Very strange battery drain/overheating issue - AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III

My i747 had amazing battery life even with the stock rom when I bought it (brand new). I once got 30 hours with almost 4 hours of screen. Within 2 or 3 weeks, the battery started draining really fast for no apparent reason and the phone started warming up a lot after just 3 or 4 minutes of web browsing or texting. Then I remembered SetCPU and decided to reduce the clock to min 384 MHz and max to 1026 MHz. That didn't do it. The phone kept draining the battery unreasonably fast and warming up a lot. Then I tested a bunch of roms and none of them was able to reduce the consumption or the warming. It's almost like something physically damaged the phone and no software can get it back to how it was before. I don't believe any of my apps is causing this. They never show any significant usage on the battery stats screen.
TL;DR Had awesome battery life, then battery started draining really fast and overheating out of nowhere after a couple of weeks. Does anyone have any idea what may be causing this?

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[Q] Phone started acting strage - very fast battery discharge

So, about two weeks ago my phone started acting kind of strange - in the sense that battery started discharging a lot faster than usual - back then I just kind of shrugged it off as probably a radio/ROM/kernel problem, and kind of forgot about it. Then, it got worse.. to the point where I now get about 3-4 hours of life out of the phone in standby mode, with only WiFi being turned on, CPU underclocked to 729Mhz max. Furthermore, the phone gets really hot after a while of using it.. I tried flashing differnent kernel, different radio and ROM (clean wipe, battery calibration), but nothing helped..
If that helps, SetCPU indicates values around 40°C battery temp.
Do you think it can be battery dying? I have it only for a little more than a year.. if not, any idea what can that be?
Thanks.

Is this good Battery Life?

So I've just recently rooted my Incredible (about 4 months now) and I bought a 3500 mAh battery off ebay for about 12 dollars around the same time. I used to get really great battery life with it. About 2 full days without having to charge. I'm not sure if the battery's getting worse or if this is normal battery depletion for all you other Incredible users.
I'm running CM7 nightly 258, the latest one, and have the newest Incredikernel, just flashed the kernel about a week ago. I'm still pretty new to the rooting game. Before I flashed the kernel I just had the normal kernel for CM7. I was getting about 10 hours of battery before and tried the battery calibration, but I think I did it wrong and got maybe 8 after that.
So I tried running the Incredikernel and was getting between 12-20 hours of battery life after that. My usage is at least 2 hours of Pandora a day using 3g, sometimes 3-4 hours. Moderate to high internet usage, rarely make calls, and moderate texting. I'll sometimes play some games, but that probably equals about half an hour's worth per charge, an hour at most. I'm also running juice defender, too.
With the new kernel I have the smartassv2 governor and have my processor speed between .128-1.113ghz. I think I did the battery calibration the correct way this time. I bumped charged it until it was completely charged. Then let it completely drain till it shut off yesterday. It lasted about 24 hours with the normal usage I have stated above. I then turned it on 2 more times to make sure the battery was completely drained. I took out the battery for a couple minutes and then put it back in. Then I let it charge off until the light turned green. I then booted into recovery and cleared battery stats. Rebooted the phone until it was completely started and then unplugged the phone.
I let the battery drain completely again and it lasted another 24 hours with the same usage I have stated above and I'm now charging again. I turned it back on while it's still charging though.
Is this normal battery life compared to you guys. Remember I have the 3500 mAh battery, but it was off ebay (stated new though). If you could also post you're battery usage and how long your battery lasts, as well. Also any other important info like, kernel, ROM used, CPU speed, etc. I'd like to compare to see how everyone else is doing. Thanks again.
