Galaxy S3 Idle Battery Drain of 6% Per Hour Should Be 1% Per Hour

Alex Franco

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10 JANUARY 2013 UPDATE
Switching off LTE seems to have worked for me to solve this random battery drop or plummet issue. My phone now drops about 1% per hour when I am not using it. With no supported way to turn off LTE, however, I?ve found that the ?ServiceMode? technique I describe in the 10 January 2013 posting below seems to work best and provides better coverage with no dropouts, as opposed to the APN method I describe in the 5 January 2013 posting below.

06 JANUARY 2013 UDPATE
I was just able to confirm that I live in a location that is on the fringe of service of an LTE tower - and my phone can quickly bounce back and forth between LTE and 4G signals. See my reply of 06 January below. So I think my random and sudden severe battery drain issues are likely caused by the phone constantly trying to make an LTE connection or bouncing back and forth between LTE and 4G.

05 JANUARY 2013 UPDATE
I have now been able to confirm that the issue I describe below is either the same as or closely related to the one in the following thread:

[Help][50% SOLVED] LTE = random heavy battery drain aka "plummet"

In short, I was able to switch to an Access Point Name (APN) that does not support LTE, and I was able to determine that switching to and from the non-LTE APN correlates identically with going from a random/intermittent high idle battery drain of about 7+% per hour to a consistent low idle battery drain of around 1-2% per hour.

See my below post of 05 January 2013 for further details and screenshots.

29 DECEMBER 2012 UPDATE

I've now had the chance to evaluate 3 separate Galaxy S3 phones and have since been able to determine that the idle battery drain issue I describe below occurred on all three devices with similar frequencies, but at somewhat random times and for random durations. Thus, the issue appears not to be hardware specific. Based on my analysis, I would be surprised if these issues are not affecting most Galaxy S3 owners, at least on the AT&T network.

ORIGINAL POST:

I?d like to investigate the prevalence of what appears to be a hardware issue that causes an intermittent 6% per hour draw on an AT&T Galaxy S3 battery while the phone is sitting idle. I think the proper idle draw should be around 1-2% per hour. The problem appears to affect different phones to different degrees and whether it is an issue may be a question of how much or how frequently. Please read below and post a reply if you?re experiencing something similar and to what extent.

Please don?t reply-post various suggestions regarding how to conserve battery power, such as turning off wifi, S-voice, push e-mail, limiting screen brightness, or using Juice Defender. General battery conservation is not the issue here. I?ve got two identically configured phones ? one acting significantly different than the other. I've swapped batteries, factory reset, and upgraded to Android 4.1 to eliminate those as possibilities.

My first AT&T Galaxy S3, let?s call it ?Mostly Bad,? generally draws about 6% of its battery per hour while sitting idle. That means screen off and no user interaction. To me, that?s a problem?

Since I?m in the middle of a mail-in warrantee replacement with AT&T, I also have a second S3, let?s call it ?Mostly Good,? THAT IS CONFIGURED IDENTICALLY, and generally draws down about 1-2% per hour while sitting idle. Now that is the kind of performance I would expect from this phone ? if you leave it on your desk and don?t touch it, you should be able to come back in 24 hrs and see 70+% of your battery remaining, right?

Interestingly, the ?Mostly Bad? phone will behave itself (drawing only 1-2% at idle), somewhat randomly for short periods of time every so often. Also the ?Mostly Good? phone will misbehave, (drawing about 6-7% at idle for relatively short periods of time ? typically for less than 1 hour) every so often. All this, of course, happens while the phones are sitting idle, typically while I?m fast asleep.

On both phones, I?ve been using Battery Spy (free, highly recommended) to graph the remaining battery %, battery voltage and temperature. During my tests, I?m running a relatively light configuration close to the default stock apps with exchange ActiveSync enabled, but the issue seems to be application independent and it persisted through the Android 4.1 firmware upgrade, a new battery, and factory resets. Although these episodes may also start and stop while the phone is in active use with screen on, it?s much harder to detect, since the phone is drawing 10-15% per hour during use.

