Instant battery drain (to 0%) on AT&T One X

[hooyeh]

Hi all,

Last Thursday, with a full recharge right before my sleep, the phone became dead after I woke up ~8 hours later. The battery was completely drained and I had to recharge it to turn it on again. See the power chart below:

Both mobile data and wifi were off and I cleared all the apps in "recent apps" before I went to bed. I usually do this and the normal consumption of power overnight is usually <10%. So neither the power consumption rate before the instant drop nor the vertical drop itself was normal.

Earlier this morning when I was sleeping, I heard an alert notification from my phone indicating battery low (or the like) and immediately woke up because I knew it happened again. I touched the back of the phone, and it was a bit warm but not hot (room temperature around 70). See the pictures below:

The consumption rate before the vertical drop again looks suspiciously quick compared with that for last night (see the ~8 hour time period with screen off). And then it dropped instantaneously...

The phone suffered from another problem 2 months ago after I just bought it. It randomly froze and reboot by itself and it happened quite a few times within several days and I remember that I did a factory reset which didn't solve the problem as I still experienced one or two occurrences after that reset. But this problem disappeared then and it's been fine for 2 months.

My phone is running on the stock ROM with 2.20 official update. No modifications at all.

Any ideas? I searched online and someone says it's due to battery meter/calibration. Does that mean it's just a measurement error? If it's just a problem with the measurement, why would I have to recharge for hours after rebooting from a completely dead phone?

Many thanks in advance!!

 

[MangoPowah]

That's really strange. By the looks of it, there's a rogue app running in the background. Get BetterBatteryStats and check for any partial/kernel wakelocks. Also, if you can, just turn off your phone while charging it overnight.

Sent from my HTC One X using Android Central Forums

 

[hooyeh]

That's really strange. By the looks of it, there's a rogue app running in the background. Get BetterBatteryStats and check for any partial/kernel wakelocks. Also, if you can, just turn off your phone while charging it overnight.

Sent from my HTC One X using Android Central Forums

Hi MangoPowah. Sorry I didn't make it clear. Both occurrences of the instant drain happened very early in the morning (this time 5:25 am) when it was not charging. It was just sitting idle with screen/wifi/data/recent-apps off on my nightstand.

I just installed BetterBatteryStats and what should I expect to see if some rogue apps are running in the background draining my battery? Thanks!

 

[icebike]

This has been reported before here on this Forum.

I don't think anyone has found a real fix. Seems to be mostly on the AT&T version.

For the record, clearing "Recent Apps" really does nothing. It will not stop an app running in the background. All it does is take that entry out of the list. But that is not germane to your problem here.

I also drop about 10% over night, sometimes only 6%. And I leave everything on. I especially leave wifi on, because that takes almost zero power and will keep your phone from using LTE or any network data. Saves tons of battery.

An app that wakes up and tries to get mail or update weather or anything thing like that will re-try if it can't find any network connection. It actually uses MORE power retrying than letting it actually connect, do its business, and get off the net. (As long as you don't have it set to update every 2 minutes). There are a lot of false economies in shutting down all networks.

You might look into a different weather app. Several people have suggested that the Sense Weather/clock goes ape if it can't figure out where it is (for whatever reason). It usually shows up as high MAPs usage, because it uses maps to find location. But I don't see any high maps usage in your image.

I've disabled both the App and the Widget in settings, and installed Digital Clock and Weather by droid27.

Your Cell standby looks suspicious. Mine runs at 3%. If the phone body is warm at the top of the back, around camera height, that means excessive radio usage. No clue how you might fix this.

 

[hooyeh]

Icebike, thanks for your detailed reply.

Is it possible that this problem is more a hardware issue than a software one? Because for me it's a bit hard to understand how apps could consume power at such a fast rate that would lead to a vertical drop of the power.

 

[ajonesma]

It could be a hardware issue, you could take your One X into AT&T and see if they can exchange it for you.

 

[icebike]

Icebike, thanks for your detailed reply.

Is it possible that this problem is more a hardware issue than a software one? Because for me it's a bit hard to understand how apps could consume power at such a fast rate that would lead to a vertical drop of the power.

It could be hardware. But for it to happen at the same early morning time suggests a software event rather than a hardware only issue.
You might Google around on other forums and see some other info on this. And it's probably a good idea to find a competent AT&T tech and have it looked at. (Avoid the kiosk clowns).

Draining that fast can't be good for the battery, and could be a fire hazard.

 

[MangoPowah]

Something along the lines of this would come up.

Sent from my HTC One X using Android Central Forums

 

[hooyeh]

Since this phone has had two very strange problems, I decided not to do any debugging any more. I went to an AT&T store today and asked for a replacement.

Anyway, thank you guys for the input. I really appreciate that.

 

[ajonesma]

Since this phone has had two very strange problems, I decided not to do any debugging any more. I went to an AT&T store today and asked for a replacement.

Anyway, thank you guys for the input. I really appreciate that.

Hopefully the replacement shows you how good the battery life usually is on the One X

 

[MangoPowah]

Hope your replacement unit works fine.

Friend: Is that a banana in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?

Me: Nah, it's just my HTC One X.

 

[raunakborker]

Hello Everyone,

I have exactly the same problem. My HTC One X AT&T battery drained from approx 60% to 0% within a minute twice in the last 3days. I purchased the phone 11 days back.

Hooyeh did AT&T replace the phone without any charges?

Thanks

 

[hooyeh]

They should. I bought from Walmart in June and they still replaced it for me two weeks ago. I'm not familiar with the policy of AT&T, but maybe you can just go to the store and ask for a replacement since you're still within your 30 day period. Good luck.

Hello Everyone,

I have exactly the same problem. My HTC One X AT&T battery drained from approx 60% to 0% within a minute twice in the last 3days. I purchased the phone 11 days back.

Hooyeh did AT&T replace the phone without any charges?

Thanks

 

[hooyeh]

Hopefully the replacement shows you how good the battery life usually is on the One X

Got a replacement first and the location service was broken; so I returned it and got another replacement which really looked like a new phone (and it's HT29). Worked fine without any problem in 10 days but last night the battery drain happened again from maybe 20-30% to 0 in minutes. Now I really don't know if I got another defective device or some of the apps I installed was the culprit.

 

[raunakborker]

Thanks hooyeh!

I think it is a hardware issue else the same problem would have occurred on other phones with same apps

 

[icebike]

I think it's software otherwise the problem wouldn't keep happening to the same people over and over again even after they get new phones.

They set up the new phone with the same software as the old phone, and bam, the problem returns.

If it were the stock software, it would affect everybody.

Nobody has done an exhaustive software comparison list.




Sent from my HTC One X using Tapatalk 2

 

[clevin]

you need to do a battery calibration and then test again.

 

[raunakborker]

I got my phone replaced by AT&T, and the only app that I have installed on the new phone is Skype. The problem repeated today! an instant drain!!

 

[GMJeff]

Are they giving you a new battery with the new phones or using the old battery?

Note2 or Note10, that is the question

 

[ilifecomputer]

My galaxy does this as well even after a replacement. There is something fishy going on with Lte use.

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