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

[justlaxin13]

Ok, so there has been a ton of talk about the great battery life on the G2, it's one of the reasons I bought it after all. But, in the week and a half since I received mine, battery has been pretty pedestrian and legitimately bad when compared to all I've heard and read people saying about it. Ultimately, I'm wondering if I have a defective unit and should look into returning it, or if anyone else has seen similar problems and has a fix/idea.

I've posted screen shots of the battery breakdown for today. This is a perfectly typical day both in terms of usage and battery results. Some other info that might help:
I'm on ATT and wasn't stuck in area with bad signal to my knowledge
I keep the screen always at auto-brightness with the baseline level at 50%
I used no GPS or Bluetooth and had both off all day
You maybe be able to see this from the apps usage screenshot, but I have background sync on for google apps, facebook, yahoo weather and that's about it and even those i set to less frequent intervals.

Also, I heard some rumblings that at&t models were suffering some battery drain problems out of the box and the solution was to factory reset them and the problem was fixed. Tried this two days ago to no noticeable effect.

I understand that "mileage may vary" but when I see reviewers like Jerry, the guys from The Verge and pretty much everyone else claim that even driven hard, you can get a day out of this things, and I'm lucky to make 11 hours with 1.5 hours screen on, I have to think something else is amiss. Any thoughts? Should I go back to at&t and try to get it replaced? Thanks all.

 

[JayWill]

Your phone was held awake for 4.5 of those 9.5 hours. Were you playing music for most of those 4 hours? If not, you've got a wakelock problem.

Out of curiosity, do you have Google backup enabled? If you do, disable it (Settings > General > Backup & reset > uncheck "Backup my data". Then reboot, charge it back to full and monitor again.

Edit - Also, what is "Home" at the top of your App usage list? I haven't used GSAM in ages and don't recall what that represents.

 

[justlaxin13]

Your phone was held awake for 4.5 of those 9.5 hours. Were you playing music for most of those 4 hours? If not, you've got a wakelock problem.

Out of curiosity, do you have Google backup enabled? If you do, disable it (Settings > General > Backup & reset > uncheck "Backup my data". Then reboot, charge it back to full and monitor again.

Edit - Also, what is "Home" at the top of your App usage list? I haven't used GSAM in ages and don't recall what that represents.

Yeah I noticed the wakelock thing too. I was listening to a podcast for maybe 1:30 or so on pocketcasts. Anecdotally, i've noticed drainage issues (4-5% an hour of relative non-use) when I wasn't as well though...and that doesn't account for the entire time.

"Home" I believe refers to the launcher.

 

[streetkilln]

as i see in the pics 9:30 of music streaming will def hurt battery. also i see a game up there used 14 % if its a high quality 3d game yes u will get drainage.

 

[justlaxin13]

as i see in the pics 9:30 of music streaming will def hurt battery. also i see a game up there used 14 % if its a high quality 3d game yes u will get drainage.

Sorry if i'm missing something, but where in the picture does it show 9 hours of music streaming? The only streaming service i was using was Pocketcasts which only took 2.2% and was streaming for less than 2 hours.

The problem is what's happening when I'm doing neither. Anecdotally, the streaming podcasts, with the same app, is having a harsher effect on this phone than my s3 and s4 before them, which really shouldn't be the case. Also, while I forgot to get a screen shot, last night I lost like 12% over 2 hours with the phone in my pocket, no streaming, a few texts and nothing else. Again, for a phone all the reviewers are saying "even pushed hard, will make it all day" that's just not good.

 

[Ken7]

I would certainly agree losing 12% in your pocket over 2 hours is not right. Were you in a poor signal area? Even then it's hard to believe you'd get that kind of drop in that amount of time. I could see an S3 doing that, but not the G2.

 

[justlaxin13]

I would certainly agree losing 12% in your pocket over 2 hours is not right. Were you in a poor signal area? Even then it's hard to believe you'd get that kind of drop in that amount of time. I could see an S3 doing that, but not the G2.

Yeah, I just listened to Jerry and Andrew's podcast on the G2, and both saying they can get 24ish hours with 5-6 hours of screen on time...as my OP attests, I'm failing to get half and half of that.

