On my Galaxy S4, why are apps using to much computing power even while idle?

[FinnFox]

Galaxy S4: Apps using to much computing power even while idle

Hi all. Recently I have noticed that most apps on my phone are using up wards of 50% cpu power even while idle, which is causing my battery to drain really fast. The only way I have found to stop them from doing this is to manually kill all apps immediately after using them. The biggest offenders are the Tumblr app and Facebook messenger though I have noticed other apps doing the same thing. I have not downloaded any thing recently so that can be ruled out as a possibility. I have tried multiple restarts and reinstalling that apps but to no avail, in fact now the tumblr app isn't working right. Does anyone have any idea how to fix this besides a factory reset? PS I am running android 4.4.2

 

[Rukbat]

Re: Galaxy S4: Apps using to much computing power even while idle

How are you measuring how much CPU an app is using? Do you mean RAM? If so, Android wants as much RAM filled as possible at all times. It's Android, not Windows, and they work differently.

The fact that an app is in RAM doesn't mean that it's running, it just means that Android is aware that it's there. (Even if you force kill an app, it's still there, it just stops running.) Apps that "clean" RAM just take the app's name off the list, so to speak - the app still remains in RAM. (Every byte of RAM contains SOME value between 0 and 255 - it doesn't matter as far as battery or CPU usage whether those are random values or the values that make up an app's code. What matters is that Android has a very efficient memory manager, and usually leaves those apps in RAM that will be needed soon, while replacing apps that won't be with the ones you tell it to run.)

 

[FinnFox]

Re: Galaxy S4: Apps using to much computing power even while idle

I'm using the active apps tab in the OE task manager to see CPU consumption. The RAM consumption seems to be pretty on par with what it always has been.