S3 Massive battery and "Android System" usage with and without charging - AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III

I'm having a problem with my Samsung Galaxy S3 (rooted, but no custom ROM) through AT&T where it's losing battery power at a much higher rate than normal every once in a while.
Specifically, today, I was using the GPS feature and charging it in my car, and yet, even though it said it was charging, the battery continued to lose charge. Also, in the past, the phone has lost charge very quickly, and when I check the battery usage, "Android System" is very high on the list, up to 60% (with "Screen" being at 11%, which is usually the biggest culprit for me since I leave the screen on a lot). One time, I went to bed at around midnight and had forgotten to plug in my phone. When I woke up it was off. I turned it back on and looked at the battery stats using 3c's Battery Monitor Widget and saw that it lost charge quite slowly until about 5am, when suddenly the usage went up dramatically, and the phone went from about 60% to 0% in the course of an hour and a half of non-use.
Because this is not a problem I can reproduce on command, I'm not sure exactly what application/process is causing it. Does anyone have any suggestions or has anyone else experienced things like this happening before? (Besides me having to pay for the "betterbatterystats" app?)
Edit: Also, "Android System" sometimes is sometimes listed as "gsiff_daemon" in the battery stats, and within 3c's Battery Monitor Widget, Android System is separate from "gsiff_daemon", where gsiff_daemon's usage is almost 15 times the usage of Android System.

Checkout this thread to see if the gsiff_daemon is your problem. tl;dr when the system is hot and tearing through the battery, go to system settings -> Developer options -> and check Show CPU usage. If gsiff_daemon is the top or second highest on the list, then that is your problem. To solve it for the moment, use system tuner, or something else, to kill gsiff_daemon. There is no permanent cure at the moment, other than to delete gsiff_daemon. Both of those fixes require root, the non-root fix is to reboot.
If gsiff_daemon is not on the list, then something else is the problem, but Show CPU Usage should give you an idea of what system process is running hard.

Samsung Push problem
J M L,
Thanks for the information. I'll do that if the problem arises again. However I also did something else that looks like it may have been the solution for my particular problem, which was disabling the "Samsung Push" service in the Application Manager. So far, my battery life has gone back down to very reasonable levels.

dansushi said:
J M L,
Thanks for the information. I'll do that if the problem arises again. However I also did something else that looks like it may have been the solution for my particular problem, which was disabling the "Samsung Push" service in the Application Manager. So far, my battery life has gone back down to very reasonable levels.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Interesting, I installed "micro cpu monitor" shows thin line at top of screen showing both cores.
I haven't had this happen for some time now but after playing with google play and maps downloading offline maps etc I noticed my 2nd core pegged out.
Having seen this in the past & ignoring it I now realize that majorly drains the battery as well as it getting warm.
A simple reboot seems to be the only thing that fixes it. Clearing ram and closing recent screens dies nothing to clear the "cpu jam".
If left alone, it always shows the culprit as "android system"
As to what part of "android system" I don't know.
But until we figure this out for good, that little micro cpu monitor. App is sweet for peace of mind to know all is well or whether a reboot is needed. For what it's worth, I also noticed that after the event, that my auto rotate to landscape was mysteriously unchecked?
If it jams again, I'll have to see if it gets unchecked again, unknown if there is a relation.

dansushi said:
I'm having a problem with my Samsung Galaxy S3 (rooted, but no custom ROM) through AT&T where it's losing battery power at a much higher rate than normal every once in a while.
Specifically, today, I was using the GPS feature and charging it in my car, and yet, even though it said it was charging, the battery continued to lose charge. Also, in the past, the phone has lost charge very quickly, and when I check the battery usage, "Android System" is very high on the list, up to 60% (with "Screen" being at 11%, which is usually the biggest culprit for me since I leave the screen on a lot). One time, I went to bed at around midnight and had forgotten to plug in my phone. When I woke up it was off. I turned it back on and looked at the battery stats using 3c's Battery Monitor Widget and saw that it lost charge quite slowly until about 5am, when suddenly the usage went up dramatically, and the phone went from about 60% to 0% in the course of an hour and a half of non-use.
Because this is not a problem I can reproduce on command, I'm not sure exactly what application/process is causing it. Does anyone have any suggestions or has anyone else experienced things like this happening before? (Besides me having to pay for the "betterbatterystats" app?)
Edit: Also, "Android System" sometimes is sometimes listed as "gsiff_daemon" in the battery stats, and within 3c's Battery Monitor Widget, Android System is separate from "gsiff_daemon", where gsiff_daemon's usage is almost 15 times the usage of Android System.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That happened to me too. But for me, flashing another rom fixed it.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using xda premium

Thread hijack! Lol. Anyways. Is cell standby supposed to use up a crap load of battery too?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using xda premium

Swaggernaut said:
Thread hijack! Lol. Anyways. Is cell standby supposed to use up a crap load of battery too?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No there is a cwm flashable fix floating around here for that
Galaxy SIII via XDA premium

do any of you guys have the "increase volume in pocket" setting on in phone-->settings?
also do any of you have motion settings enabled and/or autorotation on?
Seems it has to do with the gyro issue
also are you guys rooted or non-rooted?