Here are some characteristics of the bad behavior episodes:
1. Idle draw of 5-7+% per hour (while phone sitting on desk with screen off)
2. Very high frequency fluctuations in battery voltage as graphed by Battery Spy (discussed in more detail below). This seems to be a key characteristic!
3. Episodes randomly start and stop
4. Duration and frequency of episodes seems related to the particular phone (indicates hardware issue or relationship)
5. Will not happen if phone is run without SIM card (even though phone radio is on and able to make emergency calls)
6. Airplane mode suspends behavior (I?m pretty sure about this, but not completely positive)
7. Tendency seems generally independent of applications installed ? I?ve observed this on both straight out of the box and heavily app installed configurations.
8. Can happen in non LTE areas ? I don?t have an LTE signal where I live and there have been postings suggesting an LTE link (perhaps the phone could be looking for an LTE signal in vain?) [I've since learned that I'm on the fringe of an LTE tower and my phone bounces in and out of LTE - which is the problem.]
9. Independent of use of ActiveSync push - occurs on phones with and without Exchange ActiveSync enabled

I?ve attached some screenshots taken using Battery Spy showing episodes of both normal and problematic behavior and I?ve commented in a white box within each screenshot what I?m trying to show. Please pay close attention to the scale on the graph ? some graphs are scaled to 1 or 2 hours while others may be 16 hours and that?s important in observing the battery drawdown rate. Don?t pay attention to the %/hr rate indicated at the top of the Battery Spy graphs as that is just a real-time rate measured at the time the screenshot was taken.

An important feature of these episodes is the very high frequency fluctuations in the battery voltage of the phone that directly correspond to the idle drain. When the phone enters an episode of drain, the Battery Spy graph will show a transition from a very smooth battery voltage to what looks like a seismograph plot when viewed in the fine (1 or 2 hrs) graph modes. I?ve posted some instances where the phone enters and exits an episode from both the Mostly Bad and Mostly Good phones.

I?d like to point out another thread that may be addressing the same problem and which has garnered quite a bit of attention during the past 6 months. The present posting may be of interest to some following the other one:

[Help][50% SOLVED] LTE = random heavy battery drain aka "plummet"

The ultimate question I?d like to answer is whether this is a problem that is pervasive and affects many S3 users or whether it is a relatively rare occurrence. I?ve talked to several other S3 owners who say that they have to charge their phone more than once per day, though I don?t know exactly how heavily they?ve been using it. It?s possible that this is a pervasive hardware problem and many unknowing S3 users may be afflicted but oblivious.

So if you often put your fully charged S3 on your nightstand before sleep and awake 6 or 7 hours later to find it down around 60%, please download and run Battery Spy and see if your battery drain profile matches what I?ve posted here. And then let us know!
 

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jeffreii

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Re: Galaxy S3 Idle Battery Drain of 6% Per Hour Should Be 1% Per Hour - Hardware Problem

Seems to have some differences from my "plummet" thread. Two immediate thoughts:

1) Have you looked into the gsiff_daemon issue? Many people posted about that in the plummet thread though I have not found it to affect my phone...seems like the two most common similar issues for this sudden battery drain. I believe you can diagnose it by using dev options to see running processes and it should be fairly high.

2) The voltage/drain correlation could simply be that when the battery is being used heavily, there's more variance in the voltage whereas in the idle/normal state it's pretty stable. I don't really know much about it from a scientific standpoint but seems reasonable to me to expect that sort of behavior.

Good luck!
 

smooth4lyfe

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Re: Galaxy S3 Idle Battery Drain of 6% Per Hour Should Be 1% Per Hour - Hardware Problem

Could also be a battery issue...try switching the batteries on the phones with the other and see if it still acts the same on the other phone....if not, then it could be a hardware issue
 

hossman12

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Re: Galaxy S3 Idle Battery Drain of 6% Per Hour Should Be 1% Per Hour - Hardware Problem

Could also be a battery issue...try switching the batteries on the phones with the other and see if it still acts the same on the other phone....if not, then it could be a hardware issue

He already said he changed out the batteries on both.

Have you tried disabling all data and seeing if it still acts this way while the screen's off? When I do this, I can go to sleep for 6-7hrs and sometimes wake up without having lost even one percent of my battery... and the most I'm ever gonna lose is one percent.

Sent from my MetroPCS GS3
 

Alex Franco

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Re: Galaxy S3 Idle Battery Drain of 6% Per Hour Should Be 1% Per Hour - Hardware Problem

Based on the information in the [Help][50% SOLVED] LTE = random heavy battery drain aka "plummet" thread, I set out to determine whether the phone seeking out an LTE signal is the source of the problem and indeed I think it is.

1. Based some other threads about turning off LTE, I added a new Access Point Name (APN) to my S3 (named it ?ATT HSPA+?), which apparently does not support LTE. See below how to do this.
2. The original/default APN on my phone (named ?ATT Phone?) does support LTE ? which I can confirm since I see an ?LTE? indicator when I am away from home in an LTE area.
3. Switching between the original ?ATT Phone? APN and the new ?ATT HSPA+? APN while at home resulted in a definite correlation to going from a random/intermittent 7+% idle battery drain to never having a high idle battery drain problem.

