Help 3hours and 30 minutes and already 40% battery

Knitewulf · Aug 20, 2011

MicroNix said:
Ok, this gets weirder by the day. Yesterday, I had an unbelievable day with 90% battery left at noon. I ran a full 16 hours and still had 20% left. I almost shed a tear of joy. Today, same routine, sitting in the same places at the same times, it was completely dead (no, not just flashing red, completely dead) by 2:30pm. I just don't get this phone. I did notice it hitting 1x a lot and today my "time without signal" was in the upper 20%. Also checked running apps and there was nothing different.

Back to the drawing board. Thinking of doing a complete factory reset this weekend and turning off backing and restoring data from Google but I'm still convinced that there is a radio problem draining the battery somehow.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if its a 1x signal isn't the phone trying to acquire a 3g signal which is causing it to use a lot of juice?

MicroNix · Aug 20, 2011

Knitewulf said:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but if its a 1x signal isn't the phone trying to acquire a 3g signal which is causing it to use a lot of juice?

Exactly. But why I had a stellar day with it sitting in the exact same location (ok, within 4 inches) and the next its at 1x....what gives? There is something wrong with this device and how it locates (and pins to) towers it seems. Like others are saying in the moto forums, it is picking the 2nd best signal even if there is a 3G signal right under its nose. Imagine those with 3G extenders in their home providing all their other phones with perfect 3G signal but the D3 chooses a far away remote tower instead (which was the very reason they bought the extender in the first place).

I am willing to bet that everyone here that has awesome battery life uses their device where there are at least 2 towers in close proximity. I am also willing to bet that there is no one in a rural area that gets great battery life.

I've been watching with the OpenSignal app and there are times that this thing chooses a tower that is over 5 miles from my house even though I have another one close by. Here's to hoping for a upcoming fix...

klintala · Aug 20, 2011

klintala said:
I'm @ 70% with just under 2 hours..
I've played 4 turns of "words w/ friends"
Probably 20-25 texts.. and thats it!
I have gmail and Facebook syncing.. but I haven't had any notifications from those.

I think I might get the extended battery, so I won't have to worry about battery life.
Also, I'm guessing its safe to keep a batter fully charged and not in a phone correct?
That way I can always keep the stock battery full incase I don't have time to charge.. Or if I travel (13+ hour drives and I'll be on my phone playing games and surfing the web the whole time)

I received my extended battery yesterday.. made sure to charge it fully.
Right now I'm at about the same usage.. maybe a tad less.
but 90% @ 4 hours..

Seems like a $35 well spent..
only problem is the cover my sister got me doesn't fit with the new battery..
but I was expecting that!

Edit: wifi eats up A LOT.. with heavy usage I'm at 10% after 13h 30m.. wifi 29%
my browser made the list at 2%.. shows how much I used the internet and how the batter has held up. I also played some games as well.
I definitely recommend the extended battery.. I think they should have just included it with the phone! Seems like the phone was meant for it, because now the camera is more protected!

aostang · Aug 20, 2011

I had my first situation where it wasn't at the "usual" 1-3am deal with switching to 1X temporarily. It seemed to happen when I was at the *exact* same moment trying to start a data connection opening the market as I was just receiving a text message. Something went wonky and it dropped to 1X as I received the text message and it was stuck at 1X (and even usable) doing the market stuff (and so slow that it was blatantly on 1X). I let it do its thing for about 10 minutes stuck on 1X before I finally rebooted and instantly had 3G back on bootup. Something is definitely not quite right with 3G acquisition/retention.

ekyle · Aug 22, 2011

aostang said:
I had my first situation where it wasn't at the "usual" 1-3am deal with switching to 1X temporarily. It seemed to happen when I was at the *exact* same moment trying to start a data connection opening the market as I was just receiving a text message. Something went wonky and it dropped to 1X as I received the text message and it was stuck at 1X (and even usable) doing the market stuff (and so slow that it was blatantly on 1X). I let it do its thing for about 10 minutes stuck on 1X before I finally rebooted and instantly had 3G back on bootup. Something is definitely not quite right with 3G acquisition/retention.

My Eris used to do that. Just put it in airplane mode for a second and then disabled airplane mode. It was fine after that.

beowulf7 · Aug 22, 2011

klintala said:
I received my extended battery yesterday.. made sure to charge it fully.
Right now I'm at about the same usage.. maybe a tad less.
but 90% @ 4 hours..

Seems like a $35 well spent..
only problem is the cover my sister got me doesn't fit with the new battery..
but I was expecting that!

