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Help GS3 Battery life, what am I doing wrong?

R

rollingrock

Newbie
Hey folks

I have a 1.5 week old phone. Seems like the battery is going fast.

I have email sync off, the screen to the lowest level (Auto)

Was at a football game yesterday, charged 100% while in car, by half time, the phone was down to 50%. All I did was take a few photos and answer some texts. I have "power save" on too.

For example...just today, answered one phone call and 3 emails...already down to 92% this is after 30 min. This cannot be right, can it?
 
You can also "Show CPU" under the developer options in the main menu/settings.

This plus the battery monitor apps will likely show a runaway app that is doing one of two things (preventing sleep called a wakelock or using a huge amount of CPU spinning).
 
something in the background is draining your battery hard.

I suggest turning power save mode off unless you really need it (20% battery life left and 2-3 more hours to go)

check your GPS and wifi. wifi could be searching for a connection constantly or your GPS might be on all the time.
 
I notice my battery drains faster with power save. Also any game I play will kill the battery in 2 hours from 100%
 
Email sync and brightness should not affect you that bad... Personally I would reset the device and refrain from installing ANY apps other than the ones your absolutely need (Email, FB, G+) to keep in contact and to "use" the phone for a good couple of days... I tend to go app crazy when I first get the phone and more times than not I get something installed that either slows the phone down or eats battery... I hate trouble shooting so I just reset and start over.

Other than that it could be:
Run Away App
Poor signal + sync
Bad Phone
Bad Battery


Also for a quicky try to power completely off, remove battery for a minute then start it back up. This might help but I learning toward rogue app.
 
Thanks for all the posts here folks...all good stuff.

I was at 100% at noon today and down to 35% with me not even using the phone this afternoon

Something is going on for sure. how do I find a run away app?
 
burtonvdp said:
Email sync and brightness should not affect you that bad... Personally I would reset the device and refrain from installing ANY apps other than the ones your absolutely need (Email, FB, G+) to keep in contact and to "use" the phone for a good couple of days... I tend to go app crazy when I first get the phone and more times than not I get something installed that either slows the phone down or eats battery... I hate trouble shooting so I just reset and start over.

Other than that it could be:
Run Away App
Poor signal + sync
Bad Phone
Bad Battery


Also for a quicky try to power completely off, remove battery for a minute then start it back up. This might help but I learning toward rogue app.
Click to expand...
Brightness is a huge factor. Your screen at 100% brightness will see your battery leak very quickly. Naturally though as that screen is beautiful and colourful in all it's glory..but just...a battery consumer if you need your phone to last a while.

I personally turn my brightness to 0 on the bar when I'm at work and can still see it fine but when I go outside for lunch or when I get back home I crank it up to auto or 100% as my charger is always close.
 
how do you do a factory reset on the GS3?

man this will kind of suck, I have 700 photos on my device already (ones I put back on there from my last phone)
 
rollingrock said:
how do you do a factory reset on the GS3?

man this will kind of suck, I have 700 photos on my device already (ones I put back on there from my last phone)
Click to expand...
Open Kies and run a full backup before a factory reset then, no?

But before you do that I think you should explore other ways, there's clearly an issue to why it's draining maybe get rid of some uneeded apps and monitor your phone after that?
 
rollingrock said:
how do you do a factory reset on the GS3?

man this will kind of suck, I have 700 photos on my device already (ones I put back on there from my last phone)
Click to expand...

Plug your phone into your computer and transfer your pics to the computer or transfer them into an SD card.
 
WildH said:
Plug your phone into your computer and transfer your pics to the computer or transfer them into an SD card.
Click to expand...

yeah I just did that, going to lose my data from Airsync but it wasn't that much.

the photos only took 5 min. So here goes, factory reset on the way.

RR
 
You download kies on your computer you use it to back up and update the firmware for your phone. Just search for Samsung kies download it and connect your phone.
 
thanks for the help folks


Just got the phone back up and running, didn't lose my photos or music from doubletwist either.