Contact sync?
i noticed this today and while troubleshooting, noticed contact sync from google says "sync is currently experiencing problems..." maybe?

dansushi said:
I'm having a problem with my Samsung Galaxy S3 (rooted, but no custom ROM) through AT&T where it's losing battery power at a much higher rate than normal every once in a while.
Specifically, today, I was using the GPS feature and charging it in my car, and yet, even though it said it was charging, the battery continued to lose charge. Also, in the past, the phone has lost charge very quickly, and when I check the battery usage, "Android System" is very high on the list, up to 60% (with "Screen" being at 11%, which is usually the biggest culprit for me since I leave the screen on a lot). One time, I went to bed at around midnight and had forgotten to plug in my phone. When I woke up it was off. I turned it back on and looked at the battery stats using 3c's Battery Monitor Widget and saw that it lost charge quite slowly until about 5am, when suddenly the usage went up dramatically, and the phone went from about 60% to 0% in the course of an hour and a half of non-use.
Because this is not a problem I can reproduce on command, I'm not sure exactly what application/process is causing it. Does anyone have any suggestions or has anyone else experienced things like this happening before? (Besides me having to pay for the "betterbatterystats" app?)
Edit: Also, "Android System" sometimes is sometimes listed as "gsiff_daemon" in the battery stats, and within 3c's Battery Monitor Widget, Android System is separate from "gsiff_daemon", where gsiff_daemon's usage is almost 15 times the usage of Android System.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I read the thread about gsiff_daemon culprit. I had it listed as a possible battery drain culprit. The thread says the issue may happen after a hot reboot...which I did have. Killing gsiff_daemon was not immediately effective. I renamed the file so it wouldn't get used...like the thread recommended. I had to reboot to get normal battery drain back and have yet to see the issue again. But i wont know for some time...or maybe when/if i get a hot reboot...which is really rare. Do yourself a favor, and buy better battery stats. Its a must have tool...and it's not expensive.

I wonder if this problem has been solved with latest lj7 jellybean from sprint
Sent from my SPH-L710 using xda app-developers app

so with some trial and error i found some resolutions ..
first, i used Watchdog and it told me that the media services is killing battery too.
so doing a full wipe does not always fix this.. but what does, is reboot and wait about 1 hour charging and it will calm down. this was just something i noticed. so what i did is wipe out my SD cards, both of them, cleared them out 100% formatted the External SD, and used recovery to format the internal. From there it seem to work, i put my stuff back, and it seems ok.
problem is, when you install a lot of rom's and have bad reboots some files get messed up and you have to do it all over again..
problem was with AOPK, CM and TW roms.

eatonjb said:
so with some trial and error i found some resolutions ..
first, i used Watchdog and it told me that the media services is killing battery too.
so doing a full wipe does not always fix this.. but what does, is reboot and wait about 1 hour charging and it will calm down. this was just something i noticed. so what i did is wipe out my SD cards, both of them, cleared them out 100% formatted the External SD, and used recovery to format the internal. From there it seem to work, i put my stuff back, and it seems ok.
problem is, when you install a lot of rom's and have bad reboots some files get messed up and you have to do it all over again..
problem was with AOPK, CM and TW roms.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My experience with froyo/gb/ics is that things have been getting progressively better over the years. But with each so called UPGRADE of an OS or even APPS, we often have to deal with bugs or incompatibilities. I am eager to upgrade to a stock based JB soon, but wisdom says, for 20 things improved, there will be 5 things broken....or hurting in some way. Early adopters suffer the most as usually these issues get ironed out...most of them.
BUT...these stuck drains...wake locks etc., it seems they will happen when they do no matter how many issues get fixed. Over the years, I've had random standby drains caused by Maps/Nav. Maybe it's ok for months, then after a particular update, it's back...and unpredictable. The YES...a reboot, just like with a PC, is a quick short term workaround.
Finally, with the App CURRENT WIDGET, there is a provision to watch for high drain in standby. It watches MilliAmp (ma) readings over time..to determine if you have a rogue drain. That's different than monitoring the CPU. (Some drains do not cause much CPU activity) BUT UNFORTUNATELY, that app won't work with our S3's because of a lack of hardware support. Works great with HTC and many others. It's a bummer because I used to use it and have my HD2 reboot if a 15min consecutive high drain was recorded in standby....thereby saving the battery and usually killing the bug.