Edit: wifi eats up A LOT.. with heavy usage I'm at 10% after 13h 30m.. wifi 29%
my browser made the list at 2%.. shows how much I used the internet and how the batter has held up. I also played some games as well.
I definitely recommend the extended battery.. I think they should have just included it with the phone! Seems like the phone was meant for it, because now the camera is more protected!

Glad the extended battery is working better for you. I'll still stay w/ the stock battery for now since I have a charger available in most places I am, namely home, work, and car.

About the camera lens, a case also does a nice job of protecting it so that it doesn't touch the surface when the phone is lying down, face up. :cool:

MicroNix · Aug 22, 2011

beowulf7 said:
Glad the extended battery is working better for you. I'll still stay w/ the stock battery for now since I have a charger available in most places I am, namely home, work, and car.

Well so far the extended battery got me from 2:30pm dead (original battery) to around 5:30pm. This is starting from 6am in the morning. Better, but still not impressed.

BTW, for anyone considering the extended battery, you BARELY can notice a difference with the new back cover. I thought maybe I'd really notice a difference, but pleasantly surprised. Like someone else said, they should have just included the extended battery from the get go!

Knitewulf · Aug 22, 2011

Klintala it sounds like you experienced the same joy I did

with chargers or without chargers I would go with the extended battery. Its the best piece of add on equipment I have ever bought for anything.

beowulf7 · Aug 22, 2011

MicroNix said:
Well so far the extended battery got me from 2:30pm dead (original battery) to around 5:30pm. This is starting from 6am in the morning. Better, but still not impressed.

BTW, for anyone considering the extended battery, you BARELY can notice a difference with the new back cover. I thought maybe I'd really notice a difference, but pleasantly surprised. Like someone else said, they should have just included the extended battery from the get go!

I bet VZW included the smaller battery so they could get more $ from having people buy accessories, such as the larger battery.

aostang · Aug 23, 2011

beowulf7 said:
I bet VZW included the smaller battery so they could get more $ from having people buy accessories, such as the larger battery.

That's why any company offers an extended battery as an accessory instead of in the box. They're not obnoxiously big like they used to be, so it's not a form-factor issue anymore.

zzrstryker · Aug 23, 2011

I hate to be "that" guy...newbie to the forum and newbie to a smart phone, but thankfully i'm not having a battery life issue. I resisted smart phones for years still using a env3 with no as in zero data package. in fact my account was 4 env3's for 139.00 a month total. For two years I talked myself out of smartphones. Then I suddenly decided I want one!. my self imposed requirements were android and real key board not touch or swype. all the reviews mention by far the number 1 complaint is battery life.
initially right out of the box....yea just silly 20 % left in under 8 hours. but I started playing around. turned off active wallpapers. I turn off wifi when I don't anticipate using it. I have data saver checked. data delivery roaming is unchecked. I basically use it just like i use my old phone...phone and text. I think I have used like .25 gb of download in the 10 days I have owned the phone

the result? I just hit 20% after 1 day 8 hours and 35 minutes. this is the third straight 2 day period that is has taken me 32 plus hours to get to 20% two days ago I went over 36 hours

oh I also set almost all my apps to stop themselves on the auto end list which i think is a 2 minute time out. my display is turned down a little and it turns the display off after 30 seconds

so basically i'm ok with my battery life so far for a smart phone on a stock battery

use stats
cell standby 35%
phone idle 32%
android system 16%
voice calls 8%
display 5%
wifi 4%

Knitewulf · Aug 23, 2011

zzrstryker said:
I hate to be "that" guy...newbie to the forum and newbie to a smart phone, but thankfully i'm not having a battery life issue. I resisted smart phones for years still using a env3 with no as in zero data package. in fact my account was 4 env3's for 139.00 a month total. For two years I talked myself out of smartphones. Then I suddenly decided I want one!. my self imposed requirements were android and real key board not touch or swype. all the reviews mention by far the number 1 complaint is battery life.
initially right out of the box....yea just silly 20 % left in under 8 hours. but I started playing around. turned off active wallpapers. I turn off wifi when I don't anticipate using it. I have data saver checked. data delivery roaming is unchecked. I basically use it just like i use my old phone...phone and text. I think I have used like .25 gb of download in the 10 days I have owned the phone

the result? I just hit 20% after 1 day 8 hours and 35 minutes. this is the third straight 2 day period that is has taken me 32 plus hours to get to 20% two days ago I went over 36 hours

oh I also set almost all my apps to stop themselves on the auto end list which i think is a 2 minute time out. my display is turned down a little and it turns the display off after 30 seconds

so basically i'm ok with my battery life so far for a smart phone on a stock battery

use stats
cell standby 35%
phone idle 32%
android system 16%
voice calls 8%
display 5%
wifi 4%

I always thought auto-ending apps used more battery than just letting them run, maybe I was wrong...

aostang · Aug 23, 2011

Knitewulf said:
I always thought auto-ending apps used more battery than just letting them run, maybe I was wrong...

