Battery drain issues: need help/other opinions, should I return it

[justlaxin13]

Here's a couple of things that I've come to believe is happening ...

Google Services: I believe the large use % here is associated with Google Now, and its related location reporting and history services. The best way to test is to turn it off along with any location reporting and history. However, I recently enabled Google Now to observe the difference of not running it, and while it certainly increases battery drain a bit, it is not what I would consider adverse battery drain. I let my phone sit overnight last night and I lost about 6% over 8 hours of idle.

Android System: I'm beginning to believe that the wakelock that can trigger in this category and cause severe idle drain involves a bug with the implementation of Carrier IQ. Since I've rooted and used System Tuner to disable the SEVEN (yes 7) Carrier IQ services that run, I have not been able to trigger the heavy idle drain scenario that I had been able to trigger three times previously. This isn't smoking gun proof, but I'm definitely leaning in that direction right now.

Regarding root, you do not need to install a custom ROM or custom recovery to disable Carrier IQ. Right now my phone is simply rooted, with System Tuner installed to auto disable the Carrier IQ services. Rooting has the additional side benefit of being able to use the App Greenify to auto hibernate Apps that love to run in the background such as Pandora and Facebook. Now in your case justlaxin13, before you consider rooting, I would first be sure that you really want to own the G2, as rooting could cause complications if you can't resolve your battery issues and ultimately decide to return it. It is possible to revert your phone to pure stock, but it's a bit more complicated than the rooting process.

Thanks for the input and research time on this. Regarding my course of action, I have decent experience rooting previous android phones (all the way back to the Samsung Captivate oh yeah! haha). Since i've had the device for more than 14 days the bringing it back bit isn't really in play anyway. So it looks like that, coupled with your suggestion of disabling carrier IQ will be my next move.

Food for thought question: if the drain is related to a carrier IQ bug/issue, why is it only effecting some devices. I looked into this battery drain issue also in the ATT only G2 forum and not everyone was having the same problem. If it is carrier IQ, wouldn't all us ATT users have the same drain?

 

[MrBungle999]

I agree with him except I never turned off location history and there's been most nights off charge that I woke up with 1-2% drain and then others with up to 20% in 3 hours of idle no screen. All in all its still great battery but something is up that's making it worse. In my experience I can't put my finger on why. I still love this phone. I think we are problem solvers and its irritating that we can't figure this out. Its intermittent but at the end if the day it's still better than my gs4 no matter what.

Sent from my LG-D800 using AC Forums mobile app

 

[JayWill]

Food for thought question: if the drain is related to a carrier IQ bug/issue, why is it only effecting some devices. I looked into this battery drain issue also in the ATT only G2 forum and not everyone was having the same problem. If it is carrier IQ, wouldn't all us ATT users have the same drain?

I'm not sure. It could be that those owners are simply not triggering whatever is causing the problem, based on how they set up and use their phone and the Apps that they are running. As I've said around here a few times, I only had the idle drain issue three times in two weeks, and a reboot cleared it up each time, as well as charging the phone while powered down and past the 100% mark. While I have my suspicions on what is causing the idle drain, I still have no clue on what variety of factors may trigger it.

 

[justlaxin13]

I'm not sure. It could be that those owners are simply not triggering whatever is causing the problem, based on how they set up and use their phone and the Apps that they are running. As I've said around here a few times, I only had the idle drain issue three times in two weeks, and a reboot cleared it up each time, as well as charging the phone while powered down and past the 100% mark. While I have my suspicions on what is causing the idle drain, I still have no clue on what variety of factors may trigger it.

Yeah, that's what I was getting at, the battery drain seems to be wildly inconsistent across users of the same phone. Personally, I am stuck with it every day sadly. Hopefully someone can ultimately get to the bottom of it because it's wildly frustrating.

 

[MrBungle999]

Yeah, that's what I was getting at, the battery drain seems to be wildly inconsistent across users of the same phone. Personally, I am stuck with it every day sadly. Hopefully someone can ultimately get to the bottom of it because it's wildly frustrating.

I concur. My phone has been very good last week but I'm sure one day I'm gonna see some random drain and say wtf

Sent from my LG-D800 using AC Forums mobile app

 

[justlaxin13]

I concur. My phone has been very good last week but I'm sure one day I'm gonna see some random drain and say wtf

Sent from my LG-D800 using AC Forums mobile app

And not only that, but the fact that there are a ton of people out there enjoying amazing battery life on this phone, I want what they have haha

 

[kollarism]

I'm not sure. It could be that those owners are simply not triggering whatever is causing the problem, based on how they set up and use their phone and the Apps that they are running. As I've said around here a few times, I only had the idle drain issue three times in two weeks, and a reboot cleared it up each time, as well as charging the phone while powered down and past the 100% mark. While I have my suspicions on what is causing the idle drain, I still have no clue on what variety of factors may trigger it.

I did a reboot, and my battery line chart is showing much better. I will also try the charging technique. I've had some absolutely ridiculously good numbers, and some average numbers overall; most are better.

Jay Will, you should start another new battery thread with your findings so far. I have a bunch of info that I could contribute. Maybe we can send to LG once the information is together. It is definitely on the software side.

