Help 3hours and 30 minutes and already 40% battery

Knitewulf · Jul 31, 2011

Hoosiermama said:
Glad I saw this thread. I called VZW yesterday because in the last few days my phone has only lasted a few hours. Fully charged over night, and by 11 am this morning, it was down to 30% on the battery. This was with one phone call. That's it. Charged it up again when we went out this afternoon, came home and after going to 3 websites, it was down to 15%.

I think I'll stop at VZW tomorrow and see about a new battery. The first week and a half I had the phone, I was really impressed with the battery life, so I wonder if my battery is bad now.

Haha glad this thread helped you, but if you had good battery before is it possible that you mightve downloaded a bad app that's sucking up your battery.

Hoosiermama · Aug 1, 2011

Haha glad this thread helped you, but if you had good battery before is it possible that you mightve downloaded a bad app that's sucking up your battery.

You'd think...except that I haven't downloaded any new apps.

rushmore · Aug 1, 2011

Are some of you using a lot of social apps? I still have not had battery issues and have 1.3gb of apps installed- but no social apps. I also do not allow apps to update in the background except the market, gmail, and messaging. All others are disabled in their settings.

The D3 is better on battery than my Incredible, and that was with a much bigger extended battery.

Hoosiermama · Aug 1, 2011

Are some of you using a lot of social apps? I still have not had battery issues and have 1.3gb of apps installed- but no social apps. I also do not allow apps to update in the background except the market, gmail, and messaging. All others are disabled in their settings.

Only social networking I have is Facebook. I unplugged my phone at 7:00 am this morning, and have made one phone call (about 10 minutes). My battery now (9:43 am) is at 30%. The rest of the time, my phone has been sitting on my desk with the screen off. Wifi turns off when the screen turns off, all location services are off. I have battery on "night" mode and walked through battery conservation steps with a Verizon rep on Saturday.

Going to call my local store when they open and see if I can get a new battery. Something has to be wrong.

aostang · Aug 1, 2011

Hoosiermama said:
Only social networking I have is Facebook. I unplugged my phone at 7:00 am this morning, and have made one phone call (about 10 minutes). My battery now (9:43 am) is at 30%. The rest of the time, my phone has been sitting on my desk with the screen off. Wifi turns off when the screen turns off, all location services are off. I have battery on "night" mode and walked through battery conservation steps with a Verizon rep on Saturday.

Going to call my local store when they open and see if I can get a new battery. Something has to be wrong.

Go into settings and then to the battery and click on it. At the top you should see a graph. With that kind of drain, I bet your awake is a solid line, indicating that something isn't allowing your phone to sleep at all. The awake line shouldn't be a line at all, it should be sporadic dashes and dots indicating where you're actually using your phone. You'll need to uninstall or deactivate background usage on apps (varies with each) until you find the offending app and get your phone to be able to sleep.

2ndsout · Aug 1, 2011

I have seen a few apps that help control the battery drain. You'll probably have to look for them. I have seen a few, but can't recall names at the moment.

I also noticed that if you go to Settings/Battery & Data Manager/Battery Mode, I have mine on Nighttime Saver. The first night, I had my phone on just the regular settings and by the end of the night I was down to 5% battery remaining. I changed it over to the Nighttime Saver mode and last night when I went to bed, the battery had 30% left on it after using it for a few phone calls, adding some apps and getting used to the web surfing capabilities.

I also adjusted my brightness settings as well.

Hoosiermama · Aug 1, 2011

Go into settings and then to the battery and click on it. At the top you should see a graph. With that kind of drain, I bet your awake is a solid line, indicating that something isn't allowing your phone to sleep at all. The awake line shouldn't be a line at all, it should be sporadic dashes and dots indicating where you're actually using your phone. You'll need to uninstall or deactivate background usage on apps (varies with each) until you find the offending app and get your phone to be able to sleep.