I'l report back on how this factory resets works.

phone is charged to 94% so when it gets to 100% i will monitor the usage
 
just so you know, auto brightness isnt the lowest setting. it scales the brightness of the screen depending on how bright the phone senses its environment is. also, gps should only turn on if an app is using it, and the phone will tell you when gps is active, so that shouldnt be a problem.
 
rollingrock said:
yeah I just did that, going to lose my data from Airsync but it wasn't that much.

the photos only took 5 min. So here goes, factory reset on the way.

RR
Click to expand...

We have found that Samsung accounts and some Samsung Apps prevent the phone from entering deep sleep. There is a simple fixed. I am guessing your cell standby is what is draining your battery right?

http://androidforums.com/samsung-galaxy-s3/606395-s3-battery-drain-thread-1-false-cell-standby-report-2-standby-drain-2.html#post4921312
 
rollingrock said:
thanks for the help folks


Just got the phone back up and running, didn't lose my photos or music from doubletwist either.

I'l report back on how this factory resets works.

phone is charged to 94% so when it gets to 100% i will monitor the usage
Click to expand...

For photos look into Google plus auto upload.... At first I was hesitant of the service give its a social outlet but it works great and every photo I upload is stored in a secure none shared folder. Then I can move them to any folder I want and just lock down the folder... The best part (For me) is that the folders show up under my S3 gallery as if they were local but only keeps a thumbnail (from what I can tell) and is really responsive on actual viewing.
 
burtonvdp said:
For photos look into Google plus auto upload.... At first I was hesitant of the service give its a social outlet but it works great and every photo I upload is stored in a secure none shared folder. Then I can move them to any folder I want and just lock down the folder... The best part (For me) is that the folders show up under my S3 gallery as if they were local but only keeps a thumbnail (from what I can tell) and is really responsive on actual viewing.
Click to expand...

Thanks...I gotta figure that one out bc I have google drive and they are not able to see thunbnails as far as I can tell....

Battery today is much improved...been hammering on the phone for an hour at the airport and only down to 92%
 
Man battery life was already decent but I figured I'd try to disable the Samsung apps and see if it improves. I don't see one "Samsung Apps" though and I never set up a Samsung account.
 
GrandM4x said:
We have found that Samsung accounts and some Samsung Apps prevent the phone from entering deep sleep. There is a simple fixed. I am guessing your cell standby is what is draining your battery right?

http://androidforums.com/samsung-galaxy-s3/606395-s3-battery-drain-thread-1-false-cell-standby-report-2-standby-drain-2.html#post4921312
Click to expand...

yea, i don't agree with that... i have all my samsung stuff active (incl. samsung market) and none of them keep the phone awake or causes excessive battery drain. on standby my phone easily lasts 2 days; about 30 hours with normal use.

i'd have to believe it's one of the apps but configured incorrectly.
 
Easilyamused said:
yea, i don't agree with that... i have all my samsung stuff active (incl. samsung market) and none of them keep the phone awake or causes excessive battery drain. on standby my phone easily lasts 2 days; about 30 hours with normal use.

i'd have to believe it's one of the apps but configured incorrectly.
Click to expand...

Yeah. I never used any of the samsung apps. I created an account during the first session wizard. From my observations, my phone was not going into deep sleep in standby because of something. The action was to disable the samsung apps and to delete the account. I cannot pin-point which one it is but the phone now goes into deep sleed.

The fact you don't have the issue does not mean it does not exist. Those having cell standby issues should try it because it worked for several users.
 
GrandM4x said:
The fact you don't have the issue does not mean it does not exist. Those having cell standby issues should try it because it worked for several users.
Click to expand...

No, but it does refute the simple or blanket statement that having the Samsung account causes the battery drain, as it obviously does not in every case, which was my point. Perhaps it's related, but would be nice to pinpoint what the cause is.
 
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