Help Battery draining faster - any ideas?

CoreyV · Feb 6, 2013

I've had my N2 for a few weeks now, and I've noticed recently that my battery performance seems poorer than it was at first. I assume I've downloaded an app that's hitting the battery, but I'm not smart enough to read these battery reports to understand what it might be.

These are from a fresh reboot of the phone (so no apps were launched by me, and you can see there is no screen time) at 100% charge, over last night, sitting right next to me wireless router (so finding the network shouldn't have been a struggle).

Any thoughts on what might be causing my drain before I do reset and start over?

mwil82 · Feb 6, 2013

I am not sure if you are joking or not. You can't be seriously complaining about 19% drop in battery after 9 hours. I think your battery is just fine.

CoreyV · Feb 6, 2013

mwil82 said:
I am not sure if you are joking or not. You can't be seriously complaining about 19% drop in battery after 9 hours. I think your battery is just fine.

No, I'm not joking. And I don't think asking a question is really complaining. I'm not one of those unreasonable battery nuts.

I swear I wasn't seeing this kind of drop a couple weeks ago - I thought it was less than 1%/hour overnight. The night before I went to bed at 50% (no reset) and 8 hours later my battery was at 15% (35% drop in 8 hours seems a bit much I think). I might be experiencing less battery drop while my phone sits at work with occasional use, but I haven't diligently checked it yet. I checked my wife's S2 this morning (2.3.4 stock) and her battery dropped 8% over 11 hours. I thought the N2's larger battery (running 4.1.2) would provide for at least similar, if not better, performance.

So yeah, I think something is a little off. I'm fine resetting and starting fresh to isolate what's grabbing the battery. But I'd rather not if something jumps out to someone.

Veritas4420 · Feb 6, 2013

CoreyV said:
No, I'm not joking. And I don't think asking a question is really complaining. I'm not one of those unreasonable battery nuts.

I swear I wasn't seeing this kind of drop a couple weeks ago - I thought it was less than 1%/hour overnight. The night before I went to bed at 50% (no reset) and 8 hours later my battery was at 15% (35% drop in 8 hours seems a bit much I think). I might be experiencing less battery drop while my phone sits at work with occasional use, but I haven't diligently checked it yet. I checked my wife's S2 this morning (2.3.4 stock) and her battery dropped 8% over 11 hours. I thought the N2's larger battery (running 4.1.2) would provide for at least similar, if not better, performance.

So yeah, I think something is a little off. I'm fine resetting and starting fresh to isolate what's grabbing the battery. But I'd rather not if something jumps out to someone.

Well yes the battery is bigger but the N2 has a 5.5 inch screen and a lot more features. If the battery life seems lacking to you try a factory reset. From your picture it looks like things are syncing in the background.

CoreyV · Feb 6, 2013

Wakelocks???

I don't know much about them or understand them. But over that 9 hour overnight period I see 1,000 wakelocks. Is that a normal amount for that period of time?

Cid67 · Feb 6, 2013

If your not in a LTE zone shut the antenna off it sucks up the power in no time..

CoreyV · Feb 6, 2013

Cid67 said:
If your not in a LTE zone shut the antenna off it sucks up the power in no time..

I don't believe I'm in a lte zone. And even if I was I'm on wireless 90+% of the time.

So how does one go about disabling lte and still keep some data connection for the 10% of the time I am out and about?

Forgot to mention that I didn't have the lte coding on my sim when I first started (I changed my #from an S2). I called att and they made the code change to late afterwards. I don't remember the date and if that coincides with my battery slip.

lcneed · Feb 6, 2013

There is something strange about your mobile network signal bar. It is solid green. I checked mine and it is broken in the middle when I am sleeping. I don't think mine was ever solid green like that awake or not.

I think you have something running that kept your mobile network going...

ctxx24 · Feb 6, 2013

Menu.. Settings.. More settings.. Mobile setting.. Network mode..

Could also try a 4G toggle widget

twister6 · Feb 6, 2013

Hang on, why are talking about LTE when you mentioned it was on wi-fi the whole night. Even so you think sitting next to wireless router shouldn't cause any problem, I found having wi-fi on at night drained my battery a lot faster. I tried it numerous times, and it always a consistent results while idling 4G drains less battery than WiFi.

CoreyV · Feb 6, 2013

ctxx24 said:
Menu.. Settings.. More settings.. Mobile setting.. Network mode..

Could also try a 4G toggle widget

All I see is the option to disable data, I assume entirely. That's not what I was hoping for.

CoreyV · Feb 6, 2013

twister6 said:
Hang on, why are talking about LTE when you mentioned it was on wi-fi the whole night. Even so you think sitting next to wireless router shouldn't cause any problem, I found having wi-fi on at night drained my battery a lot faster. I tried it numerous times, and it always a consistent results while idling 4G drains less battery than WiFi.

Maybe a few reasons.

1) My wife's S2 was also connected to our wifi all night, and didn't appear to have the same drain.

2) I've been attached to wifi overnight the entire time I've had the phone, and it seems like the battery drain is a more recent thing - which lead me to assume an app, the LTE being activated (it wasn't activated initially), 4.1.2???

3) I read a whole bunch yesterday and the majority seemed to fall on the side to not turn off wifi at night because it will be no more, and likely less, batter drain than cell data.

I might try a night with wifi off, and another with data off, before a reset though - in the interest of science/isolating variables.

Cid67 · Feb 6, 2013

twister6 said:
Hang on, why are talking about LTE when you mentioned it was on wi-fi the whole night. Even so you think sitting next to wireless router shouldn't cause any problem, I found having wi-fi on at night drained my battery a lot faster. I tried it numerous times, and it always a consistent results while idling 4G drains less battery than WiFi.