Thanks. I did go into the Verizon store over lunch and they replaced the battery. I also asked him about an icon that was next to the 3G (at the top by the clock) that looked like a refresh or sync icon. I hadn't noticed that icon before, and wondered whether that was what was draining me. He said it was the backup trying to work (I never turned that on that I know of :rolleyes:

). It's gone now, and the new battery is charging. He did confirm that even with it trying to sync something, the battery shouldn't have drained that fast.

And you're right, the Awake has been a solid blue line from when I first noticed the drain until today.

I also picked up the extended battery. So hopefully between getting whatever that was that was trying to sync turned off, and the replacement battery, I'll be good to go.

Still love this phone, and hopefully it'll last the day like it did when I first got it now!

aostang · Aug 1, 2011

Hoosiermama said:
Thanks. I did go into the Verizon store over lunch and they replaced the battery. I also asked him about an icon that was next to the 3G (at the top by the clock) that looked like a refresh or sync icon. I hadn't noticed that icon before, and wondered whether that was what was draining me. He said it was the backup trying to work (I never turned that on that I know of). It's gone now, and the new battery is charging. He did confirm that even with it trying to sync something, the battery shouldn't have drained that fast.

And you're right, the Awake has been a solid blue line from when I first noticed the drain until today.

I also picked up the extended battery. So hopefully between getting whatever that was that was trying to sync turned off, and the replacement battery, I'll be good to go.

Still love this phone, and hopefully it'll last the day like it did when I first got it now!

Glad to hear. I've seen the sync get "stuck" on virtually every Android device at one time or another. Usually a power cycle or battery pull gets rid of it. I'd just keep an eye on it over the next couple days and make sure the phone isn't heating up and pop into the battery stats every few hours to make sure the phone is sleeping now.

gallardo · Aug 1, 2011

I got my Droid 3 the day it came out and have had very similar battery issues ever since. The first week, it wouldn't last 9 hours at idle. I took it back to Verizon and got a new battery and I now have about 20% battery left after 9 hours at idle. I've disabled the global mode, and reduced the sync to every 10 minutes. I've even uninstalled a few apps and adjusted all the battery consuming settings to be conservative.

I'm using my Motorola Droid 3 more conservatively than I used my original Motorola Droid. My original Droid would easily last a day and a half with the level of usage I have. The Droid 3 doesn't even come close to that, yet the specs on the Motorola site say that it is supposed to have better battery life. I'm seriously thinking of asking Verizon to replace the whole phone.

Barbara · Aug 1, 2011

gallardo said:
I got my Droid 3 the day it came out and have had very similar battery issues ever since. The first week, it wouldn't last 9 hours at idle. I took it back to Verizon and got a new battery and I now have about 20% battery left after 9 hours at idle. I've disabled the global mode, and reduced the sync to every 10 minutes. I've even uninstalled a few apps and adjusted all the battery consuming settings to be conservative.

I'm using my Motorola Droid 3 more conservatively than I used my original Motorola Droid. My original Droid would easily last a day and a half with the level of usage I have. The Droid 3 doesn't even come close to that, yet the specs on the Motorola site say that it is supposed to have better battery life. I'm seriously thinking of asking Verizon to replace the whole phone.

I got mine on July 8th also. I had horrible battery life the first day but found out that the standard gmail app and K-9 mail were fighting with each other. I disabled the standard app and as of right now, I'm at 50% after 24 hours. Granted I was busy today with a 3 year old and 1 year old so I didn't use it much but I do have 3 email accounts pushing plus facebook.

JoeFishNC · Aug 1, 2011

BTW Amazon has the 1800 battery, Stock is 1500...for $20.00
Amazon.com: Factory New Extended Slim Battery For Motorola DROID 3 And Milestone 3 1800mAh! High Capacity Slim Battery: Electronics

JoeFishNC · Aug 2, 2011

There is also an Extended Battery with Cover...1930...found it for $38

aostang · Aug 2, 2011

JoeFishNC said:
There is also an Extended Battery with Cover...1930...found it for $38

That's the official one and one that most people use. If you're going to bother getting an extended battery, I don't see why you'd go with the 1800 instead of the 1930 just to save a few bucks. The extended cover is only 2mm thicker and actually helps recess and protect the camera lens glass.

ekyle · Aug 2, 2011

PetriesLast said:
There is a known issue with the cell standby on this phone. Hopefully it can be fixed with a software patch.