I'm on CM7 right now with the latest Incredikernel. I use the Incredicontrol app to undervolt and set my frequencies from 128-921 Mhz. I have a standard battery and with light usage I get a day and half off a single charge, moderate/heavy usage it'll range from 12-20 hours.
You use any powersaving apps like Juicedefender? Also what do you classify as moderate/heavy usage? What battery governor do you use? Did you do a battery calibration?
graymonkey44 said:
You use any powersaving apps like Juicedefender? Also what do you classify as moderate/heavy usage? What battery governor do you use? Did you do a battery calibration?
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I don't use Juicedefender or any power saving app like that. Moderate/Heavy use I mean texting all day making calls, on the internet, playing various games. Don't get me wrong there have been times that I kill my battery in less than 10 hours, but that's when I'm on my phone non stop or on Netflix. For a governor I use smartass, not smartassv2. I did calibrate my battery once, last year when I got the phone. To me what makes the biggest difference is undervolting with the Incredicontrol app. And the phone runs much cooler.
I might try undervolting to see how long that lasts. 1.113 ghz might be overkill, but I have noticed a performance increase. The majority of what kills my battery is the display though when I check out my battery stats. It's always at around 60%. I have the amoLED screen as well.
graymonkey44 said:
I might try undervolting to see how long that lasts. 1.113 ghz might be overkill, but I have noticed a performance increase. The majority of what kills my battery is the display though when I check out my battery stats. It's always at around 60%. I have the amoLED screen as well.
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Click to collapse
I always dim my screen as well. If its on the highest setting it'll kill a lot of your battery quick. I used to have my phone over clocked to 1.113 GHZ but after testing different things out I noticed if I lowered it under 1 GHZ there was not much of a diff. For undervolting I dropped the number by 25 at a time until I noticed the phone lagging. hope this info helps.
I have my screen on auto brightness. It's usually at a low bright setting unless I'm outside. I'll try out undervolting, too. I have noticed the phone does run a little bit snappier with the 1.113 ghz though, but I can live with it being a little less if it means better battery life.
I don't know if it's my battery or not though, but everytime I unplug it, it's been going right back down to like 89% within minutes. I understand that you can't fully charge the Li-ion batteries all the way, but I don't know if I'm fully utilizing the battery to it's full potential since it is 3500 mAh.
I might go back to my standard battery and see how it compares. Although I do like the feel of having the extra thickness with the bigger battery.
graymonkey44 said:
I have my screen on auto brightness. It's usually at a low bright setting unless I'm outside. I'll try out undervolting, too. I have noticed the phone does run a little bit snappier with the 1.113 ghz though, but I can live with it being a little less if it means better battery life.
I don't know if it's my battery or not though, but everytime I unplug it, it's been going right back down to like 89% within minutes. I understand that you can't fully charge the Li-ion batteries all the way, but I don't know if I'm fully utilizing the battery to it's full potential since it is 3500 mAh.
I might go back to my standard battery and see how it compares. Although I do like the feel of having the extra thickness with the bigger battery.
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Click to collapse
Charge it while its off or get an external charger. That's the only way to get a true 100% charge from a phone battery.
-My life is a shooting range, people never change-
Yeah, I have been bump charging as of lately(about a month), but I hear it decreases the life of the battery so I've been holding off on doing that.
With my latest charge, I've gotten 1d 14h 49m 20s, with moderate usage which I think is pretty impressive. It's still at 5% and I'm going to let it completely discharge and then charge it off again until the light turns green.
Edit: It lasted me right around 40 hours all together. It shut off so I decided to turn it back on and see how long it would last again. It was at 2% when I turned it back on and I got another half hour out of it which led me to the 40 hours. Do you think that's good battery life with a 3500 mAh battery?

