Why does the Android OS take up so much battery?

[Joanna John]

Every since I updated to Lollipop, the Android OS has been draining so much of my battery, whenever I leave it on standby it uses about 3-4 percent an hour. Is that normal?

 

[UJ95x]

I'd recommend wiping the cache partition on your phone after major updates like this one to Lollipop. After that you should be able to better judge whether there's actually any issues with your battery. What phone do you have?

 

[Joanna John]

Galaxy S5, I've already cleared the cache partition but the issue still remains. Here's a screenshot of the battery usage.

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[UJ95x]

Thanks for the screenshot! That definitely looks abnormal. How is your signal strength throughout the day? Doesn't look particularly strong at the time of screenshotting that

 

[Joanna John]

I'm usually at school so the signal fluctuates a bit, but it's usually 2-3 bars at home and 3 and less at school in different classes.

 

[UJ95x]

OK, but it was fine with that same signal before? Are you connected to school WiFi while you're there? I've noticed my phone has unusual drain when on my school's WiFi for whatever reason

 

[Joanna John]

Sometimes, today I kept the school wifi turned on just to see how much drain there would be, and this happened. I usually keep it turned off until I need it but even with it turned off ,the Android OS is always the one using most of the battery :/

 

[Joanna John]

The screen used to always be the most used while I was on Kitkat, but the day I updated to Lollipop, the screen would hardly be the most used

 

[Golfdriver97]

Did you do a reset after the Lollipop update? Sometimes the framework needs to be rebuilt to stop conflicts of data.

 

[UJ95x]

The screen used to always be the most used while I was on Kitkat, but the day I updated to Lollipop, the screen would hardly be the most used

Hmm. Is the battery actually any worse? Like are you getting a lower amount of screen on time? If not, it might just be a bug in LP in how it calculates battery usage

 

[Joanna John]

I get the same amount of screen time but that's with me putting the phone on airplane mode, or powersaving mode to help the standby time. On Kitkat the standby time was just fine but on lollipop it just drains so much.

 

[UJ95x]

I get the same amount of screen time but that's with me putting the phone on airplane mode, or powersaving mode to help the standby time. On Kitkat the standby time was just fine but on lollipop it just drains so much.

Sorry for the late reply. Not sure what could be causing it. Might just be a rogue system app. Every time I've had an issue like that it goes away after a day or two. Guessing it's still happening?

 

[Joanna John]

yeah lol

 

[UJ95x]

yeah lol

Do you reboot your phone after charging? That's solved the issue for me in the past