Crapppp
Jellybean didn’t solve it. Gsiff_daemon just popped up for me. Just renamed it AGAIN.
Hopefully it won't pop up again
Sent from my SPH-L710 using xda app-developers app

Related

[Q] something is draining my battery - how can i tell what it is?

So i rooted my evo and installed a custom rom pretty much as soon as I had it out of the box. And then started installing apps. And i've pretty much NEVER had a fully charged battery last for a whole day even with very little to no usage of the phone.
A few days ago my friend also got an evo but hasn't rooted it or installed any apps yet. And he is easily getting TWO days or more out of a charge.
so i decided to do a full wipe of my phone, and what do you know, I'm suddenly getting 2 days out of the battery, maybe even a little more then 2 days.
Previously, i had setcpu installed as well as system panel. And i was never able to figure out what was draining the battery. When i looked in system panel the only thing that was using the cpu a little bit was system. Pretty much every other app listed was showing 0.1% of cpu usage.
So i'd like to know if there's a better method to figure out what's draining the battery. Do I have to install apps one at a time and wait a few hours/a day to see if the battery starts going down? or is there a better method?
thanks
I always check the awake time versus the time on. If the wake time is very high that means there is an app acting up.
What I'll do to investigate which app is I'll just go to the little stock battery report thing and look at what is using my battery.
Also, it should be noted that be wary of the facebook app. That thing is a complete and total battery hog. It was draining my battery from 20% over the course of an hour.
I was checking the stock battery report - it wasn't showing me anything useful when the battery was going dead.
right now i'm getting amazing battery life compared to before.
90 minutes since the phone was unplugged and it's only down to 96% and that's with me using it a bit. Previously, it would have been down to 85-80% by now.
I just have no clue at all what was causing the drain. I was hoping there was a better method other then installing apps one at a time until the battery starts draining to figure out the culprit.
There's an app called Watchdog and it monitors the background activity happening on your phone. If some seems to be getting out of hand it will notify you.
I had the same problem I installed Smobile security and it was KILLING my battery. Watchdog was able to tell what it was.
Hope this helps.
It looks like watchdog does basically the same thing that system panel does. and system panel wasn't showing me anything unusual. System panel shows the cpu usage of apps - and none of my apps were showing high cpu usage.
I guess there's really no app that can actually show you the battery usage per app - it can only show you the cpu usage.
You can try SpareParts from the Market,it may help you see if you have a wakelock issue of some kind and its free so no harm if it doesn't help.
BrianBusby2038 said:
You can try SpareParts from the Market,it may help you see if you have a wakelock issue of some kind and its free so no harm if it doesn't help.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
actually, the rom i am using already has spareparts in it. I'm not sure what you mean by wakelock though. How do i determine that? What is it?

