Battery draining fast overnight while idle

[catlover25]

I posted yesterday but I am hoping to get some more responses. Even when idle overnight my battery would be probably at 10%-20% in the morning. Now it is at 62% after 8 hours of mostly idle time. It would have been lower but I woke up earlier this morning and put it back on to charge. Unless I always leave it plugged in at night I am at a loss what to do now. I just stopped more apps but don't know if that is the problem.
How do you know if it is a battery problem or could be a problem with my phone?

This is my post yesterday to give you more information:
I have had my Samsung Galaxy 3 about 14 mos. Now the battery is at 65% after just 2 hours. I have had problems in the past several months with the phone getting hot so I have done several power saving steps that I found online. I have turned down my screen brightness to almost 0 most of time and to 'time out' after 15 sec. I do regular clearing of the cache and have force stopped many of the apps. I have checked the battery for bulges and the 'spin test' and it seems to still be ok by those standard so I do not know what the problem is. The last few days I had several error messages popping up when I was on the internet: 'The weather widget had stopped working', 'Google app' had stopped, ATT locker has stopped, etc. It was only doing this while connected to the internet. I went by the ATT store to have a Tech look at it. He turned on the 'location' thinking that would help the error messages but I have since turned it off and deleted a few widgets.

Anyone have any suggestions on what to do next to keep it from draining my battery? Thanks

 

[Rukbat]

I do regular clearing of the cache

That has nothing to do with battery use, it just decreases the amount of storage space available if you have lot of junk in cache.

and have force stopped many of the apps.

That costs batteryk, if you stop an app that Android wants running. It's just going to load it from storage and run it again. Use an app like Greenify to keep apps from running by themselves (other than the ones you want running by themselves - phone, messaging, email, alarms, etc.) Use a startup manager to keep apps you don't want running all the time from startig when you turn the phone on.

The last few days I had several error messages popping up when I was on the internet: 'The weather widget had stopped working', 'Google app' had stopped, ATT locker has stopped, etc. It was only doing this while connected to the internet.

Stopping an app you think shouldn't be running, but that Android need a process from to remain connected to the internet (or some other function) could cause that.

Take a screen shot of your battery page (Settings/General/Battery). Then tap the graph on top and take a screen shot of that page. Post them here. (See How To Post Screenshots on Android Central.)

Install SystemPanelLite and see what's running. Greenify anything you don't need running. (Greenify your phone and you won't get incoming calls. Greenify your messaging app and you won't get incoming texts. But if you only want an app running when you run it, Greenify it.)

Considering the age of the phone, and the fact that you evidently allow the battery to discharge down to 10%, it might be at end of life. In that case, go to Amazon and order one (or two plus a charger) Anker or Hyperion batteries (I've used both - they're both good). (Order enough to get past the $30 free shipping limit - if you need a cable or want a case or screen protector or something else [when I order my cat litter refills I add all the little things I want - the refills alone go over the $30 limit] to save a few more dollars.)

Not all batteries that get too old to hold a charge bulge. I've thrown out batteries that look fine, weigh the right amount (another test), don't spin at all - and die within 5 minutes after I disconnect them from the charger, with the battery not even in a phone. And had one that was so low the phone wouldn't even charge it - I had to bring it up to 5% with an external charger before the phone would charge it [and judging by how long that took, the battery was at the equivalent of about -200% charge] - and it's been working fine for months now. Some batteries just don't read the rule book.