 

[MrBungle999]

I've had some major drop in battery while in my pocket too like 6% in 45-1 hour. I disabled Google backup today to see if it would make a difference. I don't want to turn off location settings as I like to use Google now. I think Google Services is the main issue. I hope a fix comes soon.

Sent from my LG-D800 using AC Forums mobile app

 

[justlaxin13]

I've had some major drop in battery while in my pocket too like 6% in 45-1 hour. I disabled Google backup today to see if it would make a difference. I don't want to turn off location settings as I like to use Google now. I think Google Services is the main issue. I hope a fix comes soon.

Sent from my LG-D800 using AC Forums mobile app

Yeah, at someone's advisory, I also turned off the google backup a few days ago and have seen no noticeable difference in battery life, still poor sadly.

 

[MrBungle999]

My gs4 was having same issues with play services draining battery. All in all the g2 still has the best battery I ever had On a smart phone I just think it could be better if Google didn't want to know my every move.

Sent from my LG-D800 using AC Forums mobile app

 

[TrekkieMonster]

I may (or may not) have an interesting addition to this conversation. I had my first G2 for 12 days, and was getting amazing battery life out of it WITH Google back-up enabled. I would turn off wi-fi when I was not in range, and turn off bluetooth when not in use; and I keep the screen brightness at around 40% - 50% but, otherwise, don't really do a lot to especially boost battery life.

But, due to a touch screen issue with my original unit, I returned it on Wednesday of this week (before my 14 days expired.) I have set up the new unit exactly the same as the original but I am seeing a noticeable difference in battery life, for the worse. It's still MUCH better than my old iPhone, but the difference is interesting - and a bit concerning to me.

After a typical work day of use with the original unit, I would usually have around 70% battery left when I got in the car to head home. With the new unit, it's closer to 45%-50%. As I say, this is still fine, and I can easily get through an entire day without needing a charge (which I could NEVER do with my iPhone.)

So, everything else about the new unit is better, but I sort or regret trading it in just a bit because the battery life on this is nowhere near as good. Maybe it will increase with a few more cycles? I've heard arguments both ways on that issue.

Anyway, just thought I'd share, to the extent that it might prove helpful or interesting to anyone.

 

[NevetsDrassel]

If you have poor signal connectivity, it may be Carrier IQ trying to keep reporting that you are dropping the connection. The carrier IQ information is not logged so you would not see it. It can even turn on your GPS for locational purposes.

I am just guessing here but try this. And if you do not know about Carrier IQ, there is a thread in this forum that covers it somewhat.

On the phone, go to - All Settings:General:Apps:Running:Android System: and select STOP to stop the IQ Agent Service. You will be upped one menu level to the running apps window. Select Android System and STOP the Android System. See if that changes your battery usage life. I have mine forced stopped and I can tell you that I have an average of 10 hours of daily screen time most of which is WiFi time of watching videos and internet forum use with texting and calls, including some downloading of rather large files that have taken 1 to 1 1/2 hours to complete the download. And after all that, I still have 40% to 50% of battery life left.

BTW, I have been force stopping the Carrier IQ for several days now and there appears to be no problems with doing this. If you want to restart the process for auto reporting the meta data, just reboot the phone (cycle it off then turn it on) and Carrier IQ will start again.

And then again, it could be something totally different. But my batter life did increase after I did this.

 

[g2_havok]

warning - long post.

tl;dr - may be difference between charging via usb or wall charger. factory reset may help.

i've experienced something similar. out of the box, after a full charge using usb slow-charge via connection to laptop, i left the phone off-charger overnight. it drained nearly 50%! my typical daily usage is text, kakaotalk, gmail, email, screen is set to 45% and auto. i do NOT have bluetooth, gps, and push enabled. i do not use google now, never did facebook or twitter or instagram and i almost never stream music. i was down to 12% after about 16 hours off charger right out of the box and after its first full charge.

i figured i'd do another charge cycle but this time, i used usb to laptop for about 50% of the charge, then a wall charger for the rest. again, i left the phone off-charger overnight. in the morning the phone was still at 100%! after the same type of usage, i was down to only 50% by the end of the work day. when i plugged it in again at night, i was down to 20% after nearly 24 hours off charger.