Android OS killing battery

Hey everyone
Got a Nexus a couple weeks ago after having iphones for a couple years. Loving it so far.....ICS is very polished.
Initially, my battery life was adequate. However, recently the OS is using 45% battery and the phone gets a very hot when idle (I can feel the heat in my pocket)
I did a factory reset and still the same problems.
Is anyone else coming across these issues?
An old bug cropping up again?
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=13247149&postcount=57
Can you please install Watchdog (https://market.android.com/details?id=com.zomut.watchdoglite) and let us know if it's the suspend process (which shows up in the battery meter as part of "Android OS") burning through the battery?
My phone has been on standby for about a day and has 80% battery left. However the battery consumption shows:
42% Android OS
37% Phone Idle
16% Cell Standby
- Also what is the difference between phone idle and cell standby
MY BACKGROUND APPS RUNNING ARE:
- Battery Monitor Widget (I need this on so I can tell what my battery life is easily)
- Google Services (What is this, can I kill it?)
Media (What is this app, can I kill it?)
Music (Again what is this, what happens if I kill it/should I? I never used it.)
I have the same problem. My SGN died after 7 hours without any usage.
Sent from my Optimus 2X using XDA App
Yup, me too. This morning, I took my phone off the charger at 98% for an hour and 15 minutes and didn't touch it. The battery had gone down to 88%, with Android OS using 64% and Android System using 14%. The phone was 'awake' for the entire period. I've had my Nexus since Wednesday and I haven't been getting great battery life. I'm hoping there's a fix for this.
Same problem here... (I testing radio UGKK7, XXKK7 and XXKK1... all with the same problem).
- Lightflow increment "Android OS" battery use.
- By using, Wi-Fi "Android OS" uses less battery.
try disable wifi when not on and unchecked "use wifi network" for location.
another thing could be some active widgets, i remember this was a problem a while back.
Note sure that this has got to do with wifi at all as I reset my phone to factory and I still have the 'Android OS' usage taking 23% of battery. I have no apps nor have I yet linked phone to my Google account.
I have read some comments to do with the Galaxy S2 which too suffered from the same problem. I remember reading something about Samsung driver implementation causing this with the S2. I will update the links when I find something conclusive. Also I have another HTC desire that has the AOSP code compiled rom and that does not suffer from this at all and it is happily sitting idle at almost 2 days with nearly 70% battery still left.
s1977 said:
Note sure that this has got to do with wifi at all as I reset my phone to factory and I still have the 'Android OS' usage taking 23% of battery. I have no apps nor have I yet linked phone to my Google account.
I have read some comments to do with the Galaxy S2 which too suffered from the same problem. I remember reading something about Samsung driver implementation causing this with the S2. I will update the links when I find something conclusive. Also I have another HTC desire that has the AOSP code compiled rom and that does not suffer from this at all and it is happily sitting idle at almost 2 days with nearly 70% battery still left.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, the problem was with the suspend process eating up CPU. You can install Watchdog and set it to watch non-Android processes, and that will be able to tell you which "Android OS" process is actually the one eating up battery.
Chirality said:
Yes, the problem was with the suspend process eating up CPU. You can install Watchdog and set it to watch non-Android processes, and that will be able to tell you which "Android OS" process is actually the one eating up battery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is samsung aware of this problem? We need to file complaints.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium
Do you have your email or anything set up to receive things instantly? That can have a noticeable impact on your battery if so
Thanks Chirality, but I assume that this is happening to all users? Samsung have seen this before so shouldn't this be fixed from the very start? Wrong person to ask this question to, but it is annoying..
Anyways I will install Watchdog like you say, but unless I can kill the 'suspend' process, I am helpless.
---------- Post added at 10:00 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:58 AM ----------
xHausx said:
Do you have your email or anything set up to receive things instantly? That can have a noticeable impact on your battery if so
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, that's why I reset the phone to factory settings and the current behaviour is without any apps, or registration with google, no emails, nothing installed.
---------- Post added at 10:03 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:00 AM ----------
Additional links indicating the problem and response:
http://androidforums.com/samsung-galaxy-s2-international/337492-s2-battery-drain-problem-solved-now.html
http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=16721
Is there anything in the logcats that could hint to a problem? Like errors or something unusual that it keeps repeating
I have the same problem with high system CPU usage. I used SystemPanel to monitor the phone (unplugged, standby mode) during my 8-hour sleep and here's the results.
The System Processes were using 49min of CPU time while the phone was idle
When I clicked on the system processes I got a list of individual processes. Anyone knows what are there kworker processes for?
When I clicked on one of the System Processes (kworker/u:1), I got its CPU usage. It was doing something almost the whole time
Finally, I should also mention that the phone lost about 7% in these 8-hour test. Seems ok but I think it would be even better when this high system CPU usage is fixed.
xHausx said:
Is there anything in the logcats that could hint to a problem? Like errors or something unusual that it keeps repeating
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmm...Now that you asked this, I remember watching logcat output and was getting a null Notification event almost one every minute a couple of days back. I therefore proceeded to uninstall all my widgets/apps but I could not reach to a conclusive outcome.
Anyways as Chirality pointed out this post (Link) indicates a 'suspend' process issue. And this guy identified the process causing it (Link), I think!
s1977 said:
Hmm...Now that you asked this, I remember watching logcat output and was getting a null Notification event almost one every minute a couple of days back. I therefore proceeded to uninstall all my widgets/apps but I could not reach to a conclusive outcome.
Anyways as Chirality pointed out this post (Link) indicates a 'suspend' process issue. And this guy identified the process causing it (Link), I think!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A driver issue definitely sounds plausible but there are also a lot of things different between these two phones, especially between GB and ICS.
Watching /proc/kmsg should show something if it is an issue with the kernel
xHausx said:
A driver issue definitely sounds plausible but there are also a lot of things different between these two phones, especially between GB and ICS.
Watching /proc/kmsg should show something if it is an issue with the kernel
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do i need to be rooted to be able to read this?
Chirality said:
Yes, the problem was with the suspend process eating up CPU. You can install Watchdog and set it to watch non-Android processes, and that will be able to tell you which "Android OS" process is actually the one eating up battery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Chrality, xHausx
I have installed Watchdog and set the settings to what you indicated. I am a bit confused around the app, so I have added screenshots to update you of the data at my end.
Do let me whether you see the issue immediately or need any further information.
My experience is somewhat the same.
Out of the box battery life seemed pretty good. After the update to fix the volume issue I started to notice that the battery would fall even when the phone was idle. Android OS was the culprit. I am now running MCR and I have the same issue.
It's not terrible battery life, but it's substantially worse than it was out of the box.
I did wonder if the problem was related to how they fixed the volume bug. Is something always running to pick up the volume bug problem and deal with it when it happens?
Just a thought.
paulpenny said:
My experience is somewhat the same.
I did wonder if the problem was related to how they fixed the volume bug. Is something always running to pick up the volume bug problem and deal with it when it happens?
Just a thought.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Interesting. I've been thinking the same thing, and the annoying thing about that is the problem doesn't affect my network (T-Mobile), so I could be getting reduced battery performance for no reason! Ah well.

