problem: battery drain in 3hours

clayatx

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May 21, 2010
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So twice my battery has drained in 3 hours, at first i really didnt know why. it would be sitting there on my desk at work untouched, and blam, dead.

The second time it happened, made me realize what i didnt pay attention to the first time, the sync icon. Digging through my sync options (maybe i was having it sync too often? nope, that wouldnt kill in 3h) i found my google/gmail contacts sync was acting up. the sync icon wouldnt go away, and the error message was flashing repeatedly. "Sync is currently experiencing problems, It will be back shortly."

Every time i turn it back on with the check mark, this instantly starts up again, flashing the message to where its so fast, it takes a while to figure out that error message i typed above.

any thoughts?

btw, got my incredible at launch, has the "must be grounded for touch to work" thing, and i have recieved the small update that they pushed out after launch as well.
 

YourMobileGuru

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It's not an Incredible bug as I've had the issue with the Moto Droid as well.

1 Turn sync off then back on again. OR 2 Reboot the phone. That should fix it.
 

YourMobileGuru

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tried powering off and on, also tried a battery pull. didnt fix.

This isn't a Blackberry so a battery pull doesn't really do anything and in fact is probably detrimental as it forces the phone to shut down the wrong way. An Android device is more like a computer than a Blackberry.

Well you can try a master reset but that's kinda overkill (wipes all data, apps, and settings).

My guess is you are in an areas with coverage issues (places with no coverage or dripping coverage) and in that case you may want to turn auto sync off when you are there and then manually sync as needed. The battery problem is becoming caused bu the phone continuing to try to sync over and over because it is being unsuccessful.
 

clayatx

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This isn't a Blackberry so a battery pull doesn't really do anything and in fact is probably detrimental as it forces the phone to shut down the wrong way. An Android device is more like a computer than a Blackberry.

Well you can try a master reset but that's kinda overkill (wipes all data, apps, and settings).

My guess is you are in an areas with coverage issues (places with no coverage or dripping coverage) and in that case you may want to turn auto sync off when you are there and then manually sync as needed. The battery problem is becoming caused bu the phone continuing to try to sync over and over because it is being unsuccessful.

yeah, tried the battery pull as a last resort kinda thing (ex bb user too).

coverage areas have nothing to do with this, contact sync is broken.

manual sync? if the box is unchecked, it will not sync.
 

YourMobileGuru

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yeah, tried the battery pull as a last resort kinda thing (ex bb user too).

coverage areas have nothing to do with this, contact sync is broken.

manual sync? if the box is unchecked, it will not sync.

Contact sync works just fine for me. *shrug* not sure what to tell ya then. But that IS probably what is killing your battery.
 

moosc

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since the day it was released. my stock i get maybe 6 hours and my seidio gets maybe 7. please dont say apps are bad this android not BB. i think it has to do with cell reception. i travel all over the us and get lotsa of dropped calls. my droid was way better, clunkier yes but better then inc im holding out for root or a os update before switch.
How long have you had your Incredible? Remember it took a week or so for the Droid battery to settle in and improve too.
 

YourMobileGuru

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since the day it was released. my stock i get maybe 6 hours and my seidio gets maybe 7. please dont say apps are bad this android not BB. i think it has to do with cell reception. i travel all over the us and get lotsa of dropped calls. my droid was way better, clunkier yes but better then inc im holding out for root or a os update before switch.

The Droid also has half the processor this one does, so more juice is to be expected.

I'm not going to say apps are bad, but they do contribute to the problem. It could very well have to do with reception. You may want to turn off sync or reduce the interval. I'm going to assume you have already turned off wifi and Bluetooth, tweaked the screen brightness, and the other usual tricks.

I'm getting about what you do, maybe a tad more, and I got my phone the day before the official release (gotta love pre orders ;-) ). I now carry a second battery (it's the same as the Droid Eris) and swap it out if need be.
 
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wowpaw

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What apps do you have? I'm going to assume that is the problem, as I bet atleast one of those apps are keeping your phone awake and unable to go into stand by
 

Groucho

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It has been three weeks since release and my battery has improved significantly. According to Battery Left app I was getting about 8 hours the first week. Went to 12 the second and i am now getting 15.5 hours consistently. I do a lot of email, internet and a moderate amount of phone Live in a large Metro area with excellent VZW service. I believe part of the increase in battery life has been my getting more comfortable with the device and the OS (came off Storm, first Droid). I also think I am probably playing a little less but not much as I still find the Incredible well named. I was about to but the extended battery but will hold off now as there is no way I will be out of charger range over a 15 hour period under non emergency conditions.
 

Qazme

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The Droid also has half the processor this one does, so more juice is to be expected.

I'm not going to say apps are bad, but they do contribute to the problem. It could very well have to do with reception. You may want to turn off sync or reduce the interval. I'm going to assume you have already turned off wifi and Bluetooth, tweaked the screen brightness, and the other usual tricks.

I'm getting about what you do, maybe a tad more, and I got my phone the day before the official release (gotta love pre orders ;-) ). I now carry a second battery (it's the same as the Droid Eris) and swap it out if need be.

Not all true, the processor does not run at 1GHz constantly as it throttles to it's needs. In an idle state mine runs about 200mhz, when checking email etc it jumps to about 600mhz, loading web pages, surfing the internet or doing anything "intensive" on the phone it goes full throttle. During those times it will use more juice, during the idle low usage times it should, in my estimate, be using the same or less power than previous phones. May also be another reason we only have a 1300maH battery because HTC under estimated how most users use their phones. Who knows.

