Battery drain in sleep, especially when under 50%

[Deleted User]

Hello all,
I've researched a lot about my issue on the forums, but I was hoping that some specific details about my issue might help me find a solution:

Verizon GS3 White, purchased at launch, 4.0.4

(I'm trying to get my android file transfer working on my mac, so I'll upload screenshots of BetterBatteryStats and the Battery screen when I get that going.)

My battery stats today are pretty typical of what happens on a regular basis: 12h 30m and charge is at 5%(!)
Cell Standby 34%
Screen 20%
Chrome 12%
Android OS 8%

Wi-Fi was off all day, no BT, no sync, light use of GPS (15 min or so), and moderately-light use of phone for mostly browsing and e-mail. That seems like REALLY bad battery life. I can't figure out what's up! I'm also running one-touch battery saver which appears to basically turn off selected functions like the ones listed above.

The Kernel Wakelocks using BetterBatteryStats look something like this:
"bam_dmux_wakelock" 22.8%
"deleted_wake_locks" 1.5% (These two usually top the list in some form or another)
"smdcntl0" is often on there too

The drain seems to be exponential. For example, about 3 hours ago, I checked and the phone was at about 45%. When I looked at it again, without using it at all, it was all the way down to 15%. All services were still off except for Mobile Data.

I am just hoping that someone has some initial advice or a certain thread I haven't seen that you could point me to. Thanks much, Nate

 

[Deleted User]

Got it working using Kies air:

One example at a fuller charge:

Another example at a lower charge:

I saw in one of the battery threads that the "bam_dmux_wakelock" is pretty much an unknown at this point, unless someone has learned something recently.

 

[zemerick]

Well, that wakelock is a bit higher than ideal...but its not a stuck wakelock. At just over 10%, it appears to be a legitimate wakelock, though perhaps a bit excessive. This is likely contributing to poor battery life, but its likely lesser than the main culprit ( assuming its not just a series of smaller issues compounding into a bigger one. Much less likely, but possible. )

Screen on time would help ( just click Screen and it will tell you. Though, guessing you don't have that for the above posted screens, so would need a full set of fresh screens as well. ) Also, you can select the graph at the top for a more detailed graph, including a number of other bars that might show a pattern. A screenshot of this would help as well. The Cell Standby also includes a "Time without signal" that would be of use.

Finally, I would try getting the app called "Phone info". Normally we can get to this by dialing a special number, but for whatever reason it's not available on the VZW S3 Inside Phone info, select Battery information. You'll get lots of interesting information about the battery such as the reported health, current voltage, and temperature.

If you can nab screens of the above at like 100, 50, 25, and 5 percent that could help.

Currently, as you may have guessed, one of my leanings is simply bad battery. Nothing stands out as terribly wrong with yours, it just isn't getting the life that would be expected as shown by your usage. ( IE: The phone doesn't appear to be on a whole lot as screen is a lot lower than normal, but there also isn't a massive wakelock. So you should be looking more in the 1-2 days rather than 12 hours range. )

My second leaning is a radio problem due to the Cell Standby being at the top. Normally for anything above fairly light usage, the Screen should be on top. However, if you have moderate usage ( Battery expectancy of around 24 hours ), but there's something wrong with the radio causing it to pull a lot more power...it could pass up Screen, and halve your battery life.

Either one of those could go with the part of the battery draining faster later in the day. Either your daily habit tends towards worse cell connection during the later half of the day, or the problem with the battery causing a faster drop than would be expected.

Another recommendation is to actually let the battery die this next time. Go until the phone shuts off, then plug it in and charge to full with the phone off. One problem with the battery could actually be a false report of how much is left. With lithium-ion there is not a way to tell the actual amount left with much accuracy...so the operating system guesses. This guess is based off of previous lifetime of the battery. Letting it completely drain, then charge to absolutely full, helps to calibrate this and let the OS know just where the bottom and top actually are. ( This "Calibration" only needs to be done once btw. Don't keep repeating it. )

 

[Minimike]

Li ion bateries run from 3.6-4.2 volts during the useful output. Fully charged is 4.2 volts and down at 5% it will be around 3.6. The batt % is just a readout of the voltage.

 

[Deleted User]

zemerick: Thank you for this fantastic response!
I'll monitor the battery usage today and capture the screenshots requested.
I agree that at least a full day to day-and-a-half seems more appropriate for my type of use, especially since I closely monitor the services running.

As you had mentioned, the most frustrating part is that I haven't really had that "aha!" moment where something really jumps out as causing an issue.

I'll also consider picking up another battery, but I'll get these stats posted up first and see what we find out.

 

[zemerick]

Li ion bateries run from 3.6-4.2 volts during the useful output. Fully charged is 4.2 volts and down at 5% it will be around 3.6. The batt % is just a readout of the voltage.

Indeed, however: voltage is spiky, non-linear, and low resolution. Because of this, it must be largely ignored by the OS. Voltage is indeed where it gets its base readings of full and empty for calibration however. From there, each company tends to create their own algoritm using various factors to try and guess the actual amount currently left.

 

[Deleted User]

Have you tried modifying the wi-fi advanced settings? Go to Settings>Wi-Fi>Advanced and select Never in the Keep Wi-Fi on during sleep. I had the same issue with my phone, and changing this setting helped dramatically - it went from less than 12 hours to about 26-27 hours with moderate use.

 

[Deleted User]

Well, go figure.
I closely monitored my data usage yesterday, and I got what seems to be pretty darn good battery life considering the phone had moderate use throughout the day, which included some gaming, e-mail and web browsing.
The unwanted drain seems to be most apparent at times when the phone is asleep, but I noticed with this particular cycle that, although it was awake at short intervals while in sleep mode, it stayed pretty consistent without anything seemingly out of the ordinary that I can see.
babylotuss: thanks for the tip, I double-checked that this setting was as you described, and I was. I think I had found that one of the first few days I had the phone, and I'm sure it has helped.

I took a bunch more screenshots, but I'm not sure they are necessary at this point since everything seems normal. I'll have to post comparisons if I have a faster drain in the future to see what might be causing the issue.

Here's the battery info at 50%. Looks perfectly fine as far as I can tell:

And here's the full history at 8%: (Charge was at 20% when I went to bed around midnight, and about 12% when I first work up around 7:30)