[Q] Sleep Battery Life

Hey everybody,
Just made the jump from the iPhone 4S and have done the custom ROM/kernel thing the past week. Things were good at the start but I feel them slowly deteriorating.
I find my battery life during sleep has become much worse than before. I mean, it still kills the 4S which would see ~25% overnight. But I'm seeing 10% overnight right now, and was ~2% earlier in the week. I normally have my phone on the charger at night, but didn't last night and I'm kinda glad I got to see this. Makes me realize why I was likely chewing through more in the day too.
You can see what I'm running below in my signature. Last night I had 5 instances where the phone woke on its own. Likely due to emails coming in.
Am I expecting too much from my modifications? Am I doing something wrong? I'm ready to toss AOKP aside because of other issues anyway, but yesterday I also read it was known to have some excessive battery drain as well. Without turning this into a battle to defend the ROM you use (like half the threads in here), if you have other suggestions, feel free to throw in a ROM suggestion. I'll attach some pictures of my battery screen so anyone willing to give me a hand can help.
Thanks in advance.
I had this problem when I was running franco too. Switched to leankernel and never looked back. I get about 4-6% drain overnight as long as I dont do something stupid like leave something running by exiting with home instead of the back button. I also have wifi on 24/7 and gps off unless im nav'in. No BT
Screwedupsmitty said:
I had this problem when I was running franco too. Switched to leankernel and never looked back. I get about 4-6% drain overnight as long as I dont do something stupid like leave something running by exiting with home instead of the back button. I also have wifi on 24/7 and gps off unless im nav'in. No BT
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm hesistant to blame the kernel. I was using franco prior to AOKP without issue. I didn't make that clear in the OP. I went 4.0.4 Stock -> Stock + franco -> AOKP b31 + franco. Things were good the first two steps and I'd like to think the first few days on AOKP.
Perhaps I have some background processes chewing battery - but there's nothing with a higher battery drain than Chrome beta with 2%. My phone idle and Cell standby had huge drain though. Could a weaker than normal signal cause this? Could my radio be the culprit?
Steps to best diagnose idle battery drain.
-Install CPU Spy and Better Battery Stats.
-Charge phone to full and let it run for several hours undisturbed (easiest to charge before bed, then unplug it when you know it won't be used till morning).
-Take quick note of your % loss per hour. Around 1%, you're golden. 1-2 is pretty normal. >3 and you've got issues.
-Launch CPU Spy. Most of the time should be deep sleep (we're talking about 95%). If your phone has been awake a lot, there's either an app that refuses to let your phone rest, or an OS/Kernel issue. If it's not extreme but noticeable, you likely just need to reign in settings on some apps to keep them from syncing so often or working in the background.
-Launch Better Battery Stats. Select Partial Wakelocks from the menu. These are all cases of apps waking the phone up, sorted by length. Go look at problem apps' settings/consider uninstalling if you don't need them. Kernel wakelocks should be low too.
Keep in mind that the goal here isn't really to get all these things to zero so do not obsess over small showings. Facebook with push notifications but updates set to never keeps my phone awake for about a minute or two every night, for instance. So does Handcent SMS. If you flash a rom and your phone needs to do a lot of syncing it's likely to show up in this kind of test as well. But for a night with nothing going on, nothing should be keeping your phone up for more than a few minutes total.
myrdog said:
I'm hesistant to blame the kernel. I was using franco prior to AOKP without issue. I didn't make that clear in the OP. I went 4.0.4 Stock -> Stock + franco -> AOKP b31 + franco. Things were good the first two steps and I'd like to think the first few days on AOKP.
Perhaps I have some background processes chewing battery - but there's nothing with a higher battery drain than Chrome beta with 2%. My phone idle and Cell standby had huge drain though. Could a weaker than normal signal cause this? Could my radio be the culprit?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Weaker than normal signal can kill a phone battery, when I'm in lecture out in the bumfuck nowhere school I go to, I get -100 to -120dbm, which kills my battery while i'm at school. If thats your situation not much to do besides hope radios may increase your signal, but if not then your basicly as SOL as i am and may have to just charge it
JoeSyr said:
Steps to best diagnose idle battery drain.
-Install CPU Spy and Better Battery Stats.
-Charge phone to full and let it run for several hours undisturbed (easiest to charge before bed, then unplug it when you know it won't be used till morning).
-Take quick note of your % loss per hour. Around 1%, you're golden. 1-2 is pretty normal. >3 and you've got issues.
-Launch CPU Spy. Most of the time should be deep sleep (we're talking about 95%). If your phone has been awake a lot, there's either an app that refuses to let your phone rest, or an OS/Kernel issue. If it's not extreme but noticeable, you likely just need to reign in settings on some apps to keep them from syncing so often or working in the background.
-Launch Better Battery Stats. Select Partial Wakelocks from the menu. These are all cases of apps waking the phone up, sorted by length. Go look at problem apps' settings/consider uninstalling if you don't need them. Kernel wakelocks should be low too.
Keep in mind that the goal here isn't really to get all these things to zero so do not obsess over small showings. Facebook with push notifications but updates set to never keeps my phone awake for about a minute or two every night, for instance. So does Handcent SMS. If you flash a rom and your phone needs to do a lot of syncing it's likely to show up in this kind of test as well. But for a night with nothing going on, nothing should be keeping your phone up for more than a few minutes total.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is what every user should use to diagnose battery problems at first.