The LTE antenna always searches for LTE signal as does the wifi if your not already connected thus draining battery

lcneed · Feb 6, 2013

I also think it has something to do with your mobile signal. I just took a look at my phone's battery app again, and confirmed that when the phone is idle sitting on my desk, the mobile network signal line is "not there". Only when my phone is awake, it turns green. Yours is solid green all night... maybe your Note II is talking to Skynet!

CoreyV · Feb 6, 2013

And no concerns about the wake lock? I don't really understand what they are. But that seems like a big number and a lot of wakes, even if the actual CPU time isn't that much.

ctxx24 · Feb 6, 2013

Go down to network mode it's in there.. U can shut off lte..

CoreyV · Feb 6, 2013

ctxx24 said:
Go down to network mode it's in there.. U can shut off lte..

I don't see an option for Network Mode. I posted a screen shot of what I see above in the thread. There is something labeled Network Operators, but when I go into that setting there is nothing there to do (just a grayed out item labeled 'Default setup').

So the only option I see is to completely turn off Mobile data.

CoreyV · Feb 6, 2013

update...

I looked at my stats again this afternoon and see that my mobile signal finally shut down for a while. I'm not sure what time it was to know where I was, but looking at the screen block I think it would have been late morning when I was at work.

lcneed · Feb 6, 2013

The later half of your mobile network signal bar looks a lot like mine. Except there is still too much green I think.

This is my mobile network signal bar since this morning:

PiscesCloud · Feb 6, 2013

CoreyV said:
update...

I looked at my stats again this afternoon and see that my mobile signal finally shut down for a while. I'm not sure what time it was to know where I was, but looking at the screen block I think it would have been late morning when I was at work.

It is interesting that the discharge rate levels off when the mobile signal shut down but was moderately steep when it was on. I guess that is a good a clue as any! Have fun.

CoreyV · Feb 6, 2013

Apparently I need to more closely watch the mobile signal, as there seems to at least be a decent correlation there.

But I had not noticed there are different colors on the bar (I'm color blind). Can anyone clue me in what the different colors are and what they mean? I have a dominant color that was running solid all night, and then what looks like a lighter color to me that has broken things up a bit here this afternoon.

twister6 · Feb 6, 2013

Cid67 said:
The LTE antenna always searches for LTE signal as does the wifi if your not already connected thus draining battery

True, but I guess it all depends on your location and proximity to wifi equipment. I'm telling you that I don't even turn wifi anymore and see night'n'day difference in my battery drain. I should mention that I do have unlimited data plan, so it makes a difference where I don't worry about data usage. I also found Speed Test reports almost identical DL/UL speed with 4G vs wifi. But I guess it all depends on location, etc.

Btw to OP, do you have Power Saving Mode in Settings turned on? I also noticed a difference with it on when phone is idle, like at night.

Btw^2 to OP, can you think of any recent app you installed? Although, it should show up in GSam if its draining extra juice at night, but you never know...

CoreyV · Feb 6, 2013

twister6 said:
True, but I guess it all depends on your location and proximity to wifi equipment. I'm telling you that I don't even turn wifi anymore and see night'n'day difference in my battery drain. I should mention that I do have unlimited data plan, so it makes a difference where I don't worry about data usage. I also found Speed Test reports almost identical DL/UL speed with 4G vs wifi. But I guess it all depends on location, etc.

Btw to OP, do you have Power Saving Mode in Settings turned on? I also noticed a difference with it on when phone is idle, like at night.

Btw^2 to OP, can you think of any recent app you installed? Although, it should show up in GSam if its draining extra juice at night, but you never know...

I do not have power saving mode enabled, and I didn't before when my battery wasn't draining over night. I also checked my wife's s2's battery performance graph and her mobile is straight green since this morning. I'll have to check her graph again in the morning to compare.

I'm leaning towards my issue being an app - I've installed a number of them recently. Since I don't know which might be ruining I'll probably have to reset in a day or two. I just hate doing all that rework installing apps and getting my launcher reset.

twister6 · Feb 7, 2013

Yes, definitely check your apps. GSam is great for tracking stuff down. Also, per another thread someone posted, exchange server with Push setting was draining battery a lot.

Btw, here is my screenshot. I do use GPS to/from work for an hour drive each way (Google traffic is a lifesaver), and have battery plugged in to offset the drain of GPS/display/BT phone. So its not a typical charging but rather balance maintenance. As you can see, GPS on and awake/screen/charging aligned in chunks. In between I have basic email checking, web browsing, and playing a few games. With that balance, the screenshot battery was at 53% with the last full charge done 1d 13h ago.

Another tip, all the pre-installed Google and provider stuff (in my case a crap from Verizon) can't be uninstalled unless you rooted, but it CAN be disabled in Application manager. I don't need to run any of that Amazon stuff, Audible, Google, Kies, NFL, Yahoo, and Zappos. That was a waste of memory and battery resources since some of them ping network even when not in use, not to mention constant app updates.

CoreyV · Feb 7, 2013

twister6 said:
Yes, definitely check your apps. GSam is great for tracking stuff down. Also, per another thread someone posted, exchange server with Push setting was draining battery a lot.

GSAM points to Android System and the Kernel consuming the battery resources. So unfortunately it's not helping me pinpoint what is truly draining the battery.

For kicks last night I put my phone to airplane mode so neither wifi, cell data, or mobile network signal would run. Over 8 hours time the battery dropped 2%, which sounds right. My wife's S2 with everything on dropped 9% over an 11 hour period (her norm). So something is running overnight that shouldn't be.

I'm not sure the mobile network signal has anything to do with this. My wife's S2 has a solid green bar overnight just like my N2. And for some reason my N2's mobile network signal gets choppy (breaks in green - either totally black or gray) throughout the day. It's only at night that it runs constant green.

Help Battery draining faster - any ideas?

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