I?ve attached below a Battery Spy screenshot showing my switch from the ?ATT Phone? APN to the ?ATT HSPA+? APN while my phone was in a 7.5% per hour idle drain state and the phone immediately exited the high drain state.

How I was able to switch/add the new APN:
Settings->More Settings->Mobile Networks->Access Point Names->Hit the Menu Button->?+ New APN?

Then replicate the APN settings in the screenshots below and switch to the newly created APN. The only difference between the original ?ATT Phone? APN and the new ?ATT HSPA+? APN is the actual ?APN? field entry, which I set to ?wap.cingular? based on some other threads.

Note that I was not able to use ?pop the SIM card out while phone is on? technique described by jeffreii in his thread referenced above, since my phone immediately forced a restart every time I popped the SIM card out. Furthermore, the technique here allows you to switch back and forth via a menu setting while the phone is on.

BIG CAVEAT
On the new ?ATT HSPA+? APN (which is probably not intended for this phone), I get frequent cell signal dropouts and dead zones when traveling, and I also have no LTE access. But the battery lasts forever!
 

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Alex Franco

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Seems to have some differences from my "plummet" thread. Two immediate thoughts:

1) Have you looked into the gsiff_daemon issue? Many people posted about that in the plummet thread though I have not found it to affect my phone...seems like the two most common similar issues for this sudden battery drain. I believe you can diagnose it by using dev options to see running processes and it should be fairly high.

2) The voltage/drain correlation could simply be that when the battery is being used heavily, there's more variance in the voltage whereas in the idle/normal state it's pretty stable. I don't really know much about it from a scientific standpoint but seems reasonable to me to expect that sort of behavior.

Good luck!

1. I don't have the gsiff_daemon issue
2. It is not a "being used heavily" issue - the drain occurs intermittently and randomly when the phone is not being used - screen off and idle.

Please see my updated Original Post and new reply - I do think we're suffering from the same problem.
 

Alex Franco

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Today I spoke with a Samsung level 2 technical support representative out of Manilla, Philippines who promised to forward a report on both this posting and the "plummet" posting (referenced in the original post, above) up the chain on his end. Hopefully someone at Samsung will take note and solve this problem!
 

Alex Franco

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I've now been able to determine that I live in a location that served by the fringe of an LTE tower (maybe 1-2 bars out of 5) and also by a 4G tower (4-5 bars out of 5) and I've now documented very quick switches by my phone between 4G and LTE states. See the screenshots below - all taken within 45 seconds at the same exact location showing my phone first on 4G, then on LTE, then on 4G again. I was apparently misinformed by an AT&T call center rep who previously told me that there are no LTE towers in my area. So I'm now thinking that the source of this problem is that in the particular location where I live, my phone somehow gets into a state where it is constantly and unsuccessfully trying to lock onto an LTE signal or is bouncing back and forth between an LTE signal and a regular 4G signal.

I know I've seen other postings about the large amount of power consumed by a phone in locking onto an LTE signal.
 

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chief6124

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My phone only does this at my house. I go to work and losing 2% per hour-- then come home and the plummet begins. It will stop if I reset the phone by taking out the battery. with WIFI off- I have around 3 bars of LTE. Its really annoying. Let me know if you figure out a fix...

Chief.
 

Alex Franco

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Switching off LTE seems to have worked for me to solve this random battery drop or plummet issue. My phone now drops about 1% per hour when I am not using it. With no supported way to turn off LTE, however, I?ve found that the following ?ServiceMode? technique seems to work best and provides better coverage with no dropouts, as opposed to the APN method I describe above in the 5 January posting.

Switching off LTE using the ServiceMode Menu
This is a variation on the *#2263# technique described by jeffrei here, but I couldn?t get it to work as described ? the phone would force a reboot whenever I popped the SIM card out while it was running and I gave up thinking I had failed. So I shut down the phone first, popped the SIM out and then rebooted without SIM, which allowed me to complete the process.

Here is my complete procedure to switch the phone off LTE and on to WCDMA:
1. Shut off phone and remove SIM
2. Boot phone without SIM
3. Dial *#2263# to get to the ServiceMode menu
4. Menu->Select->[enter ?2? for WCDMA Band Preference]
5. Menu->Select->[enter ?6? for WCDMA ALL]
6. Optionally: Menu->Select->Back (to confirm that ?WCDMA Band Preference is *?d)
7. Menu->Select->END
8. Shut down and then reboot phone after reinserting SIM

See screenshots below.
 

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Shawn Magm

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My phone only does this at my house. I go to work and losing 2% per hour-- then come home and the plummet begins. It will stop if I reset the phone by taking out the battery. with WIFI off- I have around 3 bars of LTE. Its really annoying. Let me know if you figure out a fix...

