Why does my Galaxy S3 drop 4G and overheat after moving to L.A.?

[AC Question]

* Samsung Galaxy S3 (T-Mobile US SGH-T999, not rooted, stock ROM, Android 4.3, most Samsung/T-Mobile apps manually disabled)

Hello all,

I moved to Los Angeles about 3 weeks ago. Since then, my phone gets extremely hot several times a day. (So hot that it's uncomfortable to the touch.) This happens even with basic usage. The bigger issue to me is that 4G data connection frequently completely drops only to come back within 1 minute. Sometimes it drops every ten seconds. It's not going down to 3G or 2G, it's losing the entire data connection.

I assume these two are related; for example the CPU working very hard to maintain a 4G connection that for whatever reason wants to disconnect.

I've owned my phone since 2012 and it's never gotten this hot. I also have never had these issues with 4G dropping. Furthermore, I have family in L.A. that I visit a couple times a year, and this never happened in the past when visiting them for 3-to-7 days at a time.

I have done all the troubleshooting steps I've found online... clear cache partition, toggle Airplane, toggle data connection and/or Data Roaming, updating/resetting T-Mobile My Account app, restart phone, remove/replace SIM, pull battery, etc. Disabling 4G does help of course but that's ridiculous and not a solution.

Any ideas? Thank you.

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! How is your signal in general? You're correct--poor signal in general causes increased battery drain, since the phone expends energy trying to boost the signal.

Charge up to 100%, then let it drain to 20-30% with normal usage, without charging in between. Then show us:

1. The main Settings>Battery screen.
2. The fullscreen battery graph screen (which shows Awake time and Cell Signal Strength).
3. The Screen category (to see total Screen On time).
4. The Cell Standby category, if present (to see Time Without Signal).

http://forums.androidcentral.com/am...ide-how-post-screenshots-android-central.html