Battery Meter or Voltage Meter problem?

My G2 gets ghastly battery life. I've tried Juice Defender and I've recalibrated more times than I can remember. Most notifications are turned off and I'm conservative about powering off the various radios when I'm not using them. It wasn't always like that. I felt like I was getting most of a full day on one charge and loving it for many months, but something happened last summer I think. Maybe dust or moisture affected the phone. I've got a total of six batteries and three external battery chargers. No battery whether it's the OEM original, 1500mah spares that were amazing before, or the new 1800mah evo shift 4g batteries I tried out, will last more than about four hours from full charge to the 15% warning sound.
I've tried only charging in the phone. I've tried rotating batteries charged in the external chargers. Like I said, I've tried calibration scenarios of various kinds.
Last night, I took a fully charged 1800mah battery and put it in my phone and then charged the battery in the phone. The orange led never turns green when the phone is off. When the phone is on, I can just barely get the led to turn green at about 91% (starting from what should be a full charge that is reported as 80% by the phone). This takes a good 10 hours of charging. As soon as I woke the phone this morning, the battery meter started dropping while the phone was still plugged in. After unplugging, the meter drops to 80% in a matter of a few minutes.
Like I said, I tried juice defender. It only helps a little but the cost is waiting for the data radio to reconnect every time I wake the phone. I thought BT was the culprit for a while, but now it really doesn't matter if I leave it on or turn it off.
At the other end of the charge, the phone can run for several hours when the battery is supposedly between 1 and 3%. I know we are told to start charging again at 15% but my phone drops to that level in 3-4 hours of regular use. I haven't seen the phone report 100% charge on any battery in six months time, but it runs and runs at 1%. This is what bugs me. Is the phone just mis-reading how many milivolts are coming out of the battery? Why can't I complete the first step of calibration (charge overnight to the 100% mark)? Is there a hardware component that can be causing this or should it be entirely fixable in software?
Thanks for any ideas or tips
Did you wipe battery stats?
Sent from your phone
waxinpoetic said:
Did you wipe battery stats?
Sent from your phone
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Click to collapse
Yes I have many times but thanks for the suggestion.
Figured so.. Too bad, would have been too easy. I'm starting to see some batttery drain on my desire z now too. Im wondering if mine is a radio issue.
Sent from your phone
waxinpoetic said:
Figured so.. Too bad, would have been too easy. I'm starting to see some batttery drain on my desire z now too. Im wondering if mine is a radio issue.
Sent from your phone
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I changed radios and did RIL matching last fall based on other's comments about better battery life, 4G and GPS. While I've had faster GPS locks and maybe better 4G performance, my battery life did not improve. It may have even gotten worse.
Today I'm trying out some different CPU governor settings. The CM 7.2 RC1 default is 'interactive' and I wouldn't normally touch those settings. I think the powersave governor helped a lot, but the phone became almost unresponsive. Trying 'conservative' now. I should have read This long ago, but just got around to it today. I might invest in the SetCPU app as well.
OK, I can count on a good six hours of normal use if setCPU is holding down the max cpu frequency at night or when the screen is off. I'm still tweaking. Today, the phone crashed while playing music over A2DP and tracking a run with runkeeper. I think it needs to tick faster than 368Mhz when the screen is off.
Are you seeing improvement? I changed radios and like you havent seen much improvement. But I am a little better off than you are. My battery drain is terrible (1-3%per minute) only when connected to the internet (4g or wifi) or using navigation. If the screen is off, or if Im using non-internet apps I seem to get regular battery use. Good luck with your cpu settings.. I have ordered a new battery, but I doubt it will solve my issue. I may try tweaking my settings too soon, but Id better research more.
Just wondering do you have SuperCharger V6 installed? On my Desire Z I had some serious battery problems just as you mentioned. After I would flash my ROM (wiping the caches + reinstalling) my battery life would return to normal. But whenever I would flash SuperCharger v6 my battery life would spiral out of control. My suggestion for a ROM that handles battery life fairly well is Andromadus Audacity B2, just make sure you download and flash GAPPs (google apps). For example running that rom I have been getting very good battery life, approx. 16-20 hours of battery life with moderate use) with default CPU settings and data always turned on. I'm sure if you use Juice Defender to control your data you'll get above average battery life.
Note: Andromadus is an ICS (android 4.0) ROM
Qwerty_Uieo said:
Just wondering do you have SuperCharger V6 installed? On my Desire Z I had some serious battery problems just as you mentioned. After I would flash my ROM (wiping the caches + reinstalling) my battery life would return to normal. But whenever I would flash SuperCharger v6 my battery life would spiral out of control. My suggestion for a ROM that handles battery life fairly well is Andromadus Audacity B2, just make sure you download and flash GAPPs (google apps). For example running that rom I have been getting very good battery life, approx. 16-20 hours of battery life with moderate use) with default CPU settings and data always turned on. I'm sure if you use Juice Defender to control your data you'll get above average battery life.
Note: Andromadus is an ICS (android 4.0) ROM
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Click to collapse
Thanks (and thanked) Ive been waiting till ICS roms are bug free and having working cameras, but I think I may just jump on it now. My battery issues are untenable at the moment on a CM7 based rom. Thanks for the advice.
I was seeing some improvement due to SetCPU profiles. However, now if I have GPS and Bluetooth on so that I can listen to music and track my run in runkeeper, the phone seems to 'crash' after about 35 minutes or so. The battery meter shows that the battery takes a nose dive and I think the phone shuts down at 1%. If I restart the phone, it might say I have 30 or 40% charge left but then it drops rapidly again. It seems like it hates the warmth of my pocket. If I let the phone out in the cool air like on my desk, I can reboot at get back to 60 or 70% even though it was just saying 3%. I'm not running SuperCharger.
I'm trying to find cheap G2s for parts on ebay now. Maybe I can at least test out my six batteries in a different phone to see if any of them are shot. They all seem to have the same problems in my phone.
This will be my final update. I bought a used G2 off ebay. The same batteries I used before now show as fully charged when I expect them to be fully charged. I will be getting a feel for general battery life over the next few days, but I expect battery life to be roughly the same. I just won't have to guess at what the current battery level really is.
I'm seeing now that the new phone will show a 60% charge when the old phone shows 15% for the same battery at about the same time.
The new phone shows 100% when topped off but if I put the topped off battery in my old phone, I see 75-80% charge.
I may try sending the old phone to HTC depending on what they offer for repair services.
revwillie said:
I bought a used G2 off ebay. ... the new phone will show a 60% charge when the old phone shows 15% for the same battery at about the same time
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I think what's happened to your old phone (and mine!) is that the onboard voltmeter chip is reading low. I've compared the on-board mV reading to a multimeter-measured battery voltage and what the phone reads as 3.9V the multimeter gets 4.2V (a fully charged Li-Ion battery).
Who knows what's behind it, but it seems like a hardware problem to me.

