HTC One M8 Sprint Battery dies very quickly sometimes

[spthomas]

I posted this in AC Central, but didn't see where I could add screenshots, so here it is in the forum. Sorry for the double post.

Recently, my phone has started getting hot, and the battery dies very quickly. Where it used to give me 12-14 hours of life before getting to the 15% low battery warning. Now, today, I was at 15% after only 5 hours! And it gets hot. But it doesn't seem to do it every day, only about 1/2 of the time.

I'm running Android 5.0.2.

 

[Geezerb]

Have you done a full restart holding in the volume up button & power?

 

[spthomas]

Isn't that the same soft restart as power and reset from the menu? I've done that several times.

 

[Geezerb]

No, it's like a battery pull. Hold power & volume up & you will see a message to keep holding for 10 more seconds. Wait for the restart

 

[spthomas]

An update. It still gets hot and the battery dies quickly one or twice a week, but not always. I'll post screens hots of the power tabs, but I didn't see any apps really draining the battery. Right now it feels hot, it's been off the charger fully charged for 4 hours of normal use, and has 19% remaining. Usually a full charge lasts 14 hours or so.

 

[puch96]

I do see your cell reception in red for the most part, which means that will drain the battery a lot faster as it is constantly searching.
Also, my wife's note 4 started having serious battery drain, and fixed by performing a fatory reset. Have you considered doing a factory reset?

 

[spthomas]

It took me 4 hours to reload everything after the last factory reset, so I haven't tried again. I'm also fighting with Sprint about their terrible service (0.2mbps dl avg and this is LTE 4G). So maybe the terrible data speed is causing the battery drain?

 

[Rukbat]

They both (battery drain and terrible download speed) have the same cause - weak Sprint signal where you are. Unless they used to have a strong signal, and it dropped, it's not the tower's problem. If you recently got an update sent to the phone, that could cause the problem (And that would be Sprint's liability - but you'd have to talk to a tech support supervisor who knows the difference between warranty and liability. They broke it, so they get to fix or replace it [but use nicer wording].)

If they did recently drop their signal, and it's not due to construction between you and the tower, causing you to be in a shadow, it's their problem, and they can either fix it (a microcell near you or let you drop your contract without penalty and replace the phone with an M8 for a carrier that has a good signal where you are [check the cellular network signal on friends' phones - it should be solid green all over your house]) or you keep asking for THAT person's supervisor. (If they can't supply you with a signal, they've breached any contract.)

 

[Lighterning]

I have the exact same issue, phone battery seems to be ok for a while, and then gets hot, with battery draining 20% per hour. Sometimes phone lasts for 10 hours, sometimes 5 hours :-(. I'm doing a factory reset later, but would be interested to know if you found a resolution?

 

[spthomas]

Nothing concrete. What Rukbat said makes a lot of sense. It appears to be worse at home, where I'm fighting constantly with Sprint because their blazing LTE speed averages about 0.5mbps. AND the little spinner at the top of the screen turns a lot, sometimes constantly. So it appears it's looking for a signal? Anyway, at home where I have this signal issue is where it drains fast mostly. So I suspect it's that. However, I disagree that, because i have data problems, Sprint is going to let me out of my contract. they just aren't going to do that.

I've resisted doing a factory reset because I just don't think it will do any good. I've shut down all the apps that are running several times, and that didn't help. It's loke in the PC days "Reboot", it was just a last resort when we don't know what to do.

 

[spthomas]

Ok, to wrap this thread up, after an Android update (something after 5.02), the phone is now back to a reasonable battery usage and not getting so hot. Nothing I did really. So something in 5.02 was causing it to run hot and drain the battery.