I don't think it's reading it correctly.

Kierik said:
Look for offending apps.

Widget locker drained my battery 15% in 30 minutes after a fresh factory reset.
Google+ with instant upload enabled will drain it very fast (2.53min off charger and 30% battery left).

I went through installing only 1 app at a time and found those two offenders. Now i get through a moderate activity day(8h) with 70% left. My coworker just got his yesterday and after a overnight charge has been off for 28 hours and still had 30% left.

+1

A poorly coded app is most likely the problem

imnotmikal said:
+1 on the G+ instant upload. With it ON, I would get 7, maybe 8 hours. With it OFF, I'm getting around 14.

I noticed this one too

aostang · Aug 2, 2011

I decided it was finally time to really dig into this issue since root is upon us and quite frankly, I know something is up because it should be lasting longer than 12 hours on a charge.

With changes made yesterday, I went from the normal sitting at 30% after ~10ish hours to sitting at 40% right now after just passing 24 hours. This is one of the offenders, as I kept track of what I did:

- Turned off background data
- Removed Beautiful Widgets from my homescreen
- Removed Agenda Widget from my homescreen
- Under my Gmail account I had all except Docs checked by default. I unchecked them all for the day.
- I disabled Google syncing my apps/settings

I went to sleep sitting at 40% and was very surprised to wake up still sitting at 40% after 8 hours. This was also with the alarm going off every 5 minutes for half an hour haha. I have my screen locked at 100% brightness and power saving mode completely disabled. This is also with all that crap bloatware still installed. Now I'm positive I'll be able to make this a 3 day device just like my DX, once I figure out the offending thing from above and get the bloat out of the phone when we get root. My usage is as follows:

Cell standby 44%
Phone idle 39%
Display 10%
Android system 3%
Voice calls 3%
Android OS 2%
Handcent SMS 2%

Handcent actually made the list because I spent the majority of yesterday texting.. probably about 200 messages yesterday without going to get an exact number. Screen was on for 3 hours, Handcent used 18 minutes of CPU and 33 minutes of keep awake. Voice call was only about 20 minutes. Android system only used 49 seconds of CPU and 11 minutes of keep awake. Android OS used 28 minutes of CPU. Cell standby didn't list time without signal so I assume I had signal the whole time (I've only once ever had no signal here since switching to Verizon).

I'm going to try just Gmail sync back in today. Will report back.

Hoosiermama · Aug 2, 2011

I thought I'd follow up after exchanging batteries yesterday. I got a replacement battery from VZW at 12:30. It had a 50% charge. I didn't charge it the rest of the afternoon, and used it to make calls and surf (via wifi) at home. Battery kept the charge well the rest of the evening. I think it was down to about 30% when I swapped out the regular batter for the extended.

I let the extended charge overnight and took it off the charger around 4 am. It hasn't been charged since. I've made several calls, gotten quite a few texts and been streaming Jango via wifi all day. It's 2:25 now, and the battery still has a 50% charge. I have not charged it, and am planning on seeing just how long it lasts today.

So far, very happy.

aostang · Aug 2, 2011

Hoosiermama said:
I thought I'd follow up after exchanging batteries yesterday. I got a replacement battery from VZW at 12:30. It had a 50% charge. I didn't charge it the rest of the afternoon, and used it to make calls and surf (via wifi) at home. Battery kept the charge well the rest of the evening. I think it was down to about 30% when I swapped out the regular batter for the extended.

I let the extended charge overnight and took it off the charger around 4 am. It hasn't been charged since. I've made several calls, gotten quite a few texts and been streaming Jango via wifi all day. It's 2:25 now, and the battery still has a 50% charge. I have not charged it, and am planning on seeing just how long it lasts today.

So far, very happy.

LiPo batteries don't have the memory effect, but it's actually a good idea to give a battery a full charge at least the first day so that the phone can learn what output equates to what charge percent.

ekyle · Aug 2, 2011

aostang said:
LiPo batteries don't have the memory effect, but it's actually a good idea to give a battery a full charge at least the first day so that the phone can learn what output equates to what charge percent.