i took the phone to att corp store, showed them the battery manager app graph to prove i'm not crazy. the sales gal and a guy made it seem like i was stupid. all batteries drain fast, that all my widgets was causing battery drain (widgets that have MANUAL sync on btw). they said either they do a factory reset or i take it up with lg. long story short, i left pissed.

i went home and i backed up my phone using lg's pc software (their version of itunes), factory reset the phone, then used a wall charger all the way to full charge. i got a whopping 36 hours of usage! and i was still at 19% when i plugged it in... to my laptop via usb. charged to about 80% before i plugged it into the wall charger overnight.

so today, after about 4 hours off charger, i'm down to 75%; way faster than the best day i had. my guess is i'll have another sub-20 hours off charger. i still have 4 days before my 14 days... i'm still debating if i can live with this inconsistency or i get another unit...

 

[MrBungle999]

If you have poor signal connectivity, it may be Carrier IQ trying to keep reporting that you are dropping the connection. The carrier IQ information is not logged so you would not see it. It can even turn on your GPS for locational purposes.

I am just guessing here but try this. And if you do not know about Carrier IQ, there is a thread in this forum that covers it somewhat.

On the phone, go to - All Settings:General:Apps:Running:Android System: and select STOP to stop the IQ Agent Service. You will be upped one menu level to the running apps window. Select Android System and STOP the Android System. See if that changes your battery usage life. I have mine forced stopped and I can tell you that I have an average of 10 hours of daily screen time most of which is WiFi time of watching videos and internet forum use with texting and calls, including some downloading of rather large files that have taken 1 to 1 1/2 hours to complete the download. And after all that, I still have 40% to 50% of battery life left.

BTW, I have been force stopping the Carrier IQ for several days now and there appears to be no problems with doing this. If you want to restart the process for auto reporting the meta data, just reboot the phone (cycle it off then turn it on) and Carrier IQ will start again.

And then again, it could be something totally different. But my batter life did increase after I did this.

This may have worked! After force stopping android system my phone barely drained 10% over about 7 hours with very light usage. It was mostly idle except for 2 calls and some text. Tomorrow I will have a long day with probably heavy use. I'll report results. Btw I still have Google backup (Not sync) disabled too.



Sent from my LG-D800 using AC Forums mobile app

 

[lstrk]

I noticed your home taking 20% power.. I am having the same issue too. After i charge my phone to 100%, the % for HOME stays relatively high. However the HOME % goes back down after i restart my phone after full charge

 

[JayWill]

So my larger than normal idle drain triggered again yesterday. It happened mid day so I was able to visually see where it started on the battery graph. I took a bunch of screenshots of BBS screens to I can compare to normal drain.

Its definitely something in the Android services, and I still think it's related to a location service somewhere. The hunt continues.

Sent from my LG G2 via Tapatalk

 

[MrBungle999]

So far after I forced stop android system the idle drain is gone. I'm at 80% with moderate to heavy use. I had 20 minutes of GPS, 1 hour screen and some internet and texting and I'm 5 hours into the day. The first hour and 1/2 I was mostly idle and only lost 1%

I noticed when I forced stop android system when you check running apps it's stuck on restarting. Nothing seems to be affected by it. Google now and everything works fine.

Sent from my LG-D800 using AC Forums mobile app

 

[Jay Parkkk]

I have the same problem. Ive has my Samsung galaxy w for over a year and just this week the battery has been going weird. It says it is fully charged but will shut off anyways. Already downloaded an app to show battery usage and how much time is left on the battery, but it doesn't help. Don't know what is happening, any ideas?

 

[ETPhoneHomeT]

You need to figure out for sure what"home" is. If that's your launcher, something is haywire. I've never seen a launcher consume that high of a percentage of battery.

 

[NevetsDrassel]

So far after I forced stop android system the idle drain is gone. I'm at 80% with moderate to heavy use. I had 20 minutes of GPS, 1 hour screen and some internet and texting and I'm 5 hours into the day. The first hour and 1/2 I was mostly idle and only lost 1%

I noticed when I forced stop android system when you check running apps it's stuck on restarting. Nothing seems to be affected by it. Google now and everything works fine.

Sent from my LG-D800 using AC Forums mobile app

Can you elaborate on the" stuck on restarting" as I am not seeing that. I see no indication that it is trying to restart.
Where are you seeing this specifically?