 

[dontlookatme]

i am not having good luck with my phone's battery, maybe it needs to settle or something. i will post screen shots later on, when i get home, since i can not at work.

btw, i turn data off when i know i wont be using it for 30 seconds or more. wifi is off until i get home. bluetooth is not on. gps is on, but i dont use much that needs to use the gps. screen is no more than 70% brightness. signal sucks at work, but again, my data connection is off unless needed.

 

[JayWill]

Welp, looks like I experienced it again today, post disabling Carrier IQ. A reboot cleared up the issue as before.

I attached a screenshot that I think illustrates this nicely. During the first hour off the charger you see a pretty flat line, with a loss of about 1-2%. Then something hits just past the 1 hour mark that causes a loss of about 20% over 3 hours. Then after the reboot it flat lines again for the next 1.5 hours. During that 3 hour drain I barely used the phone, as the level line should show.

Back to the drawing board.

 

[MrBungle999]

My phone has been stellar this week. Left it off charger last night. We got the curved phones coming soon and we will find something to complain about

Sent from my LG-D800 using AC Forums mobile app

 

[MrBungle999]

All in all something is triggering a drain. I've had this phone from Friday the 13th the day it was released and it is the best I've had. My wife has gs4 still and I could never go back to it. I now really understand what others are saying about touch and the oled, it really does suck and that phones battery is totally dead in 2 hours. I smile at this beautiful screen every time I wake up. (Don't tell my wife)

Sent from my LG-D800 using AC Forums mobile app

 

[kollarism]

Welp, looks like I experienced it again today, post disabling Carrier IQ. A reboot cleared up the issue as before.

I attached a screenshot that I think illustrates this nicely. During the first hour off the charger you see a pretty flat line, with a loss of about 1-2%. Then something hits just past the 1 hour mark that causes a loss of about 20% over 3 hours. Then after the reboot it flat lines again for the next 1.5 hours. During that 3 hour drain I barely used the phone, as the level line should show.

Back to the drawing board.

View attachment 85183

I don't understand what up with this.yesterday I restarted after some average battery life. Plugged in overnight, and now I have this amazing battery life (20 min screen, mostly Wi-Fi some 4g:

imgur: the simple image sharer

The problem for me is that I did the exact same thing yesterday, and was down to about 89%.

 

[MrBungle999]

I don't understand what up with this.yesterday I restarted after some average battery life. Plugged in overnight, and more I have this amazing battery life (20 min screen, mostly Wi-Fi some 4g:

imgur: the simple image sharer

The problem for me is that I did the exact same thing yesterday, and was down to about 89%.

Yup. I don't get it. Last week for me all the same settings. And this was all idle.

Sent from my LG-D800 using AC Forums mobile app

 

[justlaxin13]

Yup. I don't get it. Last week for me all the same settings. And this was all idle.

Sent from my LG-D800 using AC Forums mobile app

Yeah, I don't know which is worse, while you and some others lack reliable consistency with battery life, I have had my G2 for a few weeks and never gotten more than 14 hours of battery life under any circumstances.

 

[MrBungle999]

How's the service in your area? I have been switching off my Wi-Fi. I'm sorry I'm glooming in my recent success in battery but man when this phone is good it really cooks. I'm afraid it will crap out in the near future but I gave up trying to figure it our...for now

Sent from my LG-D800 using AC Forums mobile app

 

[kollarism]

Yeah, I don't know which is worse, while you and some others lack reliable consistency with battery life, I have had my G2 for a few weeks and never gotten more than 14 hours of battery life under any circumstances.

I've never had that low. Can you post battery stats?

 

[justlaxin13]

I've never had that low. Can you post battery stats?

I posted a battery stat screenshot yesterday, somewhere in the middle of page two of this thread. I don't have newer ones at the moment, but i'll re-post those two below. To note: while only for one day's usage, these are incredibly typical and this is on the my second G2. I had my first one replaced for identical battery issues.

 

[kollarism]

I posted a battery stat screenshot yesterday, somewhere in the middle of page two of this thread. I don't have newer ones at the moment, but i'll re-post those two below. To note: while only for one day's usage, these are incredibly typical and this is on the my second G2. I had my first one replaced for identical battery issues.

View attachment 85237View attachment 85238

Go into your phone radio, what numbers are you getting? Also, streaming music will obviously cause some battery drain. What is pocket casts? Also, do you have Google location services off?

 

[justlaxin13]

Go into your phone radio, what numbers are you getting? Also, streaming music will obviously cause some battery drain. What is pocket casts? Also, do you have Google location services off?

That was a screen shot from the other day, so when my battery gets low today ill look into the phone radio section and let you know. I had a few other screen shots i just glanced at and google music was used for 23 minutes. Pocket Casts is a podcast streaming app, I used that for about an hour that day.

While obviously i know that streaming is going to take a chunk out of battery, im pretty sure that isn't the primary issue here. Given essentially identical usage patterns this is phone is getting noticeably worse battery life than my S4 and it's on par with what my stock Nexus 4 was giving me before that.

 

[kollarism]

Try just doing a standard restart (turn your phone off for a few minutes) Today i'm at 17hrs, 2.5 screen time, and still at 62%.