The batteries don't but the sensor in the phone tries to "guess"

aostang · Aug 2, 2011

ekyle said:
The batteries don't but the sensor in the phone tries to "guess"

Yeah, we're in agreement.

Hoosiermama · Aug 2, 2011

All I know is, it's still going

aostang · Aug 2, 2011

I opted not to plug in yet so I can let mine run overnight from a full charge. I'm only down another 10% so far with some mild texting.. 30% at 1 day 3 hours 44 minutes.

gallardo · Aug 2, 2011

gallardo said:
I got my Droid 3 the day it came out and have had very similar battery issues ever since. The first week, it wouldn't last 9 hours at idle. I took it back to Verizon and got a new battery and I now have about 20% battery left after 9 hours at idle. I've disabled the global mode, and reduced the sync to every 10 minutes. I've even uninstalled a few apps and adjusted all the battery consuming settings to be conservative.

I'm using my Motorola Droid 3 more conservatively than I used my original Motorola Droid. My original Droid would easily last a day and a half with the level of usage I have. The Droid 3 doesn't even come close to that, yet the specs on the Motorola site say that it is supposed to have better battery life. I'm seriously thinking of asking Verizon to replace the whole phone.

UPDATE: I put my phone in Airplane mode for the day. ZERO communications. My battery life surprisingly did not improve. I had the same 20% battery left after 9 hours at idle. This has to be an issue with CPU consumption.

aostang · Aug 2, 2011

gallardo said:
UPDATE: I put my phone in Airplane mode for the day. ZERO communications. My battery life surprisingly did not improve. I had the same 20% battery left after 9 hours at idle. This has to be an issue with CPU consumption.

What does your awake time look like in the battery stats graph?

aostang · Aug 2, 2011

Just an update.. just ticked 1 day 10 hours and my phone just now finally went down to 20% after sitting at 30% all day. I'm going to have to plug it in shortly though so I can do the overnight test with a few things re-enabled to start narrowing down the offender.

Knitewulf · Aug 3, 2011

aostang said:
I decided it was finally time to really dig into this issue since root is upon us and quite frankly, I know something is up because it should be lasting longer than 12 hours on a charge.

With changes made yesterday, I went from the normal sitting at 30% after ~10ish hours to sitting at 40% right now after just passing 24 hours. This is one of the offenders, as I kept track of what I did:

- Turned off background data
- Removed Beautiful Widgets from my homescreen
- Removed Agenda Widget from my homescreen
- Under my Gmail account I had all except Docs checked by default. I unchecked them all for the day.
- I disabled Google syncing my apps/settings

I went to sleep sitting at 40% and was very surprised to wake up still sitting at 40% after 8 hours. This was also with the alarm going off every 5 minutes for half an hour haha. I have my screen locked at 100% brightness and power saving mode completely disabled. This is also with all that crap bloatware still installed. Now I'm positive I'll be able to make this a 3 day device just like my DX, once I figure out the offending thing from above and get the bloat out of the phone when we get root. My usage is as follows:

Cell standby 44%
Phone idle 39%
Display 10%
Android system 3%
Voice calls 3%
Android OS 2%
Handcent SMS 2%

Handcent actually made the list because I spent the majority of yesterday texting.. probably about 200 messages yesterday without going to get an exact number. Screen was on for 3 hours, Handcent used 18 minutes of CPU and 33 minutes of keep awake. Voice call was only about 20 minutes. Android system only used 49 seconds of CPU and 11 minutes of keep awake. Android OS used 28 minutes of CPU. Cell standby didn't list time without signal so I assume I had signal the whole time (I've only once ever had no signal here since switching to Verizon).

I'm going to try just Gmail sync back in today. Will report back.

Where did you go to uncheck all the things in the Gmail app? Also how do I tell if the K-9 app is fighting the Gmail one, I didn't set up any other email so I should be good right?

Help 3hours and 30 minutes and already 40% battery

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