Help Battery Suddenly Lasting 4-5 Hours

[singleshot]

So I've had my Dinc since launch and the battery has always been good for about 12-16 hours, but suddenly over the last 2-3 weeks, I've only been getting 4-5 hours out of it. I have the Seidio 1750mah extended battery and even when I switch to the original battery, I'm still getting the same amount of time.

I'm not a power user. I use it for 5-10 calls per day and 5-10 texts. Check facebook 2-3 times per day. No maps, no GPS. Bluetooth is always on.

I have recently switched from the Droid email app to using K-9 mail. I was having the same memory issues as everyone else and K-9 seemed to remedy it. I'm also running Advanced Task Killer.

Any thoughts?

 

[Knewz]

BT can eat up some battery. Do you keep background data and auto sync on? How often does k-9 poll for mail? Are you in an area with strong signal?

Also it may be a bad battery. batteries have a limited number of charges and depending on how, and when, you charge the battery you may have fried some of it.

 

[hexon]

Install spare parts (free) and see if there's an app that's keeping your phone from sleeping.

 

[wayrad]

What are your up times and awake time looking like (in Settings/About Phone/Battery)?

SystemPanel is another good app to see what is using battery.

Task killers can hurt battery life by constantly killing apps and forcing Android to reload them into memory.

 

[JaggedEdge]

System Panel helped me locate a bad app that was keeping my processor pegged at high usage and killing my battery. Give it a shot to see if the same is happening to you.

 

[superchaos]

Go to the settings of you email and see how often it is checking for new mail. Default is 15 minutes (awake or asleep) which really drains the battery.

 

[eipee73]

Leaving GPS on drains my battery. I also ratcheted back my e-mail update timing as well as the weather app from HTC. In addition to those if you use a twitter or FB app you should be able to cut down on their update interval. All of these background updates used to kill my battery.

 

[euph_22]

Leaving GPS on drains my battery.

It "shouldn't" drain the battery. Even if the gps is turned on, it is only active when a program/service is polling it for location data. So if your gps is causing drain, it's because an app is polling it more than it should.

 

[slinky317]

Check your up/awake times. Chances are something is keeping the phone active, which is causing the problem.

 

[eipee73]

It "shouldn't" drain the battery. Even if the gps is turned on, it is only active when a program/service is polling it for location data. So if your gps is causing drain, it's because an app is polling it more than it should.

Not sure what would be polling my GPS when I have it turned on and not using maps or navigation. Perhaps the weather app for location?

 

[Podivin]

It "shouldn't" drain the battery. Even if the gps is turned on, it is only active when a program/service is polling it for location data. So if your gps is causing drain, it's because an app is polling it more than it should.

Not sure what would be polling my GPS when I have it turned on and not using maps or navigation. Perhaps the weather app for location?

The weather app I use (Weatherbug) will turn on the GPS for location, so I make sure it only refreshes every hour. I've also seen the browser turn on the GPS, I presume for location based ads (sigh).
Like Euph said, simply leaving the GPS on won't drain the battery, GPS USAGE will. I leave GPS, WiFi and bluetooth on all the time and get 16 hours out of the battery (light to moderate usage). Actually I guess I'd get a bit more, I plug it in at about 16 hours and still have 30% or so remaining.

 

[seetwo]

Having the same problem. I am sync'ed with server at work and leave BT and Wireless turned off. Battery life is 12 to 14 hours. Suddenly last week all of my ringtones were reassigned to different contacts and battery life is 4 to 5 hours. After reviewing post here I checked the sync settings and the calendar was syncing every 3 seconds.

 

[alison03]

Wow, I'm having the same problem as of yesterday. I have a Bidalies 1500 battery and it's been giving me awesome battery life for the past month or two since I bought it (14 hours easy without even getting yellow). Yesterday and today something seems to be keeping my awake time higher, though not even with my up time. Today it said my up time was around 8 hours so far and my awake time was 2 hours even though it's been 'sleeping' just about all day (minus 30 minutes of light usage). It's already in the yellow which typically won't happen till I'm home from work and ready for bed.

I haven't installed or updated anything this week so I have no clue what has suddenly changed. I just downloaded spare parts: where do I look to see what's keeping this awake for longer periods? Any other suggestions?

edit: in spare parts, I am looking at usage statistics and it's sorted by usage time. it lists the application, count...what is this? and usage time. What is this usage time...it's some massive number followed by "ms" - what does that mean? thanks for any help.