How can I track down my battery drain?

Leaving my OP in place, but I have rewritten the description with much more detail and pics here
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=25401417#post25401417
I suggest skipping to there.
I am looking for general tips here. E.g., not asking you to diagnose my specific problem so much as give me ideas of what else to check or try.
Lately I have had unexplained (to me) battery drain. Yesterday I lost about 25 percent in an hour while the phone idled. It is not a constant thing, though. I can go an hour and loose 1 percent then loose massive amounts in the next hour.
Now, i have searched, but I have not found anything that applies to me.
I have:
Tried a different radio
Tried a different kernel
Reflashed my rom
Phone is entering deep sleep according to cpu spy
There are no unusual or excessive wake locks according to better battery stats
No apps are using a lot of battery.
I am in a low signal area at work, but putting the phone in airplane mode and dissabling background syn does not stop the drain.
Ideas?
might be your phone is loosing signal? i would check the battery stats in the settings menu to see if you have a poor mobile signal.
Zepius said:
might be your phone is loosing signal? i would check the battery stats in the settings menu to see if you have a poor mobile signal.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
beren28 said:
I am in a low signal area at work, but putting the phone in airplane mode and dissabling background syn does not stop the drain.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So I don't think I can blame it on that.
Do you have any exchange sync on your phone?
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2
can you give us screen shots of battery stats?
Herman76 said:
Do you have any exchange sync on your phone?
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I do, and on reflection it is a possible culprit since I added it recently.
Didn't occur to me since it was producing no wakelocks and the battery stats did not showing as using much battery.
I shall turn it off for a bit and see if that helps. (unless there is some other way to test if it is the problem first.) I am off to the search button!
Zepius said:
can you give us screen shots of battery stats?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is from yesterday when i set it down unused for about 90 minutes. The amount of wakes seems liek a lot, but it is similar to what i see when i have far far less drain, so I don't think that is the problem. I didn't get the app list screen, but out should screen as the only major drain with about 2 minutes.
I know it is shows poor signal strength, so immediately after that shot I put it in airplane mode, turned of sync, and rebooted. The battery continued to drain and graph had the exact same slope under those conditions. (Forget to get a pic though.)
Sent from my jitterbug using tapatalk.
System panel paid version with monitoring enabled is the best for tracking apps using CPU.
OK, still working on this.
To recap:
When the screen is off, and no apps are running I sometimes get inexplicable battery drain. This is occurring under conditions when I should be experiencing little or no drain at all. I say this becuase:
The screen is of and no bakground apps are running
the phone is NOT awake and IS entering deep sleep (as confirmed by cpuspy)
there are no unusual kernel or partial wake locks
there are no apps listed as using unexpected ammounts of battery
This is not a universal problem. The phone *often* behaves as expected. I can leave the phone off for an hour and see a 1% or 2% drain, and I am happy with that. However, sometimes, randomly, it goes nuts on my.
This graph from a few weeks ago shows what I mean. Look in the green box. The phone is sleeping, and the screen is off. The graph starts as a flatline, then, all of a sudden, it begins to drop precipitously.
Here is a graph that shows the battery dropping at the same rate whether the phone is awake or sleeping:
I have gone the following to try and narrow the problem down:
Done a completely fresh install of my Rom including a system wipe.
Tried two kernels (the aokp default and several relases of Franco's
Tried a different radio
Activated and installed a new sim card
I have come to suspect that the problem is network related. When the problem starts, sometimes going into airplane mode and back and/or toggling 2g only temporarily fixes the problem.
I suspect that something is happening with my connection to T-Mobile that keeps the network running and draining power. This is pure speculation, but it is all I can think of.
I installed juice defender (which I had not been previously running) and noticed the that, sometimes, it didn't turn of data when it should have. I also noticed the following two things happen:
I do not believe it is a rom problem, since if so, someone else would be reporting this. It might be an app problem, but if so the app is draining battery without a wake lock and while the phone is in deep sleep.
It is not exchange (as was suggested in this thread) since it continues when I ev my exchange account.
I have no idea what else to do or try.
Since it happens at random and takes a while to identify, uninstalling one app at a time to test for that could easily take months to narrow down a misbehaving app.
I know it is not a hardware issue since last month I got this:
That was with AOKP and Franco (earlier versions obviously)
I have google searched till my fingers bleed.
I am a long way form being an expert, and I suspect I may have overlooked something obvious.
Please, any thoughts??
Damn you definitely have a major issue and I don't know what it could be. But when my phone sleeps itstays dead flat with no awake bars, and drops 1% every 3 hours.
1. Calibrate battery
2. If you really wanna find the problem, install the rom with no mods or apps and run it and see if it still happens. Then add back each mod/app one at a time
derekwilkinson said:
1. Calibrate battery
2. If you really wanna find the problem, install the rom with no mods or apps and run it and see if it still happens. Then add back each mod/app one at a time
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
While I appreciate your effort, this is remarkable unhelpful for the following reasons:
1. "calibrating" the battery is a myth and doesn't actually do something. Even if it did, it would not explain the symptoms I have described. I have been around xda long enough to know it is the knee-jerk reaction to any battery question, but it is not relevant here.
2. Since the problem occurs at random, and sometimes takes hours to show up, (For instance, last night I charged to full and tried to catch it happening. For 4 hours nothing happened, it behaved perfectly. Then I went to bed and it immediately started to fall and was dead by morning) and since I have over 100 apps, your suggestion could easily take *over a year* to follow. Believe me, I have thought about it, but I started this thread hoping for ideas that would allow me to avoid it.
Here is that chart for last night.
I had about 1 hour and 30 minutes screen on time with 65% left when I went to bed. When I woke up, phone was dead.
RogerPodacter said:
Damn you definitely have a major issue and I don't know what it could be. But when my phone sleeps itstays dead flat with no awake bars, and drops 1% every 3 hours.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Mine often does that. But sometimes it doesn't. It is the fact that it happens seemingly at random that makes it so annoying and hard to track down.
I would replace the battery
One thing you haven't rulled out is that the battery itself is bad.
Have a friend you could swap with for a day, or at least long enough to see if the problem follows? If your battery drops on their phone that is also a good indication.
arw01 said:
One thing you haven't rulled out is that the battery itself is bad.
Have a friend you could swap with for a day, or at least long enough to see if the problem follows? If your battery drops on their phone that is also a good indication.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The thought has occurred to me, but unfortunately, no, I don't have a friend I can swap with. And really, since I have had the phone less than 3 months, the battery *shouldn't* be bad, but yeah, defective products happen.
If I cannot find any other cause I will likely order a new battery and see if that fixes it.
beren28 said:
While I appreciate your effort, this is remarkable unhelpful for the following reasons:
1. "calibrating" the battery is a myth and doesn't actually do something. Even if it did, it would not explain the symptoms I have described. I have been around xda long enough to know it is the knee-jerk reaction to any battery question, but it is not relevant here.
2. Since the problem occurs at random, and sometimes takes hours to show up, (For instance, last night I charged to full and tried to catch it happening. For 4 hours nothing happened, it behaved perfectly. Then I went to bed and it immediately started to fall and was dead by morning) and since I have over 100 apps, your suggestion could easily take *over a year* to follow. Believe me, I have thought about it, but I started this thread hoping for ideas that would allow me to avoid it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1. yes battery calibration does make a difference.
2. ok, so an app can't run a process at random? especially when you have "over 100 apps"? Run the rom stock and see if it still happens, or even run the stock rom/kernel. if you don't want to try this then why are you asking for suggestions? christ
derekwilkinson said:
1. yes battery calibration does make a difference.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You are incorrect. But, in any case, I DID calibrate the battery just to cover bases in the case that I was wrong.
2. ok, so an app can't run a process at random? especially when you have "over 100 apps"?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
We'll of course it can. That is kinda my point. If I go one app at a time waiting for it to "run a process at random" I am talking literally MONTHS of testing. I would have to wait many hours, if not days after installing or uninstalling an app to be sure whether or not it made a difference, then move on the the next. This is simply not an option. I started this thread in hopes that a realistic and doable solution might exist that I was unaware of.
Run the rom stock and see if it still happens, or even run the stock rom/kernel. if you don't want to try this then why are you asking for suggestions? christ
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am asking because there may be a solution that I am unaware of that doesn't require me to put my entire life on hold for months. It is possible that there is no such solution, but I asked in case there was one.
Sorry to have put you out so much.
You mentioned you recently installed exchange sync. Did turning off sync remedy this or have you not tried disabling all sync features?
One other thing to check is the background data usage of your apps. You'd find this under 'data usage' and make sure you enable the wifi tab so you can see data usage on wifi.
skadebo said:
You mentioned you recently installed exchange sync. Did turning off sync remedy this or have you not tried disabling all sync features?
when i did a complete quote and re flash i did not setup the exchange account, but the issue continued.
One other thing to check is the background data usage of your apps. You'd find this under 'data usage' and make sure you enable the wifi tab so you can see data usage on wifi.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll check that out. Thanks.
Sent from my jitterbug using tapatalk.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My battery also drains at a rate similar to yours however I'm on the CDMA version. Hopefully you can figure out what's going on with yours.