Chief.

I have a very similar problem. This happens only at home after coming home from work. When I restart (soft reset) the phone, the battery plummet stops. During the weekend when I stay at home the entire weekend, the battery drain doesn't occur.

I spoke with AT&T technical support, and they sent me another battery to try out. I don't think this is a battery issue at all. I'm trying it out just to eliminate the battery as the culprit. I suspect it must be the phone switching from 4G LTE as I'm driving on the interstate to my home wifi router or another 4G LTE tower. I think I tried turning my wifi off prior to leaving work, and the issue still occurring.

I have an AT&T version.

So far, I don't have a solution, and this is quite annoying. I know I can simply restart the phone when I come home, but as this is one of the top phones currently, I don't think this is acceptable. I had an iPhone 3G prior to this, and never had such a problem.
 

leansigma

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Got this from another forum and it seems to work! If you are in an area where ATT claim that they have 4G available, in that area and its visinity, GS3 drains a lot of battery. Just follow this you will be fine. It works for me.

1) With phone on, take off back cover and press your SIM card so it releases from the spring. It won't come all the way out as it's blocked by the battery. This seems fine - I didn't bother trying to force it out as I didn't want to break anything...
2) Once you see the message that the SIM card is removed, go to the dialer and dial *#2263#
3) You should see a menu with band selections. The current setting is "Automatic". If you switch to "GSM All", you will be EDGE (2G). If you switch to "WCDMA All", you will be on HSPA+ (3G, though AT&T and others call it 4G).
4) Press the SIM card back into place until it clicks. For whatever reason the phone will not recognize it until you reboot. Upon reboot you should see your new setting in effect.
 

Shawn Magm

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Got this from another forum and it seems to work! If you are in an area where ATT claim that they have 4G available, in that area and its visinity, GS3 drains a lot of battery. Just follow this you will be fine. It works for me.

1) With phone on, take off back cover and press your SIM card so it releases from the spring. It won't come all the way out as it's blocked by the battery. This seems fine - I didn't bother trying to force it out as I didn't want to break anything...
2) Once you see the message that the SIM card is removed, go to the dialer and dial *#2263#
3) You should see a menu with band selections. The current setting is "Automatic". If you switch to "GSM All", you will be EDGE (2G). If you switch to "WCDMA All", you will be on HSPA+ (3G, though AT&T and others call it 4G).
4) Press the SIM card back into place until it clicks. For whatever reason the phone will not recognize it until you reboot. Upon reboot you should see your new setting in effect.

Does adding a new APN as described by Alex Franco achieve the same thing are your technique? I saw the same technique as Alex on a youtube vid, and I added the APN. It's as simple as going in the settings and selecting the APN, rather than taking off the cover, releasing the SIM, etc.and rebooting?
 

rbexx34

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Hi all, I just joined so I could chime in on this thread. I've been having this problem since I got my Galaxy S3 in October -- I even took the entire phone back to the store and replaced it with a new unit, and of course the second one does the same thing. After reading through tons of message boards, I am convinced I have the LTE connection issue as well. I live in the Boston area, and once or twice a day (usually a couple hours after I get to work) my phone's battery will plummet at 10%/hour and continue until I reboot. I tried disabling random Samsung apps, installing JuiceDefender, etc. I just spent a week on the West Coast, and while I was there my battery didn't plummet once, so it's definitely a location thing.
This afternoon I disabled LTE with the method described above. My battery has stayed at the exact same percentage for four hours now... but of course only time will tell. My question is this: You suggest switching [1] Automatic to [2] WCDMA Preference -- but what happens if you switch to [4] LTE Preference? Is it simply that on Automatic the phone gets stuck and worked up trying to figure out where to connect, or is it something innate to the LTE connection?
My signal strength dropped when I switched to WCDMA, so I wondered if anyone had tried switching to option [4].
 

Alex Franco

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My question is this: You suggest switching [1] Automatic to [2] WCDMA Preference -- but what happens if you switch to [4] LTE Preference? Is it simply that on Automatic the phone gets stuck and worked up trying to figure out where to connect, or is it something innate to the LTE connection?
My signal strength dropped when I switched to WCDMA, so I wondered if anyone had tried switching to option [4].

I think that selecting any options under [4] LTE Preference (LTE ALL, if that option exists) will keep you on LTE only, which uses much more power than WCDMA. Although it might avoid the possibility of bouncing back and forth between LTE and WCDMA, which is the worst case I have experienced for power drain, LTE coverage is still being rolled out, and I think you might find yourself often without signal. But please give it a try and let us know!
 

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