Poor battery life, android system eating it all up?

**ireknole** · 09-16-2012, 11:16 AM

So I've been hearing all these great things about the battery life on the GSIII lasting 14+ hours...I'd like to know how. I unplug my phone at 6am and I'm usually at 30% by 12pm. During this time I'm listening to music on player pro or listening to cached music on Spotify. I try to keep the screen off as well. I don't get great signal at work, so I try to keep it in airplane mode, but sometimes I forget and it goes on/off roaming, signal searching, and 1 or 2 bars.

Attached are my most recent battery stats. I did everything I mentioned above plus made 2 short phone calls (< 30 minutes). Why such battery drain? Is there a fix for this? I'm rooted with no rom, so I can flash something if it will help.

**cb2367** · 09-18-2012, 02:13 PM

I have the Samsung Epic phone, and lately I have been experiencing the same problem with the Android System using up a significant amount of the battery. I get an average of 4-5 hours on the battery. I've asked Sprint representatives about this, but they say it's hard to troubleshoot this particular issue and recommended a reset. I'm wondering though if this has something to do with installing applications where one of the permissions is something like preventing the phone from sleeping. In looking at the running services, TeleNav GPS Navigator is running even though I haven't recently used the application. When I attempt to stop the process from running, it starts right back up again. The Sprint Connection Optimizer is also running in the background -- does it need to be running? I don't know if this an option on the S3, but would disabling the background data do anything to improve the battery life?

**_OMEGA_** · 09-18-2012, 02:41 PM

Here is proof that great battery life is achievable. I still had about 6% left and I was well over 28 hours of running time. It looks like your biggest culprit is the poor network signal.

Poor battery life, android system eating it all up?-screenshot_2012-09-18-11-23-09-1.png

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S3

**Almeuit** · 09-18-2012, 03:29 PM

I'd say poor network signal but I also do know spotify likes to stay awake the entire time it's open so it causes battery drain more.

I used to unplug at 100 still 6am and be at 50 percent by 4-5 pm using slacker. Using spotify I can be at 40 percent by noon.

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Android Central Forums

**katmandoo122** · 09-18-2012, 04:19 PM

Almost always it's either a) poor signal, or b) a bad app. If it's the latter, you can reset and install a couple at a time until you notice the problem. If it's the former, there ain't much you can do about it other than Wifi. Juice Defender might help, though.

I am a heavy user and I regularly get 16 hours of time before it turns red. But when I go to rural areas, it gets worse as the signal deteriorates.

**ireknole** · 09-18-2012, 05:44 PM

~~I usually get pretty decent signal until I walk into work.~~ Unless you look at the screenshot below....Today my battery was at 73% when I walked in to work. It was off the charger from 6:10am till then. I did listen to some Spotify in the car, but I still can't believe it's draining that quickly. I noticed that Google Wallet used quite a bit this morning, and I don't even use Google Wallet! 24

Poor battery life, android system eating it all up?-phone.jpg

**johnmcd348** · 09-18-2012, 07:40 PM

I just wanted to chime in here. New to the Droid Central area. I'm a WP user at the moment. I kinda want to agree with the others here and say it is probably the phone searching for a signal. I am currently having the same issue with my Arrive and it's been going on for about the last 1-2 months. Battery drain is horrible right now, I am in roaming a lot of the time, calls are dropped, many times I don't even get the call, only the voice mail from the person trying to call me. I've been looking at possibly going Droid now for the last couple of weeks in an effort to fix my problem. My wife, was previously having similar issues with her Samsung Epic 4G phone but around the time my issues began, hers started getting better.

I've been through Service Techs, network Techs and even gotten a return call from Dan Hesse's office. They tell me that Sprint is currently working on many of the towers in many areas in an effort to increase call capacity and in that, they are taking down some towers, placing more traffic on others. I don't think it is directly related to the WiMax/LTE change over but it sort of makes sense. Everything I've been reading online and finding, trying to work out the problem on my own, it sounds like it's probably going to get worse, before it gets better for all of us.

**vapore0n** · 09-19-2012, 06:42 AM

Originally Posted by ireknole

So I've been hearing all these great things about the battery life on the GSIII lasting 14+ hours...I'd like to know how. I unplug my phone at 6am and I'm usually at 30% by 12pm. During this time I'm listening to music on player pro or listening to cached music on Spotify. I try to keep the screen off as well. I don't get great signal at work, so I try to keep it in airplane mode, but sometimes I forget and it goes on/off roaming, signal searching, and 1 or 2 bars.

Attached are my most recent battery stats. I did everything I mentioned above plus made 2 short phone calls (< 30 minutes). Why such battery drain? Is there a fix for this? I'm rooted with no rom, so I can flash something if it will help.

If you check your second pic, you can see that the phone was awake the whole time, even when the screen was off. That there is the drain. Something running in the background.
Id blame it on Spotify, as you say you were using it the whole day.

**Almeuit** · 09-19-2012, 07:25 AM

Originally Posted by vapore0n

If you check your second pic, you can see that the phone was awake the whole time, even when the screen was off. That there is the drain. Something running in the background.
Id blame it on Spotify, as you say you were using it the whole day.

Spotify definitely does this. It keeps the phone awake even when screen is locked. Slacker wakes the phone when needed but it doesn't keep it Perma awake.

