[Help][50% SOLVED] LTE = random heavy battery drain aka "plummet"

[jeffreii]

Re: [Help] Unexplained heavy battery drain...occurs randomly

Here's another sample with a Better Battery Stats log attached as well.

I'm going to do another test tonight with airplane mode enabled + another BBS log.

 

[Sargeant002]

Yeah that's probably my next move but I'd have to use it stock for perhaps up to a week to determine if it's caused by an app or not.

I'm less inclined to believe it's an app, though, since it completely stops plummeting with the radio off...but if I turn mobile data off it keeps dropping.

Have you noticed any degredation in general cell phone reception in your area? I wonder if the local tower is causing some issue? Any way to test the phone in a different area that will pull from another tower? Also if it's a GSM version does it have the same SIM card from the phone previous to the swap? If so try another SIM?

Brian-

Sent with my SGSIII

 

[jeffreii]

Re: [Help] Unexplained heavy battery drain...occurs randomly

Have you noticed any degredation in general cell phone reception in your area? I wonder if the local tower is causing some issue? Any way to test the phone in a different area that will pull from another tower? Also if it's a GSM version does it have the same SIM card from the phone previous to the swap? If so try another SIM?

Brian-

Hi and thanks for your thoughts.

My reception where I live is great - 4 or 5 bars. Even if I go to work or the gym etc. the "plummet" does not stop.

It is the same SIM card...when I exchanged they just took out the SIM from the old unit and put it in the new one. Is there actually some way the SIM could be causing this? It seems unlikely considering the phone/battery functions properly for a significant amount of time before going crazy.

 

[jeffreii]

Re: [Help] Unexplained heavy battery drain...occurs randomly

Ok so I've been continuing my tests from above.

I first charged a bit and then turned off wifi since wlan_rx_wake was a biggie in my BBS log. You can see the log for that period below. Battery continues to plummet as it did before.

I then turned on airplane mode and started a new BBS log. The battery stopped going down. In fact it was one of those situations where the charger mis-reported the actual charge and in nearly two hours time BBS sees the battery as having gone up 1%. That log is also attached.

Also below are screenshots of this whole process where you can see the battery plateau created by airplane mode.

Perhaps we can compare these 3 log files to determine something?

Thanks again everyone I hope we can get to the bottom of this!

 

[Almeuit]

I am just curious what carrier are you all for the people experiencing this? I see the OP is on att. I'm on sprint and mine seems normal. I am very curious as to why you guys are having this dramatic drop in battery. I'll keep thinking and asking my buddies.. Hopefully it can be solved!

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Android Central Forums

 

[wowpaw]

Re: [Help] Unexplained heavy battery drain...occurs randomly

I have the same issue. Very random, no idea wtf is going on.

Yeah with me, its very random as well. Luckily it isn't as repetitive as the OP's situation. Mines is more like once every 4-5 days, sometimes more. Then all of a sudden I leave my phone alone and next thing I know, I get a notification alert telling me I need to charge my phone. I'm not new to Android and know this isn't just some random app because this doesn't happen every day, and I monitor what I use/install very closely. Usually when I get the extreme drain, I'll plug it in til full charge, and it'll go away for a while

 

[jeffreii]

Re: [Help] Unexplained heavy battery drain...occurs randomly

Yeah with me, its very random as well. Luckily it isn't as repetitive as the OP's situation. Mines is more like once every 4-5 days, sometimes more. Then all of a sudden I leave my phone alone and next thing I know, I get a notification alert telling me I need to charge my phone. I'm not new to Android and know this isn't just some random app because this doesn't happen every day, and I monitor what I use/install very closely. Usually when I get the extreme drain, I'll plug it in til full charge, and it'll go away for a while

For me a full charge does not stop it. I've let it "plummet" for a few days now so I can keep testing it and charged it to 100% at least 3 times...and it's still free-falling.

 

[jay_g]

Re: [Help] Unexplained heavy battery drain...occurs randomly

to day is a good day. No idea what tomorrow will bring.

 

[jeffreii]

Re: [Help] Unexplained heavy battery drain...occurs randomly

Today was interesting. After letting it "plummet" for 2 days straight -the longest I've gone without rebooting it to stop the huge drain- it bugged out. I was at home all morning working remotely - connected to my wifi. When I left to go into the office, as soon as I got out of my driveway (and disconnected from my wifi), I got emails, text messages, and voicemails flooding in. Apparently my radio stopped responding and leaving the wifi connection got it working again.

I had to reboot then to ensure my service was working properly so I won't be able to test the plummet for a day or two. Planning to thoroughly test with GSAM again.

 

[Sargeant002]

I've seen SIM cards cause all types of issues. If you can get it replaced at a COR Store. Should be no cost. Just for troubleshooting sake.

Brian-

Sent with my AT&T SGSIII

 

[epaynedsm]

Re: [Help] Unexplained heavy battery drain...occurs randomly

Could it be your apps are set to sync/update more frequently than necessary? Also I do not have wife where I work, so I turn wifi off while there, as well as bluetooth & location. I am not having battery issues.

 

[wowpaw]

Re: [Help] Unexplained heavy battery drain...occurs randomly

For me a full charge does not stop it. I've let it "plummet" for a few days now so I can keep testing it and charged it to 100% at least 3 times...and it's still free-falling.

That sucks man.. I guess your situation is alot worse then. Funny that today I got the plummet right after posting in this thread after not having it for like a week -_-

Just curious, have you tried disabling Google+? My friend said he was experiencing battery drain but had no clue what it was and couldn't figure it out. He disabled Google+ and it helped with his drain issue. Now, I'm not sure if it was the plummet issue or not since he told me this after he fixed the issue so I wasn't able to compare nor was he very detailed in describing his problem. But I think I'm gonna try it and see if it makes a difference.. at this point, I have nothing to lose by doing so since I don't use Google+

 

[jeffreii]

Re: [Help] Unexplained heavy battery drain...occurs randomly

I've seen SIM cards cause all types of issues. If you can get it replaced at a COR Store. Should be no cost. Just for troubleshooting sake.

