products (tools and toys) and much more

I haven't added many apps: Calculator, DaTuner, Dolphin Browser Mini and File Expert is all I have on my phone now.

I downloaded the Gas Buddy app about a week ago, and all of a sudden my battery started draining very quickly. 6 hours of stand-by (locked) drained more than 50% of the battery. The little battery icon was half black/half green. This never happened before so I posted some things on this forum to try to fix it.

After a couple of days I uninstalled Gas Buddy and my battery continued to drain very quickly. So was it Gas Buddy or just a coincidence that it happened at the same time? I don't know.

A day or two later I remembered what the woman at the cell phone store told me to do whenever the phone acts weird. "Remove the battery, wait about 10 seconds and replace the battery. This will reboot the phone."

It worked!

I can now leave the phone on stand-by (locked) for 10 or so hours and only a little sliver of black shows on the battery icon.

Was it Gas Buddy or just a coincidence? I have no idea. Some day I might put Gas Buddy back on to find out, but right now I put a bookmark on my browser so I can find it in a hurry.

Notes ♫

I have never had any battery issues, I just keep background data off gps off and sync off, and with cygenomod7 beta the power bar has a option to turn data off. when i need data or gps etc i just use it then when done i turn them off.

TheAmazingDave · May 26, 2011

jabbawest said:
or hit the back button until it closes.
Taught my wife that and her battery lasts all day now.

Doesn't work on mine. I've tried it on several apps and they all show still running on the running app list.

edit: I saw that as an option in CM7, though.

Lane · Jul 4, 2011

Notes_Norton said:
I had the phone on all day yesterday (after that reboot) and when I plugged it in at night and turned it on, it showed charging with 97% still in the battery. So rebooting solved the problem, but unless I reinstall Gas Buddy, I won't know if it was the culprit or not.

Notes ♫

You could also get an app called SuperBox (version 2.4). Amongst its many features is taskkiller, which appears in the Battery Saver section. If you're unfamiliar with a taskkiller, it allows you to "kill" apps you don't need running that drain the battery (maps, media share, Skype, etc). You can re-install Gas Buddy and "kill it" when you are not using it or need it to be active.

Two other great features are Cache Cleaner & App2SD. Touch Cache once & it will read what can be cleared. Then touch Clear All to remove all that junk & space will free up on your phone. You'll be able to figure out for yourself what apps you don't need running. :thinking:

After doing that touch History, wait a few moments and then touch the Clear All rectangle at the top. The longer that bar is Green, the more is being cleaned up. Hope this can help you

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Notes_Norton · Jul 4, 2011

Thanx!!

Quickly draining battery problem solved in one easy step

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