Help Battery draining

[Lefthand]

All of a sudden, since the last few days the battery is draining very fast. I have not made any changes to the phone nor installed new apps. My typical daily usage has not changed. I usually unplug the phone at 8 in the morning and the charge would easily last well into late at night. Now it's down to 15% by 5 pm. This is a bit of a problem for me as I'm out and about throughout the day and don't have the possibility to recharge the phone. I simply can't figure out why this is happening all of a sudden. Any ideas?

 

[razvan06]

Well... since when do you let the phone charge over night ?
Doing this will kill the battery A LOT faster ! Maybe this is why it does not hold a charge any more..

 

[Lefthand]

Ah! Come to think of it, this is a habit I did pick up recently... Really didn't know it would have such an adverse effect. Can the battery still be "reconditioned" ( 3x charge/discharge cycles) or is it too late?

 

[razvan06]

You could try, but from what i know and taking in consideration the level of usage, you have very little chances to actually have it fixed by doing that.

I do believe you will have to exchange the battery, that will be the best solution right now!

 

[agentc13]

I charge mine overnight. No adverse effects on battery life. (I am on cm10.1, and easily get 16-20 hours before it gets below 25%). So I really doubt that is the issue.

What is your time without signal during the day? And do you leave wifi on when no connected etc? I notice a real drain when in bad coverage areas or when leaving wifi, bt, gps, etc on when not using them (I do leave mobile data on all the time though).

 

[Lefthand]

I work in a very large building where coverage can be, at best, erratic. So that could be part of the problem.. However the rapid discharging only started occurring over the last couple of weeks or so, which is strange. I only have gps and data turned on, nothing else, and always have before, so no changes there. The unfortunate thing is that, being a sealed unit, I can't just replace the battery myself. I'd have to send it in for servicing and god knows how long that would take, not to mention the cost.. :-(

 

[nash211]

The HTC one s has a lithium battery makes no difference when you charge it, it will not damage the battery. It does not develop a memory, so charging it overnight doesn't matter. GPS is one of the biggest culprits for battery drain, I guess try shut off the GPS, turn down the backlight of the screen. See if that makes a difference. I downloaded a app and seems to make a difference.

 

[Lefthand]

The HTC one s has a lithium battery makes no difference when you charge it, it will not damage the battery. It does not develop a memory, so charging it overnight doesn't matter. GPS is one of the biggest culprits for battery drain, I guess try shut off the GPS, turn down the backlight of the screen. See if that makes a difference. I downloaded a app and seems to make a difference.

Thanks for all the replies guys, lots of food for thought. The thing is I know GPS is a battery drain, but I've always kept it on as it saves me from having to switch it on every time I use Maps etc . The problem here is the battery drainage problem is a recent thing, it started happening only a few day ago with no change in my usage habits (apart from the overnight charging). I'm at a loss, I even checked battery usage but there's nothing untowards there. The phone battery status has just gone to yellow (less than 14% left after 11 hours since charging. Actual phone use today was about 1.5 hours in total, just browsing, facebook, checking scores etc. and including a 10 minute phone call. No games or heavy app use. This can't be right...

 

[nash211]

I downloaded the all in one tool box app within the app it has a battery booster tab to click, I installed that attachment and my battery lasts at least 6 hours longer. To replace the battery it is removing 4 screws and the battery clips in with a wire connector. Not difficult but not everyone can do that. The change in battery drain I do not know. Use the toolbox app under tools to clean your phone files, cache and such, maybe it will help.

 

[razvan06]

According to what people say here, even if you leave the phone to charge over night you will not damage the battery ?
Mine stays on charge no more than 4h powered off [almost each time] and i charge it once 2-3d [i play, i google, i chat, etc]...
Did you go elswhere to ask about battery damage if you let it charge over night or just google'd it and read what others say [like a tech from warranty] ? Even if it is a lithium battery type you still damage it if you let it charge again and again from 90%-100% for 6h.

 

[agentc13]

According to what people say here, even if you leave the phone to charge over night you will not damage the battery ?
Mine stays on charge no more than 4h powered off [almost each time] and i charge it once 2-3d [i play, i google, i chat, etc]...
Did you go elswhere to ask about battery damage if you let it charge over night or just google'd it and read what others say [like a tech from warranty] ? Even if it is a lithium battery type you still damage it if you let it charge again and again from 90%-100% for 6h.

Mine has charged overnight every night since I got it (right when TMOUS released it) and there have been no adverse effects. I don't do much to manage it besides toggle wifi/bluetooth/gps, yet it still has great battery life.

I would check your time without signal and see how much your phone is eating up battery by searching for a signal. If that isn't the issue, get an app like watchdog that will give you good usage reports from your apps as it could be a misbehaving app causing the drain.

I would most certainly check out software/app related causes before replacing the battery (which isn't too hard, but definitely isn't as easy as in a phone with a removable battery). Definitely possible that it may be a battery hardware issue, but I would check out other possible causes first (especially when they will be free/cheap to fix and the battery is going to cost more).

 

[ChrisAG]

I have had the original Galaxy S, the Galaxy Nexus, and now the One S. All of those phones at one point had sudden wonky battery issues where it would discharge quickly through the day or night. Usually it lasted a few days then would correct itself, only to happen again a few weeks later.

This may be due to an installed app misbehaving, or a temporary weak cell tower signal issue with your provider (forcing your phone to boost power to maintain signal), or just a bug with Android that happens when the stars align.

If it still happens over a few days, and a phone reboot doesn't fix it, try a full system wipe.

Other things you can do is turn off WiFi and GPS when not needed.

 

[Lefthand]

I've contacted HTC support today and they suggested a full reset. I've also googled li-ion battery use and mis-use and the general consensus is that it is "almost" impossible" to overcharge them as they have built in wizardry to prevent this from happening. However, it is also possible that they might overheat in certain conditions when charging, which will cause irreparable damage. So I've discharged completely and let it charge fully before using (you never know) and see what happens in the next few days, thanks ChrisAG. If that fails, I'll try the old reset *Groan*. If THAT fails, the phone's off to HTC pronto. Watch this space...

 

[rpena76]

my HTC one began draining the battery after the Jellybean software update. has anyone experienced that?

 

[razvan06]

my HTC one began draining the battery after the Jellybean software update. has anyone experienced that?

That's old news.. do a factory reset because there are some issues when the update is made the first time [as in : might not flash correctly or the cache partition might not clear correctly]