On my stock battery with or without bump charging now I get about 6-8 hours of battery life. I have a Seidio 1750 coming in on Monday and expect no less than 10-12 hours out of it due to the charging weirdness going on with the stock battery. From my testing I'm pretty sure it's the battery causing issues and not the phone.

If your battery is dieing in 3 hours you have something using your data connection in the background. I would imagine that would be one of the only "hidden" things that could be causing that kind of an issue, especially with what you are talking about it's doing.

I would deactivate any accounts you don't want synced, for instance I don't sync Facebook since I'm not a FB user, and I don't sync Twitter since I use a 3rd party app. I don't use the HTC mail widget I use the gmail app etc. It probably wouldn't hurt to do a master wipe on it, power off --> Hold volume down and the home button --> select restore.

I know a lot of issue some people have had that has fixed, rather it came from something they did or something that was wrong on the phone before hand. One other thing too, if you aren't using BlueTooth or Wifi turn those off. Just a thought.
 
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wowpaw

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The Droid also has half the processor this one does, so more juice is to be expected.

I'm not going to say apps are bad, but they do contribute to the problem. It could very well have to do with reception. You may want to turn off sync or reduce the interval. I'm going to assume you have already turned off wifi and Bluetooth, tweaked the screen brightness, and the other usual tricks.

I'm getting about what you do, maybe a tad more, and I got my phone the day before the official release (gotta love pre orders ;-) ). I now carry a second battery (it's the same as the Droid Eris) and swap it out if need be.

As the previous poster mentioned, Snapdragons are able to throttle their processing power, and typically idle around 200-250mhz, so that has nothing to do with it. Apps are not "bad" per say, as it tends more to be user error. As I posted earlier to the OP to list his apps and there is probably one or two that are constantly sync (IMing apps, unfortunately, will do this. I had Meebo and it would be syncing nonstop thus keeping my phone in awake mode 100% of the time). Turning off wifi is actually hurting your battery life IF there is a wifi source available. Wifi uses less power because the radio isn't constantly searching for a signal and switching between different ones, but rather has one constant source. Plus the fact that its alot faster.
 

YourMobileGuru

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As the previous poster mentioned, Snapdragons are able to throttle their processing power, and typically idle around 200-250mhz, so that has nothing to do with it. Apps are not "bad" per say, as it tends more to be user error. As I posted earlier to the OP to list his apps and there is probably one or two that are constantly sync (IMing apps, unfortunately, will do this. I had Meebo and it would be syncing nonstop thus keeping my phone in awake mode 100% of the time). Turning off wifi is actually hurting your battery life IF there is a wifi source available. Wifi uses less power because the radio isn't constantly searching for a signal and switching between different ones, but rather has one constant source. Plus the fact that its alot faster.

I knew about throttling yes, but a lot of the battery complaings come from power users or users who are new to the phone and thus playing with it more than the average. A good amount of the percieved increase in battery lifeis caused by the simple fact that after a certain point people use them less because they have them set up how they want them, and adjust to different usage habits.

And no they are not bad per se but some may be poorly written using processor churns when they don't need to (keeping a background process running that does not need to be) or accessing the network more than necessary.

I get your point about WiFi but that assumes you are in an area where you have access to WiFi and a LOT of us aren't that often. When not in use it should be turned off.
 

wowpaw

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I knew about throttling yes, but a lot of the battery complaings come from power users or users who are new to the phone and thus playing with it more than the average. A good amount of the percieved increase in battery lifeis caused by the simple fact that after a certain point people use them less because they have them set up how they want them, and adjust to different usage habits.

And no they are not bad per se but some may be poorly written using processor churns when they don't need to (keeping a background process running that does not need to be) or accessing the network more than necessary.

I get your point about WiFi but that assumes you are in an area where you have access to WiFi and a LOT of us aren't that often. When not in use it should be turned off.

Most battery complaints are not from "power users" due to the fact that they KNOW they are using the phone alot. Its from people AREN'T using the phone and are CONFUSED as to why their battery is STILL dying.

Where are you getting that their poorly written? Have you written an app? I can assure you that poorly written ones tend not to be in use due to the buggyness of them (ranges from force closes and crashes to literally not doing what its supposed to do at all). Don't tell me that you hear yesterday's keynote of Google telling consumers that the reason the battery life's are bad are due to poorly written coding. As I previously said, this is a USER error. IMing apps, as I mentioned, are constantly syncing thus will not allow the phone to go into stand by. Having helped numerous people on their battery issue, alot of it comes down to what apps you have running, and do you REALLY need those apps.

As for wifi, I wanted to clarify that for the OP, as that is a common misconception and I have seen many people post to turn off everything (including wifi) which is detrimental to battery conservation if there is a source available. I know many workplaces, including my own, do indeed have private access points available.
 

Qazme

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That pretty bad mobiledevice. I would suggest to anyone having issues put the bare minimum on your phone. And try it for a day or so and see if battery life is improving. After that add one app a day until you find the culprit. Battery is a HUGE issue on these phones, regardless of how much the cpu idles, what you have running etc. the baseline configuration makes me assume the battery just isn't big enough for the phone.