So I'd have to blame spotify for the drain as well. I know that's what gets me.. I just make sure to keep a charger at work

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Android Central Forums

**ireknole** · 09-19-2012, 09:07 AM

I've set up Tasker to kill Spotify when I unplug my headphones, so hopefully that will help. Thanks guys! I'm keep you all updated.

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2

**vapore0n** · 09-19-2012, 01:07 PM

And this is my battery graph after removing some bloat and that gsiff_daemon process that was keeping my phone awake.

Poor battery life, android system eating it all up?-screenshot_2012-09-19-14-02-02.png

**Almeuit** · 09-19-2012, 01:38 PM

Originally Posted by vapore0n

And this is my battery graph after removing some bloat and that gsiff_daemon process that was keeping my phone awake.

Click image for larger version.

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Nice

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Android Central Forums

**ireknole** · 09-19-2012, 07:47 PM

Originally Posted by vapore0n

And this is my battery graph after removing some bloat and that gsiff_daemon process that was keeping my phone awake.

How can I tell if that's what's eating up my battery? (Could very well be Spotify too, but I wasn't having these problems with my Epic 4g, running the same apps)

**vapore0n** · 09-20-2012, 10:18 AM

Originally Posted by ireknole

How can I tell if that's what's eating up my battery? (Could very well be Spotify too, but I wasn't having these problems with my Epic 4g, running the same apps)

You need an app that will show you more details about cpu usage.
I used BetterBatteryStats for this. You could use something similar.

Just be sure to post screen shots or data logs so people here can help

This app would give detail as to what app is awake, how much time it is, etc.

**ireknole** · 09-20-2012, 06:15 PM

I actually found out about BetterBatteryStats last night and I started it up this morning when I unplugged my phone. This is what I found:

Poor battery life, android system eating it all up?-betterbattery1.jpg

(And my battery did much better today, as you can see in the screen shot. I didn't do anything different except that I didn't listen to Spotify this morning.)

I looked up what "AlarmManager" was and according to a thread on xda, it can be caused by weather apps or other constant sync apps. So I checked a weather app. I just downloaded, and sure enough, it set itself to sync ever 30 minutes. So I stopped that right away. I also fixed some of my Tasker profiles, since some of them didn't have an exit task and were still running based on state (ie headphones plugged in). I also uninstalled light flow. I'm not sure if it was causing problems, but the people on xda weren't too fond of it. I'll see how much better it does when I start fresh tomorrow, but so far it's been helpful!

On a side note, how do you upload a screenshot from your phone without resizing in a 3rd party app? Tapatalk always complains that my picture is the wrong dimension and it won't resize it. I'm having to do it from my computer with the snip tool.

**windstrings** · 09-26-2012, 02:56 PM

Micro cpu monitor works great to give immediate feedback when a program acts up. I noticed one of my cores pegged out, a simple reboot with battery pull cleared mine and stopped crazy battery drain. Cpu spy also helps give a history to determine the sleep state of the cpu "or not" If something is misbehaving.

**Stbrightman** · 09-27-2012, 07:22 AM

I'd like to add that I believe Words with Friends and Draw Something both drain battery like crazy. I noticed it on my Droid X, and I notice it on my galaxy s3. After uninstalling, I get no battery drain or heat up. Not sure why, but like others I'm guessing that it has to do with notification and signal searching.

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Android Central Forums

**vapore0n** · 09-27-2012, 10:27 AM

That is the exact way I determined what was eating my battery. Good jerb.

If you are rooted, Id suggest making a nandroid backup once you are happy with the settings/battery life.

**jpc6585** · 09-30-2012, 04:56 AM

My phones battery drains much fast in a poor signal area and its very noticeable. Of course running apps will do it but not at the rate of a poor signal.

**sham123** · 11-05-2012, 09:08 PM

It is the poor signal for me. It doesn't like concrete walls and high rise buildings.

**Skunkape60** · 11-05-2012, 11:22 PM

Poor signal is the number one cause of battery drain. Period... If you are in an area with a poor signal your only options other than extra batteries, larger batteries or lots of chargers. is turning off data when you aren't physically using it.

**geolemon** · 01-23-2013, 03:24 PM

Not sure if it's in the stock ROM or not (I'm running FreeGS3, this is a standard feature of a custom ROM, if not stock), but check this out:
(from XDA-Developers, researching the same issue, essentially)

Originally Posted by ibous

I think you may be getting the gsiff_daemon bug. Next time you have the battery start draining like that, turn on show cpu usage under developer options in settings. If you see gsiff_daemon at the top, then that's what's causing the android system battery suck.

The fix is simple go to /system/bin with a root explorer, mount r/w and rename gsiff_daemon to .Bak or delete it. This won't hurt anything. Then reboot.

There is a thread about this in QA. If you check it out keep in mind it's full of wags and speculation.

Sent from my SGH-T999 using xda premium

Something to try.

**meyerweb** · 01-24-2013, 01:36 PM

There's another system process that seems to have the potential to cause problems, too. qosmgr has, for the last couple of days, been using more cpu than all my other apps and processes combined. A Google search turned up some info about this as a battery hog on certain custom ROMs, and a suggestion to .bak it, but not much else.

Oddly, this heavy cpu usage seemed to survive a couple of reboots, but after my most recent reboot it's gone away. I'm going to keep monitoring to see if it comes back, and try to figure out what might have triggered it.