Galaxy S4 running very hot and draining battery FAST.

[Superlocke]

Hello everyone, long-time Lurker first time poster here.

I've had my galaxy s4 since launch and it's worked great since then, but starting about a week ago the damn thing started running REALLY hot, it cooked one of my sd cards, and the battery drains like no other.

Have included a screenshot of my battery monitor:

HTTP://imgur.com/pE5rAGf.jpg

At 100% it says the battery status is "good" but I have a life prediction of 4 hours 55 minutes? Get real.

I don't know what happened to my phone to cause this, and my carrier suggest doing a factory reset.

Im losing 20% battery every hour..Does anyone else possibly have any advice/input? Does this look like a software issue or is my battery messed? But that still wouldn't explain the hot phone (already pruned my apps so I doubt its a runaway)..

I dont know anymore. I'm really at a loss here, I really would appreciate any help. Thanks guys.

 

[Ra222r]

If it's not apps that are running in the background then I would put it down to a faulty or damaged battery. You could try to get a new one under your warranty or insurance if you have that, otherwise just buy a new battery. If the battery is not the problem it would then be a fault with the phones hardware itself. I'm not too sure what diagnostic tools exist for the S4 but maybe other members could assist. Good luck!

 

[mhunter6378]

Without much info to go on my first guess would be an email account such as an Exchange account. I have had this exact same issue in the past, not with my S4 but with a previous phone. I had an Exchange account set to sync contacts, calendar and email through push settings. That account caused the phone to constantly try to sync thereby running hot and draining the battery in a matter of a few hours. By changing the setting to fetch at regular intervals solved the issue at the time. I don't know if you have any accounts like this but if you do you may want to check them. Either disable sync on the accounts or change them from push to fetch at a 15 or 30 minute interval and see if that helps.

In any event it appears that something on your phone is running constantly causing the battery drain and processing heat based on your description.

 

[ne0ne]

20% per hour of screen time is normal, however not acceptable if it took that much to idle for an hour. Download gsam battery monitor it will tell you what's using your battery and its temp.

Posted via Android Central App

 

[ThePinkChameleon]

Just to add to what the other members have said, my son has had his S4 for a month and suddenly one day last week the same thing happened to him. Battery draining like crazy & running hot, even with the screen saying it was overheating(I think).

Turned out to be FaceBook trying to do something and apparently got 'caught' on a continuous run. He closed out the app, took the battery out for a minute or 2, and all was well from there.

 

[ihbsbA]

Just to add to what the other members have said, my son has had his S4 for a month and suddenly one day last week the same thing happened to him. Battery draining like crazy & running hot, even with the screen saying it was overheating(I think).

Turned out to be FaceBook trying to do something and apparently got 'caught' on a continuous run. He closed out the app, took the battery out for a minute or 2, and all was well from there.

Facebook is always a culprit when somsomething goes wrong - it's the first thing you should uninstall when having lag problems or battery problems, in my opinion. I hate the stupid thing but need my fix, so I keep it. I really should just drop facebook all together but I never seem to actually do it.

Sent from my SPH-L720 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Almeuit]

Facebook is always a culprit when somsomething goes wrong - it's the first thing you should uninstall when having lag problems or battery problems, in my opinion. I hate the stupid thing but need my fix, so I keep it. I really should just drop facebook all together but I never seem to actually do it.

Sent from my SPH-L720 using Tapatalk 2

Agreed. I don't allow Facebook to do anything on my phone. I always log out and don't allow syncs (only for FB) to prevent issues.

Sent from my Sprint HTC One using AC forums.

 

[nickgalaxys4]

Yes I would say it's the battery but just to say you did it just run a factory reset on it won't hurt to try.

 

[troutspinner]

I had the same issue a few weeks back. I ended up doing a factory reset. I still don't really know what happened but it fixed the issue, I can only attribute it to a rogue app that went funky on an update or something.

Since then, I pay attention to what apps are doing and only manually update apps so I can keep track if something odd happens. Knock on wood but all has been great since.

troutspinner

 

[MistahDonuts]

Hey guys, I have a question, hopefully someone can help. So I tried doing the full drain/full charge on my S4. I got it down to about 57% and then it started heating up. I checked the battery's status and it said the phone was at 40.0? C and 56%. I pressed the quick start button at the bottom and the phone auto-locked. When I pressed the power button the home screen said it was now at 27%. The phone also cooled down fairly quickly, should I be concerned?

 

[sgcosimo]

I just received my S4 for 2 days, yet I am already experiencing the hot battery problem. The culprit seems to be Dropbox. My phone is constantly uploading all the photos in my phone to Dropbox without me noticing! I hope this is the ONE and ONLY reason I'm experiencing this problem.

 

[jneusch]

I just received my S4 for 2 days, yet I am already experiencing the hot battery problem. The culprit seems to be Dropbox. My phone is constantly uploading all the photos in my phone to Dropbox without me noticing! I hope this is the ONE and ONLY reason I'm experiencing this problem.

There was a setting when you installed DB that asked about photo upload and uploading existing photos. Once it's done it will upload any photos you take.

Posted via Android Central App

 

[s4user1]

Have you updated your software ?

Sent from my GT-I9500 using AC Forums mobile app

 

[s4user1]

Sry for the bad english

Sent from my GT-I9500 using AC Forums mobile app

 

[MAILREAXGE]

I am having the same issue as OP. I normally get a full day out of my battery because I don't use it for music or watch tv on it, yesterday I noticed it felt white hot in my pocket and when I pulled it out it was almost completely drained and the screen was on. Today I'm already at half power when I should be nearly full. I deleted facebook off (don't like it anyway) and I'm about to do the same to dropbox. I'll let you know if that works.

 

[garublador]

I find it's much easier to use an app like GSam Battery Monitor to figure out what's draining your battery than randomly uninstalling apps. My phone did this after the OTA update and it turns out BatteryGuru was the app that did it. On my Verizon S4 the OTA update didn't install quite correctly so I did a factory reset as well. If, after getting rid of whatever app drained your battery, it happens again, or if you're on Verizon and have the OTA update and haven't done it already, I'd recommend a factory reset. It's a bit of a pain to have to back your stuff up, but it's not really that bad and there's a good chance it will help out.

 

[Relletti]

A lot of useful information in here. I was having some heating issues on my s4 a bit and I downloaded that gsam battery app and its been a great help. The screen on this phone drains the battery like crazy.

Tapatalking from my Galaxy S IV

 

[justgary]

My S4 started running very hot and draining the battery after I moved a few apps and a bunch of photos and video to the SD card. I removed the apps but the problem continued. I tried the factory reset and that didn't help. When I unmount the SD card, the battery consumption and temperature are normal. Now I only mount the SD card to show photos or something, and the S4 immediately heats up. I have not yet tried to reformat the card or a different card.

I suspect that the OS is continuously reading the card when it is mounted, and the problem shows up when you add more content to the card. It is almost surely a software issue.

Those of you with the heat/battery drain issue, please try unmounting your SD card to see if the problem resolves. Yup, it's a workaround, but until the fault is found, it can't get fixed.

Regards,

- Just Gary

 

[akscreek]

I had the same problem with my first s4. I got it replaced for a new handset and it worked fine for a day or 2 and then the problems started all over again. Heats up a lot. I dont know the exact temperature though. Also when it heats up the battery doesnt last longer than an hour and a half. This is really begining to annoy me. This happens usually when I am playing games or surfing the net. Is there a way you can reduce the ammount the phone heats up to?

 

[justin dx]

reduce screen brightness
disable dropbox and facebook .......... settings - more - application manger - all
charge battery before 50 %
disable auto updates