If they constantly restart, that's very true. Task managers with auto-kill turned on are generally a no-no since Eclair.

jwdink · Aug 25, 2011

MicroNix said:
My wife is getting poor battery life too and this is her first Android phone. Pretty much stock too without more than a couple apps that I don't even have and no settings that would have sync'd with Google.

An interesting thread going on in the Moto forums has someone who can demonstrate that though 3G antennas are closer to him, the D3 is still favoring a more distant 3G tower. Some even have extender devices in their home because of poor tower signals and it will favor the tower over the extender! If that is the case, that would use tons of battery and would fit right inline with the Cell Standby stats. Maybe it is it, maybe not. I installed the app "Antennas" and found that my D3 jumps from tower to tower and favors one pretty far away. I need to verify the app is correct with the other towers it shows me (don't remember seeing towers in those locations but never paid attention either) before saying I am seeing the same thing.

Can you link to this thread? It would be great to be able to fix this. I'm not getting great battery life, at it looks like "cell standby" is the culprit.

Frisco · Aug 25, 2011

Once I cleared the auto end list last Sunday my battery life went up from about 30% at the end of the day to now over 50% or so.

It's the old usage/talk killer syndrome we used to see in the Eris.

ymmv

jwdink · Aug 25, 2011

Frisco said:
Once I cleared the auto end list last Sunday my battery life went up from about 30% at the end of the day to now over 50% or so.

It's the old usage/talk killer syndrome we used to see in the Eris.

ymmv

Could you elaborate please?

Frisco · Aug 25, 2011

jwdink said:
Could you elaborate please?

Many users noticed that task "managers" and/or task "killers" caused resource loss when used. They are controversial, with "experts" on both sides of the issue vehemently disagreeing (thus my, "ymmv").

What happens is this: the user invokes an app, that app calls up one or more services so that it can run. The task killer has been told to kill certain services after a certain time of use in other apps, but which are needed by the current app the user just started.

A loop occurs, wherein the service is stopped by the task killer and restarted by the alive app many times, causing battery and resource drain.

That happening over many apps during the course of a day will veritably kill the battery and slow down the device.

beowulf7 · Aug 25, 2011

I fully recharged my battery yesterday night before I went to bed. Just as an experiment, just before I went to bed, once I verified it was at 100%, I disconnected the phone from the charger. I turned off Wi-Fi and made sure GPS and Bluetooth were also off. No apps were running. I have a weather widget that runs. I then put the phone on sleep. I woke up 7 hours later and the battery was down to 70%. That's horrendous battery life to go from 100% to 70% in 7 hours while it was in sleep mode. :mad:

There's no way this phone can achieve the kind of standby time it advertises.

Frisco · Aug 25, 2011

Weather widgets are well-known battery drainers, especially if the polling time for updates is set to once per half-hour or just about anything other than "on demand."

Weather Bug Elite is horrid with this.

beowulf7 · Aug 26, 2011

^ That may be the case, but I have my phone set for data saver/sleep mode at night (I think between midnight and 8 am), so that should limit the weather widget battery usage, right? :thinking:

MicroNix · Aug 26, 2011

beowulf7 said:
I fully recharged my battery yesterday night before I went to bed. Just as an experiment, just before I went to bed, once I verified it was at 100%, I disconnected the phone from the charger. I turned off Wi-Fi and made sure GPS and Bluetooth were also off. No apps were running. I have a weather widget that runs. I then put the phone on sleep. I woke up 7 hours later and the battery was down to 70%. That's horrendous battery life to go from 100% to 70% in 7 hours while it was in sleep mode. There's no way this phone can achieve the kind of standby time it advertises.

Try this. Let the phone charge overnight. In the morning verify it is at 100% charge. Take it off the charger. Wait for 10 minutes or so (check emails, etc.). Plug it back in the charger for 30 minutes (ignore the message that says its at 100% charge and to remove it). Take it off the charger and see how the battery lasts over the course of the day. I need someone else to verify this. I get unbelievable battery life if I do this. Like the battery isn't fully charging. I've already gone 15 hours and still had 30% left with moderate usage whereas by 2:30pm - 5:00pm it would be completely dead with no usage at all.