Brian-

Yeah I think I'm going to give the SIM card swap a try just for good measure - can't really hurt and will only take about 30m of my time to go to the store. I'm definitely trying that before I factory reset and use my phone for up to a week with no apps installed...

Could it be your apps are set to sync/update more frequently than necessary? Also I do not have wife where I work, so I turn wifi off while there, as well as bluetooth & location. I am not having battery issues.

I think it's irrelevant since I have great battery life until it suddenly starts plummeting. Anyways I do have very close control over my apps and when they sync etc. I am a power user who watches all these things and does little tweaks to improve here and there.

That sucks man.. I guess your situation is alot worse then. Funny that today I got the plummet right after posting in this thread after not having it for like a week -_-

Just curious, have you tried disabling Google+? My friend said he was experiencing battery drain but had no clue what it was and couldn't figure it out. He disabled Google+ and it helped with his drain issue. Now, I'm not sure if it was the plummet issue or not since he told me this after he fixed the issue so I wasn't able to compare nor was he very detailed in describing his problem. But I think I'm gonna try it and see if it makes a difference.. at this point, I have nothing to lose by doing so since I don't use Google+

Anything I don't use is disabled, included Google+, S-Voice, etc. I think, like the above response, that this would show up as battery drain all day long and not my scenario which is great battery life -> sudden plummet for no reason.

 

[LeafsNSox]

Re: [Help] Unexplained heavy battery drain...occurs randomly

Mine has been doing something similar to this the past few days and I noticed that an app called Media Server is using anywhere from 20-25% of my battery. I have had the S3 since launch and never noticed the Media Server app show up until the last few days. I did download a game (Song Pop) that plays clips of songs and you must guess them, and it seemed to show up right around the same time.

I deleted the game last night and while the battery still plummets once I hit about 45%; I did notice that Media Server is now down to between 10-15%.

I had read a few places that there was a software issue in the S3, that standby battery was supposed to be coded to use 3.4 maH, but when the software was coded the decimal was left out so it drains at 34 maH but whether that is true or not I don't know.

 

[drel39]

Re: [Help] Unexplained heavy battery drain...occurs randomly

I don't know if you're rooted or not, but I found this thread over at xda when my phone was getting really hot.
[Q] what is Gsiff_daemon and why is it destroying my battery? - xda-developers

Seems like there's a system process that's draining the phone, doesn't seem to be specifically app related, possibly something to do with the motion sensors or GPS. Unfortunately, doesn't really look like there's a firm solution (other than rebooting/ returning the phone) but I'm sure if anyone can find a solution, it's those guys.

Good luck!

 

[Voice-Guy]

Something similar has happened to me a couple times. Normally unplug from the charger around 2am and only lose 3-5% by 8am. But twice it's dropped by about 30%. A couple years ago something similar happened with both my wife and my dumb phones. Good charge to dead overnight. Our carrier said it was due to tower maintenance. That wouldn't be the case this time otherwise her SG3 battery would have plummeted when mine did. I checked both times and hers was fine.

 

[mouseglider]

Re: [Help] Unexplained heavy battery drain...occurs randomly

This may sound stupid and maybe this has been said before (I did not read every reply) - Have you just tried and see if it does the same battery drain "without any third part apps"?

 

[jeffreii]

Re: [Help] Unexplained heavy battery drain...occurs randomly

UPDATE: I went to AT&T today and swapped out my SIM card. I am not sure if this will make any difference but at least that's one more thing I can cross of the troubleshooting list. I have to wait and see if the plummet happens again now...

I don't know if you're rooted or not, but I found this thread over at xda when my phone was getting really hot.
[Q] what is Gsiff_daemon and why is it destroying my battery? - xda-developers

Seems like there's a system process that's draining the phone, doesn't seem to be specifically app related, possibly something to do with the motion sensors or GPS. Unfortunately, doesn't really look like there's a firm solution (other than rebooting/ returning the phone) but I'm sure if anyone can find a solution, it's those guys.

Good luck!

Thanks - I've read that thread. I can't find gsiff_daemon running on my phone in Better Battery Stats or using the develop options cpu overlay that shows processes. I don't think my issue has anything to do with it.

This may sound stupid and maybe this has been said before (I did not read every reply) - Have you just tried and see if it does the same battery drain "without any third part apps"?

This is my last ditch option for troubleshooting. Because the plummet sometimes takes a few days to happen, it means I'd have to do a hard reset and not install any apps and use the phone like that for up to a week...

That would really suck but I would do that if all else fails. Possibly soon.

 

[Trpzip2]

Re: [Help] Unexplained heavy battery drain...occurs randomly

I'm having same problems. Last night I charged my phone up to 100%. Disconnected the charger, turned off wifi, gps, bluetooth, sync. Battery saver on. From task manager stopped all apps. In the morning the phone was dead. Battery monitor showed 100% to 0 in 8 hours and 15 minutes. No screen, apps etc. 95% was Cell Standby. So frustrating

I have installed GSam Battery Monitor and will run the same experiment tonight. Maybe I can figure out what's going on.

 

[jeffreii]

Re: [Help] Unexplained heavy battery drain...occurs randomly

UPDATE: SIM card swap did not work. 48 hours later the plummet has occurred again. See attached screenshots of today's battery logs showing the plummet and the system + GSAM Battery Monitor results.

In the next post I'll put the first day of results which show normal excellent battery life before the plummet happens.