Why is my battery draining 3% or more per day with the phone off?

[AC Question]

I've had 2 different Samsung Galaxy Sky phones from QVC since 2/21/17. I've also received a new battery from Tracfone, so my experience is with 2 phones and 3 batteries. Android Marshmallow 6.0.1. This is a backup phone for me. It's reported battery charge is dropping 3% or more each day with the phone mostly turned off. Is there something wrong with 3 batteries? Or does the Galaxy Sky not really shut off totally when you turn it off, and keeps doing something to drain the battery? Or does Marshmallow 6.0.1 keep doing something even when you think the phone is off? I'm only turning the phone on every few hours to check the battery charge and clear out junk messages that show up every couple of days. I've read about battery drain problems on the Internet with Android Marshmallow, but these were all from people who actually used their phones during the day. I haven't seen anyone reporting about battery drain with the phone shut off. My previous 2 Tracfones, which I still have but are inactive, are an Alcatel A564C (Android 4.4) and an LG L51A (Android 5.1) and they are holding their charge just fine. I am doing an experiment that just started today. I removed the new battery from the phone with a reported charge of 79% and put back in the phone's original battery. In a few days I will put it back in and see what its reported charge is.

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! When you say "mostly turned off," do you mean that you're completely powering the phone down for most of the day? Or are you only tapping the Power button to put the screen to sleep?

If you're only putting the screen to sleep, then that battery drain is completely normal (and actually quite good). Any phone will continue to do things in the background, like sync or refresh data, and that all takes some energy.

 

[sfsf99]

Phone mostly off means phone is totally, completely, shut off 99.99% of the day. Only powered on every few hours to check battery charge, and then shut completely down again. I can do this because this is only a backup phone that I don't need to use. Reported charge drops 1% every few hours...3-5% per day. I just took my new battery, which I had removed from the phone 2 days ago when it was at 79% charge, and I put it back in the phone and turned it on. It is still reported at 79% charge. So...this battery was rapidly discharging when in a turned off phone and did not discharge over 2 days while out of the phone. This battery did not discharge for 2 days while it was removed from the phone. So, the Samsung Galaxy Sky appears to not be off when you turn the power off. Something is still draining the battery. Is it the Sky doing this? Or is Android Marshmallow doing this? It would be interesting if some of you could shut off your Galaxy Sky or other phones running Marshmallow off for a few hours and see what happens.

 

[belodion]

^ I'm no stranger to devices that, judging by the reported battery charge, lose charge while powered off. My laptop is outstandingly bad in that respect, and a particular Windows Phone started doing it some months after I bought it. Despite all my attempts to diagnose and fix, I still don't know why, and have largely lost interest.

 

[Matty]

I personally wouldn't be too worried. 3% - 5% loss isn't soo bad. Sometimes, as batteries get older, they lose charge, even when not being used.

While it doesn't use to much charge, powering on and off the device does use some charge as well. I agree the phone shouldn't lose any charge if it's off but maybe just put it on charge once a week

 

[B. Diddy]

As @Matty mentioned, powering a phone on from a completely off state takes some energy, so if you're doing that every few hours just to check the battery level, that could be enough to explain a 3% drop over the span of a day.

 

[sfsf99]

I never had this happen with my previous Alcatel or LG phones that I mentioned in my first post. They always kept a high and steady charge over the year each was my Trackfone backup phone and turned off most of the time. Both are inactive now, but I charged them both several weeks ago to 100% (after experiencing the rapid drain with my first Galaxy Sky...just to compare them again) and some 6-7 weeks later they are both at 99%. I only used one or both of them (after checking them out when they were new) for calls when my main landline was down and I had to call a friend for 30 minutes or so and my landline phone company company to complain about two service interruptions, and both times little power was used while I was on the phone some 20-30 minutes. It is only the Sansung Galaxy Sky that sucks up charge so quickly when it is shut off or on. The first one I had dropped to 95% overnight after it was charged to 100% the day I got it, and while I was on my landline working with a Tracfone rep for about 80 minutes to get the Sky transferred to my account to replace the LG, I steadily watched its charge drop from 95% to 87% while we worked to set up the Sky for my account. When my LG was new, I did the same with it for a couple of weeks before I put it in a draw...I turned it on a few times over several days and made a couple of incomplete calls to my landline...it remained at 99% power. I only charged each of those phones only 2-3 times over the year each was active and those charges were unnecessary as those phones still had the large portion of their charge (probably over 80%) when I decided to top them off. It is only the Galaxy Sky that is dropping so fast...two different Sky phones...three different batteries.

 

[belodion]

Like you, I find that some devices hold their 100% charge for long periods when powered off, others not. If a device loses substantial quantities of charge when powered off, it's difficult to think of any explanation other than a fault of some kind....a short, perhaps, or a fault in the battery. On devices that permit it, it may be worth removing the batteries during the periods of non-use, to see whether that makes a difference.