Frisco · Aug 27, 2011

beowulf7 said:
^ That may be the case, but I have my phone set for data saver/sleep mode at night (I think between midnight and 8 am), so that should limit the weather widget battery usage, right?

I wish I could put the weather to sleep then, but I need those updates at the drop of a hat. My habit has been to grab them on demand, but it takes about two minutes to load if it's been asleep and sometimes crashes altogether.

Palmyra has been working flawlessly for me, and little resource drain even set to update at 30 minute intervals.

jwdink · Aug 27, 2011

MicroNix said:
Try this. Let the phone charge overnight. In the morning verify it is at 100% charge. Take it off the charger. Wait for 10 minutes or so (check emails, etc.). Plug it back in the charger for 30 minutes (ignore the message that says its at 100% charge and to remove it). Take it off the charger and see how the battery lasts over the course of the day. I need someone else to verify this. I get unbelievable battery life if I do this. Like the battery isn't fully charging. I've already gone 15 hours and still had 30% left with moderate usage whereas by 2:30pm - 5:00pm it would be completely dead with no usage at all.

I kinda tried this yesterday, with no help. I'll try it again today.

Then I'm swapping this phone out. I'm not getting the horrendous battery life that some of you are reporting, but I'm definitely not getting as good battery life as I think is the norm on this phone. I get about 8 hours with normal/light usage. Background data on, google mail is the only thing syncing, light browsing and text messaging. It seems like it's the cell phone tower problem. Factory reset did not help.

The question is, should I swap it out for a different Droid 3? Or pay the restocking fee and just go with a different phone? Droid 3 is out of stock so I'd have to wait... what if I get another Droid 3, it has the same problem, but by then my 14 days is up? How stressful.

jwdink · Aug 27, 2011

aostang said:
Another followup on today.. I'm down to 40% now at 19 hours usage, but noticed something interesting. It was a very steady (but faster) slow downhill than yesterday's run with everything off down to 60%, then I noticed at 60% when I started doing some heavy email on my laptop (mostly forum reply response notification.. it's been a flood today helping people try to get root on this thing) and at the point that the heavier email traffic started I noticed a more steep decline and have lost another 20% in just the last 3 or so hours while doing hardly anything besides maybe a dozen texts on the phone. This has been a 50% drop since this morning, where as yesterday I went roughly 16 hours the whole day losing only 20% (and only dropping the extra 10% toward the end of the run). I'm really believing at this point that it is the Gmail sync that is causing a large drain on this phone. Now, I have a *HUGE* inbox with a 4 month backlog of messages that I'm going to finish cleaning out to my backup PST on my desktop, so I will be able to tell if it's a large inbox causing it, or if it's possible the background data setting that I also enabled is contributing to it. I'll turn off background data tonight and give tomorrow the same run with just Gmail enabled out of everything I disabled, but I'm definitely onto something here.

This makes no sense to me... it's only set to sync the last four days-- why would the overall size of the inbox matter?

beowulf7 · Aug 30, 2011

MicroNix said:
Try this. Let the phone charge overnight. In the morning verify it is at 100% charge. Take it off the charger. Wait for 10 minutes or so (check emails, etc.). Plug it back in the charger for 30 minutes (ignore the message that says its at 100% charge and to remove it). Take it off the charger and see how the battery lasts over the course of the day. I need someone else to verify this. I get unbelievable battery life if I do this. Like the battery isn't fully charging. I've already gone 15 hours and still had 30% left with moderate usage whereas by 2:30pm - 5:00pm it would be completely dead with no usage at all.

Interesting idea. I guess the theory is to fool the battery into overcharging it, so that your battery is fuller than it normally would be. I'll give it a shot. I assumed 100% is the real 100%, but maybe it's not.

Frisco said:
I wish I could put the weather to sleep then, but I need those updates at the drop of a hat. My habit has been to grab them on demand, but it takes about two minutes to load if it's been asleep and sometimes crashes altogether.

Palmyra has been working flawlessly for me, and little resource drain even set to update at 30 minute intervals.

Yeah, I guess the weather app takes a pretty large toll. Maybe another thing I can do is put my phone in airplane mode when I hit the sack. But that pretty much would be like turning my phone off w/o having to deal w/ the long boot-up process. I don't care about receiving phone calls while I'm asleep.

Help 3hours and 30 minutes and already 40% battery

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