Battery Life - Idle drain?

I was wondering if anybody else had this issue or had any suggestions.
Battery life is normally great on the tablet, except every once and a while it gets stuck awake overnight. There doesn't seem to be a 3rd party app that is holding it awake, as Android system and OS is what's using most of the battery.
As you can see in the screenshot, Doze works fine and barely any better is drained, I used it briefly, came home from work and half the battery had been drained.
Thanks for the help
Not sure if it's normal but mine does the same.
Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk
I've seen a 30ish % drain sitting overnight a couple of times over the past 2 weeks. Can't seem to find a rhyme or reason for it.
I can't imagine it being "normal" since, with Wifi set to off while sleeping that the device should drain that much.
It's odd and happens randomly, I'm on the same page as you bluestang.
It happened to me once, at night it wastes a 15% battery.
I changed in wifi advance options to not maintain WiFi always awake, only in charge.
sabisavi said:
It happened to me once, at night it wastes a 15% battery.
I changed in wifi advance options to not maintain WiFi always awake, only in charge.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's the setup I have though - so I get no notifications or anything when it's not on. Yet something is still keeping the device up.
I have *exactly* the same problem with an all new device, and with nothing but a game installed on it. After a reboot, if I let the Pixel C right there for a night, then it only drains ~3/4%.
Then I play the only game I have for 5 minutes, and let the device again for a night => it now wastes a 20% battery!
No idea what's going on... "Android OS" appears first in the list of app, but this does not help me so much to find what is actually happening...
The issue still appears even after a full reset of the system (I'v tried, without success).
sylar12 said:
I have *exactly* the same problem with an all new device, and with nothing but a game installed on it. After a reboot, if I let the Pixel C right there for a night, then it only drains ~3/4%.
Then I play the only game I have for 5 minutes, and let the device again for a night => it now wastes a 20% battery!
No idea what's going on... "Android OS" appears first in the list of app, but this does not help me so much to find what is actually happening...
The issue still appears even after a full reset of the system (I'v tried, without success).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Exactly. If I reboot the device and let it sit, doze works fine, the second I open an app, use it and put the tablet down, something hangs and keeps it awake. Always Android OS that is keeping it awake as well...
I have this issue too. Are you guys on xceed Kernel?
Whats really interesting even better battery stats Shows no culprit.
I'm on the stock-just-reset-again last version of the system.
Freak07 said:
I have this issue too. Are you guys on xceed Kernel?
Whats really interesting even better battery stats Shows no culprit.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm on stock - not even rooted
I'm on stock MM here as well.
Also, not sure if it a coincidence or not, but I changed this and haven't seen overnight battery drops anymore. In Settings>Location I changed the Mode from High accuracy to Battery saving. Since the Pixel C doesn't have GPS device, then why use it.
Like I said, not sure if it a coincidence, but battery life has been great overnight since.
bluestang said:
I'm on stock MM here as well.
Also, not sure if it a coincidence or not, but I changed this and haven't seen overnight battery drops anymore. In Settings>Location I changed the Mode from High accuracy to Battery saving. Since the Pixel C doesn't have GPS device, then why use it.
Like I said, not sure if it a coincidence, but battery life has been great overnight since.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So last night, I rebooted before I went to sleep, but overnight the battery drained from 85% down to 57% in about 8 hours.
I decided to check my location settings as per your post and found it was set to high accuracy, so I changed it to "Battery Saving".
I did nothing else(no reboot) until I checked my battery now about 3 hours later, it has only dropped by a further 2%.
Looking at "Battery Monitor Widget Pro" history statistics, it is clear to see that overnight the battery was draining considerably more.
It takes readings every 10 minutes and was showing between 450 and 275 mA being used every 10 minutes overnight.
Since I changed the location settings, most of the time it is 15mA with occasional jumps up to a max of 297mA.
Although this could not be classed as conclusive proof, it does seem to have had an effect, I will keep monitoring it to see how it goes.
Yep, I change that setting on the 19th or 20th and haven't seen any major drains overnight.
I think I may have found a winner with that little tweak
So far so good for me too. I don't know if it is related to the GPS settings, but no more inconsistent major drains so far.
if location services is on it can drain a good deal
Just to add that I had exactly the same issue on stock 7.1.2, tablet was staying awake and draining. Reduced location precision and now only a 2% drain during an 8 hour sleep which is a massive improvement.

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