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

[Jesse HH]

Unfortunately I'm locked in for another year or so before I can upgrade to an S4. I refuse to pay full price for one so I've just been living with this issue. Otherwise, been nothing but happy with the S3.

AT&T pushed an Android update OTA last week, just wanted to report it did not resolve this issue.

 

[HaveBlue83]

I ended up picking up a ZeroLemon 7,000mAh batter pack and my phone now lasts 2 full days with heavy use and no charge. I can go 3+ days if i am easy on it. I'm really loving it and I recommend all users to pick it up. I like the weight and thickness too. feels solid

 

[Jowlah]

I ended up picking up a ZeroLemon 7,000mAh batter pack and my phone now lasts 2 full days with heavy use and no charge. I can go 3+ days if i am easy on it. I'm really loving it and I recommend all users to pick it up. I like the weight and thickness too. feels solid

That's what SHE said! Sorry couldn't pass that up! Lol

 

[Jesse HH]

I'm on my 3rd SG3, thanks to warranty claims from ATT, and I've had the new one less than a week and it does the same thing. Let's see if they'll allow me to just get a different model device as this is ridiculous.

 

[anon(1017475)]

I just wanted to say thanks for this thread. I too have experienced the somewhat random "plummet" phenomena that seems to be related to the throttling of the LTE signal on our devices. My plummets have mostly occurred in the overnight hours (nothing like starting your day with your phones battery DEAD) I have also confirmed that the two solutions recently posted on this thread DO actually solve the plummet problem (changing the band setting from Automatic [which we all know will always use LTE] to HSPA+ or WCDMA) But I submit that this problem is also solved by the "original" solution of adding a HSPA+ APN. (and its also less complex/tedious to implement) I have run with these settings for the last three days with no problems essentially creating an APN called ATT HSPA.: (hat tip to post number 1 and listed as #3 @ this link: http://androidforums.com/nexus-4/691559-fixing-t-mms-keeping-hspa.html) The only time I feel I actually need LTE is when I need to use my device as a wifi hotspot; or when I am in certain rural areas where it seems that LTE coverage is actually better than 3G...I just throttle back to using the default APN in those cases.



I also wanted to throw this is there as well...since the "plummet" for myself and other users have actually occurred when on wifi (or from what I can determine, when the device is on wifi or on wifi with mobile data turned off) I'd like to share a hack for a rooted phone that will force connect mobile when the device needs to send or receive MMS. Taken from this link: Auto connect data on sending/receiving MMS on Pg 4 | Galaxy Nexus > XDA



For completeness sake...I have an ATT stock rooted 4.1.2 GS3 and used this method to do so: How to Root AT&T Galaxy S3 SGH-i747 on Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean Firmware I use an app Power Toggles...https://forums.androidcentral.com/e...tails?id=com.painless.pc&hl=en&token=1gwz-Zoz mobile data is turned off and wifi turned on when I'm home and mobile data is on with wifi off when I'm away from home. I have wifi set to Always keep on while sleeping and have a static IP assigned to the device.

I consider what is below as pretty good battery life...4 hours of listening to music, Pandora/KiesCast/Native Music Player and almost 3 hours of screen time. The quick 20 minute charge was when I was running Maps/GPS for a short trip yesterday. Mobile data, when on, was using the wap.cingular APN listed above.



I will post follow-ups re: my battery life. I have a vested interest of making this work...I've only had my GS3 for a year...and don't want to throw money at a new device at this time. Again...thank you for this thread.

 

[anon(1017475)]

Its been a couple more days...still no overnight plummet. I have made some modifications to the ATT HSPA APN...these changes have eliminated the red blips in the Mobile Network Signal pictured above.
Changes to what is above:
User Name: WAP@CINGULARGPRS.COM
Password: CINGULAR1
MMS port: 80
APN type: default,supl,mms,hipri

 

[anon(1017475)]

I know this is an old thread...but just to update, it seems I'm able to throw something else in the mix here as a "fix". Recently bit the bullet and purchased a new vehicle, to my delight it came with bluetooth (for hands-free calls). So naturally I pair my phone to it so I can enjoy the hands-free calling goodness. I initially thought I would have to toggle bluetooth on and off anytime I got in the car...since that seemed too much of a PITA...I thought, hey why don't I try to revert back to the default APN (running LTE as default) and keep bluetooth on and see what that does to battery life; and see if the "plummet" happens again.

Well, as of this message, my phone has 98 hours of uptime with no plummet. BT, GPS always on. I use power toggles to toggle wifi on when at home and mobile data when away from home, turn both off when sleeping. Getting a days worth of battery life for light to moderate use pretty easily.

 

[bombsaway4]

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

I realize this is an old thread, but I came across it trying to solve this exact problem. I had the same symptoms (random battery drain fixed by reboot). I think I have found the problem (so far 2 days with no drain). It was related to the different DNS resolution the device was trying to do over WIFI and LTE. I think the phone was trying to resolve the MMSC and Proxy servers over the wifi connection, which would not work. It would keep trying, using up the battery in the process. To fix this, I found the IP addresses in question (I am on AiO) by pinging them from a console on my phone with wifi off. I think put a static route to these addresses in my router setup (I have a dd-wrt router). Under "Additional DNSMasq Options" I put:
address=/proxy.aiowireless.net/192.168.197.22
address=/mmsc.aiowireless.net/192.168.197.10

My router is also set to hand out local IP addresses in the 192.168.0.X range. I had to set the subnet mask for my local network to 255.255.0.0 as well. After all this, I haven't had the battery drain for 2 days, which was unheard of for me previously.

I hope this is a permanent fix for this problem, as I know I was going crazy trying to figure it out.