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Battery draining overnight?

C

cowana

Newbie
I always use my HTC desire as an alarm clock. I charge it up before I go to bed (to 100%), then I put it only to flight mode and go to sleep.

In the morning, the battery is usually around 80%.

However, something strange happened last night. When I woke up, the phon's alarm hadn't gone off, and the battery was dead. Looking at JuicePlotter, the battery was 100% at 11pm, then it dropped rapidly, and died at 0% at 3.20am. This strange drop has happened once before - is there any way of working out what might be causing it?

I assume the problam is one of the programs that is causing the phone to not sleep. However, I can not check with spare parts, as the phone has now rebooted (so 'since last reeboot' is no use), and it has been plugged in to charge a few times (so 'since last unplugged' is no use).

Any thoughts?

Thanks

Andrew
 
I just read a post how you can look for this:
Dial *#*#4636#*#* > Battery history > Other usage > Partial wake usage

But I think with a dead phone it's useless :(

Harry
 
Harry2 said:
I just read a post how you can look for this:
Dial *#*#4636#*#* > Battery history > Other usage > Partial wake usage

But I think with a dead phone it's useless :(

Harry
Click to expand...

Yes, these kind of statistics are reset on either shut down or connecting to power.
 
My reason for not leaving it on charge is just that my dock is on the other side of the room - and there isn't a plug point next to the bed. I probably should leave it charging.

I'd definitly agree with the rouge app idea - I'll have a look into it to see what could have been running. Interestingly JuicePlotter also records CPU level and temperatue - these both stayed low while the battery level fell.

Andrew
 
It could have been network or screen related then. I assume you would notice if it was the screen.
 
Wierd! This is the EXACT SAME thing that happened to me on Tuesday night! Went to bed with 50% charge and woke up 6 hours later with a dead battery 30 minutes after the alarm was due.
 
Is it possible that you had been using an app that drains power (or enough to drain the phone overnight) at some point before bed, used the home button to go somewhere else then put the phone in standby forgetting to kill the power hungry app?

Since pressing the home button only puts what ever is on the screen into the background, it's still running and consuming power.
 
EDIT: Apologies, I think you are trying to find what happened retrospectively. I don't think there is a way to do that, not that I am aware of unfortunately. Maybe worth trying JuicePlotter though over a couple of nights, and see if it happens again?

Posted this on a similair topic, about the 3rd time i've posted this today :D But happy to help.

barneystuta said:
I think like many have said, you are best off doing some diagnostics as to what is causing the problem. A task killer will just force close an app, that could easily just re-open, and you don't know which one it is. Look at it this way, if your front door was damaged and you had to slam it to shut it, what would be better? Slam it every day? Or get it repaired, so it doesn't jam?

A task killer is just forcing an application to close, simple as that. But the root of the problem will still exist, and you are just preventing the inevitable.

Watchdog Task Manager Could also be useful for you. Use it is a diagnostic tool, it will alert you when an app needs to force close. If the same app is doing the same thing, then don't just keep killing it. Instead, review the settings, or un-install and re-install see if that fixes the issues?

A few tools to help you do this (I am sure there are hundreds more too, but this will give you a good idea)

- JuicePlotter - This will plot a graph of your battery use. It is best to use it for a cycle of say 24-36 hours to get a good graph. (Note: I wouldn't recommend running this constantly, as it will lag up, as it will continue to plot data consistently until you wipe it/stop it). It will tell you when 3G, WiFI, GPS etc is running. Is something strange happening over night? Why? Is it a sudden drop in battery, or is it a gradual? Is it anymore than how your battery decreases during daily use?

Here is an example graph (taken from the market)

screen


- SpareParts - This will help you identify what is using your battery. You can breakdown Apps, WiFi, 3G, GPS, Screen Wake Up Time, etc etc. A bit like the built in system battery information, but will tell you a bit more.

- TrafficStats - This will help with data. If a particular app is using data overnight, it will naturally use battery. Another good diagnostic tool.

- SystemPanel - (Note: There is a lite version, which will give you some basic info, but the paid version will help much more). This will help identify specifc apps, CPU useage etc etc. Worth paying for imo, as a great app and only
Click to expand...
 
same thing happened to me and I am suspecting Titanium backup. I had it set to backup this morning at 2.00am and the battery was on 65% when I went to bed and dead as a dodo when I woke up. I wasn't charging the phone at the time and nothing else was scheduled to come on as far as I know.

Having said that I have just run Titanium Backup now [11.28am] and it worked fine and battery only dropped 1%, so either I am wrong or TB doesn't like the night shift :)

Edit: same thing almost happened last night. I woke up to find the phone light was on full, TB had done its business and I had lost 35% of the battery. Been on their website and am going to use an older version and see if that helps.

Edit 2. Tried the older version and it seems to have the opposite problem. It doesn't come on at the time I set it to. When I unlock the screen to check it suddenly springs into action. But at least it turns the screen off properly when it finishes. Will keep you posted.
 
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