[Q] [Q&A][SGH-i747] Battery charge retention issue. (CM10.1-20130203-NIGHTLY)

Hi all,
Over the last three days I've been having some trouble with my S3's battery. Recently I've been experiencing large battery drain while not using the phone excessively. Today within 20 minutes of unplugging the phone from a full charge it read 40% charge. It's almost as if I am lacking 60% of my battery.. From when I got the phone (on release day), I had never found the battery to be very impressive. The advertised 800 hour standby time has always been far out of reach, and I often found myself having to plug the phone in after 7-8 hours, (I'm a student, so it's away all day as I'm in class, i.e, low use.)
I don't use WiFi (I have 7GB/mo data), I don't use automatic brightness (held between 5-20%), GPS is on (For some Tasker profiles, but is rarely used), and I have never used NFC/S-Beam.
I have done factory resets, two since having issues with the battery. The phone is rooted and is running CM 10.1-20130203-NIGHTLY-d2att, I thought that updating the CM build might help (Feb 3rd as you can see), but hasn't. Also it is underclocked to MAX 810mHz. Battery usage statistics pins the main user as the screen, but I feel this is false.
I'm thinking of buying a new battery, might that help?
TL;DR: I'm having battery problems, and have tried all the normal fixes I could find online. See the attached images for battery details.
Any suggestions are appreciated!
Thanks!
Zev.Isert said:
Hi all,
Over the last three days I've been having some trouble with my S3's battery. Recently I've been experiencing large battery drain while not using the phone excessively. Today within 20 minutes of unplugging the phone from a full charge it read 40% charge. It's almost as if I am lacking 60% of my battery.. From when I got the phone (on release day), I had never found the battery to be very impressive. The advertised 800 hour standby time has always been far out of reach, and I often found myself having to plug the phone in after 7-8 hours, (I'm a student, so it's away all day as I'm in class, i.e, low use.)
I don't use WiFi (I have 7GB/mo data), I don't use automatic brightness (held between 5-20%), GPS is on (For some Tasker profiles, but is rarely used), and I have never used NFC/S-Beam.
I have done factory resets, two since having issues with the battery. The phone is rooted and is running CM 10.1-20130203-NIGHTLY-d2att, I thought that updating the CM build might help (Feb 3rd as you can see), but hasn't. Also it is underclocked to MAX 810mHz. Battery usage statistics pins the main user as the screen, but I feel this is false.
TL;DR: I'm having battery problems, and have tried all the normal fixes I could find online. See the attached images for battery details.
Any suggestions are appreciated!
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Get the app BetterBatteryStats to narrow down what's draining your battery.
Also, being so UV = takes longer to load stuff = longer screen time = more battery usage. UV too much results in higher battery drain.
Okay but...
BWolf56 said:
Get the app BetterBatteryStats to narrow down what's draining your battery.
Also, being so UV = takes longer to load stuff = longer screen time = more battery usage. UV too much results in higher battery drain.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Okay I just bought Better Battery Stats, I'll let it analyze whats going on for the next few days.. And I assume UV means under voltage? Either way I put the processor speed back up to default (1512 mHz). But that still doesn't explain the 60% battery drop in 20 minutes after being unplugged.
I don't think it is possible for your phone in any case to drain 60% in 20 minutes. That's a ton of power usage, your phone would probably melt if it was using that much. Sounds like your phone is not reading your battery level properly. You may want to try resetting your battery stats, however I have heard that the s3 battery monitors its own level. In this case you probably would be better off just getting a new battery.
Sent from my SGH-I747 using xda app-developers app

Is my battery acting strange?

Hey,
Since last 4 days, my phone has been acting weird. Its constantly hot (40 C) and i am getting less than average battery life about 2 hrs screen on time from the usual 5. My max voltage is 4.2v but the minimum is 3.519v. I read somewhere 3.8 is the minimum voltage required. So is my battery due for a replacement or is it all in my head?
I did upload a screenshot on my weird voltage fluctuations. And what are the max and min voltages of our battery?
Thanks for helping me pot..
Any one?
usual 5hour screen on time huh? thats a lot
i get 3 hour screen on time with 1 hour gaming and my battery gets to 41c even when browsing so i think its normal( my hox has been bought about two weeks ago)

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