For the most part, I'm pretty happy with my battery life on my GS3. Could it be better? Sure. But except when I'm tethering or using navigation, I can generally get through the day on a full charge, and most days I can plug in at least for an hour or two at my desk or in my car.
But, some people clearly have an issue with Android System chewing through the battery. And twice, I found that happening to me. Android System was using more than half of my battery.
Unfortunately, knowing that Android System (henceforth AS) is using battery doesn't tell you much. AS is made up of a couple of dozen processes, and the phone gives you no way to tell which process(es) are at fault. I tried a couple of battery monitors, but they didn't provide any more granularity than the built in battery display. But my old standby for analyzing system issues, System Panel does (at least in the paid version): https://forums.androidcentral.com/e...panel.r1&feature=search_result&token=rSYS5T7K..
Turn on the monitoring feature, and you can see with a great deal of detail exactly what apps or processes are using cpu, which is a pretty good analog for battery usage other than screen and radio usage. Over one 8 hour period, System Processes used more than 90% of cpu, and one process, QOSMGR, used 88%:
A reboot stopped the run away process, but a week later it happened again, so I started doing some research. I found some threads showing this killing the battery in some 3rd party ROMs, and recommendations to rename it as QOSMGR.bak, but not much more info than that. One poster on XDA says QOSMGRs don't accomplish much normal devices, and are more useful on routers. I'm rooted, btw, but on a completely stock ROM. QoS Managers, if you don't know, are processes designed to prioritize network traffic, based on a sometimes complicated set of unexplained rules and magic. With not much info available, I decided to rename it and see if I could detect any issues.
After a week, everything seems to be fine. I detect no network performance issues on wifi, 3g or 4g. And AS hasn't gone nuts since then. It generally runs at about 5% to 10% of cpu if I'm using the phone, somewhat more if the phone is mostly idle.
If you don't want to buy an app to check on this, there is one built-in tool that may help figure out what's going on. Go to Settings / Developer options, turn that option on, then scroll down and check the Show CPU usage option.
This turns on an overlay in the top right of the screen that shows all the current processes using cpu. When QOSMGR was running amuck, it was constantly on the top of the list, and highlighted in red. If the same process is constantly at the top of this list, it's probably your problem:
So for now, I'm happy with renaming QOSMGR to QOSMGR.bak. Unfortunately, you have to be rooted to do this, but if QOSMGR is killing your battery.... The S3 is about as easy a phone to root as anything on the market. Just make sure you follow instructions for your specific version of phone and carrier.
But, some people clearly have an issue with Android System chewing through the battery. And twice, I found that happening to me. Android System was using more than half of my battery.
Unfortunately, knowing that Android System (henceforth AS) is using battery doesn't tell you much. AS is made up of a couple of dozen processes, and the phone gives you no way to tell which process(es) are at fault. I tried a couple of battery monitors, but they didn't provide any more granularity than the built in battery display. But my old standby for analyzing system issues, System Panel does (at least in the paid version): https://forums.androidcentral.com/e...panel.r1&feature=search_result&token=rSYS5T7K..
Turn on the monitoring feature, and you can see with a great deal of detail exactly what apps or processes are using cpu, which is a pretty good analog for battery usage other than screen and radio usage. Over one 8 hour period, System Processes used more than 90% of cpu, and one process, QOSMGR, used 88%:
A reboot stopped the run away process, but a week later it happened again, so I started doing some research. I found some threads showing this killing the battery in some 3rd party ROMs, and recommendations to rename it as QOSMGR.bak, but not much more info than that. One poster on XDA says QOSMGRs don't accomplish much normal devices, and are more useful on routers. I'm rooted, btw, but on a completely stock ROM. QoS Managers, if you don't know, are processes designed to prioritize network traffic, based on a sometimes complicated set of unexplained rules and magic. With not much info available, I decided to rename it and see if I could detect any issues.
After a week, everything seems to be fine. I detect no network performance issues on wifi, 3g or 4g. And AS hasn't gone nuts since then. It generally runs at about 5% to 10% of cpu if I'm using the phone, somewhat more if the phone is mostly idle.
If you don't want to buy an app to check on this, there is one built-in tool that may help figure out what's going on. Go to Settings / Developer options, turn that option on, then scroll down and check the Show CPU usage option.
This turns on an overlay in the top right of the screen that shows all the current processes using cpu. When QOSMGR was running amuck, it was constantly on the top of the list, and highlighted in red. If the same process is constantly at the top of this list, it's probably your problem:
So for now, I'm happy with renaming QOSMGR to QOSMGR.bak. Unfortunately, you have to be rooted to do this, but if QOSMGR is killing your battery.... The S3 is about as easy a phone to root as anything on the market. Just make sure you follow instructions for your specific version of phone and carrier.
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